andrea 🖤 @mietlynn - Tumblr Blog

mietlyn´s MASTERLIST

Welcome to my fanfic masterlist!!

I only have uploaded a few one shots here and there but I´m definitely going to write more in the future, thank you for reading! <3

SEVENTEEN

Jeon Wonwoo

Clair de lune

When Léa was leaving her arts building to go home, she hears a beautiful melody coming from the piano room.

PART 1 / PART 2

Vernon

Lowkey

You and Vernon are in a secret relationship and it´s harder than you thought it´d be. Based on the song LOWKEY by NIKI.

Coming soon <3

2 MINUS 1 (Joshua x ofc x Vernon)

Coming soon <3

Joshua

2 MINUS 1 (Joshua x ofc x Vernon)

Coming soon <3

GENSHIN IMPACT

Childe SMAU · hate you, xoxo

click here <3

Genshin characters reacting to you winning at TCG

coming soon <3

Dead Poets Society

Charlie Dalton

Fireworks

You watch the fireworks with Charlie Dalton and he focuses more on you than the view in front of him.

Click here <3

anxietyproblem

frethepotatohunter

where are my headphones I can’t see without my headphones

ladythedrunken

sacred-portal

lap90

hii, i love your writing. Could you write a fic where daniel falls in love with his neighbor who owns a dog even though he’s so scared of them?

All Bark, No Brake - DR3

pairing: daniel ricciardo x fem!neighboor!reader summary: the one where Daniel tries to woo the girl next door while surviving the beast in her backyard. wc: 4.7k 💭 you can ask for a part 2 if you’d like!

note: hello, beautiful! hope your okay and having a good day, here's your request! 💛😽

The sun was a heavy, golden weight on Daniel’s back, but for the first time in fifteen years, he didn’t mind the heat.

This was different heat. This wasn’t the suffocating humidity of Singapore or the tarmac-melting radiatior of Bahrain. This was Western Australia. This was home.

kosmogrl

daughterofcainnnn

rosenkranz-does-things

sorry I couldn't resist

catbayunthestoryteller

Sunswept in Italy

Pairing: Henry Winter x f!reader

a/n: Summer is almost over so a vacation fic!

Your daughter had been seven that summer, brown from the sun, hair wild, always running. Her sandals forgotten in the fig orchard again. You remembered the way she’d lean out the open shutters in the mornings, calling for lizards or asking if she could eat gelato for breakfast. Henry always told her yes, he was an utter traitor about those things.

You'd rented the villa every summer since she was born. The same one, with the lemon trees out front and a tiled kitchen that got too warm by eleven. You remembered Henry buying far too many peaches at the market, cradling them like he was bringing you something illicit and decadent. Remembered your daughter climbing into bed with you in the early hours.

But always, always, there came that week when you and Henry would disappear.

It was quiet the day you told her, that particular summer. She was sprawled in the shade on the stone patio, drawing flowers in a spiral-bound sketchbook with pencils you'd packed from home.

“We’ll be back before you know it,” you said gently, brushing her curls from her forehead. “You’ll get to go to the beach every morning with Francesca. You like Francesca, don’t you?”

Your daughter paused, chewed her pencil. “I do. But you’ll miss the beach.”

You smiled. “We’ll be in another place. A pretty one. Just for a few days.”

She looked toward Henry, who was already folding his dress shirts into a suitcase. “Is it a secret?”

“Not a secret,” he said, lifting his eyes to meet hers. “But a private thing. Just for your mother and me.”

“Why?”

There was no suspicion in her voice, only curiosity. She was that sort of child, open-eyed, even-tempered. You watched Henry cross the room and kneel beside her chair. Always patient with her, always precise.

“Well,” he said, smoothing her shoulder, “because I like being alone with your mother. Don’t you?”

She frowned thoughtfully. “But I’m your daughter.”

He smiled. “Yes. And I’m grateful for that every day. But she’s still my wife.”

