Page 24 of The Don

Salvatore laughs and brushes his mouth across my cheek before he crawls out of bed.

“Come back,” I whine, turning to reach for him.

His eyes go to my bare breasts. His smile goes slack. His dick is not completely soft.

Whoever’s at the door knocks again.

“I will be right back,” he says. “I promise.”

I watch him hungrily while he bends over his suitcase to extract a pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt. I’m a little bit angry, but it’s hardly noticeable under all the lust.

“I promise,” he says again, closing the bedroom door behind him as he leaves.

Not to be too pathetic, but I watch the door for at least a few minutes, hoping he’ll come back, like, immediately. When it becomes clear that he isn’t, I crawl out of bed and mope to the bathroom.

I look a mess. Like a fucked to within an inch of my life mess, but also a dehydrated, jetlagged, didn’t put on a bonnet last night mess.

“Jesus,” I mutter to myself and walk back to the bedroom. Salvatore still hasn’t returned — it’s been twenty seconds, but still — and I pull my suitcase onto its side.

Because the aunties were doing the most, I had to pack in a hurry, and I feel like half a year’s worth of shit has happened since then, so I really don’t know what’s in here. I start to pull everything out. I don’t know how long this trip will last, but I guess it can’t hurt to hang up all these dresses I apparently threw into this suitcase for no real reason. And I just have to sigh when I realize that I’ve committed my mother’s — and Zoe’s — cardinal offense for traveling. “Where the fuck is all my underwear?” I mutter under my breath, holding up barely a week’s worth of panties if I count half of the bikini I wasted time packing.

When all the clothes are piled on the floor, I take stock of my paltry ass pickings for clothes for a trip that has run off the rails in a day — assuming it was ever on the rails.

But I did pack what looks like all my skincare and a good conditioner, so there’s that.

I grab my toiletries and head back to the bathroom. I leave the door open for Salvatore, just in case.

I come from a family of women who believe in caring for your body as a form of self-care. There’s a lot of long soaks in the bathtub when your co-workers are getting on your nerves, washing and deep conditioning your hair when your partner is being a dick, and extensive mask usage when life is too goddamn much. The hard lesson of adulthood was that none of these rituals made me feel any less stressed or got me a better job, and they certainly didn’t get me away from Steve a day sooner, but they always felt good and sometimes that was even enough.

Normally I duck and dodge the water while showering, but when I get to walk fully under the spray, it’s heavenly. I’m normally a detangle-before-I-wash kind of girl, but I’ll just have to make do today and be extra careful. I wet my hair and carefully use my fingers to part it down the middle. I thank my home training that I remembered shampoo and conditioner as I squirt a healthy amount of the former into my palm. I close my eyes and carefully use the pads of my fingers to work it into my hair and across my scalp, giving myself a cleansing massage.

With my eyes closed, the water beating on my breasts and stomach, and my fingers working in my hair, I think of Salvatore. It takes forever and gallons of water to wash and condition my hair and my body, but I do it all with a smile on my face. By the time I’m clean, I’m not even mad that Salvatore jumped out of bed when things were about to get interesting and hasn’t joined me in the shower because I feel fucking great. I feel like brand-new.

When I pull back the shower curtain, I find Salvatore leaning against the doorjamb in an immaculately pressed pair of black slacks and a matching linen shirt. His arms are crossed in front of his chest, there’s a greedy smile on his face, and a healthy bulge in his pants.

“No fucking way was I in here long enough for you to get dressed and look this good.”

“You were, actually.”

“But where did you get dressed? How did I miss it?”

“There’s another bathroom,” he says. “I would have given you a tour last night, but we were…preoccupied.” He smooths a hand over his mouth, almost hiding the smile. His glasses are fogging up a little, but I can still see his eyes travel down my body, reminding me that I am very naked. And wet. And not just from the shower now.

“You could have joined me,” I whisper.

The smile falls from his face. He crosses his arms over his chest. “I wish that I could have.”

“You couldn’t?”

He’s frowning now. “No, bella.” He steps into the bathroom and takes one of the towels from the rack, opening it for me. “Come.”

I step carefully out of the shower and let him wrap the towel around my body.

Salvatore begins to towel me dry, making me shiver.

“Not my hair,” I tell him when he turns me around.

“Si, Shae,” he says in a tone of voice that makes me wet and a little scared all at the same time.

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