CHAPTER 1
Stella
Every muscle in his arms and upper body tightens and flexes as he drives the shovel into the dirt.
The corny coffee mug with the slogan on the front that reads, “Don’t expect perfection from a geologist. They all have their faults,” falls from my hands as I take in the sight of him getting sweatier and his shirt sticking to his muscles more and more by the second.
The coffee spills off the side of my desk managing to miss my skirt, but it doesn’t matter. It’s already soaked.
Despite the air conditioner, that’s hooked up to our little makeshift trailer at the worksite we’re on, being set to meat locker levels of chill I feel like I’m burning up.
He buries the shovel into the earth again and a bead of perspiration streams down his face landing on his white shirt which is quickly becoming transparent from the sweat on those two tectonic plates that are his chest muscles.
It takes everything I have not to push through the door right now and throw my body against his. Spring is mating season for a reason and my hormones are definitely in overdrive.
But there’s no way I can do that. No way no how. He’s my dad’s best friend and I’m just some undersexed twenty-two year old virgin. Yeah, undersexed as in completely undersexed.
Sergio’s Italian. He came over from Milan to work for my dad seven years ago and he’s all that I’ve ever thought of since. And I’m definitely thinking of him right now.
One of my favorite Italians words is sprezzatura. I picked it up right after he came over and I promptly downloaded every Italian language-learning app to my phone and ordered five hundred dollars worth of Italian learning audio CDs from Amazon. Sprezzatura is a certain nonchalance, so as to conceal all art and make whatever one does or says appear to be without effort and almost without any thought about it.
He definitely has the nonchalance part down, but with him there’s no concealment. It’s truly just who he is. And speaking of concealing, in about five or ten more minutes in this hot sun that shirt is going to be soaked and there’s going to be no concealing those muscles of his any longer.
Muscles that a real man has. The kind that are made through real physical work and not pushing plates in some gym for thirty dollars a month somewhere. The kind of thick, hard muscles that a man gets as he becomes a real man. They say a man’s physical strength peaks at twenty-seven or twenty-eight? He’s five years past that and he hasn’t lost a step.
But it’s not just his muscles. My dad hired him for his mind. The world is his ball of clay and he’s able to mold it and shape it in ways most people couldn’t even imagine. He can make it sing, producing enough natural gas to run entire countries. And he can make it dance, working with architects to build the most elaborate homes in areas that would seem impossible. Architectural Record featured him on the cover twice last year alone. He laid the plans for a hundred million dollar house to be built on the edge of a sloping canyon where no one said it was possible. Then a month later he built an glass bottom soccer stadium in Brazil one hundred feet above the ground, using living trees as the foundation. He’s a true genius and visionary.
And right now I can’t stop from envisioning him taking me any which way he wants, not that I don’t have more than a few ideas myself.
I hear the coffee continuing to drip off the edge of the table, but I can’t be bothered to clean it up right now. My eyes are glued to him.
I still remember the first time I saw him. My dad picked him up from the airport and brought him home to our small town in the middle of nowhere. I was fifteen and just really getting into boys at the time, and then my entire world got flipped upside down. Why consider boys when there are men? Especially when there are men like him. But the longer he lived in our family’s guest room and the more I got to know him the more I knew there weren’t other men like him. He was one-of-a-kind. A gem just like the stones he knows so much about.
When I hit eighteen I begged my dad to let me work for his company, but he insisted that I go away to college to get my education. Four long years away from Sergio. I tried to enjoy myself, but when it’s one in the morning and you’re either studying in the dorms or at some party where you don’t want to be with people acting so immaturely everywhere your mind can’t help but wander and mine always wandered to him.
When boys attempted their weak pick-up lines at two in the morning after they’d downed enough liquid courage to actually start approaching girls I couldn’t help but compare their words to his. He had the best pickup line in history. “Hi, I’m Sergio from Italy. It’s nice to meet you young lady.” Nothing more. Nothing less. Not fancy, but oh so eloquent. No pick-up line, opener, or hello has ever come close. The way he towered over me, but tried to lean down a bit to get on my level as those beautiful eyes of his fixated right on mine. “Where are your manners, Stella?” my dad had asked after I have no idea how much time had elapsed without a response from me. My mouth was definitely open, wide open at that, but the words just wouldn’t come out.
And oh how I’m still thinking of coming out of this trailer right now and jumping his bones. But I’m not even sure if he’s that kind of guy. He certainly has the body for some hot, rugged action, but I’ve never even seen him go out on a date. He’s more involved in his work and charity work that he does. He’s the complete package.
He pulls the shovel from the dirt and bends over scooping up a handful of the dirt he’s just turned over before examining it. He grabs the shovel by the shaft and walks over toward the trailer. He leans the shovel against the trailer and my eyes continue watching him. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out his phone. I watch as his mouth moves in response. Those big, strong lips of his that never seem to chap no matter how much time he spends outside. They’re always just so perfect and so kissable looking. I don’t know how he does it.
I watch as he puts the phone back in his pocket and runs his forearm over his forehead trying to remove the sweat. He moves sideways towards the door and a second later I hear three loud raps against the thin aluminum paneled slab of wood.
The coffee is a complete mess and so am I. I’m sweating all over now and somehow all the wiggling around in my chair has caused my skirt to hike half-way up my waist.
I shoot up out of my chair and try and straighten myself out.
“Just a second,” I say.
I spin about twenty paper towels from the roll and wipe up the mess as quickly as I can before pulling off two more paper towels and dabbing my face.
I take a deep breath in and walk over to the door wondering why he’s come to my trailer. Maybe he’s here to congratulate me on graduating from college. We haven’t seen each other in four long years. And if that’s the case he doesn’t even need to bring a gift because I’m the one who’s got the gift for him. My virginity.