Chapter 11 Valentino
She comes to me on the dot at seven.
Once Pietro, one of our latest soldiers—cannot entrust anything so sensitive to anyone who’s not confirmed in our ranks and bound by Omertà—delivered the dress to her, I forced myself to go through some business papers in my study, Carlito the only one allowed to interrupt me. I had a good laugh when he came in to say how Pietro received a door in his face; Naomi was this excited by the parcel, apparently. Pietro doesn’t know it, but a signed jersey from the entire Italian national soccer team is being shipped to him for his troubles.
I don’t allow myself to think of this evening. Because doing so makes me hard, then I can’t focus. Naomi is a beautiful interlude at the moment, but I have to remember there’s more waiting for me out there. Like my job, for starters.
And good thing I didn’t allow myself to think of tonight or even of her. Because the sight of her in that dress is a vision. The lace of the teddy looked great against her pale skin, but the dress takes it up another notch.
I can’t help but think of the iconic line “She walks in beauty like the night.” from Lord Byron. It always struck me as utter drivel, but fuck it, the man knows what he was rambling on about. Such is the sight of Naomi. There’s a full moon tonight, and the silvery glow alights on her as she steps to the wooden fence separating our properties. The door in it was condemned a long time ago, but little does her father know Carlito undid all that hard work and now, though it looks the same, a sharp press right at the top of the middle plank will topple the panel on its hinges.
Naomi watches me with big eyes as I step over and slap my hand against the board, making sure to tilt the wood carefully so it won’t hurt her.
“Shhh,” I murmur with a finger to my lips.
She giggles. “It’s our little secret?”
I nod as I take her hand and gently pull her into my side of the yard.
“One of them,” I say.
“Hmm. I wonder what else we’re keeping secret,” she adds with a soft smile.
So much, I want to tell her. Like us meeting. The stolen moment in her bedroom last night. What I plan to happen between us tonight.
I have to take a deep breath to keep myself on an even keel as I think of tonight, of what can and most probably will happen between us. Naomi is young, but she isn’t na?ve. I didn’t invite her over just for dinner. But if this is what she has construed in her mind, I will respect it. I won’t be happy about it, but respect it, I will. And maybe that will tell me if pursuing Naomi Smith will be a dead end or not.
I’m not kidding myself we’re going towards marriage or anything of that ilk. If we click, then maybe one day, someday, who knows. Right now, I want to enjoy what she’ll willingly give, take my time with her body, take my pleasure from her pussy and mouth and hands. I want to fuck her senseless and have her begging me for more.
And maybe tonight’s the night.
Her hand is still in mine, and she squeezes it lightly. The soft pressure makes me return to the moment. I squeeze it back, a little harder, so she’ll know I’m not pulling out and I’m here, with her.
A few steps take us to the kitchen door, and she follows me with a light tread. I can’t help but turn to look at her. The moonlight is bathing her pale skin in a soft glow lighting up filaments of silver in the fabric of the dress. She looks like a nymph come to life, an ethereal creature sent to lure mortal men to their destruction.
It strikes me then—what am I doing with Joel Smith’s daughter? Never mind that she is Naomi first and foremost. She’ll never be rid of her surname, of her family, of her father. Do I really want to play with fire? I accused her of that five years ago at the Christmas party, yet here I am, about to light a match close to a powder keg.
“Val?” she asks when I stop on the small deck leading to the terrace.
The sound goes directly from my ears to my cock, and I’m the hardest I’ve ever been suddenly. She shouldn’t say my name this way.
I sneak in a deep breath then step down from the deck, going closer to her. My hands come up of their own volition, my palms cradling her jaw, thumbs on her delicate cheekbones.
She blinks up at me, lips slightly parted, and I let loose the air inside me.
“Dio santo, you’re beautiful.” The words rush out of me in a whisper. I shouldn’t have let them out, but I couldn’t help it. The truth came out, whether I wanted it to or not.
Naomi gives me a trembling smile, and I can’t bear it anymore. Still cradling her face, I lower my head and seek her lips with mine.
The second we make contact, it’s like a deflagration goes off inside me. She’s soft and warm and tastes sweet, like she popped a mint into her mouth on the way over and has just finished sucking it. My tongue yearns for more of this taste, for the sensation of her cool tongue in the warm interior of her mouth.
