Chapter Text
Anthony would like to think of himself as quite sophisticated and cosmopolitan. He’s not one to fall for tourist traps, to order a cappuccino at five in the afternoon at Piazza San Marco in Venice or spag bol in Rome. So he feels quite embarrassed when he does the most English thing possible and almost drives into the roundabout next to the Bologna airport the wrong way round as if he’d never driven on the right side of the road before.
It feels like an apt reflection of his whole holiday so far, always slightly off-centre, off-balance in a way he isn’t used to. Especially not with Simon, who he’s known for ten years now, who he thought he knew, one of the few people in his life outside of his family who understood. Simon who, even if he can’t fully relate to Anthony and his family situation, accepts it and doesn’t question it when he has to leave in the middle of supper because he’s gotten a phone call about one of his siblings.
But the week spent with him in Sardinia had been strange, almost uncomfortable. It should have been a holiday like all the others they’d spent together, easy fun, good restaurants and even better nights out. A chance to forget job stress and London’s grey skies.
And on the surface it had been like that, but Simon had been different, glued to his phone, even if he tried to be subtle about it, but unwilling to tell Anthony what was going on. Anthony had almost felt like an inconvenience, as if Simon was indulging him by going out, even though it was what they always did, what he thought they both enjoyed. He suspected there was a woman, because of how uninterested Simon was in pulling, a far cry from his usual flirtations ways. Which was fine, unexpected maybe but fine , but didn’t explain his reluctance to say anything, offer any explanation for his strange behaviour.
It was obvious he was hiding something and it hurt.
Simon and him hadn’t fought really, talking about emotions not being something they do, but Anthony had felt on edge the whole time. So he had tentatively suggested leaving Sardinia early, under the guise of visiting Benedict and the way Simon had agreed readily had been all the confirmation he needed.
So now he’s in a last-minute rented Fiat he doesn’t fully trust to carry him up the hills of Tuscany to spend a week with a group of Ben’s artist friends instead of the beautiful Mediterranean sea. He’s both relieved to have escaped the uncomfortable situation and nervous that he’ll feel just as out of place there. He’s good at seeming confident, a skill honed from having too much responsibility thrust upon him at a young age, but he always has a bout of anxiety before he’s forced into action.
He decides to stop on the way to buy some food and wine in an attempt to curry Ben’s friends’ favour. It puts him at ease a bit, but he’s still too off-kilter to enjoy the beautiful drive through the Tuscan countryside.
When he arrives, driving down the familiar driveway he spots the group outside eating what must be a late lunch. He scans it from the car to see how many of them he knows and is pleased to see that it’s a pretty familiar group, people he’s met at least in passing and liked well enough.
He steps out of the car, making sure to stand straight, smile easily and not let anyone notice that he spent much of the drive ruminating why his best friend was being weird. When he’s greeted by Benedict he’s grateful once again of how little a deal he made out of his last-minute request to crash his holiday.
Anthony can see the group watching them and quickly makes polite introductions, making sure to greet the ones he’s met before by name and to remember those of the ones he hasn’t. It’s easy, he’s spent much of his free time at gatherings like this, profiting from Simon, Benedict, or Colin and their love for parties.
Next in line is one of the women he doesn’t know, rather stunning with her sharp dark eyes, long tousled hair and wearing a brightly coloured sundress that compliments her quite well. She’s smiling politely and he’s suddenly overcome by a stabbing need to impress her, to see her smile at him with more than polite interest.
“Hi, nice to meet you, I’m Kate,” she says and he knows he doesn’t have to file away the name carefully like he did with the others, that there’s absolutely no danger of him forgetting it. He leans in for the customary air kisses, touching her arm lightly and he almost needs to hold onto her to stabilise himself as he’s hit by her scent, flowery and absolutely intoxicating.
***
Ben walks him to his room as the others continue having lunch.
“Everything okay?” he asks softly once they’re out of earshot. Anthony hesitates, trying to find the right words. Nothing had happened really, no event to pin to to explain why he’d fled Sardinia.
“Yeah, Simon had some business to take care of and it seemed a shame to leave Italy when I’m still on leave,” he replies. He can feel Ben look at him.
