Ren had been watching her ever since she arrived. She’d rejected two tables before she found one that pleased her, then rearranged the condiments as soon as she was seated. A discriminating woman. She wore the stamp of intelligence as visibly as her Italian shoes, and even from here she radiated a seriousness of purpose that he found as sexy as those overly lavish lips.
She looked to be in her early thirties, with understated makeup and the simple but expensive clothes favored by sophisticated European women. Her face was more intriguing than beautiful. She wasn’t Hollywood emaciated, but he liked her body—breasts in proportion to her hips, tapered waist, the promise of great legs underneath her black slacks. Her blond hair had highlights she hadn’t been born with, but he’d bet that was the only thing fake about her. No artificial fingernails or false eyelashes. And if those breasts were stuffed with silicone, she’d be showing them off instead of keeping them tucked away underneath that tidy black sweater.
He watched her finish one glass of wine and start on another. She took a nibble on her thumbnail. The gesture seemed out of character for such an earnest woman, which made it weirdly erotic.
He studied the other women in the café, but his eyes kept returning to her. He sipped his wine and thought it over. Women found him—he never went after them. But it had been a long time, and there was something about this one.
What the hell . . .
He leaned back in his chair and gave her his patented smoldering gaze.
Isabel felt his eyes on her. The man oozed sex. Her third glass of wine had lifted the leading edge of her dismal mood, and his attention lifted it a bit higher. Here was a person who knew something about passion.
He shifted his weight slightly and raised one dark, angular eyebrow. She wasn’t used to such a blatant come-on. Gorgeous men wanted counseling from Dr. Isabel Favor, not sex. She was too intimidating.
She moved the silverware half an inch to the right. He didn’t look American, and she had no international following, so he wouldn’t have recognized her. No, this man wasn’t interested in Dr. Favor’s wisdom. He just wanted sex.
“It’s not my problem, Isabel. It’s yours.”
She looked up, and his lips curved. Her bruised heart, numbed by the wine, feasted on that slight smile.
This man doesn’t think I’m schizo, Michael. This man recognizes a powerfully sexual woman when he sees one.
He locked his eyes with hers and deliberately touched the corner of his mouth with his knuckle. Something warm unfolded inside her, like a layer of puff pastry plumping in an oven. She watched, fascinated, as his knuckle drifted toward the slight indentation in his bottom lip. The gesture was so blatantly sexual she should have been offended. Instead, she took another sip and waited to see what he’d do next.
He rose, picked up his glass, and walked slowly toward her. The two Italian women at the next tabfile:///C:/HC-epub/input/9780061795183/52394_chledge.jpgle stopped their conversation to watch. One uncrossed her legs. The other shifted in her chair. They were young and beautiful, but this fallen Renaissance angel zeroed in on her.
“Signora?” He gestured toward the chair across from her. “Posso farti compagnia?”
She felt herself nod, even as her brain ordered her to turn him away. He slid into the chair, as seductive as a black satin sheet.
Up close he was no less devastating, but his eyes were a little bloodshot, and the stubble on his jaw seemed more a product of fatigue than a fashion statement. Perversely, his ragged edges intensified his sexuality.
She was only mildly startled to hear herself address him in French. “Je ne parle pas l’italien, monsieur.”
Whoa . . . One part of her brain ordered her to get up and walk away right now. The other part told her not to be in such a hurry. She did a quick survey to see if anything obvious would give her away as an American, but Europe was filled with blondes, including ones like her who’d had light streaks added to perk up their spirits. She was dressed in black, as he was—slim trousers and a cropped, sleeveless cotton sweater with a funnel neck. Her uncomfortable shoes were Italian. The only jewelry she wore was a thin gold bangle with the single word BREATHE inscribed inside, to remind her to stay centered. She hadn’t eaten, so he couldn’t have witnessed that telling transfer of fork from left hand to right that Americans made when they cut their meat.
