17. Growing Closer
Growing Closer
Valentina
He asked me on Wednesday.
Standing in the doorway of La Terrazza after the dinner service, his collar open, his car idling at the curb. I was still in my apron, smelling like branzino and bread, my hair falling out of its tie.
"This weekend," he said. "Stay with me. The whole thing. Friday night through Sunday."
"That's two nights."
"I can count."
"What would we do for two days?"
"Whatever you want. Cook. Read. Nothing. I have a kitchen nobody uses and a view nobody sees."
I looked at him. The silver temples. The dark eyes waiting for an answer he wasn't certain of. The Don who commands rooms without raising his voice, asking a waitress to spend the weekend like it was the most dangerous question he'd posed all week.
"I'll pack a bag," I said.
The bag sits by his bedroom door now, untouched since Friday.
I brought a toothbrush, clean underwear, a book, a change of clothes I haven't needed because I've been wearing his shirts since Saturday morning and he hasn't objected.
His white cotton button-down hangs to mid-thigh.
His grey cashmere pullover swallows my hands.
I am disappearing into his wardrobe and neither of us wants to reverse the process.
Saturday morning. I wake to the sound of the shower.
The bed is warm where he was lying. The sheets hold the shape of his body, the indent of his shoulders, the warmth he left behind.
I stretch. My muscles are loose in the specific way they get after a night of being used well.
Friday night was the second time we slept together and we improved on the first the way you improve on anything: with attention, with data, with the willingness to adjust based on feedback.
The shower runs in the bathroom. Steam curls through the door he left open.
I get up. Pull off the t-shirt I slept in. Walk naked through his bedroom, past the bookshelves, past the window where the morning bay gleams blue and silver, into the bathroom.
He's standing under the rain shower, his back to me. Water running down the tattoos, tracing the ink like fingers reading braille. The compass rose on his left shoulder. The Latin along his ribs. His head is tilted back, eyes closed, the water hitting his face and running down his throat.
I open the glass door. Step in.
He turns. Water in his eyes. He blinks. Sees me.
"Good morning," I say.
His gaze moves from my face down my body with the thoroughness of a man who has already memorized every detail but checks anyway. The way he checks a painting he's seen before. Looking for something new.
"You're in my shower," he says.
"Your shower is big enough for two."
"It's big enough for four."
"Let's start with two."
His hands find my waist. Pull me under the water. It's hot. The spray hits my shoulders, my back, runs down my spine. His mouth finds mine. We kiss under the water, steam rising around us, the taste of his mouth mixed with the heat.
He turns me around. My palms flat against the marble tile. The water running down my back. His chest against me, the ink and the muscle and the weight of him pressing me forward. His mouth on the back of my neck. His hand sliding down my stomach, between my thighs.
"Sei già bagnata," he says against my ear. (You're already wet.)
"è la doccia."
"Non è la doccia."
He's right. It's not the shower.
His fingers work me from behind while the water runs over both of us. I press my forehead against the cool marble. His other hand is on my hip, holding me steady, his mouth on my shoulder, my neck, the spot below my ear. I push back against him. Feel him hard against me.
"Ti voglio così," I say. (I want you like this.)
He enters me from behind. Slow. The angle is different standing.
Deeper. I brace against the tile. His hand stays between my thighs, his fingers circling while he moves inside me.
The water makes everything slick. The steam makes the air thick.
The sounds we make bounce off marble walls, amplified, returned to us.
He sets a rhythm that builds without rushing.
His hips against me. His breath on my neck.
His fingers precise, relentless. I come with the water hitting my back, both hands flat against the wall, a sound that the marble gives back to me louder than I intended.
He follows, his forehead dropping to my shoulder, his arms wrapping around me from behind, holding me upright when my legs decide they're done supporting weight.
We stand under the water. His arms around me. My back against his chest. The steam thick enough to taste.
"Good morning," he says again.
I laugh. The sound fills the marble bathroom.
We dry off. He wraps me in a towel that's too big for me, the hem dragging on the floor. I don't get dressed. He pulls on sweatpants. Nothing else. We walk to the kitchen barefoot and half-clothed, our hair wet, the penthouse warm with morning light.
He makes coffee in his mother's moka pot. I sit on the kitchen counter in his towel, legs dangling, watching him perform the ritual. Fill the base. Pack the grounds. Set it on the flame. The same sequence his mother performed, the same pot, the same careful attention to a task he considers sacred.
