Chapter 8 #6
I want to say I already feel it.
I want to say please don’t make me pretend.
But I just swallow hard and nod. "Okay," I say. "Two months. No feelings. No falling."
"Exactly. We’re just… bodies. Pleasure. Escape."
"Right."
"We don’t owe each other anything after."
"Right." He leans in, brushes his lips against mine again.
I kiss him back, but I feel like crying. I wonder if he can feel it.
We pull apart, and for a second we just stare at each other, both of us pretending that nothing’s already broken.
Next Day
We survive another meeting.
Different men this time. Older.
More "I drink whiskey at 11AM" energy. Now it’s just the three of us walking down the hallway to our hotel room. Lorenzo fights with the keycard.
Gio lifts a finger and taps his shoulder. "Hey dude, why don’t you go for a walk or something? Find a girl, live a little?"
Lorenzo stops. "You’re kicking me out so you can spend time with him?"
Gio smiles. "Obviously? Look at you. You’re smarter than you look."
Lorenzo rolls his eyes. "You’re lucky you’re my cousin. And that I actually like Rava. Otherwise, I’d plant myself right here just to stop you two from misbehaving."
"Who the hell still says misbehaving?" Gio says, smirking.
"I do," Lorenzo says proudly, and points at me. "And I bet he does too, in spirit. Don’t let this innocent face fool you."
I laugh, because he’s saying that without even knowing.
Well… okay. That’s a lie.
He does know how my brain works. He knows the kind of thoughts I have. He knows because I showed him. I let him in there. But he doesn’t know this part. He doesn’t know that Gio and I already… did things. Plural.
Bathroom things, bed things, elevator things. "If our parents find out we’re dead" things. No one knows.
Lorenzo groans dramatically.
"Ugh. Fine. I’ll go. But if you’re not dressed when I get back, I’m telling your dad."
Gio just winks. "Give him details."
Lorenzo disappears down the hall. "Horny idiots."
We walk into the room. Gio immediately takes his shirt off and falls straight to the bed.
"I can’t take another fucking meeting," he mutters into the sheets. "Agreed," I say, kicking off my shoes. He pushes himself up on his elbows and starts scanning the room slowly.
The big bed, the view, the stupidly nice furniture. "All of this is yours, huh?" he says. I turn and look at him, suspicious.
I don’t really remember telling him that, but it weirdly makes me happy he knows. I smile a little, kind of shy, and pick his T-shirt up from the floor, smoothing it out.
"It’s just under my name," I say. "I don’t really… do much for this one."
"Still," Gio says. "It’s sick. You’ve got a whole dowry out of nowhere. Other people in your place wouldn’t work at all, they’d just chill and let the money roll in."
I shrug. "Yeah, well. I still wanna be a teacher. That doesn’t change." I fold his shirt and set it on the nightstand.
Gio watches me. "That’s cute," he says.
He pushes himself up a little and reaches for me. His hand hooks around my wrist and he yanks me down onto the bed next to him. And he doesn’t stop there. He immediately climbs over me.
If someone looked in from the outside, they’d probably think this is his favorite place to be. On me.
"What the hell are you doing?" I ask, trying to sound calm. Then he leans in, clearly going for a kiss. On purpose, I turn my head to the side so he gets cheek instead of mouth.
Just to tease him. "Look at you," I say. "Pathetic. You used to mock me, remember? And now you can’t even go five minutes without needing to touch me."
He reaches up, slow, and removes my glasses.
He places them carefully on the nightstand like they’re worth more than anything else in the room. Then he starts running his fingers through my hair.
"You’re no better, Ravioli," he says. "All your hate turned into hunger, and it showed in your sucking. If that was you 'hating' me, I don’t even wanna know how you’d suck me if you actually liked me."
I burst out laughing, right in his face. "Yeah, well," I say, looking him straight in the eyes, "guess you’ll never find out." He snorts. And then, while I’m still talking, he grabs my cheeks with both hands and squeezes them, squishing my face into some ridiculous shape.
I blink at him, baffled. "Seriously?"
He bursts out laughing.
"You’re a fucking idiot," I mumble, my cheeks still squished between his hands while he laughs.
"And you’re kinda adorable like this," he laughs.
I swat his hands away. "Get off me. You’re heavy."
"You’re just soft," he teases. "Soft? Where?" I lean in a little, meeting his gaze. "I could knock you flat if I wanted to."
He grins, still not moving. "You want to be on top? Say the word."
I roll my eyes. "You’re disgusting."
"And yet you’re still underneath me." He lowers his face just enough that his breath brushes against my lips. "Funny how that works."