What does it matter? Why are you doing this?
Because the world as she knew it had collapsed around her. Because Michael didn’t love her, and she’d had too much wine, and she was tired of being frightened, and she wanted to feel like a woman instead of a failed institution.
“È un peccato.” He shrugged in that wonderful Italian way. “Non parlo francesca.”
“Parlez-vous anglais?”
He shook his head and brushed his chest. “Mi chiamo Dante.”
His name was Dante. How appropriate in this city that had once been the home of the poet Dante Alighieri.
She tapped her own chest. “Je suis . . . Annette.”
“Annette. Molta bella.” He lifted his glass in a sexy, silent toast.
Dante . . . The name warmed her belly like hot syrup, and the night air turned to musk.
His hand touched hers. She gazed down at it but didn’t draw away. Instead, she took another sip of wine.
He began toying with the tips of her fingers, letting her know this was more than a casual flirtation. This was a seduction, and the fact that it was calculated bothered her for only a moment. She was too demoralized for subtlety.
“Hold your body precious,” the Spiritual Dedication Cornerstone advised. “You’re a treasure, God’s greatest creation. . . .” She absolutely believed that, but Michael had bruised her soul, and this fallen angel named Dante promised a dark kind of redemption, so she smiled at him and didn’t move her hand away.
He leaned farther back in his chair, at ease with his body in a way few men were. She envied his physical arrogance.
Together they watched the American students grow more boisterous. He ordered a fourth glass of wine for her. She shocked herself by flirting a little with her eyes. See, Michael, I know how to do this. And do you know why? Because I’m a lot more sexual than you think I am.
She was glad the language barrier made conversation impossible. Her life had been filled with words: lectures, books, interviews. PBS played her videos whenever they had a fund drive. She’d talked, talked, talked. And look what it had gotten her.
His finger slipped beneath her hand and stroked the cradle of her palm in a gesture that was purely carnal. Savonarola, that
fifteenth-century enemy of everything sensual, had been burned at the stake in this very piazza. Would she burn?
She was burning now, and her head was spinning. Still, she wasn’t so drunk that she didn’t notice that his smile never made it to his eyes. He’d done this a hundred times before. This was about sex, not sincerity.
That’s when it struck her. He was a gigolo.
She started to snatch away her hand. But why? This simply spelled everything out in black and white, something she usually appreciated. She lifted her wineglass to her lips with her free hand. She’d come to Italy to reinvent her life, but how could she do that without erasing the ugly tape of Michael’s accusation that kept playing in her head? The tape that made her feel shriveled and lacking. She fought back her despair.
Maybe Michael was responsible for their sexual problems. Hadn’t Dante the gigolo shown her more about lust in a few minutes than Michael had shown her in four years? Maybe a pro could accomplish what an amateur hadn’t been able to. At least a pro could be trusted to push the proper buttons.
The fact that she was even thinking about this should shock her, but the past six months had numbed her to shock. As a psychologist, she knew for certain that no one created a new life by ignoring old problems. They simply came back to bite again.
She knew she shouldn’t make a decision about something this important when she wasn’t sober. On the other hand, if she were sober, she’d never consider it, and that suddenly seemed like the worst mistake she could make. What better use could she find for the little money she had left than to put the past to rest so she could move ahead? This was the missing piece of her plan to reinvent herself.
Solitude, Rest, Contemplation, and Sexual Healing—four steps all leading to a fifth, Action. And all, more or less, in keeping with the Four Cornerstones.
He took his time finishing his wine, stroking her palm, sliding his finger beneath her gold bangle and over the pulse at her wrist. Abruptly he grew bored with the game and flung a handful of bills on the table. He rose and slowly extended his hand.
Now was the time to decide. All she had to do was keep her hand on the table and shake her head. A dozen other women sat within breathing distance, and he wouldn’t make a fuss.
