Adeline stood at the bottom of the long, curving steps that led down to the water at the Romano del Mare, a huge camera hanging around her neck. She wore a white, cotton shirt that she’d left unbuttoned with a rose colored string bikini top underneath, and her tan roll-bottom shorts were perfect for showing off her legs. Next to her sat a huge tote stuffed full of all the various items she’d packed for her adventure-promised day.

“What are we doing here?” she asked.

“You said you wanted adventure.” Nicolo laughed from where he sat in the rear seat of a two-seater kayak. “It’s time to have one.” He was dressed in charcoal grey shorts that reached halfway down his muscled thighs, and his button-up, light blue, short sleeve cotton shirt stood open to expose his tan and toned chest.

“But here? I’ve been here,” Adeline complained, not at all convinced that whatever Nicolo had planned would measure up to the fun day of new experiences that he had promised. “And where am I going to put all my stuff?”

“Exactly, bedda! Stuff… it’s just stuff.” He pulled on a string that was attached to the back of the kayak and lifted a wet-bag out of the water. It was designed to keep items dry as the bag floated along behind the kayak. “This one is for you to fill.”

Adeline eyed the bag he held up. It was much, much smaller than her tote.

“It’ll be okay. This is what adventure is. It’s leaving things behind so that you can embrace what’s to come.”

“Mmhmm, is that what you tell yourself every time you board that flying house of yours?”

Nicolo threw back his head with a bark of laughter. “You have me. Guilty. I need to learn from your example and travel light.” He wiggled the empty wet-bag in the air, and his eyes sparkled with mischief.

To her chagrin, Adeline couldn’t stop Nicolo’s infectious laughter and smile from reaching her, and she found herself smiling just as big back at him. She had been wanting adventure, and now was her chance. So what that it didn’t look the way she had imagined it would? After all, having everything you experienced planned out wasn’t an exciting way to have an adventure. She needed to let go and trust.

Leaning over, she snatched the bag from Nicolo and then dumped all of her belongings out of her tote onto the small boat landing. She selected the snack bars, bottled water, sunscreen and an assortment of other small items before piling her change of shoes, clothes and towels back into her tote. At the bottom of it all, she stashed the heavy camera, deciding her cell phone’s camera would have to do. As for her sunglasses, she perched them atop her head.

“I’m ready!” she announced, tossing the wet-bag back into the water. The look that Nicolo gave her was full of adoration and pride, so much so that it made her cheeks heat in a blush. A part of her knew that his affection wasn't deserved, though. She'd lied to him and had manipulated him into doing what she thought was right. The more she got to know him, the more she regretted using him in that way. He meant something to her. He was important to her, and his opinion of her was important to her. If he knew the truth... She pushed the thought out of her head.

Taking hold of Nicolo’s steadying hand, Adeline made her way into the kayak. It swayed precariously to and fro but steadied quickly once she’d sat down.

Nicolo pushed them away from the boat landing with the tip of his paddle, and then they were off, gliding through the gently rippling waters. They both paddled, but Nicolo steered, guiding them out of the Romano del Mare’s small bay.

Rounding the edge of the bay to have open sea on one side and the island on the other, Nicolo kept them within easy swimming distance of land as they made their way down the rocky and cliff-riddled Sicilian coast. The land was arid and jagged but with a beautiful resilience that had withstood salt, storms, and the pounding seas for centuries. It was a testament to strength and endurance, and its startling beauty could be found in the most unexpected places. Adeline marveled that she had never taken the time to see Sicily beyond what was offered to the everyday tourist. She had overlooked so much of Sicily’s beauty.

Forty-five minutes into the trip, Nicolo angled the kayak’s nose toward a sheer rock face.

“What are you doing?” Adeline asked as they neared the sheer wall of granite. The cliff towered above them, taller than the Romano del Mare would if they were to stand at her door.

“Do you trust me?”

“Of course I trust you, but…” Adeline held her breath as the kayak’s tip got closer to the rocks, but then the kayak’s angle changed—and so did Adeline’s whole world. With the side of the kayak practically touching the cliff face, the kayak’s nose now pointed at an opening—a channel with walls as high as the cliff itself. It had not been visible from further away because of how the rocky face of the cliff jutted out and blocked the opening from being seen.

Adeline instinctively pulled her paddle from the waters and held it against the side of the kayak as Nicolo navigated them through the narrow channel of rock. Ten feet in, the channel curved and the tip of the kayak’s bow scraped the wall in front of it, but Nicolo managed to keep them moving forward.