“Fair enough. It’s nice you’re here. Good to see you.” It’s all Anthony wants, for someone to actually enjoy his company, that he’s strangely moved by it.
“How’s the group been getting on? You getting lots of art done?”
Benedict snorts. “You don’t get art ‘done’. But actually we’ve mostly been relaxing, not much painting really. Went to Florence once, that was good.”
Anthony has to chuckle at that. “Suits me well, if I’m honest. All I want to do is drink wine and coffee and relax.” Ben shoots him a look that’s far too knowing, like he can tell the tension Anthony is carrying even after a week of holiday in Sardinia.
“You’ll like the group then, I think that’s everyone’s mood more or less.” They enter what is going to be Anthony’s room. It’s the smallest one, where they used to put Gregory when they came here on family holidays. He has some fond memories of sitting on the bed, reading to him.
“Sorry it’s the kid room,” Ben tells him.
Anthony waves him off. “No worries, can’t blame anyone for taking the nice rooms when you didn’t even know I was coming. Who has mine?” he asks. He wonders if he can ask them to step inside at some point so he can stand by the window and take in the view like he used to when he was younger, straining his eyes to spot an old fortress on a hill that’s only just in sight.
“Kate chose it.” And Anthony turns to look at Ben now, interested to hear more about her.
“It’s the first time I’ve met her, you know,” he tells him. He’s heard Ben mention her before, but always finds it hard to remember people until he’s seen them in person. “She’s the one you know from the festival thingie?”
“Art fair,” Ben corrects him. “Yeah, she’s great. Spends a lot of time with her mum and sister on the weekends so she’s not around for our nights out so much.” Anthony nods. It explains why he’s never seen her.
“Is she single?” he asks. He remembers who he’s talking to, so he amends it. “Or in an open relationship?” There’s no need to beat around the bush with Benedict. Anthony might not understand art, but he likes artists, likes how Ben’s friends don’t think of sex as a man’s to win and a woman’s to grant. How the women are never shamed for taking someone home and how the men aren’t congratulated for pulling as if they’d torn down someone’s defences.
“No, she’s not seeing anyone,” Ben confirms. “But she’s not… I mean maybe it’s because we haven’t known each other for that long, but I don’t think she does casual, really.”
It’s good to know, if a bit disappointing to hear. For all that his behaviour with women can be less than stellar, he’s not someone to seduce a woman under false pretences. He’s not looking for a relationship, has never been, has tried it once despite his better judgement and both him and Siena had ended up heartbroken. Kate may be beautiful, and knowing she was in his room had made him entertain fantasies of waking up there with her, but he casts them aside at Ben’s words.
***
He still finds his gaze wandering over to her though as they’re by the pool where he’s spread out the wine, aperol, oranges, and figs he’d bought on the way there. He makes an effort to joke with the people he knows, ask them about their life, to make sure people like him, don’t feel like he’s intruding. It would be much easier to tear his eyes away from Kate if she wasn’t looking back at him so much, if she didn’t openly watch him as he takes off his shirt to dive in, if she didn’t hold his gaze as she shimmies out of her dress and he gets to see her almost naked body.
It’s all too easy to imagine her doing it in an entirely different context, imagine her looking at him as he lies on a bed and her stepping out of her dress to crawl on top of him. When she bends down to pick it up he suddenly wishes he were behind her, could see the curve of her arse covered only by her bathing suit bottoms.
He wants to bend her over the table where he had just placed the wine and figs and bury himself inside her while he presses his nose to her neck and inhales her scent.
He’s slightly taken aback by the vividness with which the thought had crossed through his mind. It’s too much and, considering what Ben just told him, something she doesn’t want from him, creepy almost. He resolves to try to get to know her, to have her become more real to him, and not think about her like that anymore, to be respectful.
So when they go out for dinner and they explain to him that the car is too small and there is some sitting-on-laps he makes the conscious effort not to line up such that Kate might have to go on his. It’s stupid, he has no claim on her, but he’s still pleased when it’s Benedict she ends up sharing a seat with and not one of the other guys.