“Sex will not fix what’s broken inside you,” Dr. Isabel said when she lectured. “Sex without a deep and abiding love will only leave you feeling sad and small. So fix yourself first. Fix yourself! Then you can think about sex. Because if you don’t—if you try to use sex to hide your addictions, to hurt the people who’ve abused you, to heal your insecurities so you can feel whole—you’ll only make what’s broken inside you hurt that much worse. . . .”
But Dr. Favor was a bankrupt failure, and the blonde in the Florentine café didn’t have to listen to her. Isabel rose and took his hand.
Her knees felt wobbly from the wine as he led her out of the piazza into the narrow streets. She wondered how much a gigolo charged, and hoped she had enough. If not, she’d use her overextended credit card. They walked in the direction of the river. Once again she experienced that nagging sense of familiarity. Which of the Old Masters had captured his face? But her brain was too fuzzy to remember.
He pointed to a Medici shield on the side of a building, then gestured toward a tiny courtyard where white flowers grew around a fountain. Tour guide and gigolo in one erotic package. The universe provided. And tonight it had provided the missing link in her plan to create a new life.
She didn’t like men towering over her, and he was a head taller than she, but he’d be horizontal soon, so that wouldn’t be a problem. She suppressed a flicker of panic. He could be married, but he barely seemed civilized, let alone domesticated. He could be a mass murderer, but despite the Mafia, Italian criminals tended to prefer theft to slaughter.
He smelled expensive—clean, exotic, and enticing—but the scent seemed to come from his pores instead of a bottle. She had a vision of him pressing her against one of the ancient stone buildings, lifting her skirt, and pushing into her, except that would get it over with too quickly, and getting it over with wasn’t the point. The point was being able to silence Michael’s voice so she could move forward with her life.
The wine had made her clumsy, and she tripped on nothing. Oh, she was a smoothie, all right. He steadied her, then gestured toward the door of a small, expensive hotel.
“Vuoi venire con me al’albergo.”
She didn’t understand the words, but the invitation was clear.
“I want passion!” Michael had said.
Well, guess what, Michael Sheridan? So do I.
She pushed past Dante and marched into the tiny lobby. Its exquisite appointments were reassuring—velvet drapes, gilded chairs, terrazzo floor. At least she’d be having her sordid sex on clean sheets. And this wasn’t the kind of place a lunatic would choose to murder a naïve, undersexed female tourist.
The desk clerk handed him a key, so he was already registered. A high-class gigolo. Their shoulders brushed in the tiny elevator, and she knew that the heat in the pit of her stomach came from more than wine and unhappiness.
They stepped out into a dimly lit hallway. As she gazed at him, a bizarre image flashed through her mind of a black-garbed man firing an assault weapon.
Where had that come from? Although she didn’t feel entirely safe with him, neither did she feel as though she were in physical danger. If he’d planned to murder her, he’d have done it in one of the alleys they’d passed, not with an assault weapon in a five-star hotel.
He led her to the end of the corridor. His hand on her arm was firm, a silent signal, perhaps, that he was now in charge.
Oh, God . . . What was she doing?
“Good sex, great sex, needs to be just as much about our brains as it is about bodies.”
Dr. Isabel was right. But this wasn’t about great sex. This was about raunchy, forbidden, dangerous sex in a strange city with a man she’d never see again. Sex to clear her mind and wash away her fear. Sex to reassure her that she was still a woman. Sex to mend the broken places so she could move ahead.
He opened the door and flipped on a light switch. His women paid him well. This was no simple hotel room but an elegant suite, although a bit untidy, with his clothes tumbling from an open suitcase and his shoes lying in the middle of the floor.
“Vuoi un poco di vino?”
She recognized the word “vino” and meant to say yes, but she got confused and shook her head instead. The motion was too fast, and she nearly lost her balance.
“Va bene.” A small, courteous nod, and then he walked past her into the bedroom. He moved like a creature of the dark, sleek and damned. Or maybe she was the one damned because she didn’t leave. Instead, she followed as far as the doorway and watched him go to the windows.
