Chapter 4
March turned into April, April turned into May, and from there to June and July before Rory knew it. Time moved especially fast when one did a lot of traveling and didn't have time to get bored, and that was certainly what her last month had been about.
Today she was here in Rome, the Eternal City, exploring the city whilst her grandmother napped. It was in the middle of the afternoon and a sane person would've stayed inside for siesta in this heat. But Rory hope to spend th next 1,5 hours underground so the outlook was cooler. Despite that her umbrella-patterned sundress clung to her body, her light blue sweater long ago tucked into her purse. She could just be thankful she'd worn the wide brim straw hat her grandmother had bought her from this small designer store when they'd visited Amalfi. The hat was a little more bold than she was used to, but she liked to think she was pulling it off, and in part it was like a prop putting her in character - almost feeling like she was a rich local Italian women who lived in one of the houses overlooking river in Ripa whom she'd once seen with her mother, looking like she'd just stepped out of an old movie.
She did feel more mature in her body now. The wide Audrey Hepburn-Esque hat adding a dot on the i.
The past few months had been unbelievable - both in terms of acing some of the hardest finals she'd ever done in her life, but also in terms of all the men in her life.
She hadn't once regretted losing her V-card to Logan at spring break, and for once she'd kept it to herself, half-imagining in her head what her mother would've said most likely accurately. After all she'd been resposible about it, been safe and the guy had been very respectful. It hadn't left her feeling cheap or embarrassed about what she'd done - not one bit.
She'd just stuck to the story of having made out with some blonde and handsome guy, which seemed to be good enough for most audiences. She'd spent the night at Logan's room that night, then snuck back into hers in the wee hours of the morning pretending she'd been there most of the night. But she did feel different because of it - bolder, more like a real woman and with a much better acknowledgement of her self-worth. She wasn't entirely sure this had been a good thing in the end as she had ended up sleeping with Dean at the opening night of the Dragon Fly, the sexual tension between him and her having been building over a couple of months, regardless.
But she did wonder, thinking back, whether having had that courage in her to do it already, had made it that much easier to do it with the man she wasn't supposed to do it with. She'd understood by now that it hadn't been her Dean. And she had no intention of going back to him, and she truly believed that taking herself out of the picture like she was doing now was the only right thing to do.
Before that there had also been that unfortunate run-in with Jess, professing his love for her and asking to go away together. But on that end she'd stayed fairly indifferent. That trust had been lost long ago, and would not be that easily rebuilt.
More than ever before, however, she felt as if she was not defined by the men that wanted her. It was she who had power over her own choices and felt a lot more relaxed about actually going with her gut.
She bought her ticket and climbed the stairs down into the catacombs cristiane di San Callisto, enjoying just like old-book scent the smell of the underground just a bit too much, especially considering much of what she was smelling was human remains - bones and dirt to be more exact. But as a contrast to the heat, she intended to take her time.
Rory observed up close the paintings, carvings and messages in Latin written on the walls of this place, taking her time, holding her hat in her hand. There weren't a lot of people there that day, surprisingly. Just a couple of Japanese tourists she'd seen outside with their umbrellas, a few Dutch women and an older Scandinavian couple with their blonde hair, cargo shorts and reddened skin, having skimped on the sunscreen. Last year, they'd been too busy eating pasta, ice cream and watching how her mother flirted with hot Italian men to make it down here.
She was just about to enter the room that most travel books spoke about - the one floor to ceiling filled with skulls and it was the eeriest and possibly one of the coolest things she'd ever seen, when she heard commotion - people laughing.
Rory frowned, wanting to scold whoever it was. This was a resting place after all. Have some respect! - she mumbled internally.
She could hear the voices coming closer, but instead of any modern language she heard someone attempting to make up the entire conversation in Latin, only exchanging a couple of words out for English, French or Italian if one didn't know them. It seemed to be the combination that was so funny.
"Shh..," Rory hushed loudly and angrily, just as the source of the banter was about to enter the same room she'd been standing in.
"My apologies," a strangely familiar Australian voice said, quietly.
"Rory?" came next, Rory having decided to keep reading the Latin on the wall instead. She found also the handwriting fascinating. But that question turned her head certainly.
"Logan!?" Rory replied in disbelief, seeing Colin and Finn trying to behave behind him, already thinking up all sorts of disrespectful jokes about the skulls that I shall rather not convey.
"Now this could definitely be defined as a cute meet had we not already met," Logan said, charmingly.
"What are you doing here!?" Rory asked, not bothering to scold the guys knowing it had been them. What were the odds?