At the restaurant he secures the chair next to hers, ready to engage her in conversation, for her to transform into anything but this temptress he’s made her out to be in his head. He doesn’t even know how they end up arguing, but he is mesmerised. She’s so open about her opinions, so ready to tell him what she’s thinking, so different from the week with Simon he had before. It distracts him enough from his original plan that he forgets to put some distance between them when they walk to the car and suddenly she’s on his lap, the weight of her primly perched on the very edge of his thighs enough to remind him why he had avoided it on their way there.
None of his thoughts are very gentlemanly. They mostly consist of varying scenarios of her writhing on his lap without the barriers of clothes between them.
He’s mercifully distracted by her still trying to make a point, even if the way she turns her head to look at him over her shoulder is almost unbearably attractive. Anthony doesn’t even think about it when he grabs her and pulls her towards him when the car makes an unexpected sharp break. It’s too close to what had been imagining only minutes ago and when he loosens his grip as they start driving again he expects her to move, to put some distance between them, scooch back to the front of his thighs like she had before.
But instead she just returns to her argument and keeps leaning into him. When he slightly tightens the arms he has wrapped around her, she only turns to look at him over her shoulder again, except that this time her face is so close to his, he’d only have to lean a tiny bit to have his nose touch her neck. Her scent is wafting around him and he can’t help but take a deep breath, let it wash through him.
And for the first time since he started his Italy holiday, Anthony stops questioning his behaviour and just lets himself be. He follows her to the kitchen, where she hands him a glass of water and stays standing next to him, follows her to her room where she opens the door and beckons him inside with a look, and when he cups her face in his hands and she nods and he leans in to kiss her, life finally makes sense again. This he knows how to do. This he can understand.
He’s grateful for every moan of encouragement, for how openly she tells him what she likes, what she wants him to do to her. She’s so easy. Not in the derogatory sense, not in that he has his mouth on her breasts within a few hours of meeting her, but in her intentions, in her clear desire for him. In how she seems to have no qualms about telling him when she thinks he’s wrong, the way they had argued a strange kind of reassurance.
When she steps out of her underwear and lets herself fall onto the bed, he takes a moment to just look at her. She’s absolutely breathtaking, her dark hair and skin a stark contrast to the white bedsheets. Even more amazing is the way she’s holding his gaze again, her eyes calling him to her like a siren.
She asks him to touch her and he’s only too happy to oblige, kissing his way down her body. He wants her to be pleased, wants her to feel good, wants to be able to look at her overcome by pleasure and know he did that. And when he’s going down on her and she gasps and tells him to keep his tongue just like that, he does, works at her clit until she’s clenching her hands into the bedsheets and he doesn’t even have to think anymore. He lets her pull him on top of her and push off his trousers. There is a slightly awkward shuffle when he has to procure a condom from his wallet, but then he’s sinking into her and she feels better than he even imagined.
Her skin is warm and soft and she makes the prettiest small moans and the sweat that’s now gathering on her skin seems to only make her scent stronger, makes him want to lick it of her neck so he can inhale it, so he does, peppering the skin with kisses afterwards. He will gladly take the respite she offers for as long as she grants it and so when he finishes he asks if he can stay over, pleased to hear her say yes. When they’re ready for bed he curls himself around her and buries his nose in her hair for a second, letting his hands roam over her soft skin. He doesn’t always like actually sleeping with someone else in his bed, but the way she exhales shakily when his fingers stroke her hipbone is enough to make some blanket sharing worth it.
***
The next morning is even better, the way Kate looks on top of him otherworldly with the morning sun filtering through the windows. She’s almost too beautiful, Anthony is unsure if he wants to worship her or ruin her. When she puts his hand on her breast and puckers her lips into a little moan as he pinches her nipple he knows it’s going to be the latter for now. She seems to be intent on doing the same to him, setting the pace exactly as she needs it as she rides him, rubbing her clit until she orgasms. He feels used in the best way, but desperate for his own release so he flips her over and asks her to get on her knees. It’s a filthy sight, the way her hips flare out from her waist, her arse so round he almost wants to bite it.
