Rampant (12 page)

So I’d been told. “Like Actaeon,” I said.

Giovanni nodded. “Exactly. You know your mythology. Here, he’s only watching one of the hunters in her entourage, though. He may survive that.”

“She may even like it.” I pointed to the naked, swimming hunter. “See, she’s looking out of the picture at us and smiling. She knows we can see her, and she doesn’t mind.” Maybe she even thought this Actaeon could get her out of the hunting gig altogether.

Giovanni grinned at me. “You’re a pretty good art critic.”

“Thanks.” I looked down.

“Sorry—Does this bother you?”

“What?”

“Me making fun of the cardinal and stuff.”

“No!” I shook my head. “Why would it?”

“Because you’re going to be a nun.”

My mouth dropped open. “I’m not going to be a nun!”

His expression turned confused. “But…I heard you were. And you’re staying at that convent…”

Exactly how much had Phil told Seth about our little “convent?” “I’m not going to be a nun,” I repeated. “It’s…kind
of complicated. There’s a family tradition, but I don’t want any part of it. I’m only here because my mom is making me. I’m going to leave as soon as I can.”

“Oh,” he said, sounding relieved. Perhaps that’s why he’d been acting so weird. How awkward would it be to go on a date with someone you thought was about to take holy orders? “I thought you were a little young to be making that kind of decision. But when he told me, with the way you were acting the other day…it made some sense.”

“The way I was acting?”

“Yeah.” Now he looked away. “You kept running away from me, and then—”

“I can explain about that,” I said quickly. But how could I even start? I wasn’t running away from him. I was protecting him!

“Yeah, I can, too.” He frowned. “I just don’t like the explanation.” He started moving to the next painting. “Come see this one. It’s a Raphael.” He led me toward a smaller painting, hung on a side wall, off from the others. Giovanni stopped before it and looked back at me. “What do you think?”

I gaped. The portrait showed a young woman sitting by a window, cuddling a zhi in her lap.

“It’s called
La Dama con Liocorno
,” Giovanni said, studying me. “The Lady with the Unicorn.”

My heart pounded, but I pulled myself together. “Nice.” Phil would probably love it. “Was it any lady in particular?” Heck, Cory probably knew the family lineage off the top of her head.

“Not sure,” Giovanni said. “But apparently it was common to paint portraits of brides posed with unicorns before their weddings as gifts to their grooms. It was a symbol of innocence
and purity. That’s probably what this painting was.”

“Probably,” I said, staring at the portrait. Around her neck, the girl wore a necklace with a red stone not unlike the carbuncle in Neil’s ring. Maybe she wasn’t a hunter at all. Maybe she just wore the stone for protection while she posed. Still, would a zhi be so well behaved in the arms of any non-hunter?

“I bet they painted her with a lamb in her lap and added the horn later,” Giovanni was saying.

“Probably,” I echoed. But I knew a zhi when I saw one. This one was even tinier than Bonegrinder, a real baby unicorn. I couldn’t imagine how scared Raphael must have been to have this monster in his studio. I finally tore my eyes away, and Giovanni was still staring at me. “What?” I asked at last. “You’re creeping me out.”

“Nothing.” He shook his head and forced a laugh. “No, actually, it is something, but it’s crazy, and I probably shouldn’t even tell you. I’d never see you again.”

“Try me,” I said. Maybe he knew. He brought me to this picture for a reason. Maybe he’d seen the kirin after all and couldn’t believe his eyes. Maybe it wasn’t me who’d scared him off the other night, but the monster.
Just say the word “unicorn” out loud and I know you won’t think I’m a freak if I tell you everything.

A few steps away was a wide bench upholstered in black leather. We sat down, knees grazing, and Giovanni rested his elbows on his thighs and folded his hands. “Here’s the thing,” he said, eyes focused on the floor between his feet. “I’m not just here to learn more about my mom’s side of the family.”

“I know. You wanted to see Rome, too.”

“I got kicked out of school.”

“What?”

He sighed and was quiet for a long time. “Last semester. I was way into partying, I was rushing a frat, I lost track of everything. One night…I was incredibly drunk, and a little high, and there was a huge fight. People got hurt—the whole pledge class was brought up before the school’s disciplinary committee and we got expelled. I lost my scholarship.”