Your daughter kicked her foot, not entirely satisfied, but too gentle to protest. “Will you bring me something?”

“I’ll bring you two things,” he said.

“I want something you pick,” she said, pointing at him, then added, “and something she picks.”

He tilted his head toward you. “What will you choose?”

“Something lovely,” you said. “Something only she would like.”

“And I’ll pick something useful,” Henry added solemnly.

Your daughter narrowed her eyes. “Like socks?”

“Better.”

She finally grinned.

When you returned a week later, bronzed, salt-kissed, you found her asleep in the sunroom with an Italian picture book resting on her chest and a stack of sea-polished stones lined up at her feet. You remember how she stirred when you kissed her temple. How she mumbled, You’re back early even though you weren’t.

The gifts waited on her nightstand until morning: a tiny silver hairbrush with her initials engraved, and a gold-painted wooden box shaped like a strawberry that Henry had bartered for in a coastal market. You could hear her delighted gasp echo across the garden when she opened them.

Later, she ran to you on the terrace, holding both objects high. “Did you miss me?”

“Terribly,” you said, catching her in your arms.

Henry joined you at the railing, brushing windblown strands from your face. She didn’t notice when his hand found yours. Didn’t see the way he tilted his head, asking silently if it had been enough, if you were ready to be parents again.

“Yes,” you’d whispered over her head, though he hadn’t said a word aloud.

The first night alone was always the quietest.

You left the villa late in the afternoon, after your daughter’s nap, and by then she’d already kissed you both on the cheek and skipped back to Francesca without much fuss. Henry had packed everything. You always let him. He liked order, liked to fold things with crisp, hotel-like precision. There was something reassuring in it, the way he handled your clothes like they were delicate, precious.

It was a new place that year. A secluded bed-and-breakfast with vines curling around shuttered windows and only the sound of crickets and the occasional train far in the distance. The hostess had smiled as if she knew, offering you a bottle of wine without asking what you preferred.

By the time you were alone in the room, the sun had already dipped low enough to gild the floorboards. The walls were pale blue, uneven with age. The bed was wide and low to the ground, dressed in white linen that whispered when you passed your hand over it.

Henry stood at the window, jacket removed, cufflinks abandoned on the writing desk. His shirtsleeves were rolled to the elbow. You watched him for a moment from where you sat on the edge of the bed, just watching. The back of his neck was warm with sun. His profile calm. He hadn’t spoken since dinner.

"You're quiet," you said.

“I’m thinking.” He glanced at you, faintly smiling. “About how long I’ve waited for this week.”

"You're always thinking," you murmured. "But not always like that."

"No," he said. “Not always.”

He crossed to you, kneeling, never abruptly, never brash, and touched your bare knee where your skirt had ridden up. His fingers ran over your skin lightly, reverently, as if remembering it. You reached out, pushing a curl back from his brow. He leaned into it.

"Do you miss her already?" you asked.

"Of course," he said. "But I miss you more."

You opened your mouth, some reply, some soft deflection, but you didn’t get to speak. His lips were already on yours, warm and certain. And maybe it was the sudden quiet, or the fact that there would be no little footsteps in the hallway tonight, no whispering under the door or tiny fists knocking for water. Maybe it was the way he sighed against your mouth: tired, grateful, relieved.

You let yourself melt into it.

That first time, he was almost too gentle. Like he didn’t want to startle you out of the spell. He touched your body like he was trying to remember the exact places that made you soften, made you arch and sigh and whimper. You’d almost forgotten what it was like to have time. To move slow. To let his mouth wander as long as it pleased.

“You should let me...” he whispered between kisses to your collarbone, to the curve of your breast. “Just tonight, let me take care of everything.”

You nodded, your hand curling around his shoulder. And he did.

Later, you lay tangled in the cool sheets, the open window lifting the curtains gently in the dark. He had you tucked against him, one arm curled under your back, one hand stroking your hip.

You murmured, “Was it worth it?”

He tilted his head to look at you. “What?”

“Leaving her for a week.”

