Page 5 of Beautiful & Dirty

As I watch, the silver fox pushes up from his chair and walks toward me. I’ve never had a thing for older men or anything, and since I’ve been with Steve for my entire adult life, I’ve never had the opportunity to sample the many different flavors of men available in the world, but as I watch this man stroll toward me with the kind of confidence I’m certain must come with age — and a big dick — I wonder if I’ve been missing something, and the answer hits me like a brick in the face.

Of course, I’ve been missing something. I’ve never had sex with anyone besides Steve.

And speaking of sex, I think this man is probably amazing at it just by the way he walks, which makes me realize that Steve is not. Isn’t that a bitch? I don’t even need to have sex with anyone else. All I needed was the suggestion of it, to have the personal space and time to give sex with someone else real consideration to realize what I haven’t before; that Steve is bad at sex. Our sex life had always been unfulfilling, but I haven’t ever had any other partners to compare him to or to know that it could be different. He comes. I come… sometimes. We fall asleep next to each other. But it’s always his same impatient rutting on top of me, no variation, no trying new things, no dirty talk, no toys, no taking control and making me gag on his dick, no making me wet begging for it, no spending the entire night sitting on his face. Somehow, watching this man has opened a door of desire inside me where I finally see all the things Steve and Icouldhave tried, all the porn that gets me off secretly while he’s at work that we could have emulated, all the sexual boundaries we could have tested to expand our horizons, but we haven’t, and I didn’t even realize that with another man, that might have been an option. That maybe if I had dated someone else, this fictional new boyfriend would have taken my sexual inexperience as the beginning rather than the end of the story. That with another man, I might have become someone else, someone who wasn’t such a people-pleaser, someone who asked for what she wanted in bed instead of silently taking what was on offer and remaining unsatisfied; someone bolder. My breath quickens as this man walks slowly toward me, and I feel all these possibilities in his every step.

Out of nowhere, I suddenly remember how Zoe described her first real orgasm with her college roommate — “like the sky split, the heavens opened, and my pussy sang a hymn.” I’ve never felt that. Steve has never made me feel that. Would this man?

He stops at my table and looks down at me. Up close, I realize that he’s not as old as the gray hair made me think. His face only has a few lines between his eyes and bracketing his mouth, as if he frowns a lot, certainly more than he smiles. Up close, he looks elegantly put together, from his hair to his apron to his perfectly manicured nails. This is a man who takes care of himself, and I imagine that this is a man who’d give my body the same kind of careful attention. I don’t know him at all, and yet I can picture that small cluster of wrinkles deepening as he touches me, kisses me, and fucks me the way Steve never has; maybe never could.

I know it’s not right to compare, but my brain refuses to let even a single difference between Steve and my impressions of this man go unnoticed. Steve is fine, boring, kind of slobby in the way most white dudes are in college and for five years to infinity after. I haven’t ever had anything to compare him to because most of our friends are about the same, but now that I do, I realize how much he’s always reminded me of the kids I used to babysit, not the kind of man I wanted to date. And suddenly, I can’t be surprised that this trip has devolved so quickly because this is how our relationship has always been, I just refused to accept it. But this man isn’t a kid. He looks strong and powerful, maybe even dangerous, and my pussy feels slick at just the sight of him.

He nods at the chair across from me in a silent question, and I nod eagerly in return. I feel young and naïve in that moment, eager for his attention, and I shiver in anticipation now that I have it.

He lowers himself gracefully into the chair, looks briefly away from me, and whispers something to the waitress in a soft burr of Italian. She places the bottle of wine and a wine opener on the table and then rushes away. I watch him with slow, heavy breaths as he leans back in his chair, crosses his legs, and smiles at me.

“Excuse me,” he says in the thickest, sexiest accented English I’ve ever heard, even after over a week in Italy. “I’m sorry to interrupt you. If you would like to be alone, I understand.”

“N-no,” I say. “Please.” I don’t know what I’m begging him for, but I do know that my voice sounds… different. Strained? Needy? Excited? It makes me think of sex, and by the small way his mouth tips up on the left side, I think it makes him think of sex as well. I’m so fucking thirsty in this moment as years of repressed desire and lust overtake me that I know I should be ashamed, but I’m not.

“Would you like some wine?” he asks.

“Please,” I whisper again. This time my voice is lower, huskier. I’m so very ready for him and this moment that I instantly know that fate — yes, I believe in fate — brought me to Italy for this, not for Steve to propose in front of the Trevi fountain. I’ve endured the last week just so I can experience whatever is about to happen, so that I can realize all that I’ve been missing before.

He watches me for a few seconds with a kind of quiet contemplation, and I let him. As the seconds accumulate, I realize that Steve has never looked at me for so long or like this. Not when we first met, or when we’re sitting across from each other at our dining table, not even after sex. He looks at me, but I don’t know if he sees me.

This man drinks me in, his eyes traveling over every inch of my face. It makes me feel beautiful and sexy and so fucking horny that I hardly know what to do with myself or who I am. Am I even the kind of woman who deserves this kind of consideration?

I lick my lips. His gaze takes that in as well.

“Beautiful,” he whispers at me, and that one word feels so intimate that my heart starts racing, and my thighs press together.

The waitress returns with another wine glass before rushing away again.

“Shall we begin, bella?” he asks in a deep whisper.

“Yes,” I whisper back without hesitation. Begin what, I wonder, but “Please,” is what I say instead.

Chapter 4

“What is your name, bella?”

She licks her lips, and I could groan at the sight. The soft brown of her puckered mouth, the bright pink of her tongue, the slight flush of her cheeks. She’s perfect.

“Shae,” she says, “not spelled like the butter.”

I smile and nod calmly.

“What—” She stops and takes a deep breath as if she needs to collect her thoughts. I enjoy the rise and fall of her breasts. “What’s your name?”

“Salvatore,” I tell her. Everyone calls me Salvo. Salvatore was my father, not that I remember much about him besides how happy I was when I realized that he was never coming back home, but I don’t tell her that, because I want to hear my entire name on her lips, and she does not disappoint.

“Salvatore,” she whispers as if she’s tentatively tasting each syllable. “Salvatore,” she says again, but this time with a bit more strength, as if I belong there on her tongue. And I think I do.

Every muscle in my body clenches. People have said my name in many ways; a pained plea like Umberto, a whispered curse like my wife when she thinks I can’t hear, a fearful yet respectful utterance like Giulio, and once upon a time even a moaning exhalation, but it’s been years since I’ve heard that last one. Twenty years, to be exact.

But I don’t think anyone has ever said my name like Shae. Her voice snakes under my clothes and covers my skin like electric current, and then it sinks down to my bones, in my marrow. I let myself wonder what it would be like to hear that voice in my ear as I’m driving my hips into hers, or how the first exhausted, raspy exhalation in the morning might distort the airiness in her tone. I let myself think those things, even though I know I shouldn’t.

This is a dangerous pivot to my day. I’ve just had my associate break a man’s fingers in my office mere minutes ago, and every day holds the promise that the police might break into my restaurant any moment for another unwarranted shakedown masquerading as a raid. But sitting across the table from Shae may be the most dangerous thing I’ve ever done in this restaurant because I feel myself wanting it too — I want her too much — and it’s dangerous for a man like me to want anything unless I’m willing to kill to keep it.

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