He shakes his head, swallowing. “She’s gone to her room. She has a headache. But you will see her when you go back. Perhaps you can download a movie and watch it together.”
“Okay,” Vanni says, seeming content with that.
But I feel awful.
“Hey,” Claudio says to me gently.
He reaches across the table and places his hand on top of mine and holds it tight, our first public display of affection in front of Vanni.
Vanni just rolls his eyes and goes back to reading the dessert menu.
“It’s going to be okay,” Claudio says to me. “I promise.”
I trust Claudio and all, but I don’t see how any of that is going to be okay.
When we get back to the hotel, Vanni goes to Jana’s room to watch a movie, and I’m alone in mine, staring out the window at the streets of Florence, watching the tourists move in the night. It’s so much calmer after the sun goes down. I think I prefer it this way.
Finally, there’s a knock at my door.
“Who is it?” I call out, walking over to it.
“Special delivery,” an overly high-pitched voice says from the other side.
I can’t help but smile.
I open the door.
Claudio is standing there holding a bottle of Prosecco and a floral arrangement of pale taupe and pink roses in a vase.
“For you,” he says, handing me the vase as he walks in the room. Then he shakes the bottle of Prosecco. “For us.”
I sniff the roses, their scent mild. “Where did you get this?”
He shrugs. “I stole it from the display down the hall.”
I laugh. “Well, they’re very pretty. Not as pretty as yours, of course.”
“Of course,” he says, as he handles the Prosecco, his forearms popping as he untwists the wire around the cork. He glances up at me. “How are you feeling?”
I shrug one shoulder. “About as well as I can be.” I go and sit on the edge of the bed, watching him open the bottle with a pop. “Alternating between relief and worry.”
“This will help with the worry,” he says, walking over to the bar area and pouring us two glasses.
He comes back over and hands one to me. He raises his glass and I do the same.
“Here is to coming clean,” he says, staring down at me. “To no more hiding. We can finally be us.”
I raise the glass and have a large gulp, the bubbles tickling my nose.
To love.
“So,” I begin as he sits down on the bed next to me, our legs dangling off. “Are you going to tell me what happened?”
He nods as he links his foot around mine. “She is pissed.”
I suck in my breath.
“And you knew that she would be, and I suppose I should have taken your fears more seriously,” he adds.
I gulp. “Fuck.”
“Yes. It’s her pride that’s hurt. I asked her if she still had feelings for me...”
Oh god.
I sit up straighter. “And?”
“She laughed. It was very bitter. I know she doesn’t, but I had to be sure because I couldn’t understand her reaction to us. But yes, it is her pride, which is more precious to her than I could have imagined. Something about you being younger than me, than her, and she is older, and you are a new client, and it was something a woman does not do to another woman. I don’t know, here in Italy it is no big deal. But I guess it is over there. Once you are divorced, you are not allowed to find love again? I don’t know.”
Guilt creates knots in my stomach and I feel like keeling over.
“And so on and so on.” He sighs, has another sip. “I told her that this has nothing to do with you, that if she has problems to take it up with me. Oh, and she did that too. I got an earful, that I am a bastard and whatever. In the end, I told her that no matter what happens, I plan on being with you forever, so whether she decides to drop you as a client or not, she will always have to deal with you.”
I blink. I’m stuck on what he just said.
Not about her dropping me as a client.
He plans on being with me forever.
“Oh no,” he says, frowning as he searches my face. “I said the wrong thing.”
I shake my head, trying to deal with that chaotic mess of feelings inside me. “You didn’t,” I whisper.
“I scared you. I said too much.”
His expression is crumbling, so I quickly grab his hand and squeeze it. “No. You didn’t scare me at all. I…that’s what I want.”
He stares at me in disbelief. “You do?”
“Yes. I don’t want you for now. Or a few months from now. Or a year from now. I want you forever.”
Claudio blinks, completely taken aback.
I put my hand on his cheek, his stubble rough against my warm palm. “Claudio. I felt myself falling and I didn’t stop myself this time. I let it happen. I let myself fall in love with you.” Hot tears prick my eyes. “I love you. I’m in love with you and it’s scary, and it’s chaotic, and it’s messy, and I don’t think I’ll ever be the same again but…I love you. In this universe, and in the next one, and the next one.”
A tear falls down Claudio’s cheek and the next thing I know, he’s pressing my face between his hands and kissing me. So hard, so passionate, rolling with such feeling that I feel my glass fall to the floor and his does the same, Prosecco spilling everywhere.
But I don’t care.
I am in love.
And as a result, my brain has deserted me.
We roll back onto the bed and he crawls over me, and I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of seeing his large, tanned, muscular frame above my body.
My hands skim down the muscles of his back, pulling at his shirt.
His hands slide up my legs, bunching up my dress, pushing aside my underwear until he finds me soaked and bare and ready for him.
We don’t have words tonight because all the words have been said for now.
All we have are our hearts and we’re letting those lead the way, and make the choices, the way it always should be.
He continues to kiss me, soft lips and slick tongue that gradually turns raw and wild, and it all means so much more now. Now that I know what I’m feeling, now that I know I love him, it takes this meeting of our bodies to another plane of existence, to another level. I don’t want to just give him my body, I want to give him my heart and soul and every other piece of me.
And as he undoes his pants and pushes his cock inside of me, I know he’s taking those pieces of me, savoring them, making them meld with everything he has to give.
Give and take.
He rocks into my hips, I buck up against him.
He slowly pulls himself out, I squeeze him as he goes.
His lips suck down my neck, my nails scratch at his back.
We fuck like this, soft and slow and sweet, both of us brimming with too many feelings, occasionally looking at each other in awe, like neither of us knew it could be this good.
But it is.
We come together, my orgasm crashing down on me like a tidal wave, spinning me in all directions. He cries out my name, sharp and loud in the room, as he shudders out his breath, his hips pressing hard against mine.
All the emotions of the day suddenly come flooding back at full strength, like I had barely been keeping the water back, and now the dam has caved in.