Casanova LLC

Episode 6

“W hen 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.

But when I picked up my phone to do just that, I saw I had a voicemail.

From the lawyers.

My stomach hollowed again, for a different reason.

The message was simple, directing me to call back as soon as I could.

So I did.

After the call, my body shut down. And I was slammed back into the part of me that I had finally extricated myself from: my mind. And it was going at supersonic speed.

I was sitting on the bed, not realizing I had sat on the bed. My shaking hands on my shaking knees.

How could I fix this?

There was no fix.

How could I make it go away?

I couldn’t.

Well. I could. The way I’d made everything else go away.

But that meant…

Before I’d thought it through, I was off the bed and flying out of the room, sprinting up the stairs in my bare feet, and knocking on his door.

He opened it, said something I couldn’t register, and I said, “The deal’s off.”

He seemed to tense, closed the door slightly. “What? What are you?—

“Can I come in?”

“How about I meet you in the sala?”

“No, I—we need to talk.”

“We’ll talk downstairs.”

I was shaking my head. “The salon belongs to Casanova. I need to talk to you . Like, when we first talked on my roof, that you.”

“Claire, I’m sorry, but…as I told you, my personal space isn’t part of the deal, just let me get dres?—”

“The deal’s off! Please, can I just…” I gestured at the door and, bewildered, he opened it just enough for me to bolt inside. I tried to keep my voice steady. “This thing we’re doing. Our agreement thing. It’s no longer a thing.” Jesus, Claire, can you talk? “Something’s come up and I don’t—I’m not entirely sure what it means, but I can’t promise, anymore, that I’ll be able to buy your paintings back right away. So there.”

Stupefied, blinking at me, he closed the door. “What, why?”

“Because I was going to open a line of credit on Visage to do it.” My voice sounded tinny. “But now I’m going to have to sell it, or at least go through another audit if there’s a lien, which means a lock-up period, which means I can’t access?—”

“Hang on, go back.”

“I need a ride to the airport. Can you?—”

“Slow down, what exactly happened?” He approached me like I was a bear cub that had wandered off from its mother.

“You can return the placemats I bought for Jacopo and keep the cash. I’m so sorry, it’s so insultingly inadequate, but at least?—”

“Claire, just sit?—”

“I don’t want to sit. I’m leaving.”

“You’re not leaving.” He reached for my elbow. “I’ll make you some tea?—”

“I don’t want tea! I want to leave!”

He stepped toward me again, hand out.

I jumped back. “Please don’t touch me right now!” Asking Alessandro not to touch me made me realize just how upside down this had all become.

He immediately halted.

And I, contradictory mess that I was, threw myself against his chest just as a sob tore from my own. Fortunately, he ignored my directive. His arms came around me with fierce gentleness. He held me upright when my legs couldn’t be relied upon to do so. “Tell me what happened.” It was barely above a whisper.

“Richard had someone else.” Saying it was like puking up gravel.

After a long while, he murmured, “You didn’t know?”

I slowly pulled back. Met his eyes. “Did you?”

His mouth tightened. “I heard things.”

“Fro—from clients?”

He didn’t correct the terminology. He also didn’t correct the assumption.

“Well, had you heard there’s a child?”

Now he looked shocked.

I spun away from him. I looked out his tall window into the moonlight on the canal. I knew how beautiful it was, but at the moment it was unseeable. All I could see was the ghostly reflection of an imaginary face with Richard’s features. “They’re three. The child.” I turned back to Alessandro, also beautiful, also unseeable. “He said he didn’t want children.” The “with me” was implied. I put my face in my hands. “I really thought he loved me.”

“It’s possible he did, in his own way. Men are?—”

“Liars? Manipulators? They know if they love us just enough, delude us into loving them, we’ll accept all their shit. Accept the unacceptable.” I began to pace. “The last thing I was holding on to was that he may have been this awful person to other people, but he wasn’t that way with me . That he was a good man to me . Even if he never touched me. Especially if he never touched me. That showed he respected me. God, what an idiot !”

“Okay, Cara , that’s a lot to unpack , and we will. But can you please explain why this has anything to do with Visage?”

“Because she’s going to take it!”