“Oh.” I clasped my hands in my lap, unsure of what to say. What did this have to do with the other night, with that chick over there with the unicorn in her lap?

“My mom and dad—they didn’t want to deal with me. They sent me away to stay with my relatives here and ‘think things over.’ But mom’s family is really strict and religious and it was driving me crazy. So I applied to this program, and by some miracle got in, and I’m hoping that I can parlay it into getting back into college.”

“I bet you can,” I said. “Any art history program would be thrilled to have you. You’re really smart.”

“No, I’m really stupid. When we went out the other day, I had that drink. It was just that one drink, but I wanted more. That’s why I left the club. I knew I could stay and party, but if I got in trouble again…this is my last chance.”

“I understand,” I said. In a way, he was trapped here, too. “So…about the unicorn?”

“What unicorn?”

All the blood drained from my face. “The one in…the picture,” I said lamely. “Didn’t you—weren’t you—trying to make a point?”

He cast me a sidelong glance. “Why would you think that?”

I had no words. Where was Phil to help me pull my foot out of
my mouth? What would Giovanni say if I confessed everything? All I could picture was that moment back home, when Kaitlyn looked at me like I was a freak. When Brandt had laughed at me in front of the whole school.

Giovanni was silent for a moment, then almost groaned. “Okay, here’s the thing. I thought I saw a unicorn, the other night, when I was with you. Crazy, huh? That’s why I split. I thought maybe there’d been something weird in that drink back at the club—some drug—and I’d screwed up again, without even knowing it. I didn’t want to go berserk in front of you.”

“I think there was something in our drinks,” I said softly, hiding my disappointment. Crazy, indeed. “I saw a unicorn, too.”

“Weird that we had the same vision. Must have been after seeing that fountain in your courtyard.”

“Or maybe it was real,” I suggested, but he must have thought I was joking, since he laughed.

“I’m really sorry you got hurt,” he said. “I felt like a jerk afterward. I was scared of what I’d done. After all my work to fix my life, just one little drink, and things slipped right out of my control. I don’t want to be that guy anymore. The one who parties, who fights. But I should have stayed and helped.”

“I had Phil,” I said. “Besides, it will teach me not to chase unicorns.”

He chuckled, which was totally the wrong answer. “I don’t think it’s a good idea for you and your cousin to hang out with us. We’re bad influences. You’re too nice.”

Nice
meaning
innocent
. I could translate Giovanni’s English just fine. “So you see me and you what—think of that girl up
there?” I nodded to the portrait.

“Hardly.” He took my hand. “You’re way prettier than she is.”

I rolled my eyes at the flattery.

“Plus, she probably couldn’t even read and I’m betting you can. A major plus in a girl, as far as I’m concerned.”

“A bit better,” I said.

“And I really like the way you dance. I was sorry we left the club the other night.” He was looking at me again. Though there was no smile on his face, now that we were so close, I realized that his big, dark eyes did all the smiling for him.

Above our heads, the portrait of the lady with the unicorn sat still, as she had for centuries. The hunter in the picture clutched the little zhi in her lap. She stared out at us, a cross expression on her frozen face. Was she angry that she was getting married and giving up her hunting? Was she angry that the painting was taking so long to finish? Or was she pissed that I was the one here with a boy who knew everything about art and liked the way I danced?

A boy who’d told me all his big secrets. A boy stroking the back of my hand with the pad of his thumb in a way that sent shivers through every bone in my body, that made me forget the feel of kirin, the rush of hunting, the stench of fire and flood.

To my right, the naked huntress in the water stared out boldly from her painting, inviting the gaze of the hidden men, heedless of the cold-hearted goddess Diana holding a bow only a few feet away. She was looking for her Actaeon. Raphael’s hunter with the unicorn on her lap was on her way to hers.

There
was
a way out.
Actaeon.
I smiled at Giovanni.

“You know,” he was saying, his head tilted so close that our
foreheads almost touched. “Just hanging out with you could get me into trouble. We’re in a language immersion program. We sign a contract that we’re only supposed to be speaking Italian.”

“Then maybe you should stop talking,” I whispered, and pressed my mouth to his.