After a second of hesitation, she meets me halfway this time, lips parting even more, head tilting a little to have better access to my lips, tongue seeking mine as a moan unfurls from the depths of her throat. The muffled sound makes my cock strain. She should be moaning like this when I’m buried deep inside her, not just now when I can’t do more than drink from her lips.
A ding comes from the kitchen. It’s the oven, and it jars me from this haze of lust on me and plunges me back into the here and now. Dinner is ready.
Reluctantly, I stop kissing her and release her face. I reach for her hand and tug her along into the kitchen, shutting the door behind us. Strange how warm it is inside. Neither of us seem to have felt the January cold out there.
Too busy letting the fire between us roar.
I chuckle as the thought hits.
“What’s funny?” Naomi asks.
“Nothing,” I reply with a shake of my head. “I should feed you.”
I’m tempted to laugh again when Naomi blinks at me like that’s not what she expected to hear.
“What did you think?” I ask. “I did ask you over for dinner.”
“Oh.”
She looks so crestfallen. She must’ve thought she’d be on the menu tonight. It is the case, but I can’t resist teasing her right now.
“Dinner, Naomi. Usually involves food. The kind you eat.”
“I know that, dumbass.”
The insult makes me throw my head back and laugh. She’s not afraid of me, and I like this. It’ll be fun, being with her.
I pull a chair for her at the wood farm table. “Sit down.”
She still looks a little miffed as she takes her seat and I push the chair in. As I turn towards the oven, something makes me stop.
I move back to Naomi. “I didn’t think to ask. You’re not a vegetarian or a vegan, are you?”
She shakes her head. “No. I eat everything. Well, everything but liver.”
I laugh at the grimace she makes. “We’ll have to agree to disagree on that. Liver piccata or fegato alla Veneziana?” I kiss my fingers in a chef’s kiss, laughing even more at the face she now makes.
“Is that what you’re serving tonight?” She gulps.
I’m tempted to say yes, but best I put her out of her misery. “Don’t worry. I won’t ever make you eat liver if you don’t want to.”
“So, you’ll only feed me what I want?” she asks, and the minx licked her lips as she said that.
My turn to gulp. “What do you want to eat tonight?”
She shrugs. “I don’t know. Something with eggplant…”
Merda, did she just…? Fuck. I really am playing with fire here. It’s only years of training myself to not lose my composure outwardly that allow me to keep myself in check.
I turn towards the oven and reach for the mittens. “Well, you are getting parmigiana tonight, but it’s chicken, I’m afraid.”
When I settle the plates on the table, she blinks up at me.
“I asked you over for dinner,” I say again.
Still with the blinking. Really, I should stop teasing her.
“But you can choose dessert,” I say, and curse softly when her eyes grow hooded as she looks up from the plate at me. “Now eat. Ina will have my hide if we don’t eat this when it’s still hot. Don’t ask me how she’ll know if we don’t, but she will.”
Naomi laughs as she unfolds her napkin. “You sound scared of her.”
I take a bite of crumbly chicken and savor the taste. “I am.”
“Who is she? Your housekeeper?”
“Something like that. She stepped in to look after us after…”
“After your mom…” she says softly, and I nod.
A lump closes my throat as I think of Mamma. I saw her die, right there in front of me—she stepped up from the table to go to the fridge. Five steps away, and she didn’t make it. A brain aneurysm. She was gone within a few seconds, nothing we could do about it.
“I’m sorry,” Naomi says. “I heard what happened to her when I was away at college.”
I focus back onto her. “Thank you.”
“We should eat,” she says, and I nod.
“Wine?” I ask. When she acquiesces, I get up then pour us both a glass of Chianti Classico.
“Wow, this is delicious,” she exclaims after her first sip.
“It is. At least eighty percent Sangiovese grapes.”
“You’re very knowledgeable.” She smiles and takes a bite of her food.
I shrug. “Check out the gallo nero on the neck of the bottle. Black rooster,” I add when she doesn’t seem to pick up what I’m talking about. “It’s officially required to label a true Chianti.”
