The water wasn’t hot, so we showered quickly, avoiding touching too much so we didn’t get turned on. It wasn’t working. I mean, come on! Hot woman naked in my shower—it was asking too much. I tried to ignore my ever-ready dick and stuffed it inside a pair of jeans, then watched as Caro ran a comb through her wet hair and tied it back.

“It doesn’t take you long to get ready, does it, Caro? You never even bother to put on makeup.

“I do sometimes,” she huffed, sounding a little defensive, although I wasn’t sure of the reason. “If I’m going out somewhere dressy. But not usually, no. Why?”

I shrugged. “Nothing. Just saying. It drives me crazy when women spend hours getting ready to go out.”

Not that I had to suffer that too often—I was more a hit it and quit it kind of guy; I didn’t stick around for dates so much. Until now. But my words had dug up another memory.

“You remember that time we went clothes shopping in San Diego? You had to buy a new dress?”

“Oh, sure, I remember that! The sales assistant was flirting with you?”

Huh, didn’t remember that.

“She was?”

I wondered if she’d been hot. Whatever.

Caro looked equal parts annoyed and amused. “Don’t you remember, she was asking you if you were a pilot from Miramar?”

Nope, definitely didn’t remember that.

“Well, I’m not surprised,” she said, smiling to herself, “in those days you never used to notice other women flirting with you. You were such an innocent. Not like now.”

“Hell, you should complain, Caro! You were the one I lost my innocence to—a hot, older woman.”

“You know what I mean,” she laughed slapping my arm away as I reached for her.

Damn, I’d really thought I was the shit back then, catching the eye of a seriously hot woman—not a girl—even though she was married. And hell, I couldn’t deny it was a turn on … fucking her behind her husband’s back, in his bed even. Not that it was the reason I’d fallen for Caro—she’d always been special to me. But yeah, I felt like The Man when she let me into her bed and into her body. No woman had meant a thing to me since then, except to scratch an itch. I knew I’d behaved like a bastard, but I was finding it hard to care. There was only one woman whose feelings mattered to me.

I caught her hand, pulling her down, until she was sitting in my lap.

“Caro,” I said seriously, “you’re all I want. You don’t have to worry about other women. Yeah, so I fucked around a lot, but you know what? It was just a game—I was using them, they were using me. It gets pretty old after a while.” I paused, tucking her hair behind her ear and kissing her throat. “But I might have to hunt down those old boyfriends of yours and beat them to a pulp.”

She laughed, which was the reaction I’d hoped for. “Double standards, Sebastian?”

“Nope, just two sets of rules … but I was thinking about the black dress you bought back in San Diego. You looked so fucking hot in that.”

“I’ve still got it somewhere,” she said, frowning, “although I haven’t worn it in years.”

Her words gave me an idea.

“We should do that, Caro; go out somewhere you can dress up.”

She sighed softly. “I used to fantasize about seeing you in a tux.”

“Really?”

“Sebastian, I spent far too many hours fantasizing about you in a variety of, um, situations. And just recently, it’s become my new hobby.”

I laughed, making a mental note to find out more about these fantasies at some point in the near future. But for now, I let her off the hook.

“I’ve never worn a tux,” I said off-handedly.

“Never?” She sounded surprised. “Not even at your high school prom?”

I shook my head. “I didn’t go. I hadn’t met you again, and I’d split up with Brenda. Ches didn’t have a date either—he swiped some of Mitch’s beer, I scored some weed—and we got trashed on the beach instead. It was a pretty good night—I think. I don’t remember that much about it. We didn’t need any women to have a good time … but that was before I met you again.”

“Hmm, very virtuous of you,” she smiled. “But didn’t you wear a tux for Ches and Amy’s wedding?”

“Nah, Amy kind of got off on the whole military thing, even though she didn’t want Ches enlisting, so she asked me and Mitch to come in our Dress Blues. I don’t know, I think she thought it would look cool in the wedding pictures.”

I rolled my eyes, remembering the psycho that was pre-wedding Amy.

“She turned into a complete nightmare-bitch-from-hell over the whole wedding thing. Ches was freaking out, thinking he was about to marry some crazy person. She even tried to ban him from having a bachelor party.” And she failed, because Ches’s bachelor party was epic—a whole weekend of drinking, dancing and dicking around in Tijuana.

“Gee, I wonder why,” Caro said, oozing sarcasm. “Maybe she didn’t trust you.”

I grinned at her.

“Yeah, well, she was probably right about that…”

“I don’t want to know, Sebastian!” Caro said quickly.

Instead, I kissed her, changing the subject back.

“So what do you think?”

“About what?”

“Going somewhere upscale, really dressing up? I’d love to see you like that again.”

“Well, okay,” she said thoughtfully. “Let’s do that when you get back from this tour. Then we can really celebrate.”

“Let’s do it now,” I said.

If there’s one thing that being a Marine teaches you, it’s to take an opportunity when it arises—we don’t stand around with our thumbs up our asses waiting for someone else to tell us what to do.

“There must be some place in Salerno you can get women’s stuff,” I encouraged her.

“Stuff?!”

“Yeah, silky dress, stockings, high heels … stuff. And then I could undress you—slowly.”

I really liked the idea of that. There’s nothing like the feel of a woman’s silk panties as she straddles your body, hot and ready to make the beast with two backs.

“Okay,” she smiled. “I’ll do it if you do—dress up.”

I wasn’t really interested in fancy clothes for myself, but if it was what Caro wanted, why the hell not?

“Sure, if I can find somewhere that will rent me a tux, why not? It’ll make a change from being in uniform.”

Then I kissed her quickly, scooping her off of my lap and setting her back on the floor.

“We’d better get going. Got me a date planned with a really hot woman.”

Instead of traveling along the coast road, we headed inland for the Autostrada del Sole, the highway that runs from Milan to Naples. I could tell the heavy traffic made Caro nervous, but it was the fastest route to Salerno.

We stopped briefly just outside Rome to give Caro a chance to work some of the stiffness out of her body, and then we pushed on south, past Naples until we ran out of road.

Salerno was just how she’d described it to me all those years ago, terracotta roofs, whitewashed square buildings built into the cliff, the Mediterranean Sea deep blue in the evening sun.

I pulled off my helmet, stretching out my back muscles, before climbing off and holding my hand out to Caro.

“You alright, baby?”

“I’m fine,” she said, hiding a wince as she massaged her ass, a job I’d happily have done for her. “How are you?”

“Yeah, good. Look, I think it might be easier to find a pensione or hotel in Salerno than in your dad’s village. We’re only a couple of miles away so we could easily shoot on over there in the morning. What do you think?”

She nodded readily, stretching her arms above her head, and unconsciously pushing her tits out in a way that would be rude to ignore.

“Anything that doesn’t involve getting back on your bike sounds good, Sebastian,” she said with a grimace. “My ass is numb already.”

I pulled her into a hug, willingly laying hands on that peachy ass, and rubbing gently.