Page 18 of Deadly Confessions
I close my eyes tighter. My body is warm under the covers. Too warm. The thin shirt clings to my stomach. I shift, adjust, try to find a position where I'm not thinking about the sound of his voice saying"Mi fido del tuo giudiFather"(I trust your judgment) while looking at me like I was the only person in a room full of people paying two hundred euros a plate.
My hand rests on my stomach. Below my navel. Not moving. Just resting.
I think about his mouth.
The way he eats. Deliberate. Present. He doesn't rush. He tasted the wine with his eyes closed for a full second, just one, like he was giving the flavor his complete attention. His lips against the rim of the glass. The slight movement of his throat when he swallowed. I watched from across the dining room while pretending to fold napkins. I watched the way you watch something you're not supposed to see.
My hand slides lower.
I let it.
He's in the restaurant. No. He's here. In my apartment. In my room. Standing at the foot of my bed with his collar open, his sleeves rolled to the elbow, the tattoos visible now, ink running up his forearms like a story written on skin. He looks at me the way he looked at me in the church. One second. Two. But here, he doesn't walk away.
He sits on the edge of the bed. The mattress dips. I feel the weight of him.
His hand on my ankle. Fingers wrapping around the bone. Warm. His thumb tracing the tendon above my heel, slow, like he has nowhere to be and nothing to manage except this. Except me.
He moves his hand up my calf. Over my knee. The inside of my thigh, where my skin is thin, where no one touches me, where the scars hide beneath my clothes like secrets folded into a letter no one will read.
His fingers stop at the hem of my shirt.
“Can I taste it?”
I nod. I can't speak.
He pushes the fabric up. Slow. His knuckles graze my stomach. My ribs. Higher. His palm flat against my skin, wide, warm,covering the space between my hip bones. I arch into it. My breathing has changed. Shallow. Fast. The sound of it fills my small bedroom.
His mouth on my hip. The press of his lips against the bone. Then lower. His breath on my skin. Hot. His voice in Italian, low, close, words I feel more than hear because they vibrate through my body like a tuning fork struck against glass.
"Sei bellissima." (You are beautiful.)
I don't believe him but I believe the way he says it. The drop in his register. The slight roughness, like when pure sexual desire takes over.
His mouth moves down. His hands grip my thighs, spreading them apart, firm, not asking anymore. Taking. My back lifts off the mattress. My fingers twist in the sheets. In the quickest and fluent motion I have ever seen he rips my wet panties off like it wasn’t just covering my ass and tosses them across the room. I tried to let out a grasp, but he finger was already on my lips telling not to make a sound.
Then he’s slow and deliberate, licking inside the folds of my pussy lips, giving them his complete attention. Like a fine wine, I’m the one being tasted, studied, held in his mouth the way he held the Barbaresco, eyes closed, endless seconds oftotal focus.
I cum with my face pressed into the pillow so hard that I scream with pleasure, my fingers working my clit like hummingbirds’ wings flapping in the wind. His name caught somewhere between my lungs and my teeth as my hips grinded against an invisible dick because he isn't here. He was never here. My hand is my hand. My bed is empty. My panties is still on. The apartment is quiet except for my breathing, ragged, loud in the dark room.
I lie still. Staring at the ceiling. The plaster is cracked near the light fixture. The crack has been there since I moved in. I have never noticed its exact shape until this moment, when my pulse is still hammering and my thighs are still trembling and the ghost of a man I've spoken to only a few times is dissolving from my bed like incense smoke from a censer.
I wipe my hand on the sheet. Roll onto my back.
The crime novel sits on my nightstand. My glasses beside it. My phone, screen dark. The crucifix on the wall across the room. The ritual candles cold in their brass holders.
The ceiling stares back at me.
I just got off thinking about a Camorra Don.
A smile. It starts small. A twitch at the corner of my mouth, then wider. I'm grinning at the cracked ceiling of my apartmentwith my hair spread across the pillow and my heart rate still settling and the taste of his name still in my mouth even though I never said it out loud.
I can’t stop smiling.
I reach for my glasses. Put them on. The world sharpens. The crack in the ceiling comes into focus. My bookshelf. The crucifix. The small kitchen through the open door.
I take the glasses off again. Set them back on the nightstand. Pull the covers up to my chin. Close my eyes with a smile on my face.
Chapter 6