His eyes moved over your face. Then he bent, kissed the tip of your nose, and murmured, “It was necessary.”

You laughed softly. “Is that the official verdict?”

“Completely clinical,” he said. “No sentiment involved.”

You kissed him then, lazy and warm, still sleepy and sated and full of that unhurried affection that only came in silence. Only came when no one needed anything. When you weren’t mother or wife or hostess, just the girl Henry fell in love with, the girl he’d never stopped wanting.

You whispered, “One more time?”

And he whispered back, “As many times as you’ll let me.”

The next morning, he made coffee the way you liked it while you sat on the wide stone windowsill, your knees pulled up under his shirt. Your legs were bare. He couldn't stop looking at them.

"Drink," he said, placing the porcelain cup into your hands.

You smiled, took a sip, and hummed. "Perfect."

Henry leaned against the kitchen counter, arms folded, watching you with that inscrutable look he wore when he was already somewhere else in his mind. Somewhere quiet, internal. He did that often. But you knew the signs. This wasn’t a philosophical fugue or some classical Latin line stuck on repeat, this was anticipation.

"You're thinking of something," you said, narrowing your eyes over the rim of your cup.

He raised a brow. "Am I?"

"Yes. And it’s not something I’m supposed to guess, or you would’ve said it already."

He didn’t answer. Just walked over to you, slow, deliberate, and took the cup from your hands.

You blinked up at him as he set it aside, then knelt in front of you. Gently, he tugged your legs open around him and leaned in, hands cradling your thighs.

"Let’s not get dressed today," he murmured. "You look far too content to bother."

You blushed. Not because you were shy anymore, he’d touched and taken and held every part of you in every state, but because there was something about the way he said it. Almost prayerful.

"And if we want lunch?" you asked, tilting your head.

"I’ll bring it to you."

"And dinner?"

He kissed the inside of your knee. "You’ll be far too tired for dinner by then."

You let out a sound between a laugh and a sigh, looping your arms around his neck. His mouth was already moving higher, already coaxing your breath to catch.

That day passed like a dream, slow and syrupy, blurred at the edges. Henry didn’t let you leave the bedroom until dusk. You half-heartedly protested, but the moment his hands found your hips again and guided you back to the bed, you sank.

He worshipped you in fragments. A brush of your ankle with his thumb. The slow path of his mouth down your stomach. The soft murmur of yes, that’s it, darling, just like that as you gasped and trembled and reached for him again and again.

Later, your body sore and warm and wholly satisfied, you lay sprawled across the pillows. The sun had dipped low and painted the walls amber. Henry was beside you, propped up on one elbow, hair tousled.

"You think we’ll always need this?" you asked.

"This?"

"Time. Away. To feel like this again."

He didn’t answer right away. Just studied your face like he was memorizing it.

"Not need," he said finally. "But I’ll always want it. Just you. Just us."

You nodded. And curled closer. And somewhere in the hush between kisses, you fell asleep again.

That night, he didn’t wake you. He lay awake instead, one hand on your back, tracing soft circles there. Listening to your breathing. Thinking about how lucky he was that you had wanted him at all. That you still did.

In the morning, he’d make breakfast.

And in the afternoon, you'd want to go out. Market, perhaps.

The market smelled like tomatoes and lavender and old stone warmed by the sun. You practically skipped, paper bag full of little trinkets and linen serviettes cradled against your chest, your other hand clutching Henry’s. You were speaking in swift, musical Italian, fluent now, after all those summers. The old women smiled at you, indulgent. The vendors gave you extra fruit. Henry followed in your wake with that small, proud smile of his, pretending not to be charmed by how quickly you slipped into the rhythm of the place.

When you stopped to admire a stack of hand-painted ceramics, he leaned down to murmur, “We don’t have room in the suitcase for a dinner set.”

You turned to him, eyes gleaming. “Then we’ll buy another suitcase.”

He laughed, warm and low. “Of course we will.”