He leaned out to push the shutters back, and the breeze ruffled the long, silky strands of his hair while the moonlight glazed it with silver. He gestured outside. “Vieni vedere. Il giardino è bellissimo di notte.”
Her feet felt like alcohol-soaked rags as she set her purse on the dresser and went over to stand at his side. She gazed down and saw half a dozen tables in the flower-filled courtyard, their umbrellas collapsed for the night. Beyond the walls she heard traffic, and she thought she detected the musty scent of the Arno.
His hand slipped under her hair. He’d made the first move.
She could still leave. She could let him know this was a big mistake, a colossal mistake, the mother of all mistakes. How much money did you leave a gigolo who hadn’t completed the job? And what about a tip? Should she leave—
But he was just holding her. And holding wasn’t bad. It had been a long time. He felt a lot different from Michael. That unpleasant height, of course, but also a very pleasant muscularity.
He lowered his head, and she began to back away, because she wasn’t ready for the kissing to start. Then she reminded herself this was to be a purging.
His lips touched hers at just the right angle. The slide of his tongue was perfect, neither too timid nor too suffocating. It was a great kiss, elegantly executed, no slurping sounds. Pretty much flawless. Too flawless. Even in her haze she knew that there was nothing of himself in it, just an effortless display of professional expertise. Which was good. Exactly what she would have expected if she’d had enough time to expect anything.
What was she doing here?
Shut up and let the man do his job. Think of him as a sex surrogate. Reputable therapists use them, don’t they?
He certainly believed in taking his time, and her blood began to move a little faster. She gave him points for gentleness.
His hand slid under her sweater before she was ready, but she didn’t try to redirect him. Michael was wrong. She didn’t have to take control. Besides, Dante’s touch felt good, so she couldn’t be all that dysfunctional, could she? He flicked the catch of her bra, and she began to tense. Relax and let the man work. This is perfectly natural, even if he is a complete stranger.
He pushed aside the cups and stroked her spine. She was going to let him do this. She was going to let him brush his finger over her nipple. Yes, just like that. He was very skillful. . . . Taking plenty of time. Maybe she and Michael had been too quick to race to the end, but what could you expect from goal-oriented workaholics?
Dante seemed to appreciate fondling her breasts, which was nice. Michael had enjoyed them, but Dante seemed more of a connoisseur.
He drew her away from the window toward the bed and pushed up her sweater. Before, he’d been able only to touch her breasts. Now he could see them as well, and that felt intrusive, but if she pulled her sweater back down, she might be proving Michael’s point, so she kept her hands at her sides.
He cradled her breast. Lifted it, molded it, then bent his head and drew the nipple deep into his mouth. Her body began to break away from its moorings.
She felt her slacks drifting over her hips. It was her nature to be cooperative, and she slipped off her shoes. He stepped back just enough to take off her sweater, then her bra. He was a wizard with women’s clothes. No fumbling or wasted motions, everything perfect right down to the meaningless Italian endearments he was whispering in her ear.
She stood before him in beige lace panties and a gold bangle with the word BREATHE inscribed inside. He removed his shoes and socks—no awkwardness there—and unbuttoned his black silk shirt with the slow expertise of a male stripper, exposing one perfectly defined muscle after another. She could see that he worked out to keep the tools of his trade in good order.
His thumbs settled over her nipples, which were still moist from his mouth. He plucked them between his fingers, and she floated away from herself, which was a good place to be—the farther the better. “Bella,” he whispered, the sound a deep male purr.
His hand trailed over the beige lace between her legs and began to rub, but she wasn’t ready for that. Dante needed to go back to gigolo school.
She’d no sooner thought it than the tip of his finger began a slow tracing around the lace. She clutched his arm for support against the sudden weakness in her legs. Why did she always think she knew how to do other people’s jobs better than they did? This was one more reminder that she wasn’t an expert at everything, or even anything—not that she needed many more reminders about that.