He fucks her and he can’t believe his fantasy from the day before has come to life so readily. He buries his nose in her neck, inhales and confesses, “Fuck, you look incredible like this. Yesterday, when you took your dress off by the pool I wanted to bend you over the table and fuck you just like this.” When she whines “yes” in response he grabs her by the hips and asks her, “You like this?” trying to pick up the pace even more. He thinks the resulting moan is all the answer he’s going to get, but instead she tells him how good he feels, how close she is, to not cum yet, to touch her clit. It’s so attractive the way she readily shares what she wants from him and he does his best to oblige, her clenching around him the best reward.
When he finally lets go, clutching at her frantically as he buries his cock inside her, he thinks he might be well along the way to being ruined by her instead.
***
Anthony knows, rationally, that he should probably distance himself a bit that morning, give Kate some space so as to make it obvious he's not looking to be her boyfriend. Still, when the group discusses who's going into town to get this morning’s breakfast he volunteers immediately, still trying to earn his place in the group. He can't resist looking at her to see if she wants to join tilling himself it’s a good opportunity to have some time alone, to talk about if they’re on the same page, but he’d be lying if it wasn’t more because of the skirt she had put on that morning that almost had him pull her into bed again.
He rests his hand on her thigh during the drive whenever he can, whenever he isn’t switching gears and it’s a stark difference to his journey the day before, the way he’d been keyed up and nervous. It’s relaxed, both of them seemingly content to take in the breathtaking countryside and let the sun shine on their skin through the open windows.
It’s only at the bar that they start talking and when Kate tells him that she’s about to move to Berlin the last bit of nagging tension falls off Anthony. She’s not expecting anything. Despite what Benedict had said he’d understood her correctly. She’s no more looking for a boyfriend than he is for a girlfriend. It’s perfect. She seems almost like a gift sent from the heavens, even more so when she suddenly is running her fingers along her cleavage to get rid of spilled icing sugar and shoots him a seductive look.
He finally gets to hear her moan without the worry of their friends overhearing them when she lets him finger her in his rented Fiat on the side of the road. He feels like a teenager for what they’re doing, where they’re doing it, and for how turned on he is without being touched. He almost wants someone to drive by, to see how she’s melted into the passenger seat, see how wantonly she’s spread her legs for him, wants someone to bear witness to the puddle he’s reduced her to using nothing but his fingers.
When they get to the villa she quickly excuses herself while he’s left to hand out the pastries they’d gotten. It’s torture to have to pretend to be interested in smalltalk when all he wants to do is follow her.
As soon as he can, he sprints upstairs and knocks on her door. He’s still amazed by how readily she welcomes him inside, how she digs her fingers into his hair as she kisses him. They don’t even succeed in taking off her clothes, simply push her skirt up and her underwear to the side. He wonders if she ever forgoes the underwear, wears a skirt with nothing underneath. If maybe next time they’re in a car together and he runs his hand up her thigh he won’t be met with any barriers. He cums embarrassingly fast at the thought.
***
The week continues on like that. It’s much harder to be mad at Simon now that his awkwardness has led him to Kate, to what’s becoming one of the best holidays of his life thanks to her. They’ve texted a bit, sent each other updates from their respective vacations. He suspects the mystery woman has gone to join him in Sardinia and it still annoys him, the way Simon’s being evasive even over text, but it seems like every time his mood is about to turn, whenever he’s in danger of stewing too much there’s Kate in a bikini, Kate following him into the car and sitting on his lap without even questioning it, Kate telling him he’s wrong about something, commanding his attention in her fierce arguing.
When he gets up one morning while Kate is still asleep to take in the view from the window until he spots the old fortress, he looks back to see her, one leg poking out from under the duvet as she sleeps, and feels more content than he has in a long time.
She’s all-encompassing in the best way and when the group plans on going to Florence another time to go to the Uffizi gallery, he says he’ll go to Bologna instead both because going to an art gallery with a bunch of artists seems dangerous and because he hopes she might choose to join him. He’s gratified when she does.
