Chapter Text
It starts in Italy.
It’s cliché and Kate wishes she were less susceptible to the atmosphere, to the beauty of the countryside she finds herself surrounded by.
But it starts in Italy. A house in Tuscany, to be exact.
She’s staying there with Benedict and some of their friends. Apparently this is how rich people go on holiday - they don’t have to bother with AirBnB, there’s always a friend with a holiday home that can be used. So they’re in some Bridgerton family friend’s beautiful Tuscan villa for two weeks.
It’s early September, but the sun is still more powerful than the hottest summer days in the UK ever manage to be. They’re all artists, and the holiday had initially been proposed to be a sort of retreat, painting together, going to the museums of Florence to learn and gather inspiration. They do paint occasionally, but mainly they lounge around the villa’s little pool, drinking red wine and spritz, planning their days around where they should go for dinner.
It’s wonderful, and Kate can feel the tension of the last months, the job search, the decisions she had to make, easing off her. So when Benedict tells the group that his brother is going to drop by for a bit, after having holidayed in Sardinia, she barely takes notice of it.
-
The day he arrives has been spent like any other of their days here. Making one coffee after another with the old moka on the kitchen’s gas stove, lazily getting up once it sputters and distributing the hot brew to whoever holds up their little mug. Having another round of coffees, and maybe even the first glass of wine, at the village café (or as the Italians bizarrely call it ‘bar’), before wandering into the supermarket and panificio to buy fresh bread, olives, cheese and anything else that strikes their fancy, for lunch. They load it all into the car that they rented and drive home with the windows rolled down. It doesn’t even have enough seats to fit them all - they take turns on who does the morning shop, but in the evenings, when they go to eat out, they just sit on each other’s laps, squeezing in where they can.
They’re having lunch in the garden when a beat up Fiat comes up the driveway.
“Oh, that’ll be Ant,” Benedict tells the table, getting up to greet him.
Kate makes use of everyone’s attention being on the car to load up her plate with some more bread and tomatoes, but when she hears the car stop, she too turns to watch.
Anthony steps out of the car, wearing a white t-shirt, linen trousers, and sunglasses. He looks rich in a way that’s different from Benedict who wears patterned button-up shirts that look like they’re from a charity shop, but more often than not are designer. When he goes to hug Benedict, he looks confident, as if there could be no question that he is welcome here. Welcome among this friend group that isn’t his.
Some of the group do, in fact, know him, giving him comfortable hugs and kisses on the cheek. For everyone else he has a charming smile, shaking the men’s hands and giving the women kisses on each cheek. When he reaches Kate, who has followed suit when everyone stood up, he looks at her for a moment before giving her a warm smile. They exchange names and, when he leans in for those air kisses, he puts his hand on her arms and she swears that he takes in a breath through his nose.
-
So that’s that. Anthony slots in with the group seamlessly, despite not being an artist himself. He’s self-assured in a way that only truly privileged people ever seem to be, not even considering that their presence might be unwanted. He’s brought wine, aperol, oranges, and figs, and everyone gathers around the pool, happy to start indulging once more. Kate is annoyed at herself for how often she finds her eyes drawn to him.
But then, more often than not, they are met by his and they share a small, slightly awkward, smile.
When the drinks have been distributed, people start stripping, eager to get some respite from the blazing sun in the pool. Kate knows she’s not the only one watching Anthony take off his shirt. The group has grown accustomed to each others’ bodies, they hold little excitement now, but Anthony is new.
He’s in much better shape than Kate would have expected, muscly in a way that suggests he exercises not for vanity, but because he enjoys it. There’s no six-pack, but his stomach is firm and his shoulders broad. He’s tan, probably from his time in Sardinia, but still decidedly British in that he’d look pale next to the locals.
He catches Kate’s eyes again and, rather than looking away, embarrassed, like she would have done, he looks pleased, almost smirking.
Kate has never considered herself particularly seductive, has always found the most success in jokes and friendship, but she takes his smirk as a challenge. With his gaze still on her, she pulls down the straps of the dress she is wearing and stands up to shimmy out of it. She can’t imagine looking particularly elegant, but when she bends down to grab her dress off the floor and steps towards the pool his eyes are still on her.