Later, you settled into a small ristorante on the edge of the piazza. Dappled shade from the vines above. Cicadas. The clink of glasses. You had your sunglasses perched on your nose, sipping wine, cheeks pink from the sun and the giddy high of being somewhere beautiful with him.

“I’ll be right back,” Henry said, brushing his fingers along your shoulder before disappearing toward the restrooms.

You were thinking how you'd have to remind your daughter to wear sunscreen later when you'd call her and a note to yourself about a shop you wanted to revisit, when the shadow fell over your table.

You looked up. A tall man, tan, expensively dressed in that breezy, casual way that still screamed wealth. Designer sunglasses, golden watch glinting on his wrist. He smiled at you.

“Excuse me,” you said automatically in Italian. “This table is taken.”

“I saw you were alone,” he said, switching to English. American, maybe. “Didn’t want you to be lonely.”

“I’m not,” you said, polite but firm. “I’m married. My husband just stepped away.”

He waved it off like that was charming trivia and not a full stop.

“I’ll be quick. Just wanted to ask, are you local? You speak beautifully.”

You gave a tight smile. “No. Just been coming here a long time.”

“That so?” He leaned forward. “It shows. You’ve got that look. Like you belong here.”

You didn’t respond. He didn’t take the hint.

“I’m staying just up the coast. Rented a place for the summer. Gets a bit dull, to be honest. Been hoping to find good company.”

“I’m sure you’ll manage,” you said coolly.

He took your silence as invitation. He was handsome, you supposed. Not threatening. But arrogant in that grating, too-rich-to-hear-no sort of way. And more than that - presumptuous. What kind of man sat down after a woman told him she was waiting for her husband?

“Let me at least buy your wine.”

You opened your mouth to reply, but the man’s gaze lifted suddenly. A slight twitch of discomfort flickered across his face.

You didn’t need to turn. You already knew.

Henry’s shadow stretched long beside the table, cast by the sinking sun. You looked up. He was standing perfectly still, just behind the man’s chair, one hand in the pocket of his trousers. The other held his sunglasses.

“I believe my wife was saving that seat for me,” he said, voice quiet but never enough not to be heard, very clipped.

The man stood up quickly. “Didn’t mean to intrude.”

Henry didn’t move. His expression didn’t shift. But something in his still gaze, his height, the pale, sharp disposition of him, made the moment feel colder than it should’ve been.

The man looked at you. You gave him a smile that was almost pitying.

“I did say he’d be back in a minute.”

He muttered something under his breath and walked off toward the main square.

Henry sat down across from you, setting his sunglasses on the table.

You watched him, biting back a grin. “He offered to buy me wine.”

“I saw,” Henry said mildly, as if discussing the weather.

“Also said I belonged here.”

“You do.”

You rested your chin on your hand. “You’re not going to say anything mean about him?”

“No,” Henry said, reaching for his glass. “I’m just going to enjoy the rest of this lovely afternoon with my wife, who, despite the circumstances, was kind enough not to cause a scene.”

You laughed, finally, full and bright.

He looked at you over the rim of his wineglass. “Though I do hope you tell me if he follows us again.”

“You’d do something?”

“Oh, absolutely,” Henry said. “But discreetly. I’d never embarrass you in public.”

You leaned over the table and kissed him, slow and smug. “That’s very romantic.”

He smiled. “If you say so.”

And then you waved the waiter over and ordered pasta for both of you, like nothing had happened. Like the world hadn’t momentarily tilted under the weight of how absolutely, irreversibly yours he was.

You were lying on your back on the cool hotel sheets, the open shutters letting in the breeze and the hum of the evening outside, bells in the distance, the occasional motorbike, the clink of glasses on balconies. The sunset had turned everything gold.

You groaned softly, hand pressed to your stomach. “I shouldn’t have eaten that second helping of pasta.”

Henry looked over from the small desk where he was sorting through postcards. He raised an eyebrow. “You didn’t eat a second helping. You finished mine.”