He’s passed through Bologna quite a few times, the train station being one of Italy’s main hubs and he likes it, likes the studenty, alternative vibe and the unpretentiousness of it. It suits her, in her light summer dress and holding a glass of red wine, sunglasses propped up, in the midst of the returning university students drinking spritz and smoking cigarettes. She looks rather beautiful and he makes an effort to save this image to his memory.
Their talk about her impending move to Berlin scratches an old, almost forgotten itch of his dad saying nonsensical things like “Life is no ponyfarm,” and brings forth memories of hours spent memorising German vocabulary. It’s nice to talk about Germany, nice to trod out some knowledge that has become more or less useless in his current life. He hopes she’ll remember him as fondly as he will her.
He should have known she wouldn’t let him get away that easily.
***
She leaves her first permanent mark on him on their drive back to the villa. It’s not a short drive, a good ninety minutes and it gives them lots of time to talk. He’s already learned more about her from their drive there than in all the days before. He feels a kinship with her beyond the sexual one now, after having learned about her parents, the responsibility she feels towards her sister, and he asks her more about her childhood, tells her stories of chaos in the Bridgerton household in return.
It’s nice and he thinks they might have been friends in another reality although he can hardly imagine one where he wouldn’t feel as infernably attracted to her like he does now. Maybe if one of them had been unavailable, in a relationship, but even then it seems impossible to look at her and not want.
It’s that train of thought that leads him to ask about her exes, what could have been a potential barrier if he'd met her earlier. She hums thoughtfully, says there's not much to tell and returns the question which does nothing to quell his curiosity. Anthony gives her a quick rundown of his past affairs mainly so she will tell him about hers. He’s careful in his descriptions, would never talk badly of those women, but doesn’t want to be too complimentary either. The only one he skirts around is Siena, the affair that had led to a short-lived and very much failed relationship.
He’s taken aback by how little jealousy Kate displays, how easily she asks for details when the story interests her. He should be relieved, casual and easy is what he wanted from the start, but it bruises his ego, especially as he already feels much less nonchalant about whatever she’s willing to reveal about herself. He answers her questions carefully and then steers the conversation back to her.
“Nothing as exciting as you, just two pretty standard relationships,” she says lightly. “Friends first then became romantic, that kind of thing.”
It might be standard to her, but it’s foreign to him. “Why did it end?” he asks. He doesn’t know what he expects to hear, what he wants to hear, but to hear her talk about other men is strange.
“Oh with the first guy we were just quite young, became different people who wanted different things, you know? With the other one we just realised we’re better off as friends,” she tells him. “And we’re not as close as we used to, his girlfriend is a bit wary I think, but I still get invites to birthday parties and we hang out sometimes.”
Anthony can't say he blames the girlfriend, can’t picture anyone taking a look at Kate and deciding she poses no threat. He glances over at her, imagines grabbing lunch with her as friends, without wanting to touch her and finds it impossible.
“I can’t imagine that,” he tells her honestly.
“Imagine what?” she asks back.
“Being friends with someone I’ve had sex with.” He’s trying to figure out what about the thought is so strange to him, when he’s the first one to argue that sex doesn’t have to mean anything, that it can be easy fun between two consenting adults and nothing more. And yet, he’s never ended up going for any of his friends, anyone he knew more than in passing really. There’s something intimate about sex, not so much in the act itself, but in what it reveals about a person, their likes and dislikes in the bedroom, that feels out of place in a friendship to him.
He tries to put that thought into words. “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 pauses for a moment before saying, “Oh, there wasn’t much kinky stuff with him. It was all pretty standard. Not very intense, really. I guess that makes it easier.” Her voice is a bit uneven, like she’s nervous to admit that. Anthony understands now why her and the ex in question had been better off as friends. That man must have been truly incapable if sex with Kate had been boring. When just a look from her feels enough to bring him to his knees sometimes.
Anthony’s also, irrationally, pleased. He’s fully aware of his shortcomings, is not fool enough to think he’s better than this guy. But he knows now there’s one area where Anthony is certainly beating him, this guy who had had the pleasure of touching Kate before him. He knows he can be a bit arrogant sometimes, but he is certain that Kate would never call their time together ‘not very intense’.