“Who?”

“The other woman! The lawyer said she wanted to meet with me, can you believe the gall? She wants Visage.” My knees were shaking. Knocking. Could he hear them? “I can’t believe this. All that’s left is what I’ve built. Sorry, honey, I know you thought having Richard Craven’s child would get you Richard Craven’s money, but you didn’t get there fast enough. And you’re sure as hell not getting what’s mine . Jesus Christ, how many people do I have to make whole? They just keep coming. It’s never going to be over!”

My vision darkened. The edges blurred. Instantly, Alessandro was beside me, lowering me onto the couch, sitting next to me. “Claire. Listen to me. You’re hyperventilating. Everything’s coming back at you all at once. You need to breathe.”

I scoffed but in my current state it sounded like choking. “I can’t. I’m trying to, but I can’t.”

“Okay, okay. You’re spiraling. Focus on one thing: what are you feeling?”

“Anger.”

“Why?”

Fire exploded inside me, and, like a backdraft, rushed up through my chest and into my face and out my mouth: “Because I gave up everything for him! I lost friends. My home. My reputation. My respectability. And for what? A crook. A thief. A cheater! My father, just with money. No wonder Richard felt like home when we started dating! The fact that he felt so comfortably familiar should have been a red flag not a green light! I married the very thing I swore I never would.”

“Good, that’s it, let it out.” His hand cupped the back of my head. “Just take a big breath first. Please.”

He was treating me like he’d treated his nephew. And rightfully so. I’d devolved into a child and so what? I’d deal with that later. Right now, I had to continue. “And he had the balls to be jealous of you. What a hypocrite!” I looked into Alessandro’s pained, transportive eyes. “Because that’s what it had to have been, right? Jealousy? He ruined your whole life because of it—” He shook his head, opened his mouth as if to disagree, or soothe, or whatever, but I kept going. “And you know what? Of everything? Of all the things I gave up for him? I regret you the most.”

His eyes fluttered closed. When he opened them, they were aflame.

So I just said it. “Fuck me.”

“Claire—”

“Fuck him out of me.”

“No.”

He pulled back. And I remembered, then, why I’d come up here in the first place: the deal was off.

I stood quickly, all my blood rushing to my head. “I had no right to say that. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t apologize?—”

“I’m going to go pack?—”

“No.” He growled it.

My mouth opened, but nothing came out.

He stood, placed his hands on my shoulders, and captured me in his eyes. He spoke slowly and calmly. “I’m saying no because whatever we do, whatever I do, won’t be because of him. Trust me, Claire—” He took my face in his hands. “When I make love to you, the last thing you’ll be thinking about is him.”

Alessandro

“But I can’t promise your paintings?—”

“Let’s not worry about that right now. We’ll work it out.”

In truth…? I didn’t care about my paintings. Let them live in Sotheby’s warehouse. If the choice was my paintings or her.

I guided her back to the couch and got her a bottle of water, told her to drink it, and rubbed her back until she stopped shaking.

I heard Jacopo in my head, urging me to tell her about Richard. The deal. I knew now it was the right thing to do. She needed to have the whole picture.

But, again, the timing was wrong. How much more could she be expected to take tonight? Right now, I was all she had, all she believed to be honest and solid and trustworthy. What would happen to her if she found out that wasn’t true?

Her hand settled on my thigh. “Thank you.” She sounded more like herself, if a bit raw.

“No thanks necessary.” I looked out into the room. So did she. “Maybe just—if you could keep it between us, though.”

“What?”

“That there’s no longer any barter.”

“Who would I tell?” Her tone was rueful. “The only people I talk to are lawyers.”

And Jacopo. But I couldn’t very well say that.

“So,” she finally said. “What would we like to do?”

“Tonight?” She nodded. “I think… How about we go downstairs, maybe watch a movie, and have dinner in bed. A relaxing evening.”

She didn’t look particularly enthused at my suggestion.

“Go for a walk? Take the boat out, get some fresh air?” But she was shaking her head.

“No. I want to talk.”

“Talk? About?”

“Men.”

“Men? What about men?”

“Everything.”

“Everything?”