You huffed. “Because you said you weren’t hungry.”

“I wasn’t,” he said, standing. “You still devoured it like a starved little saint.”

You turned your head toward him. “Well, now I’m paying for it. My stomach is bulging.”

He crossed the room in easy strides and knelt beside the bed, tugging back the sheet to expose your midsection.

You tried to cover yourself with a pillow. “Don’t look!”

“Darling,” he said, utterly unfazed, “I’ve seen your stomach after Christmas dinner. This is nothing.”

“It's puffed out like I'm six months along,” you mumbled dramatically. “I look like I swallowed a watermelon.”

Henry leaned over and pressed a kiss just above your navel. “Nonsense. You look divine.”

“I’m serious.”

“I am too.” He nudged your hand away, palms smoothing over your sides. “Soft and warm and completely mine. Why would I ever complain about this?”

You squinted at him. “You’re only saying that because you’re secretly pleased. I remember what you said last time I was bloated.”

“I said,” he murmured, trailing kisses lower, “that I liked how full you looked.”

You snorted. “You said I looked like I’d been claimed.”

He looked up at you with a crooked smile. “Exactly.”

You groaned and tossed a pillow at his head. “You’re impossible.”

He caught it and set it aside. “And you’re beautiful. Even, or perhaps especially, when stuffed to the brim with pasta and wine and smugness.”

You swatted at him half-heartedly. He crawled into bed beside you, pulling you against him with a content sigh, hand resting over your belly like it was something precious.

You whispered, “You’re really not disgusted?”

He kissed your temple. “Perish that ridiculous thought.”

You rolled your eyes, but your smile gave you away. “I might need gelato in an hour.”

“I’ll carry you to it.”

“You just want to see me bloated again.”

“I live for it", he said solemnly.

You buried your face in his chest, laughing.

You’d meant only to walk.

A morning stroll through the nearby village, nothing more ambitious than that. But the sun caught you both in a good mood, your hair braided down your back, Henry in his white linen shirt and dark sunglasses, and you wandered farther than intended, past olive groves and weatherworn signs until the narrow cobbled road gave way to sloped gravel.

“We’re lost,” you announced, not unhappily, as your sandals kicked up dust.

“We are not,” Henry said, although he looked around with mild displeasure.

“Do admit we’re a little bit lost. I think we passed that orange tree twice.”

“I think you simply believe all trees look the same.”

You swatted his arm, grinning. “All right, Signor Cartographer. Where to next?”

He didn’t answer. He was staring off toward the bend in the hill. Then he took your hand without comment and led you up the incline, thumb brushing your knuckles as you went.

The slope curved again, then flattened into a sun-drenched clearing. A faded wooden sign leaned against a stone wall: Mercato Locale – oggi fino alle tre.

“A market?” you asked.

“Seems so.”

You squeezed his hand. “See? This is why we get lost. It’s fate. This is our ‘quaint local experience’ moment.”

The small cluster of tents and stalls beyond the archway was clearly not built for tourists. Children chased a dog through the shade, and old women haggled in dialect far quicker than your Italian lessons ever prepared you for. The scent of grilled vegetables and salty air hung thick in the breeze.

Henry looked at you with the barest trace of amusement. “You’re going to buy something unnecessary, aren’t you?”

“I’m going to buy something perfect,” you corrected, already pulling him along.

You ended up with a ceramic olive dish shaped like a fish (“Henry, look at its face - look at it!”), two bottles of local wine, and an embroidered tablecloth you absolutely did not need.

Henry bartered politely for a vintage pocket watch - “Because it reminds me of my mother's father’s,” he said, though he refused to elaborate, and then you shared a cone of gelato beneath the olive trees. He wiped your lip with his thumb after a drip of honey-lemon ran down it.

On the way back, you sat beside him on the bus that cut across the hills, pressed shoulder to shoulder in the warmth. You rested your head against his arm, feeling pleasantly dazed.

“That was one of the best days of my life,” you murmured.

