Santino lowered us even deeper into the water so only our heads peeked out and I began to rotate my hips slowly. Soon Santino panted against my lips. I loved the taste of salt on his skin, the sound of the waves and seagulls, the bright sunshine.
Santino and I looked into each other’s eyes as our bodies moved slowly together. Every stroke of Santino inside of me let the fire in my belly burn brighter. The world around us became a blur of sounds and glittering sunlight.
This time I came even harder and Santino swallowed my moans even as his own body convulsed with climax and he released into me. I closed my eyes, my sensitive inner walls sending new waves of pleasure through me as Santino came inside of me.
I wrapped my arms around his neck even tighter and put my head down on his shoulder. “I want this moment to last forever.”
“It would lose meaning and intensity if it did,” Santino murmured, stroking my spine.
I nodded, because that too was true. I wanted more moments like this, not relive the same moment over again, but eventually that was all I’d have.
I swallowed the sadness. We still had three weeks of vacation and then six more months in Paris before our time was up. We needed to make the most of it, soak up every moment of laughter and lust and joy.
We strode along the promenade, our arms brushing on occasion from walking so close. Suddenly, Santino’s fingers brushed mine and when I didn’t pull away he linked our hands and we kept walking like that. Apart from holding hands under the table in a restaurant on occasion or in the safe dark of a movie theater, we’d never risked it in public, not even thousands of miles away from home.
My eyes stung and my heart filled with a sort of fulfillment I couldn’t explain. After a while I risked a glance up but Santino was wearing sunglasses and his face was the usual vigilante mask. He squeezed my hand briefly and I stifled a smile, then just enjoyed walking by his side with his hand in mine. This felt good, too good, but I didn’t want fear of the future to ruin the moment. I wanted to live in the moment. This moment belonged to us, only us.
We settled at a small fish restaurant with a view of the small fishing harbor for dinner.
The waiter motioned at Santino’s cell phone on the tabletop. “Do you want me to take a photo of you?”
Santino and I exchanged a look, uncertainty filling the air between us. I wanted to say yes, wanted to capture this moment in a picture so I could look at it in the future and remind myself of the utter happiness I’d felt. But a picture meant proof. Proof that could ruin both our lives. Proof of the thing without a name that was between us.
“No, thank you,” I said, my voice a little rough.
The waiter seemed taken aback and gave Santino an encouraging smile. He probably thought our relationship was in trouble, that we’d had a fight. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Neither had we a relationship, nor had we fought in a while.
The waiter returned with a bottle of white wine that would go well with our meal and filled our glasses very generously.
I thanked him but was glad when he disappeared. “You know what I just realized?”
Santino shook his head with a look that gave me chills.
“We haven’t fought in a while. We’re getting along really well.”
We still exchanged our banter, especially when we were horny because it was our favorite foreplay, but a real fight? That hadn’t happened in many months. We enjoyed being together.
“We’ve become a good team.”
Team. We both knew we were more than that, but couldn’t admit to it because it couldn’t be.
“Especially between the sheets,” I added because this was safer terrain.
I sat in my room and stared down at my luggage. For weeks I’d pretended we still had time, had pretended the end wasn’t near, but now as I stared down at my clothes neatly packed into three pieces of luggage, tears burned in my eyes. On top of my clothes rested my diplôme. I’d really finished my fashion studies in Paris, had lived my dream for three years, had tasted unbridled freedom, had fallen in love.
And tomorrow I’d return to Chicago to take up my duties again. In eight months, I’d marry Clifford. The next months in my life would be filled with wedding planning—of course Mom and Dolora had already started—and social events.
I’d have to figure out a way to find my way back into the more restricted life in Chicago. And I’d have to figure out how to fall out of love with Santino again, had to stop my belly from bustling with butterflies every time he entered a room, which still happened after almost three years of sharing a bed.