-
By the time the group has decided where to go for dinner that day, Kate and Anthony have still barely exchanged a word. Because he wants to drink and one of their friends has already volunteered to abstain and drive them, they perform their usual clown car routine, now with one extra person. Kate ends up on Benedict’s lap, like she has a few times before. She sits straight, tries not to put all her weight on Benedict and some space between their bodies, out of respect for both Sophie and Henry.
For all that it’s not the most comfortable car ride, it’s fun. They blast the radio and some of the current Italian hits are now familiar enough that they can sing along to those few words they understand. Kate still finds herself looking over at Anthony, at the friend that found herself on his lap. They know each other and it’s obvious they’re comfortable with each other from the hand he has at her hip and the way she’s turning her body, looking over her shoulder to ask him about Sardinia.
When they walk into the restaurant, Anthony follows Kate to her seat, taking the spot next to her. She is pleased to have the chance to talk to him, but for the first part of the dinner they are pulled into conversations by the group. It’s only when she pointedly disagrees with him about a film they both watched that they turn to face each other.
She regrets it immediately.
Kate has often felt like the world thinks she’s too much. She’s happy with herself, happy with her opinions, of not being the most charming person in the room. How could she be, when she has been sharing that room with her sister Edwina for most of her life who was always younger, smaller, cuter, nicer, just less abrasive than Kate. She has been called a bitch by men she barely knows, just for daring to disagree with them and it’s… it’s not fine, of course, but she’s happy to have weeded them out so easily, has no desire to be liked by someone like that.
But she had been enjoying the little flirtation, the way Anthony had been looking at her and she would have liked to keep up pretence for a little longer. She resigns herself to having doused that spark with her outspokenness and further doubles down on her point. If she is not going to be desired she might as well be right.
Anthony stares at her for a moment and Kate waits for him to scoff, to turn his attention elsewhere. He looks taken aback and maybe a little amazed and he looks straight into her eyes as he takes her argument, engages with it and tells her exactly why he doesn’t agree. There’s no malice, no belittling, just passion and a very familiar desire to be right. Kate’s breath catches for a second, before she lets go, arguing back.
Rather than having a pleasant conversation, they discuss and bicker all through the primo, the secondo, the dolce and the coffee. The rest of the group is amused, occasionally joining their discussions, but not interfering much.
When they walk back to the car, they’re next to each other, her gesturing wildly, trying to make a point. As they pile in, it’s only natural that she sit on his lap this time so they can keep talking. She sits on the edge of his thighs, keeping as much distance as possible, but when they have to break suddenly he wraps his arms around her waist and pulls her towards him so she doesn’t slip. He loosens his grip once they’re moving again, but when she makes no effort to slip out of the position they’re in, he keeps them there. She is leaning against his chest in a way that’s decidedly intimate and they’re still bickering, albeit in softer tones to leave room for other conversations in the car.
Once they arrive, the group disperses. Some go straight to bed, some have a cigarette on the terrace and some go to the kitchen. Kate joins the latter faction to get some water and Anthony follows her, standing next to her at the sink as she fills up two glasses and hands him one. They’re quiet for the first time in what feels like hours. They sip their water and listen to their friend’s story as she pours herself a small glass of grappa.
Once her glass is empty, Kate announces she’s going to bed and Anthony begs off as well. They’re still quiet as they go up the stairs to the floor where their rooms are situated. They reach her room first, and when she opens the door she has a short moment of embarrassment, worrying she misread the situation after all. But she doesn’t even have to say anything, just look at Anthony and he’s following her inside.
Once the door has shut behind them, he crowds into her, putting a hand on her waist, the other cradling her jaw. He looks at her, quietly asking for confirmation, and when she nods her head he leans down to kiss her.