She laughed. “These old palazzos have quite the echo, yes, everything! How they work, what makes them tick, I need to know what you know. How you became so different.” I opened my mouth but she held up a hand. “I know you’re a three-day fantasy, but, for my future, I need to know what to look for in a man; and also what to look out for.”

I didn’t know how to handle her request. I’d never done this before. This was not part of the program. Of any program. Besides the fact that there was a part of me—a growing part of me—that didn’t enjoy contemplating her “future.”

“I mean, I can’t distill ten years of training and two hundred years of knowledge into one conversation?—”

“I just want the basics. The how and why of the way the male animal functions in the natural world. Simple.”

“Uhhh…” It came out like tires spinning in sand. I was hoping to find a way out of this, but I couldn’t. “Let’s…go downstairs, then.”

She smiled at me. She was eighty percent herself again, which meant I was eighty percent convinced I could turn this whole thing around by saying, “Or wouldn’t you like to have your three-day fantasy man make you come again?”

But she was already standing, fingering her robe. “Should I change?”

I slapped my knees—like an uncomfortable dad in some 80s movie—and stood, too. “No, no need.”

I pulled myself together, regaining control of all this. I walked over to my bed, where I’d discarded a robe earlier, and said, “I’ll dress to match.” With my back to her, I dropped the towel. It was gimmicky, probably, some adolescent tit-for-tat for her dropping the towel at the massage table yesterday. I took my time putting on the robe, belting it. I had taken back some control of the situation. I was sure I could feel her desire again.

I turned around, ready to see all of that reflected on her face.

But instead, I saw the back of her head.

She was looking at the freshly painted canvas.

Claire

“What’s this?”

“It’s nothing,” he said, his voice heading away, toward the door. “Shall we?”

I reached out to touch it; I couldn’t help it. I pulled my hand back. “The paint is wet.” I spun to look at him. “When did you?—”

“Earlier.” His hand was on the doorknob. “It’s no big deal.”

“Yes, but. That no-big-deal is me. Isn’t it?”

Eventually, he nodded. Just once.

I turned back to it. “You’re painting again.”

He came over to me but didn’t speak. For a moment, I just felt his heat at my back. And then he exhaled. A significant sigh.

“It’s stunning.”

“It’s embarrassing.”

“Embarrassing?”

“And now you’re going to ask why.”

“Why?”

“It just is.”

“It just is?”

“There’s that echo again.”

“If anyone should be embarrassed, it should be me.”

“You? You belong in a painting.”

“But you’ve made me look like a ballerina. The grace, the lines. There’s a lightness. A radiance. It’s not me.”

“Yes, it is.”

His voice was different; it was real. I looked at him over my shoulder and found a gaze to match. We stared until I couldn’t handle it anymore and looked away, into the room. I was about to say, “when I’m with you,” but the words were short-circuited when I realized something:

I was in his personal space. Correction: I’d barged into his personal space.

I shouldn’t be here. And I shouldn’t say anything else.

The painting, his words, were as close to a declaration of real feeling as I would ever get from him.

Which saddened me.

Because I wanted more.

Picking up his brush to paint again infused the man before me with the man I’d met five years ago

If he were both of those men, together, I’d…

I’d…

I’d better stay away from that. Because how would I leave that? How would I ever recover from that?

But I wanted it. My internal voice, so fucking clear now: I wanted this for however long I could have it.

I went back to the painting. I hadn’t noticed: he had sketched-in my wedding ring.

Which was still on my finger.

Which I no longer wanted on my finger.

I slipped it off and went to put it in my pocket, but my robe didn’t have any. So I turned around and dropped it into the terry cloth pocket of his. “Let’s go learn about men.”

Alessandro

This was not the night I had been gearing up for. As we walked into the sala , I asked her, “What would you like to drink?”

“That tea sounds good now.”

I was way past tea. “Nothing stronger?”

“No, not right now. I’m still not a hundred percent.”

An inconveniently good point.