Adeline gasped as the end of the channel came into view and the entire world as she knew it changed yet again. Just like stepping through a door, Adeline found herself in an island bowl of stone and water. The cliffs towered above in every direction, and when she looked at the clear water below, she could just make out an underwater bottom that she guessed to be about ten feet down. It looked to be stone as well.

“How did you find this place?” Adeline asked, her voice full of awe.

“It was actually Leonardo, one of my older brothers. He showed it to me when we were kids. Touch the water, bedda.”

Adeline dipped her fingers into the clear, glass-smooth water as the kayak glided forward. She gasped again. It was as warm as a heated swimming pool.

“It’s all the rock and the shallow bottom. The sun heats it up.”

Adeline was already stripping off her shirt when she eagerly asked, “We’re swimming, right?”

“That’s the plan.” Nicolo laughed.

Adeline shimmied out of her shorts to reveal her string bikini bottom underneath, and then tipped herself, head first, into the water. She dove deep, determined to touch the bottom with the tips of her fingers before shooting back up to the surface for air. She was amazed at how the water got warmer instead of cooler the deeper down she went, as heat radiated off the rock bottom.

Breaching the surface, she splashed Nicolo, then squealed and swam away as he stood up in the kayak and tore his own shirt off. A huge splash followed close behind her as Nicolo cannonballed in, and he had her in his arms just as Adeline was about to reach the bowl’s edge.

Turning to face him, Adeline wrapped her arms and legs around him as he held them aloft with one steadying hand on the cliff’s face. Sinking her fingers into Nicolo’s thick, wet hair, she took charge in a kiss that soon had them both gasping for air.

“I want to make love. Here,” Adeline declared.

Nicolo’s eyes darkened with a smoldering heat that quickened Adeline’s heart and sent tingles through her body. “Take a deep breath, t’amu,” Nicolo instructed. “Take another.” He mimicked her, taking deep breaths as well, then he dove, taking them both down until their bodies separated but they kept one hand linked.

Nicolo led her down, so far down that Adeline feared she would have to break away and go back to the surface for air. But then she saw it. It was a small underwater cavern opening near the bottom of the rock bowl.

Adeline’s heart raced with fear. Underwater caverns were dangerous. People got lost in them and drowned in them, and they weren’t even wearing any scuba gear. Nicolo forged on, though, and this was the adventure she’d requested. So she chose to believe, and followed.

Nicolo’s hand tightened on hers into an unbreakable grip when the light faded to pitch black. The water was instantly colder, but not as cold as the open sea.

Five seconds later, maybe ten, just as true panic had crept its way into her heart, a bending shimmer of light reassured Adeline that the worst had passed. All the while, Nicolo was by her side, swimming and guiding. His strong strokes kept them moving forward faster than she could have done on her own. He moved with confidence and an absence of doubt, and when he angled them upward into the moving, dancing light, she held onto his one hand with both of hers as he torpedoed them up to the surface.

Adeline broke through the water’s surface gasping for air, and she threw her shaking, trembling limbs around Nicolo as he guided them through the water to a rock ledge at the far wall of the small, dark cavern. With an elbow on the ledge and another around her thighs just below her bottom, Nicolo lifted Adeline to sit on the ledge before hoisting himself up as well.

Adeline stared out at the view in front of her. “Where is this place?” she whispered. Even though her voice echoed in the small cavern, she felt as though she were in a cathedral, in a holy place meant for God and angels. Beams of light broke through small cracks in the rock face to create ribbons of light dancing in the water. “I’ve never seen anything so beautiful.”

“I have,” Nicolo said, sliding his arm around her hip, “every day that I look at you. I love you, Adeline. I know that it’s fast, but I will not deny the truth of how my heart feels for you.”

“My grandfather said that he knew he would marry my grandmother within five minutes of meeting her,” Adeline said shyly, kicking herself for bringing up such a subject as marriage.

“If she was anything like you, I understand why.” Sliding a hand behind her neck to cup her head, Nicolo took Adeline in a kiss that curled her toes.

“I love you, too,” she breathed into his mouth.

The rock ledge, just inches above the water, was big enough for one person to lay down—or for two bodies to lay together. That is what Nicolo and Adeline did, and they moved together in their efforts to strip their bathing suits away. Nicolo hung them on the uneven surface of the cavern’s wall before kissing his way down Adeline’s body, then he was off of her and diving into the water.

“Nicolo? Nicolo!” Adeline called at his sudden disappearance, but she needn’t have worried because his head resurfaced inches away from the ledge.