“You say that every time we accidentally go somewhere,” he replied, brushing your cheek with the back of his fingers.

“I mean it.”

He didn’t answer. He kissed the top of your head instead.

That night, over the simple dinner you cooked together, grilled vegetables from the market, fresh bread, olive oil poured into a dish you didn’t need, Henry watched you light candles as the sun sank behind the hills.

“Thank you,” he said quietly.

“For what?”

“For still being someone who gets excited about a lopsided fish dish.”

You smiled, fingers grazing the tablecloth.

“I think we’re very lucky,” you said. “To have had this week.”

He reached for your hand across the table and gave it a light squeeze.

“You’re right,” he said. “But we made the luck. All the rest is just geography.”

You wandered into town again.

Not for sightseeing or dinner or any cultural pursuit. Just to walk. The villa had started to feel like a dream you’d stayed in too long, silken and drowsy, the way skin starts to feel after too much sun and sex and slow wine-drunk mornings. You loved it. But your legs were itching. You needed something else.

Henry humored you.

He always did when you got like this - restless without knowing why. He drove with one hand on the wheel, the other resting loosely on your thigh. You hummed along to the radio. Italian pop songs. Nonsense, but catchy.

You ended up in a town too small for tourists. A main street that had one café, a church, and a dress shop where the owner greeted you in a heavy dialect that made even you pause before replying.

You dragged Henry inside.

She showed you a rail of silk dresses, mostly handmade, simple but lovely. You picked out one in a faded cornflower blue and disappeared behind the curtain.

Henry sat obediently on the bench just outside, pretending to be deeply interested in an architecture book on the shop’s small display table. In reality, he was watching the hem of the curtain shift with your movement. You slipped out a minute later and twirled once.

He stared.

“Well?”

“It’s pretty,” he said, “but you look far too innocent in it.”

You blinked. “What does that mean?”

“It means I know what you look like when you’re flushed and naked and whispering my name, and now you look like a Sunday-school girl. It’s confusing. I don’t like being confused.”

You grinned.

“Buy it,” he muttered.

“Really?”

“I’ll make you wear it in the mornings when I’m too tired to touch you but still want to stare.”

You snorted, turned, and went to change back, cheeks warm.

The old shopkeeper winked as she wrapped the dress. “Marito?”

You grinned and nodded.

He paid in cash. Always in cash in these places. No paper trail, no disruptions. Just the old rhythm of exchanged pleasantries and polite refusals for a bag.

You walked back hand in hand. The air was beginning to cool. A few lights flickered on in the houses above the shops, and the distant clang of bells marked the hour.

“You’re quiet,” Henry said.

“I feel like we’re playing house,” you admitted.

“We are.”

“No. I mean…more than usual. Like it’s some secret life.”

He glanced at you sidelong. “Isn’t it?”

You smiled. “Then let’s keep it.”

He paused. Tugged you close. Kissed your hair once, lightly.

“We will.”

You wore the dress next morning, as asked. You made it exactly halfway through your espresso. The ceramic cup was still warm in your hands, fingers curled lazily around it, your legs stretched out beneath the table on the shaded terrace of the villa. The sky was pearl-grey, still waking up, and the cicadas hadn't yet begun their chorus. You’d just taken your first bite of buttered toast when Henry rose from his chair and crouched beside you instead, hands sliding up your bare calf, then higher still, brushing the hem of the new dress.

You lowered the cup slowly. “I thought you said you’d be too tired to touch.”

“I was,” he said, thumb trailing along the inside of your thigh. “Then you came out in this.”

You raised a brow. “We bought it so I could wear it. Not to torment you.”

“Same thing.” His hand disappeared beneath the fabric, pushing it up in lazy increments. “You know what you look like in this? Like I dreamed you up.”

You snorted softly. “You’ve dreamed up shorter skirts than this.”

“Yes. But none of them sit across from me at breakfast acting like nothing’s happening while I’m on my knees for them.” He kissed your knee, then the space just above it. His hair brushed your skin. “It’s the combination. The civility of it. Morning light and jam and your lip print on the rim of that cup.”

