Chapter 4

"Welcome aboard the Belezza (Beauty)," Cosimo said, reaching out a hand to help me in. 

He was an arrogant ass, but there was something in the tone of his voice that caught my attention. And hearing him speak English with a soft Italian accent just made me giggle like a naughty schoolgirl. 

I settled on the open deck with a canopy that provided shade to the whole rear of the boat. Irina went inside to indulge in a cold drink, while the two men discussed something boat-related in Italian. 

I chose to stay outside and let the wind play with my hair while admiring the God-given nature and the man-made riverbank. And as I sat there, my thoughts kept turning back to Cosimo. His smile, his speech, and even that perverted smirk drew me in. 

If only he weren't such a dick, I thought, standing up and leaning over the rail. I popped my sunglasses on and enjoyed the ripple of the water. 

I can't explain why, but I always fancied foreign guys over British lads. Maybe they just seemed to lack a romantic flare. And I never understood why foreign women were always so attracted to them either. 

Most of them were brutes, inside and out. But it might have been my bad luck or poor judgment that I ever got involved with that loser. Well, just two-- enough to last me for a lifetime. Lesson learned.

It's been three years since I transferred from Cambridge to the Universita Toscana in Pontefici. Nonno (Grandpa) died, so I came here to live with my Nonna who’s seventy-five years young. And it put my mother's mind at rest, knowing she wasn't left all alone. 

It was in Pontefici, where I got to see il Libro Mastro di Maggio exhibited in the Museo Nazionale. A millennium's worth of secrets, all buried within the pages of a ledger--bi* as a suitcase and heavy as I.

Well, that’s an exaggeration, but the point is that it could not have been simply misplaced, like a hairpin or a wristwatch. The senior di Maggio deliberately didn't disclose its location, so it’s most likely still somewhere in the palace. 

Buried in such thoughts, I didn't notice Irina's presence behind my back. Or at least I thought it was her, for I heard men's voices further away.

A gut feeling told me to turn around. The canopy cast a shadow as the sun went in behind a cloud, so things went quite dark for a moment because of my sunglasses. A firm grip, then the force of a throw, and I found myself falling into the water. 

"Help!" I screamed while desperately kicking and punching the water. “I can't swim!”

I wiggled like crazy, but an invisible force pulled me down under the surface. I came back up once, twice, but the third time, I just couldn't anymore. 

I screamed out my last breath underwater. As the waves and bubbles slowly settled around my body, I opened my eyes and saw the light flicker above, twinkling through the surface. My heart pumped frantically in my ears and the pressure in my eyes enticed me to take a breath. 

No, I won’t do it, I repeated in my head. But slipping into a peaceful slumber from lack of oxygen, my burning lungs expanded on their own and the water ravaged through my wind-pipe. My body twitched from the pain as I sank even deeper. Then a black veil settled before my eyes. And I was gone . . .

***

That wasn’t the end, though. When I opened my eyes, the last person I expected to see was Cosimo. He stood at the left corner of the bed, butt-naked. My vision was kind of blurry up until this point but my eyes opened wide as soon as I saw his thick cock.

What is happening? My heart pounded inside my chest as I stared speechless at his sculpted body. Damn, those round shoulders and buff arms really complimented his toned abs. And that bulge . . .

I looked away with my cheeks flaring. 

Cosimo poured two glasses of champagne, before sitting next to me. 

"Mia bella donna (my beautiful lady), you're awake," he said, smiling.

I reached for the drink and noticed my bare arm. I quickly glanced under the blanket, then jumped up, screaming. 

"Ready for round two already?" he asked, measuring my exposed hips.

The white sheet ran down between my legs, letting my curves shamelessly reveal themselves. 

"What round two? Why am I naked?" I asked, clawing after the rest of the material to pull it around me. "What happened in round one?" 

Cosimo narrowed his eyes, then pulled his lips into a sexy smile as he gently caressed the back of my leg with his fingertips. And oh boy, his touch felt so soft and pleasantly tickling. He let out a loud sigh as he pulled the sheet away with his right pinky. 

"What do you think, mi amore (my love)?"

"Amore? Stop it.” I protested, pushing away his hand.

“How--?”

In a blink, he grabbed my wrist and held me down on the bed. I wriggled my body under him, but he was too strong to escape. 

"So now, you're playing hard to get, are you?" he asked, looking straight into my eyes. 

His sudden grip hurt almost like a rope burn. Has he gone mad? And why am I not afraid of him? 

"Signore di Maggio, stop it!" I raised my voice. 

"I love how you boss me around . . . It turns me on." 

He pressed his firm body against mine. Then he swooshed down, pressing his lips onto mine like a carnivore, again and again. The thin sheet between us hid nothing as I could feel his dick stiffening against my left thigh.

And then my attention shifted to the room. I tilted my head back to check it out. A vast space spun around us. In it, there was only this bed and a side table. And the light changed from light gray to a slightly golden blue every other moment. 

"How is it that we're here?” I asked.

“What is this place?"

"You brought us here, amore (love). I'm just going with the flow. This place can be anything you want it to be." 

His voice rang trance-inducing, and his eyes were hypnotic, pulling me deep under his control. Then a wide smile crept on my cheeks as I realized something.

"Is this a hallucination?" I asked.

He nodded with a smirk on his face.

What a game-changer. I had nothing to lose, so I gave in to my wildest desire.  

Cosimo flashed his lashes silently and loosened his grip. His rough and hungry kisses turned into gentle smooches on my neck, then a wet tongue played around my puckered nipples. And as he went further down, the tingling sensation between my legs only intensified. 

I moaned, lusting for him, wishing he was already inside me. But was this bad of me? He did have a girlfriend. Then, out of the blue, muffled voices took me out of my hypnotized state. Large hands felt heavy on my chest as they compressed my rib cage until I finally coughed the water out. 

My dream was over. I was slipping in and out of consciousness in the ambulance. Perhaps it was the speeding vehicle going over the decaying roads that kept shaking me back to life because we were wildly rocking from one side to the other.

A true Italian roller coaster ride. 

A man sat beside me, working in a frenzy while a woman gave him instructions through a small window above my head. I spoke the language fairly well but at that moment, my Yorkshire brain simply refused to translate; it couldn’t make space for anything else other than sheer panic right now. 

Memories surfaced as torn photographs. The canopy, a distorted humanoid shape, that dreadful feeling of falling, bubbles under the water, and sinking—while the heart monitor beeped like crazy and flew off charts.

Man, I’m boiling. I gasped for air.

My skin was drenched in sweat, my body dripping, while my throat turned into a dry well. Swallowing hurt, breathing hurt, then a tiny pinch on my left arm made me twitch toward that side. And my pain slowly dissipated as I fell back into a peaceful slumber.