It feels so decadent, not like something Kate normally would do. She’s in Italy, in a beautiful house with her friends, doing nothing but enjoying the sun and drinking wine. And now she is going to let this man she’s known for less than a day take her to bed. She feels like a version of herself that’s never existed before, confident and easy and making the most of life without taking anything too seriously. It’s simple to let him take her apart, to spread her legs where she normally would have been shy. It’s simple to tell him exactly what she likes, how she wants him to touch her. It’s intoxicating, how easy it is to let go, how easily her orgasm is pulled from her when he puts his mouth on her.
Kate pulls him on top of herself afterwards and when Anthony sinks into her she wraps her legs around him, clutches at him wantonly. She feels sensual, slutty almost, and she loves it. When he collapses on top of her, he grins at her lazily, eyes half closed and gives her a peck. She’s grinning right back.
“Can I stay here tonight? Or would you rather I - ?” he asks, not sounding worried in the least. He doesn’t even finish the question and her answer, too, comes easily, no hesitation as she says, “Yeah. Stay.”
-
Mornings at the villa are slow, everyone recovering from the drinking of the day before and thoroughly enjoying the chance to sleep in as long as they like. By all measurements, the morning Kate has is the least lazy one she’s had so far, but it feels the most indulgent. Rather than just lying in bed, reading and enjoying the sun shining through the windows as she refuses to close the shutters, she is on top of Anthony. The tangled mess of her hair curtains them as she leans down to kiss him as she’s riding him.
It feels good, the way he’s gripping her hips strong and certain, and she confidently takes one of his hands and places it on her breast. The gasp she lets out as he pinches her nipple is all the confirmation she needs before he’s palming them roughly and she increases her speed, rubbing her clit until she’s cumming.
There’s no sweet nothings whispered into her ear, no pretence of romance as he flips her over and asks her to get on her knees. He fucks her hard and fast from behind. It’s passionate and Kate is sensitive enough from her first orgasm that it’s just on the edge of being too much and all the better for it. He grabs her arse, leaning forward to gasp into her neck how good she looks, how he’s wanted to do this since he first saw her take off her dress by the pool.
It’s dirty in a way Kate isn’t really used to, her previous experiences limited to men who were sweet, friends who had become lovers, the sex playful and never like this. It had been fun and shy and more of an afterthought to the relationship, a way to spend time together. They never had held her like they couldn’t stand not to, never looked at her with pure lust in their eyes.
It emboldens her, she tells him to touch her, not to cum just yet, to go harder. She takes what she needs, pushing back onto him and his hand is on her clit, rubbing it, occasionally dropping to feel at her entrance, how his cock is pushing inside her, in a way that makes her want to scream.
He manages to hold off until she cums again, fucking her through it, gripping her hard as he pushes into her and lets go himself.
-
If Benedict and her friends have noticed anything, they don’t mention it. Anthony and Kate make it out her room eventually, gratefully helping themselves to the coffee someone just brewed. They’re not doing anything to point towards what conspired between them. There’s no hand holding, no casual touching beyond his hand on the small of her back as he moves past her to reach for a mug. He offers to drive into the village to get some pastries for everyone and when he gives her a meaningful look she asks to join.
When they’re in the car, windows down and sunglasses on, he keeps his hand on her thigh between switching gears. At the bar he orders half the cornetti they have ‘d’asporto’ in surprisingly fluent Italian before asking for two for here. She orders a cappuccino and he gets another espresso as they sit down at a table facing the village’s little piazza.
It’s the first time they talk about themselves, no bickering. Kate knows about the seven siblings, of course, being friends with Benedict, but she tells him about Edwina, her younger sister, as he nods understandingly. She tells him how she’s been looking for jobs and how she’s about to start a new one in Berlin.
“Why Berlin?” he asks, curious.
“Big independent art scene,” she explains. She wonders how honest she should be, if he can even understand how hard it is to find a job without connections. She’s learnt that complaining about unfairness, especially to those who benefit from privilege, can quickly be twisted into jealousy, or worse, laziness by them. She’s learnt in interviews to smile and nod when they talked about how important it was to foster good relationships, completely disregarding how much easier it was for those who already knew half the patrons in London because they went to the same public school. The Bridgertons know enough people that Benedict hadn’t even had to apply for jobs, just started working with some family friend right after uni. He’s a great friend, but it still feels unfair. She reminds herself that this is not a date, this is the breakfast after a hook-up and she doesn’t have to pretend.
