20. Matteo #2
Claire takes off the other earring and puts it beside the hair tie.
She reaches for me.
I kiss her while she unbuttons my shirt.
She pushes it off my shoulders.
I unzip her dress slowly.
She steps out of it and leaves it on the floor.
“You are not going to hang that?”
“No.”
“Who are you?”
“I am adapting.”
“Terrifying.”
She is smiling when I kiss her again.
The smile fades when my hand slides along her back.
Claire touches my face.
“Slower.”
“Yes.”
I slow down.
She guides my hand where she wants it.
I know some of what she likes.
I kiss her neck.
Her shoulder.
The inside of her wrist because she always reacts and because I like that she does.
Claire pulls me down onto the bed.
For several minutes, neither of us jokes.
She kisses me like there is nowhere else she needs to be.
Japan is still five days after Ginestra, lunch in Naples is tomorrow, and the rest of August is waiting.
When I reach for the nightstand, Claire catches my hand.
“Wait.”
I stop.
She kisses me once.
She kisses me again.
“Okay.”
I get the condom.
I come back and she pulls me over her.
“Still slow?” I ask.
“For now.”
I enter her carefully.
Claire exhales against my mouth.
Her legs settle around me.
Slow is enough for a while.
The room is quiet except for the old ceiling fan and the occasional sound of a scooter on the road above Bellamare.
Claire keeps one hand at the back of my neck.
The other moves down my back.
When she wants more, she says so, and I give it to her.
When I speed up, her fingers tighten once.
I slow again.
“Inspector,” she whispers.
I laugh against her mouth.
“That is unfair.”
“Accurate.”
She kisses me before I can answer.
She laughs once, and we lose the rhythm.
We find it again.
Later, when she comes, she keeps her forehead against mine.
I follow with her name in my mouth and no useful thought left.
Afterward, neither of us moves very far.
Claire is on her side, one leg over mine, the sheet somewhere near our feet.
I bring water.
She drinks, passes the glass back, then steals my pillow while I am setting it down.
“That is mine.”
“You own others.”
“In this room?”
“Yes.”
“Strong legal argument.”
“I’m comfortable.”
I take the second pillow.
For a while we talk about nothing important. It becomes everything else anyway.
Claire tells me she hates hotel kettles.
I tell her I hate people who arrive early for meetings and describe it as respect.
“That is because you arrive exactly on time.”
“Early enough to be prepared.”
“Which is early.”
“It is not.”
She tells me her mother keeps every magazine Claire has ever appeared in, including one with a photograph so badly printed the sky turned purple.
I tell her my mother still calls before every opening and asks whether I have eaten, as if a hotel cannot open if I miss lunch.
“That is sweet.”
“It is repetitive.”
“Those are not mutually exclusive.”
Sometime after one, Claire asks which city I would live in if Bellamare did not exist.
“Rome.”
“Too easy.”
“Madrid.”
She thinks about it.
“Why?”
“Late dinners. Good buildings. Fewer people asking me about boats.”
“You do not own a boat.”
“Exactly.”
She laughs.
“What about you?”
“Lisbon.”
“You already go there.”
“I know. That is why I picked it.”
“Unimaginative.”
“Efficient.”
“That is my word.”
“I stole a shirt. I can steal a word.”
Later, we are ranking terrible hotel breakfasts.
She tells me she once spent six hours photographing a bus station in Ohio for one usable frame.
Eventually, she asks whether I ski.
“Badly.”
She lifts her head.
“Really?”
“Yes.”
“Finally.”
“What?”
“A weakness.”
“You have several.”
“None this valuable.”
“I can ski.”
“You just said badly.”
“I can remain upright.”
“Can you stop?”
“Usually.”
Claire laughs.
Near dawn, she says, “I’ve never been to Madrid.”
“We should not go in August.”
Claire lowers the sheet.
I hear the we after I say it.
Claire’s eyes stay on mine for a second longer.
I leave it alone.
“What month?” she asks.
“October.”
“November.”
“Too cold.”
“You’re Italian. Your definition of cold is unreliable.”
“You own sandals that squeak in rain.”
“That is unrelated.”
We keep talking.
Eventually the sky begins changing behind the shutters.
I remember Naples tomorrow afternoon.
I leave the clock alone.
At six twenty, we finally sleep.
When I wake again, sunlight is across the bed.
Claire is still beside me.
Her phone vibrates on the nightstand.
It vibrates again before she reaches it.
She makes a sound into my pillow and reaches for it without opening her eyes.
“What time is it?”
I check.
“Nine forty-two.”
Claire opens both eyes.
“Sebastian is going to be unbearable.”
I show her my phone.
Sebastian: SIXTH MISSED brEAKFAST. This is now a documented condition.
Claire makes a sleepy sound that might be a laugh.
“He needs a hobby.”
“This is his hobby.”
Her phone vibrates again.
She squints at the screen.
The sleep leaves her face.
“What?”
Claire does not answer.
She turns the phone toward me.
There is a photograph from last night beneath a headline.
Claire Bennett’s Ravello showing draws billionaire Matteo Bellandi as Return steps into the spotlight.
I read it once.
Then the line beneath it.
The photographer behind Bellandi’s mystery romance may have found her biggest audience yet.
Claire sits up.
“Oh, you have got to be kidding me.”