Only You by K.T. Quinn

35

Molly

The Day We Went Out Again

“As amazing as that felt,” Donovan said while pouring sugar into a big mixing bowl, “we shouldn’t risk it again.”

I was sitting on the counter next to him, watching him cook. “I know. We’re already being extra careful by switching to condoms two days before my birth control runs out, but I promise I won’t coerce you with my feminine wiles again.”

He leaned over and kissed me. “Deep down, I wanted to be coerced.”

I giggled and reached into the mixing bowl. Donovan was making cookies, and the raw dough smelled too delicious not to grab a piece of.

“It’s better cooked, you know,” he said.

“Not true!” I replied cheerfully.

Donovan pulled the bowl away and glared at me. “You can get sick from eating raw flour.”

“Don’t care!” I said. “Since I can’t have oranges, I might as well indulge my sweet tooth in other ways.”

“You miss oranges that much, huh?”

I nodded emphatically. “I told you. I normally eat one every day with lunch.”

“I know a lot of orange dessert recipes,” he said casually. “Iced orange cookies. Cinnamon rolls with orange frosting. Sunshine orange pie. It’s like key-lime pie, but with oranges.”

I bounced up and down on the counter. “Stop it! You’re killing me!”

“Just letting you know there are more ways to eat them than just sliced up.”

“I’m a simple girl.” I sighed. “When I get home I’m going to sit down and eat an entire bag in one sitting.”

“Is there such a thing as Vitamin-C poisoning?” Donovan wondered out loud. “If so, I bet that’s how you get it.”

I rolled my eyes. “What do you want to do tonight? We’ve got the fourth Mission Impossible movie next on our DVD list.”

Donovan dumped the cookie dough onto the counter and began flattening it with a rolling pin. “I was thinking of sneaking out and exploring the city some more. It’s been a while since we got caught. I think we’re safe.”

“You sure? There are rumors that the lockdown might be lifted in a few days. Maybe we should wait until then.”

“Fuck that,” he said. “I want to see more of Rome tonight, with you. That’s so much better than seeing it with a bunch of other tourists in the way. Isn’t there some place on your list you really want to see?”

“You just want to get another ancient Roman blowjob, don’t you?”

“I’ll be honest. The thought crossed my mind.”

I pulled out my phone. “Actually, the Oppian Hill is high on my list. It’s in the park right across from the Colosseum. There are a bunch of ruins there, like Nero’s Golden House and Trajan’s Bath.”

“I’m sold,” Donovan said. “We’ll head out after dinner.”

As soon as the sun set, we put on our masks and exited the hotel. It was fun to sneak through the city, hand-in-hand like a couple of outlaws. It was dangerous, but not too dangerous. Especially now that we knew the worst they would do to us was send us back to the hotel.

We took the same route we had the other day, but when we reached the Colosseum plaza we stayed in the alleys and skirted around it. Oppian Hill was across the road, a squat hill that rose above the Colosseum itself. There was a ticket booth and a small barrier at the entrance. We climbed over it and scurried into the park.

The path zigged and zagged up the hill, stopping at various pillars or ruins, but Donovan took me by the hand and led me straight up the hill without stopping. When I asked what he was doing, he put his finger over his lips.

We climbed until we reached the ruins of a little amphitheater at the top. Donovan put his arm around me and turned me around. We were high enough that we could look down on the Colosseum, which was illuminated with exterior lights. The sight took my breath away.

Donovan put his masked mouth next to my ear and whispered, “I wanted to get up high, to see if there are any cops patrolling. The view is just a bonus.”

We held hands while admiring the view of the Colosseum and the rest of the city beyond. We were veiled in darkness here, which allowed us to easily spot the flashlight cones of two police officers down at the base of the hill. They moved slowly, in predictable paths around the grounds. None of them came up into the Oppian Hill park.

“Okay,” Donovan said. “Let’s look at some ruins.”

It turned out that the small amphitheater ruin we were standing next to wasn’t an amphitheater at all: it was the remains of Trajan’s Bath. I held up my phone to the sign so I could read it.

“We don’t want any light…” Donovan warned.

“That’s why I’m using the screen, and not the flashlight,” I replied. “Now shush, I’m trying to read about history.”