G
IOVANNI HAD FULL LIPS
, and he squeezed my hands in his as we kissed, and then our mouths parted, and our tongues touched, and the blood rushed through my body faster than any unicorn had ever made it go.

When he pulled away and looked at me, his eyes were smiling so much I wanted to laugh out loud. “Wow,” he said.

“See?” I flicked my hair back. “Not quite as innocent as you think.”

I hardly remember the rest of the museum. We saw heaps of gorgeous art, and Giovanni seemed to know a little something about all of it, but how could I spend time thinking about the marble sculpture he was showing me when I was much more interested in the lines of his body? He kept my hand in his for the rest of the tour, and I noticed the way the muscles moved under his shirt, how his collarbones peeked out of his collar and his shoulder blades pressed against the fabric. He had wide hands, like Bernini’s statue of David that we saw on the ground floor, but he was thinner, more like a runner than a wrestler. His
skin was a shade or two darker than the last time I’d seen him, and his hair curled tightly over his brow and the crown of his head. I ignored most of the marble statues of Italians he showed me, choosing instead to focus on the contours of Giovanni’s face—his broad nose, lifted cheekbones, and wide-set dark eyes with their thick black lashes.

I memorized every feature. This was the man I’d sleep with. Giovanni would be my Actaeon.

Once he pulled me into a corner and kissed me until a security guard cleared his throat and gestured for us to move along. Another time he moved his hand from mine to the small of my back and let it rest there, warm and heavy, until my spine almost went numb with the sensation.

The decision was so easy. Why had I been freaking out so much about this? When it came to Brandt, when it came to every boy I’d ever dated, I’d felt so pressured to move along, I hadn’t just stopped to enjoy every step along the path. But now that I knew where I was going, knew I wanted to get there, it felt delicious. This hot, thrilling jolt of power through my system was heady, intoxicating. I flirted like never before. Wouldn’t Giovanni be surprised? No coaxing, no slow, steady seduction waiting for me to give it up. I was ready to go.

The only question was where to do the deed.

Obviously, the Cloisters was out. Where were the boys staying? Would his dorm allow us enough privacy? Would it be possible to get a hotel room? I wasn’t crazy about losing my virginity on a blanket in a quiet corner of the park, but beggars couldn’t be choosers.

Eventually, our time limit in the museum was up, and the security guards herded the patrons out the door. We found Phil
and Seth making out by a fountain in the yard.

“There you guys are!” Phil tore herself away and bounded over to me. “That took forever! I’m starving. Let’s go eat.”

The sun was setting now, but most of the Italians wouldn’t be eating for hours. “Actually,” I said. “I’m not really hungry. Maybe you and Seth should go ahead.” I made goo-goo eyes at Giovanni.

“Really?” he said. “To tell the truth, I could eat. I skipped lunch today.”

I bit my lip. This was going to be tricky. I leaned in and whispered in his ear. “I thought maybe…we could be alone.”

Giovanni raised both eyebrows. “Okay.” He glanced at Seth. “Astrid and I are going to take off.”

Phil eyed me, a strange expression on her face. “Astroturf? You okay?”

“Yeah,” I said. Did she have to use the dumb nicknames right now? “I’ll meet you back at the Cloisters.”

“What time?” she asked. “We’re supposed to be together. What if you get lost?”

“I’m not going to get lost.” I looked at my watch. “How about ten?” Would that be enough time? I’d tell Phil in advance about what I’d done, and then we’d go straight to Neil and start arranging my trip home. I just hoped she didn’t get in trouble. She was supposed to be chaperoning me.

Which she suddenly started doing, much to my consternation. “I don’t know,” she said. “We should stick together. For safety if nothing else.” She made a face at me, and the face said,
Remember the kirin?

“Jo can take care of her,” Seth said. “Come on, Phil.”

They left, but Phil threw curious glances at me over her
shoulder until they were out of sight.

“So,” Giovanni said when they were gone. “What do you want to do?”

“Why don’t you show me where you’re staying?” I asked. Let’s get this show on the road.

He looked skeptical. “It’s just a boarding school in Trastevere. Nothing very noteworthy, and a bit of a trek from here, anyway.”

I kissed him, hard and long, and pressed my body against his. “I want to see it.”