He tries not to let that thought show on his face, not let her see how smug this is making him feel, so he just hums and stares at the road. “That must have been hard for you,” he says, trying to let her understand that he gets what she’s implicitly telling him.
“What, the break-up?”
The question takes Anthony aback.
“No, the boring sex,” he clarifies, shooting her a questioning look. She’s watching him carefully and he has to force himself to look back at the road.
“I didn’t think of myself as a very sexual person back then,” she explains softly.
His treacherous brain immediately conjures up images of her spread out beneath him, on top of him, in front of him. Of Kate looking at him as she shimmied out of her dress that first day at the pool like she was performing a striptease just for him. How she’d had him on his knees this morning and cradled his jaw, ran her fingers along his lips, before telling him to get on the bed and riding him so slowly, edging him to his orgasm.
He doesn’t mean to, but he chuckles at the absurdity of the thought of her as anything but a seductress, as someone who didn’t ooze easy sexuality. “I can’t even imagine. You’re a walking fantasy,” he says as to make clear he wasn’t laughing at her. He sees her bite her lip from the corner of his eye and, combined with what he had just been thinking about, it’s enough to make him want to stop by the road again.
In the interest of road safety he tries to bring that train of thought to a halt, focusing back on their conversation. Anthony tries to think about her as she must have been before, but it’s so far removed from the image of her he has now, it’s hard to conjure up. He wonders what happened, how she grew into her own, when the change took place.
He’s unexpectedly hit by a wave of jealousy when he realises the most likely explanation is a man, someone who’d shown her how good it can be, how much better than with her incapable ex. Someone who’d taken her to bed and touched her until she made those sounds, that face when she reaches the edge that Anthony has since become intimately familiar with.
He has no right, no reason really, to be jealous, if anything should probably be grateful to that stranger, but he still has to work hard at keeping his voice light before he can ask her.
“What made you realise? Or who, rather, maybe?”
He knows he shouldn’t, knows nothing good can come of this, that he doesn’t really want to hear her talk about someone with fondness in her voice, doesn’t want to hear her describe just how this man made her feel, how attracted she must have been to him. He can’t help himself though and when she doesn’t answer it only makes him more curious, even wilder scenarios flitting through his head. She’s so open with him usually and he fully expected her to give him an easy explanation like she had for her exes, like the ones he had provided of his own affairs, a ‘I met someone at a party and we hit it off and we had a thing for a few weeks’. For her to hesitate can only mean -
“Is it scandalous?” he asks. He tries to sound relaxed, teasing, but he isn’t sure how well he succeeds. He’s gripping the steering wheel a bit more firmly than necessary. “Don’t worry, I won’t judge. But I admit, I am curious.” It’s an understatement. Curious doesn’t even begin to cover it anymore. His ego is dying to know about this man he will never be able to compete with, who will forever have an edge on him for being the first to make Kate what she could be.
Kate stays quiet for a little while longer and his head is starting to spin, trying to think of possible explanations. She’s an artist, maybe she met some millionaire at a gallery she worked at and got flown to a private island. Or maybe some football player wanted to seem cultured and when he went to buy art he found Kate instead. He can just imagine her lounging on a yacht instead of some beat-up Fiat and he suddenly regrets not splurging on a nicer car, he has the money after all and-
She suddenly puts her hand on his thigh, letting it drop low until her fingers are dancing along his inseam. His breath hitches.
“It’s never been this good,” she says quietly and he can hear the blood roar in his ears. “I think I realised quite a lot about myself with you.”
***
The words play on repeat in his head for the rest of the drive. It’s never been this good . It’s never been this good . He’s been told he’s good in bed before, has even had the word ‘best’ thrown at him once or twice, but never has it affected him like this. It’s completely different to hear that the easy sexuality she oozes is somehow, miraculously, incredibly, partially because of him. And if he thinks about it, maybe she has been steadily growing surer in her movements around him since those first few times, but even those times she had seemed otherworldly to him, like a goddess come to save him from his troubles.
It might be self-centred, it might be arrogant, but the thought that she hasn’t been like this with anyone else makes him feel like he’s worth something. He’s one of eight children, and he might be the eldest but he rarely feels special beyond the obligations the position holds.