I had her take a seat on the couch in front of the fireplace, then went into the bedroom and started the kettle. The sun had fully set by now so I went back into the sala and around the room, turning on lamps. In the bedroom, I finished the tea and when I brought the pot out, she was bent over the fireplace lighting candles. Candles I’d intentionally not lit because I didn’t want to make this romantic. Candles that now illuminated her face like the ones in the dining room had Thursday night. She came back to the couch, tucking her legs beneath her, the silk robe hitting mid-thigh, the candlelight hitting her skin. Beautiful. A woman ready to…

Talk.

I handed her a teacup and sat down on the opposite couch. I adjusted my robe, making it an appropriate complement to hers. We sipped.

“So. Where do we start?”

I honestly didn’t know. “Where do you want to start?”

“With Richard.”

Great.

“I could not be more confused than I am right now.”

I had to maintain complete objectivity. I had to ignore what I already knew. “About what, exactly?”

“What’s so disorienting about discovering all this, besides the betrayal, obviously, is that… I literally didn’t think he was capable of cheating.”

Was she serious? “Why do you say that?”

“As far as I knew, having sex wasn’t really his thing.”

“You and he…you weren’t intimate?” She didn’t answer. “If you’d rather not?—”

“No, no, we’re doing this.” But she took a breath. “Before we were married, the dating stage…it was fine. We were fine. Normal. He desired me. Wanted me. But once we were married, things changed. Like, overnight changed.”

The part of the story I didn’t know. What happened after he found out she was not willing to do to him what he was more than willing to do to her. “In what way?”

“He stopped actually touching me. He’d put an arm around me if the occasion called for it, or a kiss on the cheek in front of people. But when we were alone? Nothing. When it came to anything sexual, he was…specific. Very specific.”

“Specific?”

“He only wanted me to watch him. Pleasure himself. Just stand there while he did it.”

I was not surprised. My instincts had been right. From the day I met him, and the night I met her, it was clear. This was a man so intimidated by a woman’s power that he had to take back control of himself. Put it in his own hands. Literally. Stand there and watch me not need you .

And thereby have control over her by starving her of her own pleasures.

“I couldn’t touch him. He wouldn’t touch me. I couldn’t touch myself. He just wanted me to watch.”

And I shook this fuck’s hand.

“Do you know why?”

She sipped her tea. “He said he respected me too much to ‘sully’ me. He said he didn’t deserve me. So having me watch him was all he was entitled to.”

I wasn’t a violent man. I’d outgrown homicidal rage the way I’d outgrown the need to jack off. But I would have traded the deed to this palazzo for fifteen minutes in a locked room with that manipulative motherfucker.

“I thought—I can’t believe I’m saying this now—but for the longest time, I thought that it meant he loved me. That we were above all that…dirty need. That desire was base , and the fact that I missed it meant I was a—” She banged her teacup on the table, stood. Paced and toyed with her robe. “How stupid could I have been? What is wrong with me?”

“You weren’t stupid and nothing is wrong with you. You were the victim of a weak man.” I wondered if he would have treated her differently if I’d slept with her. Hard to know. It would have given him the control he wanted and made him less of a piece of shit. Probably not.

“How was he weak ?”

I sat forward and poured her more tea, hoping a fresh cup would lure her back to the couch, while I gathered my thoughts. “There are a lot of pieces to this, Claire. And they don’t all logically fit together. Like IKEA furniture.”

She didn’t laugh.

“Okay. Before Richard, did you have any experiences that stayed with you? That made you believe there were good men out there?”

She stopped pacing. Her hand came to the back of the couch, and I suddenly knew what she was going to say. I’d witnessed an unfortunately not-insignificant number of these moments over the years and while the details were always different, the air pressure in the room before they said it changed the same way.

“Quite the opposite. Freshman year of college, there was an incident. I’ve worked through it, it’s nothing more than history now. But it did make me keep men at a distance. Until Richard. And how’s that for irony: he ended up keeping me at a distance.”

“Did you want to be closer to him?”

“No. Yes? I don’t know.” She paused. “I’d be lying if I didn’t say, for a while at least, it was a relief. I was working eighteen hours a day on Visage, my sex drive was… Most of the time I didn’t feel like…” She braced both hands on the couch, dropped her head, and exhaled. Seemed to decide it wasn’t worth exhuming the bodies. “This weekend has awakened something in me. It’s like I was anesthetized, and whether he did that to me or I did it to myself, I don’t know. I don’t know if it even matters. But I’m curious again. That’s what matters now. And I want to understand him. So I can understand myself. Then and now. Which is why…” She looked up at me. “I wanted to go to the ball because I wanted to see if being watched was exciting. See if Richard understood something I didn’t. See if I’d understand him more. See if I’m just a frigid weirdo.”

