Chapter 21
Annamaria
Eighteen years old.
I don’t have time to be embarrassed by what I just admitted because Raffaele decides to call before I can text him back.
I’m hesitant to answer, though. Not only because of the confession I just made, but also because it didn’t go so well the last time we talked on the phone.
It didn’t feel like I was talking to the man I’d been texting for the better part of a year.
If I answer this call now, I’m not sure that Raffaele won’t revert to his aloof self, instead of being the man who sends me quotes by Maya Angelou just because he knows they speak to me.
With every vibration of the phone in my hand, my anxiety multiplies.
“Please let it be you, caro mio. Please,” I whisper to myself before shutting my eyes and answering the call.
However, my eyelids open on their own when neither of us seems to be in a rush to say anything. A smile curves on my lips with each silent second that passes. Maybe Raffaele was just as nervous making this call as I was in answering it.
I decide to bite the bullet and be the first to break the silence. “Hi,” I finally say, chewing on my lower lip.
“Hi back,” he retorts, his voice deeper than I remember it.
“Are you sick? Your voice sounds… different.”
He clears his throat as if forcing a cough and then replies, “I… um… have been battling a cold for a while.” Another cough. “Must be a bug going around.”
That tracks, since his voice is rougher, more gravelly. It’s actually kind of sexy.
“Some chamomile tea with a drop of honey should help,” I reply, then fall back onto the bed.
I let my head hit the pillow, cringing at how ridiculous I sound. I basically just admitted I wanted him to kiss me, and now I’m giving him advice on cold remedies. God, I’m terrible at this.
“Sweetheart, the last thing I want to talk about is my cold,” he says, his raspy voice doing something to my insides. “We have to discuss your last text.”
“Do we really?” I press my palm to my cheek, suddenly feeling flushed.
“No. Not if it makes you uncomfortable,” he replies, his tone gentle, even if it can’t quite hide the disappointment beneath it.
“I… want to talk about it,” I whisper, forcing the words out.
“Yeah?”
“Hmm.”
“Then I want to hear you say it.”
“Say what?” I retort, feeling lightheaded just from the sound of his breathing in my ear.
“I want you to tell me to kiss you.” I swallow the small moan that threatens to slip out at the sound of his voice.
“What would be the point? You’re there. I’m here.”
“Do you want me to kiss you, Anna?” he insists, my name on his lips sounding like sin incarnate.
“Yes,” I breathe out, squirming in my bed.
“Then tell me to kiss you.”
I swallow dryly and push the words out of my mouth. “Kiss me.”
He lets out a soft, strained groan that has my toes curling and my breath catching in my throat.
“Cazzo,” he curses. “Where should I start?”
“I don’t know. You’re the expert at kissing. Not me.”
“I’m no expert,” he says, but I refuse to believe that.
Sure, he admitted to sleeping with only eight people, but I’m positive there had to be plenty of kissing involved, right? A man doesn’t sleep with a woman and not kiss her. Right? God, I wish I knew for certain.
“Anna,” he calls softly, drawing me back when my silence stretches a little too long.
“Yes?”
“Take my hand.” An unexpected giggle leaves me at his command.
“How am I supposed to do that?”
“Close your eyes for me, sweetheart. Imagine I’m right in front of you, holding my hand out for you to take.”
I do as he says, and suddenly I can see his hands, the same ones I caught glimpses of when I played the piano for him.
They’re large, veined, and warm, my own looking so small as I slip my hand into his.
A shiver runs through me as my pulse quickens at how easily he envelops me, my hand disappearing in his completly.
“I’m going to pull you slowly against me, now. Close enough for our chests to touch,” he says, his voice dropping an octave. “Now I’m bringing your hand to my lips, just so I can press a kiss to the inside of your wrist. Do you feel it?”
“Yes,” I breathe, already starting to pant as I imagine his lips scorching that sensitive spot.
“Now I’m placing your open palm flat against my chest, so you can feel how erratic my heart is beating for you.”
I draw in a shaky breath, picturing my hand splayed over his chest, right above his racing heart. Every inch of me feels lit on fire, all from his words alone.
“I’m nervous,” I breathe out.
“You don’t have to be. You’re safe with me, cara mia. I’m going to take things slow, okay?”
I nod, even though he can’t see it.
“I’ve wanted this for so long, I don’t even know where to start,” he admits, his voice slightly unsteady. “But I need to feel you, okay? Feel how your skin burns at my touch.”
“How…” My breath falters. “How are you going to do that?”
