About Mad Dogs and Englishmen

by Kate Roman
27 pages / 6800 words
Ebook zipped file contains - html, lit, Adobe and Sony optimized pdf, prc, epub

Timothy Green, a senior aide to England's ambassador to Italy, is finding the heat of Naples hard to get used to. His sense of duty won't allow him to join the under-secretaries on the beach, but one afternoon he follows an errant bulldog to a beautiful fountain. There he meets a young, gorgeous Italian painter, and for once his sense of duty takes a back seat. He spends the afternoon in Cosimo's arms, and the next day, when he sees the same bulldog in town, he can't help but follow it a second time. Duty is duty, but Cosimo is something else, and Timothy knows he can't live without his newfound love.

Sample

Panting, Timothy reached the end of the alley and stopped in his tracks.

He found himself at the entrance to a tiny, beautiful plaza. Houses ringed it, each set at an angle from its neighbor so that the flagged plaza was hexagonal in shape. Over to one side, two straggly olive trees stood sentinel over a flowering vine. The white bulldog sat on its haunches at the foot of one tree, voicing its disapproval of the ginger cat, who perched insolently in the branches.

But Timothy's eyes were drawn to the center of the plaza where a tall, young man, carved in marble, stood above a large marble bowl. The youth was beautiful, and he was naked. On his shoulder he held a ewer, and from the ewer, water gushed down over his body and into the pool at his feet.

It was a beautiful sight. Sunlight twinkled on the fountain, catching the moving water and turning it to diamonds. The way the water fell made the statue seem alive, glowing and vital; only the beautiful face cast in marble showed that life was an illusion.

Timothy forgot the heat of the day, the smell of the alley and even the Ambassador. He walked slowly to the fountain and stared up at it, drinking in the beauty and the magic of this secret place he had found.

"Bella, vero?" A deep husky voice broke Timothy's reverie, cutting through the musical chatter of the falling water.

Timothy swung around guiltily. "Non parlo italiano. Parla inglese?" He spoke the only five words of Italian he knew automatically, then froze, mouth still open.

A few feet away stood a young man at least as beautiful as the statue. More beautiful, in fact, for where the statue was cool white marble, this youth was bronze, masculine vitality. He wore a pair of loose-fitting cream pants, and nothing else.