“Not even close. But I can tell you this: It wasn’t about excitement for him. It was about domination and control.”

“Yes, I get that now.” Her eyes came back to mine. “So what is that, huh? What is that about? Why do men—and I realize it’s not all men, but it’s way too fucking many of them—have this incessant need to dominate and control women?”

“You want CliffsNotes on the patriarchy?”

Huffing a laugh, she threw herself back down on the couch, her robe flapping open, revealing her creamy inner thighs. I forced myself not to notice what I had noticed. Was thankful when she fixed it. But then she reached for her teacup and the robe gapped on top and I closed my eyes. Hopefully it seemed like I was searching my mind for an answer.

A sudden wave of exhaustion crashed over me. My sleepless night and the unexpected turn of events was catching up. Wouldn’t she rather eat dinner and watch a movie?

I knew better than to ask her.

“Okay, so: there’s a lion. In this room. How does that make you feel?”

“Scared.” She answered gamely, the student at the front of the class.

“Why?”

“Seriously? Because it could hurt me.”

“Agreed. Lions are much more powerful than you are.”

“Agreed.”

“And if you had a cage?”

“Great. Lock it up.”

“Are you still scared?”

“No.”

“Feel safe?”

“Yes.” She looked at me as if this were a trick question. “But to be clear: I don’t want to put a man in a cage. I just don’t want to get hurt.”

“So you think the lion represents a man?”

“Yes. Isn’t that what you meant?”

“No.”

“No?”

“No. It represents a woman.”

“How?”

“Because we cage things we’re scared of.”

“We’re not scared of women. A woman isn’t going to rip you limb from limb. A woman is?—”

“Is terrifying. To men in general, and to a man like Richard particularly.”

She sat back, her tea forgotten on the table. “In what possible way?”

“In the one way that matters.”

“Which is?”

“His erection.”

Claire guffawed. “Oh, okay. Come on. Tell me.”

“It all comes down to that. Or up to that, depending.”

Her smile froze. “Wait. Are you serious?”

“Impotence. From the Latin imponentem , meaning powerless, lack of control. Conversely, potency: a show of power. Of control. And the hard truth—forgive the pun—is that the man’s erection is controlled by the power of the woman. By her lure, captivation, tease, recognition. But as easily as she can cause an erection, she can also cause its loss. And that’s far, far too much power for one person to have over another, as far as weak men are concerned. So they take back the control. Through domination. And historically, that’s what a patriarchal system did. It caged women. Often violently. With money and muscle and illiteracy and children and religion and laws, just to name a few. And all because the feminine controls the thing that gives the masculine the one power that actually matters: the ability to perform the biological imperative to procreate.”

We stared at each other.

“Oh my God.”

I set down my teacup. “So yeah. It’s a whole thing.” I gestured toward the dining room. “You want some food now?”

“Uh. Okay.”

I stood and held out a hand. She took it and I pulled her up.

We walked through the dining room and into the kitchen. I turned up the oven and uncovered the charcuterie plate all while Claire thought; quite loudly, for how silently she was doing it.

“This is all happening on an unconscious level, right?”

“Oh, totally.” I took a bite of cheese. “No man is walking around thinking, wow, I’m not a fan of the fact that she controls my dick, so, hey, I know! I’ll lock her in a cage.” I threw a piece of salami into my mouth. “Although, at times, it can be calculated. Someone like Richard seemed to know exactly what he was doing. Given everything you said.” I grabbed at the cheese, making myself stop talking.

She took a breadstick, but just held it, still thinking. “You know, when we came back from the ball, and I touched myself? And then you touched me, and we did it together? I couldn’t help but think: this is what we could have had.”

“We?”

“Sorry. Me and Richard. That intimacy. That I felt with you.”

“Right. Yes. Sure. Of course.”