“Also it’s not like you get flooded with job offers as an artist, especially if you don’t already come from money” she carries on, watching his face for a reaction. He nods and, thankfully, for once doesn’t argue the point. “And the job sounds interesting and it’s just a short-term contract, so I figured, why not? I’m quite nervous though.” She chuckles self-deprecatingly.
“I would be too,” he agrees. “Have you ever been to Berlin?”
“I’ve never even been to Germany,” she admits. “Have you?” She suspects she knows the answer, can guess that Anthony’s life is full of weekend trips to different European cities.
He grins. “A couple of times, yeah. It was fun. Although I can’t say I got much of an impression of the day-to-day life there. Once was a stag party.”
It’s exactly what she expected. “Brits abroad, huh?” she teases. “Not that I’m doing much to fight the stereotype myself currently. All we do is drink, it feels like. And eat of course.” As she takes the last bite of her cornetto, the powdered sugar it’s covered in spills down her front. She’s glad she’s wearing white. Anthony watches her as she tries to clean what ended up in her cleavage.
“Tease,” he mutters in a low voice. She can’t see where he’s looking with the sunglasses he’s wearing, but she can make an educated guess. She feels heat pool between her legs. No one has ever made her feel quite so desirable. Liked, yes, even loved maybe, but never like a mere look from her could reduce them to a puddle.
She tests the theory, pushing her own sunglasses down her nose a bit, her eyes now visible, and shoots him a look. Kate has little experience in looking at someone seductively, but she looks him up and down and remembers the night before. Anthony’s face is still partially obscured by his glasses, but the way he scrapes his chair back and asks her if she’s ready to leave tells her all she needs to know.
On the drive back his hand is no longer on her thigh, but under her skirt. He stops on the side of the road a few minutes from the villa and buries his fingers inside her, kissing her neck. When they arrive at the house she excuses herself to her room to freshen up, aware of how soaked her knickers are. She is not surprised to hear the knock on the door a few minutes later, welcomes it even. Before she knows it, she’s on the bed, her skirt pushed up, the fresh pair of underwear pulled to the side. She tries to stay quiet, but she knows it’s only a matter of time before everyone notices what’s going on.
-
They continue like this for the next few days. As far as she can tell, Anthony only uses his room to store his luggage and to get changed and freshened up. By now, everyone knows they’re sleeping together, but as they don’t act like a couple outside of the room, no one treats them like one and the teasing comments are kept to a minimum. Kate supposed there are advantages to being friends with very liberal artists who are content to keep things unlabeled.
It’s not even a holiday romance, it’s a holiday affair. There are no words of affection spoken outside of admissions of lust and desire. They still bicker, quick to jump into heated discussions about everything from music to politics, a fact that their friends find endlessly amusing. They drink and dine, Kate sitting on Anthony’s lap on the crowded drives, trying not to squirm when he toys with the edges of her clothes, whispering dirty things into her ears between the communal joking and singing.
Two days before they’re set to leave, she chooses to forgo a second trip to Florence to see the Uffizi gallery with the group and instead joins Anthony as he drives up to Bologna. The city is not even half as beautiful as Florence but it is lived in in a way that the tourists crowding Florence don’t permit. The semester must be starting soon, because there’s students milling around, sitting in the middle of what, to Kate, seems like streets, but as Anthony informs here are very barren piazzas. She is charmed by the way even the male students greet each other with cheek kisses and ‘ciao bello’, no matter how macho they are dressed. She can’t even imagine most of her artist friends greeting their mates with ‘hello beautiful’ and has to giggle at the thought of Anthony doing so.
They have talked all through the drive and it’s the first time the thing they have seems real outside of white sheets being illuminated by sunlight. They talk about his job in London, how the city invigorates and tires him at the same time and his work feels not much different. He confesses that he feels envious towards his other siblings, at the ease they seem to address life with compared to him She talks about her upcoming move to Berlin, her nerves, how Germany has never been particularly high up her list of places she wants to live, even if everyone raves about the Berlin scene.