“I’m going to devour you,” he proclaimed as he anchored his arms on the ledge and then took control of Adeline’s hips to swivel her toward him. His large hands guided her to drape her legs over his broad shoulders before he pulled her hips to the very edge of the rock shelf.

She was completely open to him and completely vulnerable, and she loved it. Every minute she spent with him was quickly becoming the best minutes of her life. Everything before was fading away, and every time she thought of her future, he was there.

Curling her fingers into his thick hair, she held on to him as he kissed his way up her thigh to the hot core that already throbbed in anticipation of his touch. When his lips finally closed on her, she gasped and then cried out at the intense, sudden pleasure. Her toes curled and she lifted her legs to balance her feet on his shoulders as he took what he wanted from her. His lips kissed, his teeth nipped and pulled, and his tongue plundered.

It was not long before Adeline’s body was shaking uncontrollably and her breath was coming in whimpered gasps.

“Nicolo… Nicolo, I need you inside of me. All of you! Please. Now!”

It was torture when his mouth left her body, then a surge of water slapped over her as he hoisted himself up onto the ledge next to her. But, this time he did not sit and he did not lay down. He stood to his full height on the narrow ledge, then bent deep. Nicolo slid an arm behind her back and beneath her legs and then lifted her from the rock’s ledge.

Water cascaded off of her, and she melted into Nicolo’s powerful embrace. He turned his back to the cavern and then shifted her, and she instinctively wrapped her legs around his waist. Nicolo’s thickly muscled arms were around her torso, one hand high on her ribs and the other under the curve of her hip. Nicolo’s mouth kissed a trail down her neck and shoulder before lifting her higher so that his mouth could capture her nipple.

Adeline’s fingers lost themselves in Nicolo’s hair once more as he flicked her tightened rosebud with his tongue before pulling it in for a hard, suctioned kiss. The want of having him inside of her coupled with the sensations of his mouth on her breast was almost more than Adeline could stand, and just about when she was ready to cry out that she could take no more, Nicolo’s mouth stopped his torture of her nipple… and moved to her other one. He was a little rougher this time, a little hungrier—in a way that felt good beyond reason to Adeline—and growled his frustration when she pushed his head away.

She pulled his head back by the grip of her hand on the crown of his head. Once his mouth could be reached, she attacked, kissing him with a ferocious need that left all of her sensibilities undone. She adjusted her hold on him as he let her slide down his chest. Then, she felt him reach below her and guide himself. His round head was swollen large, and she moaned into Nicolo’s kiss when he found his way inside of her.

The fight softened between them as a quiet, steady rhythm took its place. Adeline’s swollen nipples throbbed in time with the pulse of growing urgency at the depth of her core. There was something about the position. Something about the way he moved within her. He touched everything just right, and her entire body was trembling again within seconds. It took Nicolo’s strong arms to help her stay in place and the thrust of his talented hips to drive ecstacy into depths never before reached.

“Nicolo,” she whimpered as waves of tingling traveled up her spine.

“I’ve got you, t’amu.”

“It’s too intense.”

“Let go, t’amu. Let it happen.”

“It’s never felt like this.” Her head was dizzy as all the sensations from her core threatened to overwhelm her. With his mouth against her neck, Nicolo’s words lost their English and transformed into lyrical Italian as he drove his thick length into her at a relentless pace that had a spot at her greatest depth spasming out of control. Then, her womb seized and Adeline forgot how to speak as a tidal wave of pleasure overcame everything that she thought she knew about herself. Her body jerked uncontrollably and from somewhere within the all consuming pleasure, Adeline heard Nicolo growl again. His hips quickened their pace and all of his muscles beneath Adeline’s touch became like rigid steel.

“Adeline… Adeline!”

Molten heat flooded her insides as Nicolo shuddered in her arms. A moment later and they were in the water, holding onto each other with a desperation that was new to them. This was different than it had been at the resort, Adeline knew. Even though Nicolo was no longer inside of her, she could feel him as if he were still there and still moving. It made it difficult to think, but she struggled through as she tightened her arms around Nicolo’s shoulders and held on as if her life depended on it.

Don’t fall. Don’t do it. But, it was no use. Her heart was gone, and she leaned her ear against his whispering lips as he continued to espouse her beauty to the heavens above in the language of his homeland.

"I love you." She let her mouth form the words, but she did not give them voice. He might have her heart, but she wasn't ready to let him know that. Not yet. Someday—soon—she hoped, but not yet.