My mother is ready for me to come home, and I’m not surprised. This is the longest I’ve ever been away, and she’s feeling it. I am, too, if I’m being honest, but Rome has started to feel almost like a second home to me, and I’m not sure what to do with that feeling. But I miss my family. I miss my friends. I miss my house and my yard and my stuff and the rest of my wardrobe.
But then there’s Marina.
We’ve spent time together almost every day over the past three weeks and change, and it feels like life now, if that makes sense. We talk every day. We go out. We also stay in.I’ve had more sex this month than I think I’ve ever had in my life. I’ve learned her neighborhood and could probably find my way around with no issues at all. I keep a toothbrush in her bathroom, and she bought my favorite body wash online and surprised me with it one morning when I stepped into her shower and there it was. I have a side of the bed and a drawer, and a couple of her T-shirts that I’ve taken over as my new pj’s.
It’s all very domestic.
It also scares the shit out of me.
Maybe that’s why I say what I say tonight when we’re cuddled on her couch watching a movie. Marina is super tired, having given two tours today and sat in a very long meeting with the owners of the company she works for. We spent dinner talking about that meeting, what was said, how much she disagrees with it and how badly she wants to be the one in charge of the tours. I let her vent, because I got the sense that she didn’t want help with a solution, she just wanted to be mad for a while and have somebody else nod along, so I did that. Now we’re watching a rom-com on my Netflix account. We have the subtitles on in Italian, which tells me that she’s very tired and doesn’t have the bandwidth to translate in her head right now. She’s lying in my arms, and we’re cuddled up all sweet and snug and comfortable.
My timing couldn’t be worse.
“So, I think I’m going to head home soon.” I say it quietly, matter-of-factly. Reggie sighs from his spot on the chair, as if annoyed with me. I shoot him a look.
“Oh, okay. I thought you’d stay over tonight.”
Oh. She thinks I mean home to the hotel. Crap. I clear my throat. “No, I mean home home. To the States home.”
If she hadn’t been lying in my arms, I probably wouldn’t have noticed her stiffen, but I can feel it. Her entire body goes very subtly rigid for a split second and then relaxes again.
“Ah, I see.” She swallows audibly, and then she’s silent.
I wait her out for what feels like hours, even though I know it’s only a minute or two. “You okay?”
“Mm-hmm.”
I shift so I can look at her face, and her gaze is riveted on the TV, so I pick up the remote and pause it. “What’s going on?”
I see the muscle in her jaw tighten, so I know she’s clenching her teeth. She doesn’t look at me. “Nothing.”
“Marina.”
She sighs. “Is it so bad that I don’t want you to go?”
“Of course not, but you didn’t think I’d stay forever, did you?” I don’t mean it to sound callous or unfeeling or abrupt, but I’m afraid it may have come out as all three when I see the hurt that crawls into her eyes and makes itself at home there.
“No.” She looks like she’s got more to say but seems to press her lips firmly closed.
“Sweetie,” I say, softening my voice. “I have to go back. You know this.”
“I know,” she says, and her voice is barely a whisper. Finally, she looks at me, and her eyes are wet. “I will miss you.”
The combination of her tears and the slight break in her voice tries hard to undo me. It very nearly succeeds, and I pull her in close and hold her tightly. “I’ll miss you, too,” I manage.
Our lovemaking tonight feels different. And I know how corny and cheesy and romance-novel-hokey that sounds, but it’s true. We feel urgent, almost desperate. It’s more than the act itself—which is always amazing with Marina. God, I’ve never been with a woman so focused on my pleasure. But tonight, it’s more than physical. It’s emotional. And I’m not gonna lie, it’s been sliding toward emotional for a while now. But this? This is…it’s heavy. And erotic. And deep.
When we first start, she doesn’t look at me, won’t meet my gaze. But after a few moments pass, and she looks me in the eye, it’s as if she can’t look away. I know I can’t. We kiss passionatelyand deeply and thoroughly. I feel her hand between my legs, pulling my underwear down my thighs, then sinking into my wetness, which is copious right now. Her fingers slide through my folds, touching every nerve ending and sending my arousal higher and higher.
But it’s when she pushes inside me, when she sets up a rhythm of in and out, slowly at first, then a little faster, a little harder, and I’m gripping her shoulder with one hand and her forearm with the other, it’s then she looks into my eyes, and—I swear to God—into my very soul. She drives into me, and I rock my hips to her pace, and I stare back into those dark, dark, loving eyes of hers. What I see there is enough to bring tears to my own eyes, except my orgasm hits at that moment, and I explode. My hips raise up off the bed as Marina adjusts to stay with me, her thumb massaging the outside of my center while her fingers push inside over and over, in and out, taking me higher, drawing it out to impossibly endless joy.
My God. Oh my God.
Did she whisperI love you? I thought I heard it, but honestly, with my own blood rushing in my ears and the strain of all my muscles, I can’t be sure, and I don’t have the energy to devote to wondering. I push it away and colors blossom behind my eyelids like my body’s own personal fireworks. I’ve never felt like this. Ever. And I’m having a hard time with coherent thought.
When I finally begin to come down, my hips settling back to the mattress, the steely grip of my fingers easing up, having left marks in Marina’s skin, I open my eyes to meet her face, looking down at me. There are tears in her eyes and the expression on her face is filled with so many things—wonder, joy, sensuality, arousal, and yes, that one other thing I don’t want to deal with, because I have no idea how.
I swallow hard.