He has his hand on her thigh whenever the drive permits, has to, to reassure himself she’s real, that he’s not finally lost it and she’s some sort of fever dream.
When they get home to the empty villa, he’s frantic, practically pulls her out of the car. Her room feels too far away so he leads her to one of the pool’s lounge chairs, grateful that they have the house to themselves, tonight of all nights. There’s a low thrum of arousal cursing through his body, but more than anything he needs to see her, the way she reacts to him, needs to commit every moan, every quiver to memory because they’re his , because by her own admission no one else has ever gotten to see her quite like this.
He doesn’t waste much time, doesn’t have the patience for a grand seduction, just quickly divests her of her clothes while they kiss, the pretty dress mercifully easy to remove, and the he’s kneeling in front of her, pulling her underwear down her long legs and placing them on his shoulders. He’s going to make sure she never forgets him, that, whoever comes after him, they’ll have to measure up to him first.
He keeps his eyes on her as he gets her off the first time, drinking in the sight of her. With the Tuscan hills visible in the moonlight she looks like a painting, her head thrown back, framed by her long dark hair, her mouth open in ecstasy. None of the works in Florence could ever compare to the sight of Kate and for the first time he wishes he was a painter himself, could commit this image to a canvas although he wouldn’t ever share it with the world.
He pushes two fingers inside her, feels her clench around them in her after shocks, but doesn’t back off, lets his tongue run along her cunt, careful to avoid her clit where he knows she’ll be too sensitive for a moment. She pushes herself up and looks at him wide-eyed for a second before letting out a shuddering breath and lets herself fall back, content to let him worship her. He starts fucking her with his fingers, slowly moves his tongue closer and closer to her clit again, until she’s moving her hips along with him, until she buries one hand in his hair and cums again.
This time he helps her slide her legs off his shoulders and stands up so he can brace himself above her, kiss her while she claws at his chest as she tries to unbutton his shirt. He’s almost out of is mind with arousal and when she mutters, “Fuck, that was amazing,” a dam in him seems to break, that last bit of composure that had been hanging by a thread, and he stops hiding his jealousy.
“Kate, what you said, I can’t-” he groans when she succeeds in getting the last button of his shirt undone and lets her hands roam along his chest. “It’s the hottest thing I’ve ever heard. She runs her hand along the waistband of his trousers, opening the button there as well, and he dips his mouth to her neck, nipping at the skin there.
“I want to fucking ruin you for other men,” he confesses against her skin. It’s entirely too much, for a moment he’s sure he’s gone too far, but she just gasps and shoves a hand down his pants. He puts his weight on one arm so he can dig a condom from his trouser pocket, but she just pushes him up until he’s standing, stepping out of his pants and trousers and lets himself be manoeuvred to the outdoor couch where he watches her wide-eyed as she thinks as she thinks onto her knees and proceeds to give him an absolutely filthy blowjob, before climbing into his lap and sinking onto him.
She doesn’t even need to say, Anthony knows Kate’s paying him back in kind and there’s no question to it, she’s succeeded probably much longer ago than he’d like to admit. And then she starts talking, as if she hadn’t done enough for him already, tells him exactly what he needs to hear.
“It’s so good with you, fuck, whenever I touch myself in Berlin I’ll just remember this,” she says looking right at him. And it’s a heady thought, makes him move involuntarily, clutch at her hips and pull her down hard as he thrusts into her. She just moans, gets back into a rhythm, puts her hand on the back of his neck, lets her nails rake along it as she proceeds to describe in devastating detail how she’s going to touch herself and it’s only because his desperate need to cum that he manages to hold on as long as he does.
He wants every sound she makes, every time she digs her fingers into his muscles, tattooed into his skin, to permanently have proof that he has done something, has somehow been a catalyst in bringing the power she held come to life. And he tries to convince himself this knowledge is enough, but when it’s time to leave her, to let her wield her power, he can’t. He’s too greedy, too drunk on it, so he tethers himself to her and he knows now it might have been his downfall, that last night when he asked if he could come visit her in Berlin.