"Oh we just thought a little cultural program was required," Logan explained.
"When in Rome…," Finn chimed, making a bit about it.
"Do as the Romans do?" Rory asked Finn, rolling her eyes slightly.
"I do think if I ever die in Rome, that I'd like to be buried here. You'll make sure that happens, Buttercup?" Finn declared, speaking to Colin.
It must've been exhausting being around those two throughout his travels - Rory thought, but she couldn't help it - in small doses she found them hilarious too.
"So, how have you been?" Logan asked, there being that fire in his eyes again, which made her knees a little weak.
"Pretty good," Rory replied, wondering whether Logan was also picturing her without her clothes on - she certainly was. Their latest encounter flooded back into her brain. She might have blushed a little but thankfully in the dim light didn't really differentiate from having been hot earlier.
"Good! Me too," Logan said, now standing next to her, his hands tucked into the pockets of his white linen pants. "You here alone or…?" Logan inquired.
"Here, yes. Rome - no. With my grandmother this time. She was under the impression that I hadn't done Europe right unless I'd been here 'in her style'" Rory said, highlighting the end of that sentence with some sarcasm.
"Ah..," Logan seemed to know what she was talking about.
"You? Just passing by?" Rory asked, as she walked into the next room, Logan following her. The two stooges had already hopped off, possibly already out of there ahead of them.
"We were in Ibiza for a week, we're going to Milan in a couple of days to catch up with some of Finn's friends," Logan explained.
"Sounds like fun," Rory commented though it didn't sound like too much fun on her terms but she believed he must've enjoyed it.
"Can I take you out?" Logan asked, that smirk of his creeping onto his lips again, as they emerged back into the heat of the day above ground.
"Not tonight...," Rory replied, regretfully. God, what was this guy - magnetic? "But if you're free tomorrow afternoon, I'd love another gelato," she added flirtily, which caused Logan to smirk even wider.
"Alright. There's this great gelato place right next to the hotel where I am staying," Logan whispered to her ear, giving some heavy hints as to his attentions. While Rory no-doubt considered him cocky as ever, she wasn't fighting this one bit. She hadn't been able to stop and focus on where she'd been these past ten minutes with him around anyways, flashes of his naked body and the way his mouth felt on her distracting her. She felt so wired already, she'd even contemplated blowing her grandmother off for dinner. It was safe to say she became someone else around Logan, but it wasn't just him pulling the strings or using her - quite the contrary. She was the one who was determined to exchange the guilty memories from Dean against something more frivolous.
"Meet me at Piazza di Sant'Andrea della Valle?" Logan suggested, seeing the guys were already eager to leave.
"At 2?" Rory added, nearly forgetting that tiny detail. Some might have felt cheap because the guy would not be picking her up, but at this point it was what she preferred - she didn't want her grandmother nor their somewhat nosy concierge to catch a whiff of this. Her grandmother would probably send her off to some convent if she ever found out, but damn, how she wanted to feel that rush again. The risk felt worth it.
"It's a date," Logan smirked, and walked backwards for a while, allowing Rory to observe how he ate her up with his eyes, before turning around and hopping into their rental car.
Sure, they'd had ice cream. Two scoops of coffee flavored gelato, in fact. But Rory had perhaps never eaten gelato this sensually before, there being barely any meaningful conversation between them, just the feeling of his hand on her bare thigh, slipping just slightly under the hem of her sundress, a blue one, and her observing his mouth as he slurped away that ice cream. She was giving in to his charms, not minding it one bit.
From the moment they made it upstairs to Logan's suite, one he shared with the guys, but had knowingly made sure the others were out of sight, and closed his bedroom door behind them, hot devouring kisses had led to shedding of every scrap of clothing they'd had on them and landing onto the giant bed in their nude along with giggles.
Rory felt a lot more liberated now, slightly more experienced too even if not by a lot, but it was the confidence that she had now that Logan truly found attractive and even complimented her on. She rode him again, and switched things around to try out some other positions too - doggy style and one where Logan held her legs over his shoudlers, which looked hot like she'd never imagined.
The random cute meet led to some incredible orgasms, leaving Rory flushed and giddy, returning to her grandmother with the excuse of the sun having been blazing and saying she'd gotten a little too much sun. While Rory had dinner that night Enoteca La Torre with her grandmother, all she kept thinking back to was being filled to the brim by him and how incredible that had felt, struggling to steer the dirty thoughts out of her mind through the rest of her trip. It had been a little holiday delight, alright.