She blew out a breath. “Such a waste.” She put her hands behind her, bracing herself on the counter, and hopped up on it. Her robe fluttered open again. I turned away, opening the oven door and squatting down in front of it. “What about you?”she asked.

“What about me?”

“How does this all work for you?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean…you have to be able to perform. So you must have control over your erection?”

“Yes.” Usually.

“How do you do that?”

I couldn’t keep pretending to look at this fucking oven. She was going to call me out on it soon. I threw a teasing glance over my shoulder. “Trade secrets.”

“Is it because there’s no real relationship? You’re just providing a service. As you like to say, it’s never about what you want, only what the client wants. And then it’s over. That all seems very safe. Very controllable.”

I closed the oven door and slowly stood. So much for trade secrets. “Guest.”

She lifted the breadstick to her mouth. “I’ll admit it, real relationships are scary as hell. What you’re doing is pretty genius, actually. All the pleasure, none of the pain.” She absently stuck the breadstick in her mouth. My eyes went to it. Or, more accurately, to her lips around it.

She noticed. “So you must be able to control not getting hard, too.”

“Yup.”

The tip of her tongue flicked out. “Really.”

I gave her a scolding look. “Really.”

“Are you sure?” She stuck the whole of it in her mouth. And drew it slowly back out.

“Claire. This is not a game you can win.”

Doe eyes. Hadn’t seen that from her before. “Call me curious.”

I laughed. “Fine. Why not.” I leaned back against the opposite counter and crossed my arms. “Take your best shot.”

The problem was, I’d had a semi this whole time. The conversation hadn’t been sexy, but somehow everything with her was sexy. “Wait, hang on.” I closed my eyes. Took some deep breaths. Cleared my mind. Went soft. I opened my eyes. “Go ahead.”

Her lips were pressed together, trying not to laugh. And it was so cute. Her on the counter like that, breadstick in her hand, bare feet dangling, hair still a bit damp. Looking like a different person than an hour ago.

I needed her to go sit in another room. In the canal. In Florence.

She lifted the breadstick to her mouth and bit it in half.

“Oh, that’ll do it.”

She laughed. And it was throaty and luxurious and ball-tightening.

She tipped her head back against the cabinet door, looking at me through heavy lids.

Her legs parted slightly, sliding along the marble counter.

She brought the hand that wasn’t holding the breadstick to her chest. Stroked it downward toward the robe’s belt. With painful slowness, she untied it. She put the breadstick back in her mouth, then put her hands behind her, arching her back, causing the robe to separate, revealing a wide expanse of her chest and stomach.

“What are you thinking of right now?”

“England.”

She shrugged, one shoulder, then the other. The robe slipped off, pooling on the counter.

I hadn’t seen her full-on before. Bowl-of-cream tits. Gumdrop nipples.

“And now?”

“Now what?”

Those mounds trembled when she chuckled. “What are you thinking of now?”

I took a breath. “The United Kingdom, which is comprised of England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern—” She pushed the sides of the robe off her hips. “Northern Ireland.”

“And now?”

I couldn’t help it. My eyes dipped. “PETA. Baby seals. Being clubbed.”

She giggled. She lifted her legs. Put her heels on the counter. “Now?”

“Those late-night commercials with the shivering dogs.”

Slid her legs wide.

My head rocked backward. I saw the vent on the ceiling and squeezed my eyes closed.

“What about now?”

“Global warming. Al fucking Gore.”

“And…now?” It was breathy. There was a telltale hitch.

I brought my head down and opened my eyes, happily skipping toward my own execution.

Of course. The breadstick.

I took a very deep breath. “Remember when I said we wouldn’t have sex tonight?”

“But we could have something .”

“Yes. Dinner.”

She removed the breadstick and held it up between us. “Oh, are you hungry?”

I went over to her. I ate it from her fingers while she studied my crotch. She nodded approvingly. “Impressive. You win.”

Then we stared at each other. I tried to read her. “How are you feeling now, Cara?”

“Much better. That was oddly helpful, actually.” Her hand found my hip. “But now there’s something else I want to feel.”

“What?”

“Control.”

“Of?”

Her eyes deliberately pointed downward.

“Why?”

