Page 72 of Casanova LLC

Every filthy word, coming from that ice princess mouth, sent a bolt of lightning through me.

I tried, but I couldn’t find any words. It didn’t matter. She was already gone.

* * *

I went to the kitchen, made a fresh charcuterie platter, took a homemade baked ziti out of the freezer and set it in the oven on low to defrost. Not exactly gourmet, but it was the meal I’d found women—and to be honest, I—most reliably craved after sex. That and the rest of the torta from the other night.

Then I went up to my apartment and did thirty minutes on the rower. Showered and shaved. I still had at least another hour.

I walked around my apartment, feeling like a bull waiting to enter the arena. As I air-dried with a towel around my waist, I found myself drifting over to the blank canvas sitting on my easel.

Next thing I knew I was creating a wash, mixing pink and orange and red and then diluting it with water and brushing it over the canvas with wide, messy strokes until the white was entirely covered. I ran a paper towel over it, blending it in, wiping away the brush lines.

Before the thin wash had even dried, I was outlining. A fine brush dipped in gray, rapidly made straight lines. My hand moved as if it had never stopped. It was alive again, steady and strong and purposeful.

I didn’t do figurative. Had only done two before, one of my uncle and one of my mother. I’d abandoned it early on for landscapes, where I felt I had more room to interpret, to say what I wanted to say. People were complicated.

But now, an outline of a left hand materialized within the rose color. As did a small band across the ring finger. Then an arm. A shoulder. A breast. A face in profile, hair flowing out behind. I filled in the brow, the line above her pert little nose, the fullness of her lips, and height of her cheekbones. I unzipped her coat in my mind, saw her collarbone, and it appeared on the canvas. I felt like a child discovering ice cream for the first time—no, better. It was a rediscovery. That something you’d loved could be even better than you remembered.

There was a knock on the door.

I blinked at the canvas, coming out of a trance.

Annoyance washed over me. Seriously? Again?

I strode to the door, jerking it open. “Che cosa?”

But it wasn’t Jacopo. My entire being rebooted. “I thought you—I’m sorry, I’m not?—”

The woman I had parted with an hour ago was not the one standing before me.

She was in the short plum silk robe, hair was still wet from a shower, and she was barefoot, and shaking, and she looked like she’d just scented the sulfur of the devil himself.

“The deal’s off.”

Episode 6

“When a man is in love very little is enough to throw him into despair and as little to enhance his joy to the utmost.”

? Giacomo Casanova

Claire

When I’d left him downstairs, I’d gone into my room, closed the door, and leaned against it, gathering myself. Or trying to.

This is not good, Claire. Every moment I spent with him only made me long for more of him.

I reminded myself not to overthink this, to just appreciate how it felt. Appreciate him. Appreciate me. Appreciate us. No assumptions. No expectations. I reminded myself it would be over soon enough.

But what if I didn’t want it to be?

Didn’t matter. Because it would be over. In this one instance, it didn’t matter what I wanted.

I showered, hoping to wash away these feelings. When I stepped out and toweled off, I was greeted by the sight of the bath oil sitting on the rim of the tub. I debated getting myself off just because I knew I could now. But no. I wanted him tonight.

I wanted him inside me. I wanted him pounding and deep and slow. I wanted to hear him, taste him, feel him. All of it. Him.

With fumbling hands, I slipped into the silk robe from the first night. Everything felt sensual now. Daring. Electrified. I had the urge to do something stupid—take a photo of myself looking as wildly wanting as the mirror led me to believe I did and send it to him. For later. So he’d have it when I was gone. I thought of him touching himself to that picture and my stomach hollowed out.

---