I can’t recall the last time anyone asked me that and truly wanted an answer. I decide to match his honesty, risk for risk.
“Once. I thought it was love, but it turned out to be a contest of who cared less. I lost.” I swallow, gaze dropping. “And you?”
He looks away—only for a heartbeat, but enough for me to know the answer before he says it. “Twice, maybe. But marriage is a different thing from love, and having a family is a different thing from wanting one.”
I twist my cocktail napkin into a tiny paper rose. “So what do you want? Honestly.”
His lips part, as if he might actually say it, then close. He reaches across the table and brushes my jaw with his knuckle. “I want to see what your hair looks like down. I want to know if you’ll let me take you somewhere that isn’t on your father’s approved-venues list. I want to show you what it’s like to have a man who isn’t afraid of breaking you open.”
The air in the booth goes sticky and hot. I don’t mean to, but my thighs press together, just a hair’s breadth. He sees it, and his feet nudge mine under the table, deliberate.
I smile, slowly. “That’s a lot for one birthday.”
He leans over the table until his mouth is so near I can feel the words. “Then let’s make it count.”
A beat. I expect him to kiss me, but he doesn’t. He shocks me by asking, “Lucia, may I?”
The politeness of it—old country, dignified—makes me dizzy. I nod, and he crosses that tiny distance, his lips claiming mine with a hunger that makes my core liquefy. His mouth tastes of expensive scotch and forbidden promises, the kiss deep enough to brand me from the inside out. My nipples harden against the silk of my dress as his teeth graze my bottom lip.
It isn't chaste. He pulls me in, one hand cupping the back of my neck, fingers threading through my hair tight enough to sting, while his other hand slides up my thigh, leaving a trail of fire on my bare skin. His tongue invades my mouth with the arrogance of someone who knows exactly how wet I'm becoming. I surrender completely, my thighs parting involuntarily as I let myself be consumed.
He pulls back, breathing hard, and says, “Come home with me.”
It’s not a question. It’s less a command than an inevitable next scene.
I should say no. I ought to giggle, turn away, or promise him later—play the game. But I am so tired of games. I want, for once, to be wanted enough that hesitation is a waste of the world’s time.
“Yes,” I whisper.
He grins, and the flash of joy is pure boyish triumph.
By now, the hostess, the bartender, and the elderly couple near the door have all noticed us, but I don’t care. I feel like I’m floating. As Alessio helps me from the booth, his hand slides down my back and pauses for a brief, respectful moment at the base of my spine, as if to remind me what’s coming.
The limousine has been idling the entire time we’ve been inside. The driver jumps out to open the door, but Alessio waves him off, guiding me through the doorway himself.
Inside, it’s dark and cool and, once the doors click shut, satisfyingly private.
He doesn’t hesitate.
His mouth claims mine with savage possession before the car even merges into traffic. His tongue invades, demanding entry, tasting every corner as his fingers dig into my hips with bruising need. The careful restraint from dinner has shattered; this is raw, animal hunger. I dissolve against him, whimpering as my body surrenders its last defenses.
He drags me onto his lap with a growl, my dress bunching around my waist. His hands slide up my bare thighs, thumbs pressing into the sensitive flesh where leg meets hip. I gasp, trembling with want as he tears the pins from my hair, sending waves cascading over my shoulders.
"I need to taste all of you," he rasps, voice thick with desperation. "Now."
His mouth blazes down my throat, teeth scraping my thundering pulse as he hooks his fingers into the delicate lace of my panties and drags them down my thighs. The cool leatheragainst my exposed flesh makes me shiver as he drops to the floor of the limousine.
He seizes my knees, spreading them open, and for one terror-thrilling moment I worry what the driver might see—but Alessio’s body is a rampart between me and the world. With my panties bunched at my ankles, the dress twisted up, and the heat of his mouth hovering, I feel so on display I could rip in two.
He presses my thigh to the cool seatback, anchoring me as his free hand snakes up, thumb skimming deliberate, criminal circles into the crease between my thigh and mound. I try to clutch his shoulders, but the angle is awkward; I settle for burying my hand in the thick black casing of his hair just as his lips part and seal over my pussy.
He is gentle for all of five seconds, mouthing me in soft, coaxing laps that make me squirm closer, then he stops pretending. His tongue splits me, demanding, drinking in the liquid proof of my need. I stifle a cry, one leg kicking out. He pins that, too, and drives deeper, his nose brushing my clit, the bristly abrasion of his beard making me dizzy.
Alessio does not make the mistake of teasing. He swallows me as if I am both appetizer and final course, tongue flicking up and down my slick folds, then finding the little bud at the apex and torturing it in slow, relentless circles until my hips buck wildly against his mouth. The world collapses to a tiny, shaking radius: his mouth, my cunt, the limousine’s obscene silence. I dig my knuckles into the armrest, desperate for something to anchor me to this world.
There is a moment—midway through—when I am aware that I could stop him. That if I said so, he would halt, look up, and let me snap the boundaries back into place. I almost try it, for the sake of science, to see how far the respect stretches, but even the concept makes me laugh. I want to see how far he can take it.
“Alessio,” I gasp, because it feels wrong not to say his name during something this blasphemous. “Please.”