“I want a turn. To reclaim control.” Her cheeks flushed. She was being bold and it was new for her. “Is that something you can do? Unlock the cage? Let me be Casanova tonight?”

No. Absolutely not. I have never, and would never, let a woman control the outcome. It was too vulnerable, too risky, especially with her. It went against all my training —“Yes.”

Her eyes lit up like a marquee. And I knew I’d signed my death warrant.

She hopped off the counter, shrugging her robe back up but left it untied. Taking my hand, she led me out of the kitchen. “The food…”

“This won’t take long.” Which was hardly the comfort she thought it was. We walked into the sala and she sighed happily. She twirled around, arms out, robe trailing. “God, it’s so freeing.”

“What?”

She stopped, an exhilarated smile on her face. “I’m done. Finally done with Richard.”

“I could go the rest of my life without ever again hearing his name fall from your lips.”

“Understood. So maybe something else should fall from them.”

She’d live-wired my cock. She started walking again, and I was a heartbeat away from telling her she didn’t have to do more, she had already taken control. Then something she’d said last night leapt into my brain. When I’d asked what she’d do if I pushed her to her knees, she’d replied, without deliberation: give you the best head of your life . “I’m curious. What you said at the ball. False advertising?”

We entered the bedroom and she said, matter-of-factly, “No. I’m very good. Very.”

The second very gave me a twinge. “How did that…happen?” It made zero sense.

She stopped, right in front of the bed platform, and turned to me. “It kept men where I wanted them. At a safe distance. It delayed the demand for sex. Who’s gonna turn down a blow job, right?”

The fallout from her college days. Was it truly behind her? I went to her. Took her hand. “Has anyone ever gone down on you?”

“No.”

“I would be happy to do that instead.”

She looked as if a fuse blew and the marquee went out. “No! I want this. Not because I’m good at it, or like doing it—which I do, by the way—but because I want it to be something new. With you. For me.” Without waiting for my acquiescence, she pointed at the bed. “Sit.”

It was so sexy. I was so fucked.

I did. Feet solid on the platform. Hands folded on my lap. Awaiting further instruction.

“Rules. You control nothing. Whatever you feel—or don’t feel—I want it.” She wagged a finger at me. “No Casanova-ing.”

Had there ever been a time I’d let myself go? I think I was fifteen. That girl who broke into the vacant house with me when—no, I was fourteen when that happened. Whatever. I nodded. “Yes, ma’am.”

She took a step toward me. Her robe fluttered open a bit more, still covering her breasts, but exposing her soft mound. I was never going to be able to see anyone else in this robe. I was going to have to retire it.

She reached for my belt. “May I?”

“Sure.”

She untied it. Took her time opening the plackets.

I couldn’t take my eyes off her face. I didn’t know the number of women who had seen my dick, and I didn’t care. It had never mattered.

Watching her see it mattered.

The expression on her face made me begin to swell. Something had taken hold of me. Something other than me. “It’s not fair,” I observed.

“What?”

“That you’re…you.”

More swelling. I wanted her touch. Those pianist fingers on me.

But to my disappointment, she stepped back. Should I tell her I didn’t want her to?

“Now. What do you want?” she asked, making it easy on me.

My mind had a hundred Casanova ways to turn the question back around on her. But I refused all of them. I wanted to say what I wanted. To express my desire. For the first time. “Drop the robe.”

She did. “And?”

“I just want to look at you for a moment.” And I did, burning every inch of her into my memory. Her eyes dropped to my hardening shaft and I lifted my hands. “I’m not doing anything, I promise.” We grinned at each other.

“I’m loving this. Are you loving this, because I’m loving this?”

I wanted to grab her. “Feeling powerful?”

“A little,” she admitted with a laugh. “But I haven’t really done anything yet.”

“Tell that to the breadstick.” My grin faded. “You still want to know what I want?”

“So much.”

“Turn around and bend over. Show me what you have for me.”

Would my want make her uncomfortable? Had I overstepped? Before I could answer my own questions, she had turned around, looked back at me with a smile, and complied. More than complied. She seemed happy to do so. And just as I was about to ask her if she would open herself for me, she said, “Would you like to see more?”

