AMBER SQUEEZED HER headphones a little tighter against her head, trying to block out the noise from the blades of the helicopter.
‘It’s so... Loud doesn’t seem the right word. I can feel the noise,’ she shouted.
‘Amazing, isn’t it?’ Mauro replied over the headsets. ‘I love that feeling.’
He had always got a hit of adrenaline from the way that it overwhelmed all his senses—what you could hear was the least of it. His belly vibrated with it. He could practically taste it. And tonight there seemed to be something extra, some new vibration in the air that he hadn’t felt before. He glanced across at Amber, who had her hands pressed over her earphones as she looked out of the window.
Not that there was much to see at the moment. The sun had set an hour ago, and the airfield offered little more than runway lights and the windows of the control tower by way of visual interest. All of that would change when they were up in the air, he hoped. He’d been waiting to see Stromboli erupt for nearly a year—during its last great show he’d been on the other side of the world and missed it.
There wasn’t room in the cabin for a camera crew, so one of the sports cameras had been rigged up in one corner, so unobtrusive he kept forgetting it was even there. After that interview, he suspected there was a fair bit to say. And they were running out of time. Amber would be flying back to London first thing tomorrow. He felt a dip in his stomach as the helicopter lifted off the ground, and Amber reached for his hand in her excitement.
‘Ugh, do you ever get used to that?’
‘To what?’
‘Hovering,’ she shouted, ‘just above the Earth like that. It feels weird.’
‘Weirder than the enormous jet that we flew out here on?’ He laughed at her excitement; her smile was infectious.
‘Of course! On the plane you can barely see outside. It’s basically a tube carriage with wings and—if you’re lucky and fight for the window seat—a marginally better view. This is...this is really flying.’
‘Maybe I have got a little too used to it.’
When had that happened? he wondered. The last time he’d flown, he was sure that he had had that same tremor of excitement that he’d always felt, but tonight, he’d been distracted. It was Amber. She was the reason, he realised. He’d been more interested in her than the sensations of flying. More interested in the light in her eyes when they’d taken off, the little gasp of breath that she’d given when the skids had left the ground and they’d held just above the Earth, weightless.
Normally he was so excited, waiting for that moment when the aircraft tilted slightly, and the world tipped on its axis, before they were away. For a man who had to exert an enormous amount of energy just getting himself from his bed to his chair in the morning, the freedom he felt in a helicopter was unrivalled. The only thing that came even close was being in the pool. He had already had some flying lessons, with a gadget that adapted the controls for him to operate with his hands. Next year would be the year that he got his licence, he decided. He’d base himself in London for a few months, where he’d taken his first lessons, and get the hours that he needed clocked up.
And maybe see Amber while he was there.
Where had that thought come from? When they were on Etna she’d been as insistent as ever that their kiss had been a mistake, an aberration, and mustn’t be repeated. But there had been something in her expression when they had given that interview to Julia that made him think she was having second thoughts. It was what he had been hoping for: that she could see that she could trust him. That he was nothing like her ex. But now he had an inkling that it might have worked, that she might be considering this thing between them after all, his heart started to race.
The pilot’s voice broke into the headset, and Mauro snapped back to the present.
‘We’re just approaching the south side of Stromboli now,’ he told them both. ‘As you can see, she’s pretty lively tonight.’
Rivers of lava were spitting out of the mountain and flowing down the side of the rock, tracks of light and colour in a black night. But they held Mauro’s attention for only a few moments. Amber’s gaze was fixed out of the helicopter’s window, the light of the volcano reflected in her eyes and a look of wonder on her features.
‘It’s spectacular,’ she whispered.
‘Beautiful,’ Mauro agreed. But he was far more interested in watching Amber, the way that she pressed her hand against the glass as if she wanted to get closer, to be part of the sky itself.
As the helicopter turned, Amber turned too, to look out of the other side, and her body pressed up against his arm in the close confines of the cabin. The heat from her skin nearly burned him, as if he had been plunged into one of those rivers of fire.
The experience was all her.
He had been anticipating this experience for months, since long before he had met Amber, but he knew with unbridled certainty now that it would not have been complete without her. Nothing could compare to the experience of seeing this vision with her by his side. An emptiness opened up in his chest, and he wondered how many other experiences had been lacking for want of her company. He thought that he had travelled the planet to see its most incredible sights. He had kept moving, constantly looking for the next big adventure, always wanting to better the last. Would they all have had this extra sparkle, the extra intensity? There was something about tonight that didn’t feel real. It recalled those days after his accident, when the doctors had thrown every drug they could at him to help control the nerve pain.
He’d never dabbled with drugs recreationally, and now he knew why. Because once you had something that heightened every sensation, made every colour brighter, every emotion more intense, it was hard to know how you came back from that. How you could go back to the life you led before. Next time he saw a volcano erupt, or a glacier slide into arctic waters, or jumped an epic wave on his jet ski, would the experience be dulled by the lack of Amber to share it with?
Sweat broke out on his forehead as panic started to set in. He had tried having a relationship before, and he had failed. His life didn’t work with anyone else in it.
A huge plume of fire shot from the island, and Amber grabbed for his hand, squeezing it tight. And just like that, the pounding of his heart stopped, his chest relaxed, and he let out the breath that he was holding. He didn’t have all the answers, and it didn’t matter. Because if she was willing to give this a go, they would work it out together.
He would make it work: for her. He would compromise: for her. He would find time and space in his life. For her. It was all for her. She was the woman who made his world bright, his heart beat stronger, his laugh come louder. He knew, deep in his gut, that he wouldn’t have shared this experience with anyone else.
Amber looked him in the eye.
‘Are you OK?’ she asked.