So we got on the bus and went to Trastevere. It was a fashionable little suburb, filled with narrow streets packed with boutiques and restaurants, ancient mansions, and big parks.

“What I like so much about the city here,” Giovanni said as we strolled hand in hand down one of the streets, “is that it’s so green. It’s not like New York. There, if it’s not the park, it’s all skyscrapers everywhere. These old buildings aren’t like that.”

All the better to hide unicorns. “You’re from New York?” I asked.

“Born and raised. My dad, too, though he’s from way up in Harlem. I was born downtown, in the Village. But we live in Brooklyn now.”

“The only time I was ever in New York, I didn’t leave the airport,” I said.

“Well, I’ve never been to Seattle at all,” he said. “Is it nice?”

I shrugged. “I don’t go there much either. You really need a car to get into the city, and my mom works a lot of nights, so she needs ours.”

“Your dad in the picture?”

“Never was.”

He squeezed my hand, and after a moment, spoke again. “You and Phil are funny. More like sisters than cousins. You remind me a lot of the way my Italian cousins act with each other.”

“We grew up next door,” I said. “Pretty much. My mother and I live over her dad’s garage.”

Apparently, that gave away too much, for he got very quiet, and I wondered if he was thinking about my lost purse. He stopped outside a small trattoria. “How hungry are you now? This place is really good and pretty cheap. Do you like seafood?”

“I’d better!” I said. “Living in Washington!”

“Well, they have great spaghetti and shellfish. You’re going to love it.”

I checked my watch. We still had time to eat, have sex, and get me back to my side of town by ten. “Okay.”

Except Italians don’t understand the meaning of the word
hurry
when it comes to eating, and the jolly old woman running the place was apparently a huge fan of my hair—almost as much as she was charmed by Giovanni’s knowledge of the language. I made out one in five words, including the times she kept touching my head and saying
“Bella.”

“Sí,”
Giovanni agreed, and winked at me. “It’s the color,” he explained. “Don’t you know Italians are suckers for blondes?”

Dinner took hours. By the time we rolled out, stuffed full of artichokes and tomatoes, shellfish and pasta, some sort of veal stuffed with bits of cured meat and cheese, and a tower of multicolored gelato that the chef wouldn’t let us leave without finishing, I’d started seriously getting concerned about the time. I knew that you could do it really quickly if you wanted, but I wasn’t sure I wanted it to be that way.

Even to get out of hunting, I wanted my first time to mean something.

But for all my annoyance at the length of our meal, I had to admit that the experience had been a blast. We were shoved into a minuscule table in the basement restaurant, under a yellow-painted barrel vault lined with black-and-white photographs of the chef’s family. The place smelled of smoke and cheese and wine, and all the other diners were young, fashionable-looking Italian couples or big families who let the kids run around the restaurant while they ordered bottle after bottle of wine. My knees touched Giovanni’s under the table, and he kept nudging my foot as we talked. The candles made his eyes seem almost black, and when he talked about art, his face glowed.

“I should be extra careful around here, though,” he said. “Someone from the program could catch us.” He kept his voice low when he spoke to me, and occasionally broke into Italian when the door to the restaurant opened.

“Ferrari, espresso, Dolce e Gabbana, biscotti, fettuccini,” I said one time in response.

He burst out laughing. “Don’t you want to learn a little Italian, since you’re living here?”

I’d been too busy learning archery. “You can teach me.” Of course, he couldn’t. If things went as planned, I’d never see Giovanni again after tonight.

I wasn’t sure how I felt about that.

“So here we are,” Giovanni said, when we finally arrived at his school. “See? Nothing special.”

It wasn’t. A plain brick structure, like any seventies-era school building you could find in America. There were sporting fields and a big open courtyard dotted with picnic
tables where the students could eat or study. Around the side was a neglected swimming pool with a few lawn chairs and sun loungers.

“I wish I could invite you in, but they’re pretty strict about visitors, especially of the opposite sex.”

Darn. “That’s nothing compared to where I’m staying.”

“The convent?” he asked. “No, I suppose not.” He led me around the corner, toward the dark pool area. At last, someplace private. I checked out the sun loungers. They’d do.

