‘It’s just you and me now, rybka,’ Zane says with a wink.
‘I didn’t know you could speak Italian.’
‘Many Russians can speak German, French, and Spanish too.’
‘Wow! Impressive.’
Zane hauls up our luggage and we go into the villa. It is cool inside with terrazzo flooring and cold white walls. The hallway leads to a very large lounge with exposed beams, a massive fireplace, and a graceful rusted-iron chandelier. It is sparsely filled with reproduction rococo style Italian furniture and an upright piano in one corner of the room.
The lounge opens up to a dining room with a long, highly polished table and eight tall chairs. At the back of the house there is a large country style kitchen with a much smaller farmhouse table and wooden chairs with straw seats. All the rooms wrap around an oriental style courtyard in the middle of the house.
Up a flight of stone stairs there are three spotless double bedrooms with en-suites. We put our bags in the master bedroom. It is a beautiful room with a king-size bed covered in a damask bedcover, a large tapestry on the wall, and a velvet daybed. I go over to the window and see that there is a swimming pool right underneath the window. To my delight there is also a lemon grove in the grounds.
It is nearly five by now and I turn to Zane with a happy smile. ‘What do you want to do, Mr. Zhivanescskaya?’
‘Guess, Mrs. Zhivanescskaya?’ he says, coming towards me.
‘Oooo, but Mr. Zhivanescskaya I—’ The rest of my words are cut out by his mouth swooping down on mine.
I lie on the softly scented pillow and I think that though all our other sex sessions have been awesome this one has been undoubtedly the best. Why? Because Zane is a different man. His body is without that strung-wire tension and his eyes don’t house that peculiar wariness that I always associate with him. He even looks younger.
A gust of wind redolent of the smell of lemons and fallen leaves comes in from the open window and blows over our heated skin. Outside it’s still light, but it is a kind of translucent light never found in England. I turn my head and look at Zane. A lock of his hair has fallen on his forehead. I push it away with my hand. He opens his eyes and looks at me.
‘Do you think it will rain?’ I ask.
‘No,’ he says softly.
‘I really like it here,’ I say, yawning and stretching lazily.
He takes the opportunity to slip his finger into me. It makes my body arch and his finger crooks in me and starts stroking the delicate tissues inside me.
‘Oh, Zane,’ I whisper.
‘I love watching you come,’ he says and continues playing with me.
Eighteen
Dahlia Fury
We shower and get dressed. Zane wears a charcoal suit with a silk, oyster shirt and I slip into a white dress with a full skirt and knot a pale blue sweater around my neck. Doing my make up I watch him in the mirror. His hair is still damp and he looks virile and full of vigor.
‘I’ll wait for you outside,’ he says.
‘I’ll come out when I finish putting on my face,’ I say.
I keep my make up very light and, wearing blue pumps with espadrille heels, I go outside. The air is beginning to cool. I find him smoking a cigarette on the terrace. The last embers of the sun are in the sky, giving his hair a reddish hue. When he hears me he turns around and looks at me. I shiver, intoxicated by the magic of that moment.
His eyes light up as if from within and he smiles slowly. ‘Oh fuck, I’m going to be fighting off men all night, aren’t I?’
I blush and twist my pretend wedding band around my finger. ‘And I’m going to be scratching out women’s eyes all night, aren’t I?’
‘You really think so?’ he asks cockily.
‘I know so,’ I tease, feeling shy. He is so, so, so different, so out of character. I love this warm, cheeky, gorgeous man.
He takes a last drag of his cigarette and kills it in an ashtray on the wrought iron table, then comes towards me. ‘How hungry are you?’
‘Starving,’ I admit.
He puts his hand on the small of my back. ‘Good. Let’s go.’
There is a bright yellow Fiat Cinquecento waiting outside.
‘Where did that come from?’ I ask.
‘It was in the garage,’ he says looking at me closely. ‘Don’t you like it?
‘Yeah, it’s cute, but I didn’t expect you to hire one.’
‘When in Rome …’ he trails away, and opens the passenger door for me.
I get in and it smells of new leather and the sickly sweet smell of air freshener. I turn around to watch Zane get into the driver’s seat. The sight of him folded inside the interior of such a small car makes me giggle.