The food is getting cold, and we both focus on eating the delicious meal before the mozzarella becomes a gloopy mass. With empty plates before us, I refill our wine glasses and sit back in my chair to gaze at Naomi.
“What?” she asks, suddenly self-conscious.
“I meant it. You truly do look beautiful tonight.”
A light blush colors her cheeks.
“This color suits you,” I add.
“I’ve never worn purple before, didn’t think it’d work for me. How did you know it would?”
I take a small sip of wine. “I imagined it would.”
And that’s true. I still remember her hands clutching that purple pillow all those years ago. I wanted to see the contrast with her creamy skin again.
“Do you…imagine things about me?” she asks softly.
A slow smile stretches my lips. “You give my imagination a lot of fodder, gattina.”
Like the little show you put on last night.
She gasps, the sound hitching in her throat as she watches me with parted lips.
Fuck, it’s getting hot in here all of a sudden. And uncomfortable in my pants, too.
“I can see a lot from my window,” I tell her, wanting to see where she’ll take this.
She licks her lips, and I’m about to combust on the spot.
“Show me,” she says, and I can’t hear her at first because of the blood pounding in my head.
My turn to blink. “You want to see what I see from my bedroom when I look into yours?”
“Yes.”
It’s just one word, but there’s everything inside it—permission, consent, request, dare.
In a swift move, I’m out of my chair and grabbing her hand on the way as I pull her in my wake towards the stairs which I want to take two by two, but Naomi’s strides aren’t as long as mine, so I have to bide my time and wait for her to follow me.
The bedroom is bathed in moonlight when we enter it. The curtains are wide open, giving a prime view of the house next door. Naomi didn’t leave a light on in her room, so we can’t see inside, but I bet she can picture it.
Releasing my hand, she takes ginger steps to the wide pane. The silvery glow engulfs her, and as she stands there in front of the glass, she’s a sensual study in light and shadow. The dress, though lit throughout with silvery thread, cuts a dark figure, her radiant skin glowing where it’s exposed in the short, low-cut dress. Her fair golden hair tumbles down her back like a river of spun filaments.
She’s exquisite, a true beauty like the night.
During the day, she is Naomi Smith, daughter of politician Joel Smith. But here, now, like this, she is just Naomi.
She is mine.
When she leans into the pane as if trying to make out the interior of the room across the yards, it’s as if my blood starts to boil. Her hands are spread on the glass, legs parted, bottom pushing out slightly. I have a vision of her standing in front of another window this way, except I can see her from the front in my mind’s eye, sexy lingerie crisscrossing her lithe body, breasts pushed up by the demi-cups, the mound of her pussy covered by a scrap of lace that became two thin straps on either side of her puffy lower lips.
Right here, now, I can see what it looks like from the back. She’s wearing a dress and not the teddy, but that can easily be remedied. I can have her naked within a minute.
Thinking of her naked, exposed to me, grabs hold of any remaining reason and urges me forward. My legs are moving swiftly. I clasp her upper body with both my hands flat on her ribcage. Before she can utter a sound, my hands are running up, grabbing her arms and splaying them wide across the window. With one bent knee, I spread her legs wide open. She loses her balance, which forces her to arch her back, to make her delicious ass jut out even more.
It takes one rip to tear the dress into two and expose her delicate back to me. She isn’t wearing a bra, and fragile lace barely covers her backside. It won’t be hard to rip that off, too.
When she whimpers, I groan. Merda. She’s going to be the death of me.
Heat radiates from her body, and I plaster my front to her back, pushing her even more into the cold glass of the pane. She’s got small heels on and is thus the perfect height for my cock to press into her ass.
Another moan, and I seize back control, rocking my hard-on against her panty-clad butt. My hands, which were on hers, splaying her out, travel back the way they came, caressing past her ribcage this time and sneaking in front, over her taut belly and down to the triangle of lace covering her sex. One hand sneaks under the fabric, encountering her bare, velvety mound before dipping over her swollen clit and between soaked folds.
“So wet,” I mutter in her ear, then run my tongue over the shell and part of her jawbone. I crouch a bit and rock my cock against her drenched underwear. “Is this how you want me to fuck you, Naomi?”