“So much.”

She spread herself. Ran a finger through her valley and without another word sunk two fingers inside her quicksand. We moaned together. Her sounds sent an electric pulse down my spine. My hand naturally went for my dick, but I halted. I wanted to make sure she knew how much I desired her. I couldn’t be just another man watching her, detached. “Claire? I want to be touched and if you don’t want me to do it myself, get the fuck over here.”

She straightened, turned around, and came toward me with glistening fingers. She placed her palms on my knees and lowered herself to the platform. As she went down, I went fully up.

She ran her hands up my thighs and cooed, “Do we have plans for tomorrow? Sightseeing?”

Huh? “Uh. Yeah. Yes. Why—what?”

“Oh, I don’t know. I was just thinking. Maybe invite Jacopo along for the day.”

“Jacopo?” Why was she bringing him up? I didn’t want to see him tomorrow, or now, or ever again. Why would she put him in my head? My cock started leaning like a certain famous tower. “What do you—w-why do you want him to go with us?”

“I don’t.” She grinned, then looked down at my deflation. “I just wanted to see if I was really in control.” She dropped a kiss to my thigh. “Thank you for the confirmation.”

I threw back my head, sighing at the canopy. “You could have just asked.”

“I’m sorry.” She pouted. “Let me fix it.”

I looked back at her just as she brought her creamy fingers to my crown. Swirled them around. Then down the length of me and swirled them back up. And I was upright again.

“You know what I’m wondering now?”

“If you say his name again, I swear?—”

“What your cock would feel like pressed against my lips.” She decided to find out.

I felt like I might explode then and there. The fear that realization elicited was enough to prevent it from happening. She couldn’t want that. Or did she? There had to be some happy medium between her taking control and me detonating like a teenager.

And then. And then. Her mouth. That sensual, amazing, full-lipped mouth found its way to my shaft. She ran her lips along the side, planting kisses as she moved around me. I had to lean back. I had to rest on my elbows. I was someplace I had never been and I didn’t want to be anywhere else.

Everything was heightened. Was it her, or me, or us? The feelings were new, so it had to be us.

“Can I touch you?” I didn’t recognize my voice.

She mm-hmm’d and the vibration against me made me twitch. The only part of her I could reach was her head. So I stroked her hair. I didn’t know what else to do. I had to touch her. Somewhere. Anywhere.

I watched the show in front of me.

She brought those pillowed lips back to my crown for another kiss. And then she opened them. And her mouth was receiving all of me like an honored guest.

How had this happened? How was this fantasy girl of mine, who I never thought I’d see again, here, on her knees before me, taking my girth in her princess mouth? How was my muse serving me ?

Also. How was she so. Fucking. Good. At. This?

She worked me rhythmically, her mouth changing its pressure in subtle and then demonstrative ways. Her tongue was another world entirely.

Then she rolled her lips over her teeth and went down that way and…

My brain buffered. I couldn’t—it felt so—how did she—who was I?

She made a small, but delicious, choking sound and it woke me up enough to say, “How are you going to want this?” There was a difference between telling her what I wanted and doing whatever I wanted. We didn’t know each other well enough. We were both in uncharted territory. But, once again, before I could form the words, she beat me to the punch:

She said, her lips still toying with me, “I want some in my mouth and paint me with the rest.”

And if that didn’t just?—

It was here. Out of nowhere and everywhere, I exploded. I grabbed her hair and gave a full thrusting shot into her mouth. Then I guided her off me, calling out the only word I could think of at that moment: her name.

I threw my head back and I was stardust.

I’d never been surprised by an orgasm before.

Another first.

It took a long moment to recover. Then I brought my head back down and saw the aftermath. There was a smile on her face, and as promised, I fell from her lips. I dripped off her chin, I was in her hair, I rolled down one breast.

I flopped onto my back.

I sensed her get off her knees. I wanted to take her into the shower. Or get her a washcloth at the very least. But she squeezed my thigh, said, “I’ll be right back, don’t move, I love seeing you like this,” and I let her go. I didn’t have a choice.

I needed a minute. I needed more than a minute to crawl back into myself.

To regain control.

Whether I wanted to or not.