“Do you speak any German?” he asks. It’s a testament to how much of their time together has been spent in the bedroom, how few conversations they’ve had really, that he’s only getting around to asking her that now.
“None, why would I have learned?” she answers, resigned. She had never seen herself living in Germany, had never made any effort to travel there. She also had been annoyed at school at all the European languages offered, the bicultural children with French parents advantaged in a way that she wasn’t even if she spoke more languages than them.
When he doesn’t say anything, doesn’t agree with her that learning German would have been a useless endeavour, she gets it. “Do you speak German?” she asks, half dreading the answer.
“Einigermaßen gut, ja,” he answers. She has no idea what a good German accent sounds like, but she knows he sounds foreign, his voice even slightly changed. She also doesn’t know what the first word means, but she can parse ‘gut’ and ‘ja’.
“Why?” she asks, shaking her head exasperatedly. She takes a sip of her glass of red wine. It still feels decadent, having red wine at three o’clock in the afternoon with the sun burning down. She is glad she’s not driving, it is making her languid and heady and the Sangiovese goes down easy. Kate levels Anthony a look, when he doesn’t answer immediately.
“Studied German at uni,” Anthony admits. She doesn’t even know if it’s a posh thing to do, but it strikes her as so utterly useless that it feels like it to her, like he’s some 19th century rich man with nothing better to do than learning German cases.
“That’s ridiculous. You live in London. Why would you do this to yourself?” Kate had nervously looked at some beginner German textbooks in the weeks succeeding the job offer and the three articles alone had made her despair. She feels no connection to the language, no desire to go beyond the surface even if she knows it would make the year ahead of her easier. She’s a bit resentful, too, that she couldn’t find a job in London, didn’t have the connections some of her classmates and work colleagues seem to have. Couldn’t slide into a part time job at an art gallery, like Benedict, that would never pay enough to afford living in London, if he weren’t wealthy already.
“I studied it in combination with Classics, so it’s not as bad as it sounds, really.” She shoots him a look. “I had it at school. I liked it. Got to spend my third year of uni in Cologne.” She’s still looking at him in disbelief. It is an unfathomable degree choice for her and while she doesn’t know him well, it seems incongruous with the man she’s met. Her stare must finally penetrate her defences, because he carries on.
“My father had some German relatives. He grew up in the UK and I didn’t speak any German as a child, but I was interested in learning more about that part of him.”
She doesn’t need to ask anything more. She knows Benedict well enough to know their father died when he was sixteen. Anthony must have been in the middle of university applications then. She understands the need to cling onto anything of your parents that’s left to you. Her body almost physically aches at the sympathy she feels towards him. Kate is unsure what to ask next - she loves talking about her father, and resents how much people shy away from the topic as soon as they learn he’s dead. She doesn’t feel like she knows Anthony well enough to say for sure, that she feels the same way.
“Did you enjoy studying it then? Or discover something about yourself that’s very German?” It leaves an opening to talk about his family, if he so wants to, she hopes.
“I did - it’s a frustrating language to learn, but I liked the challenge. I realised that some of the nonsensical sayings my father used were actually just German ones translated into English, so that was nice.” He looks pensive, but not pained. Kate nods thoughtfully.
“Is Cologne where your relatives are then?” She hasn’t heard anything about German relatives from Benedict, so she assumes they’re not close ones. If all Bridgerton families were in the habit of producing the ridiculous amount of offspring Anthony’s family had, half the continent must be related to them some way or another.
He shakes his head. “They’re in the South, near Munich. I considered going there for my year abroad, but I didn’t want to be too far away from the UK. I felt guilty already leaving my siblings, and Cologne is near Brussels where you can take the Eurostar. I got to meet them though, it was nice. They speak perfect English, so German wasn’t actually necessary.”
Kate laughs. “Of course they did.” Anthony shrugs helplessly. “But I’m sure they still appreciated you being able to speak German.” It’s such an English thing, speaking only one language and she shouldn’t be impressed that Anthony has managed to break that mould, given a lot of her friends growing up spoke a language that wasn’t English at home. She likes it though, that he didn’t just barge in on these relatives, expecting them to accommodate him and switch to English.
