Page 50 of The Road to You
I laugh softly. “Are you trying to reassure me or yourself?”
He gives me a half-smile. “Bit of both.”
I stop in front of the room and tilt my head toward him. “We’ll be fine. We can keep our hands to ourselves.”
But even as I say it, I’m not entirely sure I believe it. The key slips into the old brass lock with a soft click, and we step inside. Then we both go silent.
The room is bathed in warm light from sconces nestled into the rock walls. It’s like walking into a dream, or maybe the heart of the earth itself. The bed stands in the center, cast iron, elegant, and just wide enough to make my thoughts wildly inappropriate. The back wall is the real cave, honey-colored and textured, like the surface of the moon or a piece of Swiss cheese, pocked with small holes and deep indentations. It’s breathtaking. Ancient and intimate all at once.
There are no doors. Instead, curved walls carve out a sitting area, a bathroom, and a bedroom space, each tucked into the natural shape of the cave. The shower is in the middle of the bathroom, made of glass on three sides, with the fourth built right into the rock. Above it, the vaulted ceiling dips low, giving the whole thing a secret, forbidden feel.
Michele lets out a low whistle behind me. “Porca vacca.”
I blink slowly, still staring. “Okay…yeah. We’re definitely not giggly teenagers, but this room is straight out of a sex dream.”
His laugh is quiet and close. Too close. When I turn, he’s just a foot away, his hands in his pockets, his body still and tall in the low cave light. His eyes are darker than usual, deeper somehow, and the flicker of a smirk on his lips doesn’t hide the heat behind them.
“You sure you’re not the one who needs reassurance now?” he says softly.
My breath catches. Because no, I’m not sure of anything in this moment except how aware I am of him. The closeness. The memory of his hand brushing mine on the boat. His thigh pressed against mine at dinner. His scent—sun, and soap, and something inherentlyhim—makes the air feel thicker in my lungs.
I swallow. “We’ll be fine,” I say again. But this time, it comes out breathless.
He lifts a brow, not saying a word, but his eyes drop to my mouth for half a second too long.
I step away, pretending to admire the cave wall, pretending I’m not seconds away from combusting. “So…should we unpack or just strip down and use that fantastic shower?”
Michele laughs again, but there’s an edge that sounds a lot like nervousness. “You first. I’ll just be over here…trying to remember that we’re keeping our hands to ourselves.”
With just those few words, the tension rises again, curling around us like the warm light in the room. It buzzes beneath our itched breaths, coils in the space between our glances, and lingers in every brush of silence.
This place is too beautiful. Too intimate. Too perfect.
And suddenly, I’m not thinking about the heat or the caves or even the day. I’m thinking abouttonight,and the way this room was made for everything we keep trying not to say.
By the timeI step out of the shower, my skin is flushed, and not just from the heat. The water didn’t help. If anything, it made everything worse. I spent way too long thinking about Michele’s hands, the flex of his muscles, the way his voice drops when he teases me, the way he kissed my cheek last night like he wanted more but was holding back.
Now, wrapped in nothing but the hotel’s impossibly soft white robe, I feel the fabric cling to the damp curves of my body. It’s a poor excuse for armor against the storm brewing inside me.
I pad barefoot into the bedroom and then stop in my tracks. He’s on the bed. Sprawled across the mattress like he owns the whole damn thing. His legs hang off the edge, his arms are stretched above his head, and he’s wearing only a pair of black boxers. The rest of him is glorious. Sun-kissed skin, sculpted abs, that line of muscle that dips beneath his waistband in a perfect V.
He looks like sin in human form. And he’s staring at the ceiling like he’s tryingreallyhard not to look at the bathroom. Or maybe he’s trying to talk himself out of something.
But then hedoeslook at me
And I see it—all of it—in his eyes. The hunger, the heat, the wild, burningwant. His gaze drags over me like a touch, dark and slow, and I feel the throb between my legs pulse harder.
I don’t think. I don’t speak. I justmove.
“Fuck it,” I whisper.
He sits up slightly, like he thinks I might say something else, but I don’t. I cross the room in a few long strides, my robe parting just enough to make him swallow hard. His eyes staylocked on mine until I’m climbing onto the bed and straddling his hips.
He opens his mouth—maybe to speak, maybe to stop me—but I kiss him before he can say anything.
And God, thewayhe kisses me back. It’s all fire and tension and the crash of something we’ve been holding back for far too long.
The world disappears. The cave, the bed, the quiet buzz of life beyond the thick stone walls. They all fall away. There’s only us. The sound of breath, of skin, of his voice as he groans softly into my mouth when my hands rake through his hair.