He wasn’t even really doing anything yet. Just kissing the inside of your thighs. Just talking.

“You’re awful,” you murmured.

He smiled against your skin. “And you’re still here. Which means you want me like this.”

You sighed, carefully placing the cup down on the table.

“And if I spill the coffee on us both while you’re under the table?”

“I’ll lick it off.”

You covered your face with both hands.

He chuckled, then moved the chair out of the way entirely and urged your legs apart. The dress bunched around your hips. He kept you right there, half-covered and flushed, the scent of espresso and heat rising around you.

He was wrong, actually, he wasn’t too tired to touch. Not even close.

And you were far, far too soft for him like this to protest.

The sun in Italy never quite felt real. It gleamed too gold, too cinematic. The sky too blue. The sea, visible from their villa’s balcony, was always calm enough to look painted on. You said this every year, and every year Henry agreed, mostly so he could hear the amused lilt in your voice as you declared it all "indecently picturesque."

That afternoon had been long and indulgent. A walk through the shaded ruins just outside the town, Henry with his camera around his neck and you with your sunhat angled like a movie star. Then a late lunch in a quiet alley cafe, where the pasta came drowning in oil and lemon zest and you’d each finished a carafe of wine between shared forkfuls.

And after that, the gelato.

Always the gelato.

He’d watched you pick flavors like a scientist and a child rolled into one, meticulous, greedy, shining with anticipation. Chocolate and berries, blood orange and pistachio, vanilla and honey. Today you’d chosen caramel and cherry.

He hadn’t even ordered any for himself. Just leaned against the sun-warmed stone wall and watched you eat, eyes behind his sunglasses, mouth faintly curled.

But now, back at the villa, with your sandals kicked off and your thighs sticking slightly to the wooden kitchen chair, your fingers toyed with the hem of your skirt and your brows pulled together.

“I think I’ve eaten too much gelato,” you said.

Henry, crouched in front of the mini fridge, probably deciding what wine to open before dinner, turned his head without standing. “Is that…a confession or a lament?”

“A concern.” You exhaled. “We’ve only been here a few days and I feel...God. Like I’m becoming rounder. Squishy.”

He stood and shut the fridge. “You’re on holiday.”

“I know, I know. But I’m eating sweets every day. And olive oil with everything. I can feel it in my waist.”

“You walked five miles today. And swam this morning.” He came closer, pulling off his glasses. “And, though this may come as a surprise, you’re not meant to stay perfectly taut and angular while consuming almond with gelato beside the Mediterranean.”

You gave him a weak glare.

He crouched in front of you now, his hand sliding along your bare knee. “You think I didn’t notice the way you closed your eyes after the first bite? You think I didn’t see the cherry drip down your wrist? You think I wasn’t imagining what it would taste like off your tongue?”

“Henry.”

He leaned forward. “You don’t look squishier to me,” he murmured, lips brushing your thigh where your skirt had ridden up. “You look soft. Beautiful. The kind of beautiful that belongs in a Botticelli. Or the kind of beautiful that ruins a man’s mind and sleep and logic.”

“That’s dramatic,” you said, but your voice had quieted.

“Correct.”

He stood then, tall and bare-armed, and pulled you to your feet so slowly it felt ceremonial.

“I’ll cook tonight,” he said into your hair. “Something light. Salad and mozzarella. That strange little herb you like.”

“Parsley?”

“I was trying to be poetic.”

You laughed. “Fine. But no more gelato tonight.”

“You’ll want it after dinner,” he said, nose grazing your cheek.

You squinted at him. “Do you want it?”

“I want you,” he said. “If you happen to taste like cherry and chocolate, all the better.”

You buried your face in his chest, flushed and half-laughing, and let him hold you until the heat of the kitchen and the day began to lift.

Later, he set the table on the balcony. Poured you cold wine. Served you the salad and stole slices of cheese from your plate.