“So how was life in Cologne then? Except for missing your family?” Kate will take any first-hand information on living in Germany she can get.
“Fun,” he says. It looks like he’s trying to find the right words. “Germans are different to Brits, but not in the way films or Monty Python makes them out to be. They’re quite direct, it can seem rude when you’re not used to it. You just have to know not to take it personally like you would in the UK I think. Not big on small talk either. But then, Berlin is going to be a different ballpark I think. It’s so international, from what I hear you’re bound to end up with a lot of non-German friends.”
She nods, feeling a bit nervous again. He must pick up on it, because he rushes to reassure her. “It’s freeing almost, when you’re used to it. You don’t have to question if someone is upset at you because they’ll just say. There’s not so much passive aggressiveness and if people are behaving like they like you, it’s because they do, not because they’re being polite.”
It sounds better when he puts it like that, but she still just can’t help but picture some old German man shouting at her in a language she doesn’t understand. She tries to distract herself from that image by focusing on Anthony.
“I would have thought your old English sensibility would be against people having those kinds of manners?”
He rolls his eyes. “It took me a while. I was a bit angry back then, at the world, and used to hiding it and making snarky comments. My German friends just thought it was hilarious, they were much less shocked. Because if I was really upset with them, they expected me just to tell them, not beat around the bush. It helped a bit, really.”
Kate wonders if this is why Anthony isn’t rattled by her the way others seem to be. Maybe Germany will be a revelation, maybe she will fit in there better than she sometimes felt she did in the UK. Maybe a tall German man who spoke perfect English will sweep her off her feet.
-
They drive back not too late, foregoing the usual Italian dinner time of nine, instead sharing a takeaway pizza on the main piazza. Kate is sad that another day is almost over, the holiday rapidly nearing its end. She knows with it summer will be ending, autumn and a new life in a strange city approaching quickly.
In the car their conversation turns to the past. As they lack the constraints of actually dating, there is little pretence, it’s easy to be honest. They talk about their childhood, skirting around the trauma of loss they’ve both experienced. She has never met anyone who feels the responsibility towards younger siblings as acutely as she does.
By the time they’ve left the autostrada and are driving on dusty Tuscan country roads, their talk has moved on from familial obligations to romantic ones. Kate isn’t at all surprised that Anthony seems to have had a constant string of lovers over the years, one girl that broke his heart even, but no relationships. She isn’t a jealous person, but he seems taken aback by her nonchalant questioning, by her lack of reaction when he describes the women. When the conversation turns to her, it’s a different story. She talks about those two close friends that turned into relationships, about the one where they managed to salvage the friendship after its end and the one where it was lost.
“I can’t imagine that,” he tells her.
“Imagine what?” she asks.
“Being friends with someone I’ve had sex with.” Anthony sounds thoughtful, like he’s genuinely never even considered the possibility. For a second, Kate wonders if this is his discreet way of letting her know that this, whatever they are doing, is going to end with the holiday. But then, they’ve never been friends. They had fallen into bed before she even knew what his job was.
“Isn’t it weird to know what they like? Not even what they look like naked, that’s not so much it, but just… their kinks, all that? But then go back to acting like you don’t?” he asks.
Kate can feel her face heating up. “Oh, there wasn’t much kinky stuff with him. It was all pretty standard. Not very intense, really. I guess that makes it easier,” she admits. Truth be told, sex has never felt as debauched as it does with Anthony. She’s never known herself to be utterly overcome by lust before.
He hums, staring at the road, still looking pensive. “That must have been hard for you,” he says. She doesn’t quite know what he means by that.
“What, the break-up?” she asks carefully. After all, she’s just told him that she and her ex were much happier as friends.
“No, the boring sex,” he clarifies, shooting a quick look to her side.
She doesn’t mean to say it, but it slips out. “I didn’t think of myself as a very sexual person back then.” It feels like a failing to admit, somehow, like he’s going to realise that this bout of passion between them was fake all along, that she isn’t this desirable person she seems to be to him.