I push at his chest, to make a point. "You’re unbearable."
"You’re adorable."
We stare at each other. Too long.
I’m the one who breaks eye contact first. He gets up and goes to his suitcase, digs around, and pulls out his swim shorts. "Come on," he says. "Let’s hit the beach for a bit. I promise I won’t drown you."
And then he just pulls his pants down. My head snaps away fast. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.
Do I look? Do I not look? Do I show "respect"?
Do I pretend I’m blind?
"Oh, come on, Rava. You had my dick in your mouth two days ago. You physically cannot get closer than that."
…You can. Sex will do that for us. Eventually. Maybe.
If I don’t die first.
My whole face feels like it’s on fire. He’s right though. I turn my head back, slowly, and steal a couple of quick glances.
Holy. Shit. My stomach does weird things.
Something is wrong with me. This is not normal. I was not like this. I wasn’t the type to act like a thirsty animal over dick.
Not that I ever had the chance to see actual dick this close to compare, but… yeah. Wow.
He slides on his black swim trunks. "Sorry I ruined the show for you," he says.
"You didn’t ruin anything," I say. "You’re not all that." I mutter it with a little laugh.
"Thank you for keeping me humble," he says, grinning. I roll my eyes. I’m pretty sure my stupid blush gives me away. I reach for my shirt, but he’s already on me.
"Let me," he murmurs. In the heat of the moment the other times, taking his clothes off feels normal.
Expected. Now there’s no heavy breathing, no "we’re about to do something stupid" tension. Now it’s quiet. And somehow this feels ten times more intimate.
He grabs my shirt from the hem and starts lifting it, slowly. The fabric drags over my skin, up my stomach, my chest, my arms, until he finally pulls it over my head and tosses it gently on the bed.
His eyes are on me the whole time. I can feel them burning little holes into my skin.
He reaches his hand out like he’s going to touch me, then stops halfway and pulls back, pretending he was never planning to in the first place.
I laugh, because the idea that someone like Gio Fontana is scared to touch me is hilarious. And kinda hot.
"You know you can touch me any time, right?" I say.
"Of course I know," he answers.
We just look at each other.
"Okay, I didn’t know. I’m glad. Turn around," he says. "I wanna see your back."
Of course you wanna see my back. Liar.
Acting like you didn’t like it when you first saw it. I roll my eyes a little and turn slowly, letting him see the whole thing. My heart is beating stupidly fast.
He moves behind me. "Oh fuck," he whispers. I feel his hand on my back. Right on the tattoo. His thumb runs over it like he’s memorizing it.
"This one… this one is fucking insane," he says, voice lower now.
"You’re gonna be the most badass teacher on the planet, you know that?"
Second time. It’s the second time he says that to me.
Second time he takes my dream seriously instead of laughing at it or telling me to be realistic.
Second time he talks like it’s already decided, like of course I’m going to make it, of course I’m going to stand in a classroom one day and actually be that.
He doesn’t say "if." He says it like a fact.
I’m turn away from him, so he can’t see my face, and I’m weirdly grateful for that. Because I’m smiling.
His palm presses flat between my shoulder blades.
"They’ll see this in the office and shit themselves." His hand runs up and down my back while he talks.
And then, for some reason, he changes the path. His hand slides lower. Right on my waist.
That’s it.
I want to have sex with him. Properly. All the way.
I want to pull him on top of me and not stop. But I’ve never done that with a guy before.
Like yeah, I’ve imagined things, I’ve thought about it, I’ve had stupid little daydreams where I fade to black before anything actually happens.
But now? Now my body’s like, no, no fade to black. Keep going. Show everything. And it freaks me out. Because it’s not just horny. It’s not "ugh, I need to get off."
It’s this insane, aching need to be close to him.
But it’s scary as fuck. Because there’s no manual.
No tutorial. I don’t even know what I’m supposed to be scared of first, the physical part, the emotional part, or the part where once I cross that line, I can’t ever pretend I’m "just curious" again.
Because if I go there with Gio, that’s it. There’s no "oops, it was just one night." No "haha, we were drunk, it doesn’t count."
It will count. For everything.
And the worst fucking part? The more I panic, the more my body pushes back, like, shut up and let me have him already. I’m stuck between I’m not ready and I don’t think I’ll ever be more ready than right now.
And then there’s the part that really makes me want to throw up. We can’t even be together. Realistically. This isn’t some slow-burn friends-to-lovers shit where we move in together, adopt a cat and a dog and cook pasta on Sundays.
I’m going back to Canada. That’s already written.
I know that. He knows that. Everyone around us knows that.
We can’t be public.