Page 12 of Beautiful & Dirty

She turns to look at me over her shoulder. Her eyes are dancing with excitement. She licks her lips, and my stomach clenches with need.

I follow her into my office and shut the door behind me, and the quiet surrounds us. I wonder if she can hear the echo of Umberto’s screams bouncing off the walls or just my pounding heart.

“No one will come in here, right?” she asks timidly, backing into the center of the room.

“No one would dare,” I say with a smile.

She laughs because she doesn’t understand. She doesn’t know what I am, and it makes me want her even more.

* * *

I’ve never done anything like this before.

It wasn’t that I was a good girl, even though that’s what my cousins always called me, spitting the words at me like an accusation. I know what they were insinuating — that I’m too timid to do anything really daring or step one foot out of line — but that wasn’t it. Unfortunately, the truth is even worse. Before this moment, I had such a lack of imagination that I couldn’t imagine being in a situation like this. I’d never have considered having sex with a man I’d just met. I’d never cheat.

But here I am, and now I can’t imagine being anywhere else.

I don’t believe in accidents. I’ve made a series of decisions that have led me here. Some were completely incidental — refusing to go with Steve back to our hotel, boarding the train without him, and choosing to walk halfway across the city to this restaurant because the Yelp reviews were better than all the others — but some weren’t. I could have refused to let Salvatore sit at the table with me. I could have refused the second glass of wine. And most importantly, I could have reminded him — and myself — of the gold wedding ring glinting in the sunlight as he extended his hand to invite me back here. But I didn’t. I barely even acknowledged what I should have done. For the first time, I do exactly the thing I want and don’t care what anyone else will think. Not even Salvatore, even though I can see in his eyes that he wants what I want. He wants me.

I could leave. I could tell this strange man that I’ve changed my mind. I could tell him that I’m not this woman; I don’t sleep with strangers in a room that smells like a poor clinic, and I certainly don’t cheat. I could tell this man that I love Steve, and I don’t want to hurt him. But when I think about that excuse, I realize that it’s a lie. I don’t love Steve; I’ve just gotten comfortable with him. He feels familiar, if not quite safe. My twenties are nearly half over, and I’ve settled for a man who nitpicks at me and treats me like a surrogate mother. I hate that, and I hate myself for not realizing what my life had become until this moment.

But that’s not what makes me stay. Self-recrimination isn’t why I set my purse and jacket onto the chair next to me. It’s the way Salvatore looks at me. He’s leaning against the door. He’s just outside the arc of the naked light bulb hanging from the ceiling, and his face is half-covered in shadow, but I can feel his eyes on me — all over me — and that’s what makes me stay.

I feel like there’s a broken record in my head saying the same thing. Steve’s never looked at me so intensely that I can feel his gaze like a featherlight touch on my skin. Steve’s lust for me hasn’t ever felt like a heavy hand traveling up my spine. When Steve looks at me, I feel small and wrong, but Salvatore’s eyes make me feel strong and sexy, and if there’s a choice to be made between the two, it’s Salvatore all the way. I’ll worry later about defining myself by someone else’s attention, a man no less. Right now, I’m spurred on by the fear that I’ll never feel this way again, and if that’s true, I want to feel every second of this. I want Salvatore to show me everything I’ve been missing. I’ll never forgive myself if I shrink away from this moment.

I reach for the hem of my t-shirt.

“Tsk, tsk, tsk,” Salvatore says, finally pushing off of the door.

My hands still, just curling over the fabric. The backs of my own fingers rubbing over the soft skin at my waist gives me goosebumps.

“I would like to do that,” he says, stalking slowly toward me.

My hands fall to my sides because I would like him to undress me as well.

Steve never has. He’s always so eager, but not in a good way. He usually just attacks me, licking and kissing me haphazardly with no consideration for what I like, and then he thrusts into me without asking if I’m ready. After that, it’s just a few minutes of his wild, jerky pumps inside me — where he manages not to hit any of my most sensitive spots — until he comes.

I deserve more than that. I deserve a man who’ll make looking at me a sensual event, who’ll slow down to appreciate the small things. I deserve Salvatore.

My heart is pounding as he circles around me once. I’m so keyed up with expectation that when his fingers slide under the hem of my shirt and his knuckles brush my bare torso, I groan.

“Does that feel good, bella?” he whispers to me.

“God, yes.”

“And we haven’t even started yet,” he reminds me.

“Haven’t we?” I ask, raising my eyes to his. “Haven’t you been seducing me since you sat at my table?”

His smile is beautiful, soft, and maybe even a little bit sad. “That might be so,” he admits. “But you have been seducing me since the moment you walked into my restaurant.”

“Have I?” I’ve never seduced anyone before.

He’s lifting my shirt slowly up my body, and I choke back a groan when the backs of his hands graze over my nipples, pressing briefly against the cups of my bra.

“Raise your arms, sweetheart,” he says, and I do.

I expect him to throw my shirt on the floor, but when he doesn’t, I realize yet again that Salvatore isn’t like any of the men I’ve ever known before. I assume it’s his age and maturity. He’s older, wiser, and more experienced, and that’s why he isn’t attacking me like a Tasmanian devil. He carefully places my shirt on the table behind us. His fingers graze over my forearms, up my sides, across my stomach, only to linger at the button of my jeans.

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