He chuckles. It sounds almost dangerous. “I can’t even imagine. You’re a walking fantasy.” The words make her blush, bite her lip. The way Anthony compliments her is still not something she’s gotten used to. It pleases her. He pauses, like he’s contemplating what he’s about to say. “What made you realise? Or who, rather, maybe?”
Kate looks at him sharply. He sounds interested, jealous even. He has no right to be, of course, they don’t owe each other anything. And yet, something about the tone excites her. Not because she wants a relationship with him, but because it’s another confirmation of her power over him, of how she is an object of desire.
Embarrassingly, however, the answer is him. It’s Anthony that’s making her realise she likes this, she likes being lusted over, maybe even more than she liked the comfortable sweet relationships she’s had. Kate doesn’t know what to say, reluctant to admit it out of worry that it will somehow take away from her desirability, the fact that it’s not something she has experienced before. That no man before him has seemed to feel as drawn to her as he does.
When she doesn’t answer, it seems to only make him want to pry more. “Is it scandalous?” he asks. His teasing tone has a slight edge to it and he is keeping his eyes resolutely on the road. “Don’t worry, I won’t judge. But I admit, I am curious.”
She almost considers making something up. In two days time it won’t matter, she doesn’t even know if she’ll see him again after that. She could tell him about a great lover who had touched her with such certainty that she could finally let go of the embarrassment she had felt before, who had known to play her body that she didn’t care about anything but feeling him inside her. Maybe they were married, maybe even famous.
But then, that story is mostly true, it’s just that it’s Anthony beside her who had made her realise how much she, to put it in the simplest terms, liked sex. Kate decides that, given this is about to end anyway, she might as well bestow him the parting gift. She gathers her courage and puts her hand on his thigh, letting her fingers run along the inseam of his trousers. She may have thought she didn’t know how to be seductive a week ago, but she is much more confident now.
“It’s never been this good,” she admits, her voice low. “I think I realised quite a lot about myself with you.”
-
The rest of the drive is charged. His hand on her thigh whenever he doesn’t need to use the gears. They don’t talk much, both just waiting to arrive at the villa. The group are still having dinner in Florence, they know the house will be empty.
And indeed, this time Kate literally sees stars when Anthony pushes her onto one of the lounge chairs next to the pool and uses his mouth to bring her to orgasm twice. He seems to be determined to ruin her for other men, whispering as much into her ear as he kisses along her neck. Normally, such a possessive admission would be off-putting to her, but in the throws of passion it only serves to spur her on further. She wants to do the same for him, wants to imprint herself in his memories. She wants to stand out among all those women that have come before her and will, undoubtedly, come after. She gives him the filthiest blowjob she knows how to do, before sinking down onto him on the outdoor couch he’s been looking down at her from. She tells him to grab her arse, bites at his jaw and tells him she’ll think about him when she’s alone in her bed in Berlin. It makes his hips stutter and his hands clutch her hard. It emboldens her, makes her feel powerful like she has never felt before him, so she keeps talking, telling him exactly how she likes to touch herself when she’s alone between moans that don’t have to be contained for once.
-
It’s only the night before they have to leave that she realises they haven’t even exchanged numbers yet. She wonders if they even should. She’s moving to Berlin in two weeks and he will move on to other women. The last night is making her feel mournful, but also uninhibited and they spend hours after dinner exploring each others’ bodies in any way they can. When he rims her, she has to bury her face in the pillow to keep herself from screaming.
As they lie next to each other for the last time, comfortable and utterly satisfied, he turns to her.
“Can I visit you in Berlin sometime?” And Kate has no idea what it means, doesn’t even know if she wants it to mean anything, but she agrees. They make no plans, don’t even try to, but the goodbye the next day, standing in the Italian sun that has already gotten weaker than it was when they first arrived, is made easier for it. He hugs her gently, and she buries her face in his neck, taking a last whiff of his smell while he presses a chaste peck to the top of her head. They had laid in bed for as long as they could that morning, just making out, before it turned heated and desperate.
Kate’s sad to see him leave, sad for this holiday that has felt like something out of a dream, to be over. She is already mourning the end of summer.
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