Trying Not To Love You - Amabile Giusti Page 0,123

tongue in her mouth, before saying, ‘You really mean it?’

‘Yeah, it’s OK. I just finished my period and . . . I haven’t done it with anyone else but you.’

Marcus continued to hold her hair in his hand like a bunch of severed stems, his breath uneven. ‘You really mean that?’ he repeated. ‘You’re still all mine and mine alone? Fuck, Penny, you’re making me even harder.’

‘I’ve been waiting and waiting for you, my darling poet.’

‘You know I’m no poet, but I am so goddamn crazy about you. For two years and three months now I’ve done nothing but think of your eyes, your lips, your beautiful thighs, every single fucking day.’

‘Then come to me, my love – come.’

He stared at her in silence. Penny misunderstood his hesitation and was disappointed. Marcus was right to be cautious, but she felt like she’d been robbed of a promise.

‘OK . . . so let’s not then . . .’ she whispered.

Even while she was talking, Marcus suddenly took possession of her, moving his body in a delirium of thrusts and moans and kisses. There, on the rainbow carpet, prey to a pleasure that transcended her flesh and clung to her soul and ravaged her mind, Penny cried tears of pure joy, while Marcus came inside her, naked within her nakedness, giving her that part of himself as a pledge of an infinite future together. Her whole body thrummed as she came, almost lifting her from the ground, like a spirit rising to the heavens before landing safely back in his arms.

They remained locked in an embrace in front of the blazing fire, which was beginning to make the room feel toasty – her leaning against his chest while he kissed her brow and her hair, caressing her all over.

‘Am I wrong, or did your boobs grow?’ he asked suddenly.

‘Please, Marcus, you’re far too polite. Could you be a little more direct possibly?’ she protested, laughing. ‘And no, they didn’t grow, I just put on some muscle.’

‘You smashed those logs like a real lumberjack. I’ll do it next time. I need to find work if I’m gonna stay. Are you looking for someone to help you here? I can get up at dawn and break logs, draw water from the well, groom the horses, clean the stables and drag the plough. And I promise you that no matter how tired I am, I will fuck you to tears every night.’

Penny pressed herself into his body. ‘You really want to stay?’

‘You really doubt it? Penny, I want to stay here and help you realise your dream and make love to you until the end of my days. And in the meantime . . .’

‘In the meantime?’

‘In the meantime, I want to give you two things.’

Without giving her time to ask what, Marcus reached for his backpack and pulled out an envelope. He handed it to her and Penny threw him a questioning look. She opened it and all of a sudden was sitting dumbfounded in front of a stack of banknotes. It looked like more than five hundred dollars. She stared at him, perplexed.

‘What the . . . ?’

‘It’s the money you paid me over two years ago for walking you home,’ Marcus explained. ‘The exact same bills, including the last hundred dollars you gave Sherrie.’

‘You never spent it?’

‘Not a single dime. I felt like shit accepting it, but I didn’t want you to know that I’d have done the same job for free. I didn’t want you to know that you were fucking with my head just by breathing. I was messed up, Penny. I was going through hell. I couldn’t understand why you made me feel the way you did. I ended up in prison again and they confiscated my things, but when I got out they gave it all back. It’s yours now and that’s it. You never paid me, baby, never. I did everything I did for you because I wanted to.’

Penny smiled at him and thought back to that time of fear, and lies told out of fear. She whispered a feeble ‘Thank you’, followed by, ‘And there’s something else?’

In silence, Marcus pulled the leather cord with the crocodile ring on it from around his neck. He took it off and held it between his fingers for a moment, then slipped the ring on to Penny’s left ring finger. It fitted perfectly, like it was made for her.

Penny kissed that worthless ring as if it were the most precious jewel in the world.

‘Thank you,’ she said again, stroking his chest.

‘And now we have all the formalities out the way, let’s get back down to us. I have two years and three months to make up for, and I’m a hungry bastard.’

Penny thought about how she also wanted to make up for lost time. And then she thought about how there is no lost time when you learn to know yourself and prepare your heart, body and soul for that one person who will one day come to complete you in every possible way.

She still had so much to ask him, but that could all wait for now.

Then Marcus kissed her again, a kiss as deep as the sky at the bottom of a well, and Penny thought that, yes, her questions could absolutely wait.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Acknowledgments are always the hardest part of any story, because there are so many people whose contribution, however minor, helped that I always worry I’ll forget someone. But they’re also the best part, because I realise how many friends I have around me, how much loving support I’ve received along the way. Writing is a solitary activity, but it’s like a seed: to make it blossom and flourish takes teamwork.

Thanks to Laura Ceccacci, my agent who is always full of ideas and diligence; to Alessandra Tavella of Amazon Publishing, whose kindness is something magical. Doubly magical is the fact that, before I met her, I had already included a character with her less-than-common surname in the plot – Mrs Tavella, in Penny’s apartment block. Clearly it was destiny that brought us together. Further thanks to my editors at Thèsis, whose advice has been invaluable. Thank you also to Patty and Rosy, the first ones to read a story I didn’t think was working, but who encouraged me not to press Delete.

Finally, last but not least, thanks to Penny and Marcus, who appeared in my mind one day, asking me to tell their story.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Amabile Giusti lives in Calabria, Italy. She’s a lawyer but doesn’t feel like one. She has been writing novels since 2009 and is always working out how best to start or finish a story, even when she’s at work. She loves reading Jane Austen novels as well as Japanese mangas, collecting blue china and tending to her collection of cacti – the thornier the better. She hopes to age as slowly as possible, because she wants to live to one hundred but always stay young inside. She’s a great listener but not very chatty, although when she starts writing she just can’t stop.

This is her ninth novel, and the second to be translated into English. She has ideas for many, many more.

ABOUT THE TRANSLATOR

A resident of New York City, Hillary Locke studied Spanish and Italian literature and translates from the Romance languages into English. When she’s not running along the East River or reading in Tomkins Square Park, she likes to travel around the world and listen to beautiful languages she doesn’t understand.