He pours two cups. Brings one to me. I take it. Our fingers touch on the ceramic. He stays standing between my knees, leaning against the counter edge, drinking his coffee while looking at me with an expression that has no agenda behind it. Just attention. Just presence.
"I should cook you breakfast," he says.
"I'm not dressed."
"I've noticed."
"You're not dressed either."
"I have pants on."
"Barely."
He sets his cup down. His hands go to my knees, parting them slightly, stepping closer between my legs. The towel falls open across my thighs. His thumbs trace circles on the inside of my knees. Slow. Unhurried. The same hands that poured my coffee ten seconds ago.
"Eggs?" he asks. His thumbs moving higher.
"Sure."
"Toast?"
"Sure." My breathing has changed. He notices. His thumbs notice.
"Anything else?"
His hands are at the top of my thighs now. His mouth is close to mine. The coffee steam rises between us.
"Surprise me," I say.
He lifts me off the counter. I wrap my legs around his waist. The towel drops.
He carries me three steps to the kitchen table, sets me on the edge.
The wood is cool against my bare skin. He pushes me gently back.
His mouth goes to my throat. My collarbone.
Lower. He takes his time the way he takes his time with everything.
Wine. Paintings. The woman on his kitchen table.
We don't eat breakfast until eleven.
The ragù is his mother's recipe.
He pulls the ingredients from the refrigerator like a man preparing for a ceremony.
Beef. San Marzano tomatoes. Onions, celery, garlic.
A bottle of red wine for the sauce and a second bottle for us.
He sets everything on the counter with the specific placement of someone who learned to cook from a woman who did not tolerate chaos in her kitchen.
"The meat goes in whole," he says. "Not ground. Ground meat is for people in a hurry."
"And ragù is for people who aren't."
"My mother's words. She also said the sauce needs four hours, which means we have four hours to fill."
"I can think of ways to fill four hours."
He hands me a knife. "Chop the onions."
I chop. He works beside me at the counter, breaking down the garlic with the flat of his palm, the gesture efficient, practiced. His bare shoulder six inches from mine. Our arms brush when I reach for the cutting board.
He says something about the garlic needing to be crushed, not minced. He demonstrates by pressing the clove under his palm. I watch his forearm flex. The scar. The tattoo peeking from beneath his wrist.
"You're not watching the garlic," he says.
"I'm watching your technique."
"My technique is in the garlic."
"Your technique is everywhere."
He leans over. Kisses the corner of my mouth. Quick. Casual. The kiss of a man who has been kissing me long enough that he doesn't need a reason. He goes back to the garlic.
The ragù goes into the pot. Onions, garlic, celery, the meat searing in olive oil. The tomatoes. The wine. He stirs with a wooden spoon worn smooth at the handle from decades of use. His mother's spoon. He adds salt the way his mother added salt: by instinct, not measurement.
"More garlic," he says, imitating her voice. Higher-pitched. A Vomero accent. The impression is so specific and so tender that my eyes sting and it isn't the onions.
He puts on music. Puccini. La Bohème. The tenor's voice fills the apartment like incense in a church.
We open the wine. Barbaresco. His insistence. I tell him he should try something new. He says he found what he likes and sees no reason to experiment.
"You're not talking about wine," I say.
"I'm talking about wine."
"You're not."
He pulls me to him. One arm around my waist. The wooden spoon in his other hand, dripping sauce. He holds me against his bare chest while the ragù simmers.
"I'm not talking about wine," he admits.
I take the spoon from him. Taste the sauce. It needs another twenty minutes. I dip my finger, hold it up to his mouth. He takes my finger between his lips. Slowly. His eyes on mine. The sauce and the taste of my skin, mixed. He releases my finger.
"More salt," he says.
"You're impossible."
"I'm thorough."
The afternoon unravels. We eat ragù on the couch, bowls of pasta with the four-hour sauce, tearing bread, drinking the last of the Barbaresco.
He tells me about the Caravaggio forgery he identified during his graduate work.
The violence was too clean, he says. Caravaggio's violence is messy.
The forgery painted the idea of blood. Beautiful, but not true.
I think about my kills. The mess. The blood that never stays where you expect. I don't say this.
I eat my pasta.
I find the photograph.
The bedroom closet is open. A drawer slightly ajar. The corner of a frame. Not hidden. Not displayed.
"Can I?" I ask.