He flicked back the covers with an elegant twist of his wrist, drew her down, then reclined beside her, the motion so exquisitely executed it might have been choreographed. He should write a book: Sex Secrets of Italy’s Top Gigolo. They should both write books. Hers would be called How I Proved I Was All Woman and Reclaimed My Life. Her publisher could sell them as a boxed set.
She was paying for this, and he’d touched her, so it was time to touch back, even though they hardly knew each other and it seemed presumptuous.
Stop it!
She began her tentative exploration with his chest, then his back. Michael worked out, but not like this man.
Her hands crept to his abdomen, which was tightly ridged like an athlete’s. His trousers were gone—when had he gotten rid of them?—and his boxers were black silk.
Just do it!
She touched him through the thin fabric and heard the quick catch of breath. Real or feigned, she didn’t know. One thing, however, wasn’t an illusion. He’d been born with a natural gift for the gigolo trade.
She felt her panties being slipped off. Did you expect to keep them on? He shifted his weight and began kissing the inner slope of her thigh. A warning bell clanged. Her tension grew as his mouth moved higher. She grabbed his shoulders and pushed him away. There were some things she couldn’t submit to, not even to clear out the past.
He gazed up at her. In the dim light she saw the question in his expression. She shook her head. He shrugged and reached toward the bedside table.
She hadn’t once thought about condoms. Apparently she’d developed a death wish along with her other hang-ups. He slipped it on as smoothly as he did everything else, then began to draw her close, but she seized what little sanity she had left and held up two fingers.
“Due?”
“Deux, s’il vous plaît.”
With a look that had “crazy foreigner” written all over it, he reached for another condom. This time his motions weren’t effortless. He had to struggle to fit latex over latex, and she looked away because his clumsiness made him seem human, and she didn’t want that.
His hand brushed her hip, then her thighs. He pressed them open again, ready to practice more refinements on her, but this intimacy was too much for her. A tear leaked from the corner of her eye. She turned her head and blotted it on the pillow before he noticed. She wanted an orgasm, damn it, not drunken, self-pitying tears. An exquisite orgasm that would clear her mind so she could give her full attention to reinventing her life.
She tugged to pull him on top of her. When he hesitated, she tugged harder, and finally he did as she wanted. His hair brushed her cheek, and she heard the rough rasp of his breathing as he slipped a finger inside her. It felt good, but he was too close, and the wine sloshed uneasily in her stomach, and she should have made him lie on his back so she could get on top.
His touch grew slower, more tantalizing, but she wanted to get where they were going, and she pulled on his hips to urge him inside her. At last he moved his legs and resettled.
She realized right away that it wouldn’t be an easy fit, not like with Michael. She gritted her teeth and wiggled against him until his self-control gave way and he embedded himself inside her.
Even then he wouldn’t move along, so she tilted her hips, urging him to hurry, to get her where she needed to be, to finish up so she could be done with this before the sober whispers invading her wine-soaked brain turned into shouts and she had to deal with the fact that she was violating everything she believed in and this was wrong!
He angled, pulled back, and gazed down at her with hot, glazed eyes. She closed her own eyes so she wouldn’t have to look at him, as superb as he was. He slipped his hands between their bodies and rubbed her, but his patience only made everything worse. The wine curdled in her stomach. She pushed his arm away and moved her hips. Eventually he took the hint and began a slow, thorough thrusting. She bit her lip and counted backward, counted forward, pushed his hand away again, and fought the bleakness of self-betrayal.
Eons passed before he convulsed. She endured his shudders and waited for the moment when he would roll to his side. When it finally came, she leaped from the bed.
“Annette?”
She ignored him and shoved herself into her clothes.
“Annette? Che problema c’è?”
She reached into her purse, threw a handful of bills on the bed, and fled from the room.