We sat on one and started kissing again. Giovanni tasted spicy, like our pasta, and a bit sweet from the gelato. The evening breeze had picked up and I snuggled in closer to him, glad when he wrapped his arms around me.

In the past, I’d waited for boys to make the first move, to put their hands under my shirt or down my pants. Did girls even put their hands down boys’ pants? Should it be the front or the back? Sometimes boys grabbed my butt. Giovanni had a nice butt. Should I grab it?

“Hey,” he pulled away and put his hand on my face. “What are you thinking about?”

“Your butt,” I admitted.

He laughed. “I’ve never heard a girl say something like that before.”

“First time for everything,” I hinted.

He kissed me again, splaying his fingers over my jaw and throat. Warmth seemed to radiate from that point, and a flush spread over my face and neck and down my chest. I let my hands slip down over his torso, hoping he’d do the same. His kisses moved from my lips to my throat, and his hand migrated south, following the spreading heat. He found a pulse point above my
collarbone and when I felt his tongue against it, I moaned.

He paused. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” I gasped. “Keep going.”

He laughed again, a soft little whoosh of colder breath against my skin, and I shivered, though I was so hot I was sweating. His hands were under my shirt now, one cupping my breast through my bra, the other flat against my back. I had my hands under his shirt, too, tracing little circles on his skin, imagining what it would feel like when there were fewer clothes between us.

What was next? Something was next, but I was having a hard time keeping my thoughts straight. What he was doing to my neck felt so good. The way his thumb was tripping along the lace edge of my bra felt so good. It all felt so good and I wanted more.

I leaned back on the lounger and he slid on top of me, one leg in between mine, our belts rubbing together. The slats of the sun lounger bent beneath our weight. I could feel the metal tubes on the sides, gritty beneath my fingers as the paint flaked off in bits.

“Astrid,” he whispered into my skin, and I knew he meant it—meant
Astrid,
not
girl beneath me.

I opened my mouth, but the only word that came to my lips was
Actaeon.

I was saved from speaking as he moved his mouth up to mine again. His kisses were harder now and more urgent than ever before. He was shifting on top of me and I could feel he was hard, could feel it pressing against my leg. I slid my hands between us and started tugging on his belt.

He pulled away. “What are you doing?”

I yanked the belt out through the buckle and started unfastening his jeans. “Guess.”

“Stop.”

My hands stilled instantly. “What’s wrong?” I said.

“Nothing.” It was too dark to read his eyes, so I couldn’t tell if he was smiling or not. “But I’m not getting naked on a rusty pool chair.” And he started kissing my neck again.

Rusty or no, I was running out of time. “Come on,” I coaxed, in the most coquettish tone I could muster. “I really want to.”

He raised his head and stared at me until I looked away. And then he said it.

“You’re a virgin, aren’t you?”

I squeezed my eyes shut, and all the heat escaped my body.

“Astrid. Look at me.”

I opened my eyes, and he was still staring at me, but I could read his expression just fine now. Pity.

“Yes.” I could have lied, but I doubted he’d believe it anyway. He could probably smell it on me, like a unicorn could.

“I see.” I felt his weight shift, and then he was sitting beside me. I wanted to curl up in a ball. “Don’t take this the wrong way—”

Oh, God. It was “no offense” all over again!

“But I don’t want to sleep with you.”

I shot up. “Why not?!” All the boys in Rome, and I had to pick the one who
didn’t
want to have sex? “Because I’m a virgin?”

“Yes. No. A little of both.”

“And you don’t want the
responsibility
?” I hissed. “I don’t care, I promise. I’m not expecting anything from you if we do it.”

He blinked at me. “That’s…disappointing.”

“Why?” My eyes were burning, and I hoped he hadn’t noticed. “Isn’t that the dream come true? A girl who will sleep with you
and then never see you again?”

“No,” he said. “I like you, Astrid.”

“Then why won’t you?” I tried in vain to keep the hitch out of my voice.

He curved his arms around me and held me close. “Well, I make it a point never to have sex with crying women, for one.”

“Stop it!” I shoved out of his embrace. “Don’t condescend to me on top of everything.”

“Fine,” he said, a note of anger finally entering his voice. “Don’t treat me like a piece of meat. ‘Sleep with me and then never see me again.’ What the hell is that?”