“Nerd.”

We wandered through the park, stopping at each ruin area when there was a sign to read. Even though it was night and we couldn’t see the ruins clearly, I devoured everything I read. A column that had been part of Nero’s original house stood alone, a pale pillar clawing at the night sky. Another section of stone blocks was the remains of the emperor’s stables.

After being stuck in my hotel for weeks, I couldn’t get enough.

“Okay, we should probably head back,” Donovan said after ten minutes.

“I want to see what’s on the north side of the park,” I insisted. “There’s another exit there.”

Donovan’s face glowed as he looked at his phone. “But then we’ll need to circle around to the east to get back to the hotel. We haven’t seen what kind of patrols are over there…”

“It’ll be worth it to see what’s on the other side,” I insisted. “Come on. You’re the one who convinced me to sneak out here. Don’t chicken out on me now!”

He wrapped an arm around me and kissed my hair. “You’ve gotten braver in the past ten minutes.”

“I’m enraptured by all this history!” I whispered excitedly.

“Yeah, you’re definitely a nerd.”

“You say it like it’s a bad thing.”

We wound our way along the path to the north side of the park, which then sloped down toward the city. Donovan waited patiently while I read every single information sign along the way. When we finally reached the north exit, I felt a pang of disappointment.

“Okay,” I said. “Now we can go.”

“I wonder if there’s a pharmacy on the way back,” he whispered. “We can break in and grab some condoms.”

I giggled in the darkness. “Minutes ago you were afraid we would get caught, and now you’re casually suggesting we commit burglary?”

“If it means putting my penis inside of you tonight,” he replied, “then yes!”

We hopped the barrier at the north exit and hurried down an alley. “Since you waited patiently while I read all those signs,” I said, “I’ll make it up to you when we get back.”

“You have my attention,” he replied.

“I’m going to slowly take your pants off.”

“Go on.”

“Then I’m going to wrap my fingers around—”

I cut off as a figure stepped into the alley ahead of us, blinding us with light. They shouted something in Italian.

Oh no.

Donovan grabbed my hand and turned us around. But then a flashlight beam hit us from a second person, who was behind us. Blocking our route out of the alley.

“Fuck,” Donovan muttered under his breath.

“American,” the person behind us said in a thick Italian accent. As soon as my eyes adjusted to the blinding light, I saw that it was the same police officer who had caught us by the Colosseum the other night.

Donovan pulled out the bottle of cough syrup and held it up. “Medicine! Medicinale. Si?”

The officer’s bitter laugh was recognizable in any language. “No. Lies. Home, now.”

We complied as the two cops escorted us back to the hotel. Before letting us go inside, one of them snapped our photos with his cell phone.

“Stay,” the officer commanded in his halting English, patting the door to the Residencia Al Gladiatore. He pointed to our photo on his phone. “Leave again? Jail.”

“We understand,” Donovan said. “It won’t happen again.”

The cops watched us go inside. I felt their eyes on us as we walked through the lobby to the elevator.

“I wonder if they’ll barricade us inside,” I said with a nervous laugh. “Like those crazy videos from China. Right?”

Donovan clenched his jaw and stared straight ahead. “That was a mistake.”

“Yeah,” I agreed. “We probably shouldn’t have left…”

“I meant taking a different route home.” He thumbed the elevator button harder than it deserved. “From the top of the hill I knew where every officer was around the Colosseum, but we didn’t know how many were patrolling on the other side. You shouldn’t have insisted on going that way.”

“I’m sorry,” I said as the elevator door opened. “At least we didn’t get thrown in jail.”

He rounded on me. “We will the next time we try to sneak out! We could have explored the city a bunch more times, but now we’re on our final warning. Now we’re stuck in here.” He mashed the button for the third floor. “We should have stuck with the plan.”

His frustration took me by surprise. In our three weeks together, we’d been perfectly happy and content. This was the first time I’d seen him upset about something.

And it stung extra because he was right.

“I’m sorry,” I said in a small voice. “We should have stuck with your plan.”

He nodded and stared at the door.

“Want me to make it up to you?” I slid my arm around him. “What I talked about earlier…”

“Let’s just go to bed,” he said.

Disappointed in how the night had gone, I followed him down the hall to our rooms.