He had to convince her to give him a shot. She was scared, and she had every right to be after what she had been through, but he couldn’t give up on them yet. His eyes dropped to their clasped hands and he smiled. ‘Better than OK,’ he said. ‘I’m great.’
She opened her mouth to speak, but then glanced over at their pilot.
‘Giorgio, can you give us some privacy?’ Mauro asked him. The man flicked a switch on his headset and gave them a thumbs up.
‘I was just going to say—’ she started to speak and he dropped his gaze to watch her slide her fingers sensuously between his ‘—that this is just about the most incredible thing I’ve ever seen.’
The husky tone of her voice and the sight of her hand in his hit him straight in the gut. If this woman was the one, life could definitely be a lot worse.
Shutting out his worries with the closing of his eyes, he leaned towards her. Their last kiss had been gentle, hesitant. This was one fired by the lava spewing beneath them. He grabbed a handful of her hair, pulling her closer as his lips moved towards hers, heat and passion flowing through his body.
She drew in a sharp breath, and for a second he froze, scared beyond measure that she was about to push him away, but then her body went supple and relaxed beside him as she pulled him across to her, and he heard a low moan of desire in his headset. Her lips parted, and her hand moved to slide sensuously up his thigh—he dropped his eyes to watch, and the sight of that seductive caress sent a shiver up his spine. But it wasn’t enough. He moved her hand from the dead zone on his thigh to a spot where he could feel the warmth of her fingers, and then he closed the distance between them and took her lips in a searing kiss.
Her hands were in his hair, they were dancing across his shoulders, teasing at the hem of his shirt and pulling at the buttons. Her mouth was on his, demanding and passionate, testing the limits of his patience and his control. And her moans and breaths were in his ears, magnified by the headset so they could be heard even over the thrumming hum of the helicopter blades.
He cursed the safety harnesses that pinned them to their seats, wishing that he could snap her buckle open and drag her into his lap. With her straddling him, there was no telling what they could get up to. But as the helicopter swooped around reality hit him and he remembered where they were, and that they weren’t alone. Thank God he’d thought to tell Giorgio to turn his headset off.
With a strength of mind he hadn’t known he possessed, he pulled away from her. She wouldn’t meet his eye as they both caught their breath, so he snuck a sweet kiss high on her cheekbone, bringing a smile to her lips.
‘To be continued,’ he said with a grin, before tapping their pilot on the shoulder. ‘Ready to head back to base, amico.’
Once they were back on the ground, Giorgio gave him a hand getting back into his chair. ‘Thanks for letting me borrow the heli,’ Giorgio said in English as Mauro stretched his arm to shake hands.
‘Any time. Thanks for the ride.’
* * *
‘Wait,’ Amber said as Mauro’s driver took them down dark Sicilian lanes. ‘You let him borrow it? The helicopter’s yours? You know I forget sometimes that you’re the guy who can casually go out and buy a helicopter. Can you fly it?’
‘Yes and no,’ he replied, though his fingers were caressing her knee, and every so often wandering further afield. But she couldn’t let this rest. People she knew just didn’t have helicopters. She couldn’t even afford a car. ‘I’m working towards my licence. I just need to log some more hours.’
She didn’t ask how he flew, given that she’d already seen him driving a specially adapted Range Rover. You could adapt pretty much anything, she guessed, if you had enough money and motivation. She closed her eyes and leaned back against him, her whole body focussed now on those fingertips tracing circles on the sensitive skin at the backs of her knees, and the soft skin of her thighs. Something had happened while they were in the air. She couldn’t put her finger on what, but the way Mauro had looked at her—equal parts passion and fear—made her nervous.
She opened a bottle of Prosecco when they got back to the villa and carried it outside with a couple of glasses. Mauro was waiting for her on a lounger by the pool. She sat beside him, her elbows propped on her knees and her arms tight in against her body. It was ridiculous, really, to feel shy after what they had just shared. He reached for her hand and threaded his fingers through hers. She wasn’t sure what she had been expecting of him, but, after their passionate kiss in the helicopter, it hadn’t been this quiet contemplation.
‘That was pretty incredible,’ he said simply.
Was he referring to the helicopter? The volcano? Or the kiss? It was the ‘but’ in his voice that gave it away. He was definitely talking about the kiss. Oh, God, were they going to be sensible and reason their way out of this—again? She had been so carried away by the fireworks and the helicopter and the kiss, all their concerns hadn’t seemed to matter any more. And once they’d landed, she’d expected them to flood right back in, but it seemed they’d left them up there. All that had landed was her and Mauro, two people who liked each other, who both seemed pretty keen to see where that might go.
‘Mauro, I don’t—’
‘But,’ he went on, ‘I think we should give ourselves some time to think about what we want.’ He reached for her hands, and held them tight in his own.
‘You know how I feel about you. I think you’re incredible. You’re talented and you’re kind, and you’re beautiful. And, God, this new confidence you’ve found from somewhere is so sexy it’s nearly killing me. I want to find a way for us to make this work. But you’ve been telling me all week that you don’t want to get hurt again, and I think it’s the right thing to do to think about this properly.’
She wanted him—so much. She wanted to drag him into the villa, into bed, and show him just how much. She reached for him again, but he wheeled back a fraction, just far enough that he could reach up and frame her face with his hands. ‘You know, I’m really hoping that I’m not going to regret this. But I need you to think about this, to be sure. Because if you come to me, Amber, and tell me you want me, I’m not sure I’m ever going to let you go.’
‘So what do we do now?’ she asked, her body burning in frustration as it realised it wasn’t going to get what she wanted tonight. But she could wait a few weeks, if that was what Mauro needed.
‘Well, I don’t know about you, but I’m going for the world’s coldest shower.’