“Can’t you feel me, sweetheart? How I’m gently tracing my fingertips over the length of your bare arm? How your skin breaks out into goosebumps with just the slightest touch?”
God… and now I do. It’s almost like he’s here.
My skin pebbles at his words, a faint heat trailing up my arm as his other hand tightens around my wrist, my palm still pressed to his chest. He doesn’t wait for a reply as he continues, his voice the only brush he needs to paint this maddening image further.
“Yes,” I moan softly, my heart jackhammering in my chest. But for some reason, the face in front of me isn’t Raffaele’s. It’s a blurred figure I can’t quite make out. All I can do is feel him, the intensity in his gaze, the longing swimming there, all of it meant for me.
“Kiss me. Please… just kiss me,” I hear myself beg, having totally forgotten decorum, my mind fully invested in the fantasy he’s conjuring up.
“I’m leaning in, our mouths just a hair’s breadth from each other. Your sweet breath mingles with mine before I eat the distance between us and softly press my lips onto yours.”
“Hmm…” It’s all I can manage to utter, the sound slipping out between shallow breaths.
“You taste so sweet, Anna. So fucking sweet,” he groans, and I hear him shifting on his bed on the other end of the line. “Cazzo.”
He’s never cursed in Italian before. Not once in all our texts. And hearing him curse now, just from the image we’ve built between us, sends something sharp and electric through me.
But wait… Should I be saying something, too? He’s so open, so unfiltered about what he wants. Shouldn’t I be the same?
Before I can second-guess myself, I blurt out, “You taste good, too.”
“Fuck, baby. Yes, tell me how good I’m making you feel.
Tell me what you want, what you desire. I want to hear it all,” he rasps, as if my words have unleashed something in him that was barely being held back.
Like I’ve ignited something that was already burning out of control, ready to consume everything in its path.
If we were face-to-face, I don’t think I’d be able to say any of this. Embarrassment would have stolen the words from my mouth before they ever had the chance to form.
But he can’t see me. He doesn’t know how flushed I am, how my skin burns, how something low and aching has taken hold of me just from the sound of his voice. And that… that makes me braver than I’ve ever been.
“I’m running my fingers through your hair,” I murmur, sinking deeper into the image. “Relishing your kiss. But I… I want…”
“What do you want, baby? Tell me,” he commands, the rasp in his voice turning deliciously dark and dangerous.
“Everything.”
He lets out a low growl, as if he were about to devour me whole, and for some reason, the heady image of his teeth sinking into my skin sends my thoughts spiraling.
“Let me taste you. Open your mouth for me.”
In my mind, I pull my fingers away from his hair, just so I can grip his broad shoulders, needing to anchor myself to something as I open myself up for him.
He tells me how his tongue slips into my mouth, how it tries to learn every secret I hold as he gives away all of his to me. The effect he has on me is mind-numbing. The way he paints something so vivid, I almost believe he’s here, in my bedroom, kissing me.
“This won’t hurt… much,” he says, before telling me he’s biting my lower lip, teasing it between his teeth until I pant out his name.
My head spins as my fingers brush over the invisible marks he’s left behind on my bottom lip.
“Bite me again,” I tell him, needing to feel the graze of his teeth on me.
He groans his approval as I imagine him biting into the slope of my neck first, before crashing his lips back to mine. It’s all so enthralling that I’m getting dizzy, the tension inside me coiling tighter, stretching me thin with nowhere to escape.
“Rafe,” I moan out, wanting this fantasy to materialize more than I want my next breath.
But just like that… something changes. It’s slight, almost imperceptible, but I feel it instantly. The sudden absence of heat, the way his tone turns cool and distant, shutting me out without warning.
“I… um… we should stop. It’s getting late.”
My eyelids fly open, as if someone just dumped a bucket of ice water over me.
“Did I say something wrong?”
“No, Anna. You’re… perfect.”
My frown is instant.
“I hate it when people say that. I’m not perfect. I’m not. I’m just… me.”
I punch the mattress, not even sure why I’m so angry. Is it because he ended our fantasy out of nowhere, or because he used the same word I’ve spent my whole life trying to live up to? Either way, I’m livid and unable to hide it.
The line goes quiet as he registers my words.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t say that to hurt you.”
I don’t offer him a reply. Not when it feels like he stole something from me. Like he stole the most beautiful moment I’ve ever experienced.
“Anna, are you there, sweetheart?”
“Yes.”
“Are you angry at me?”
“A little, yes.”
“Is it because of what I said… or because I ended our first kiss?” he asks, echoing my thoughts exactly.