I can feel a light breeze sliding over my skin, like human breath. When the air touches between my legs, I can tell that I’m very wet.

Dante looks over my body silently. His face is so impassive that I can’t tell what he thinks. But his eyes are burning like two black coals.

“Turn around,” he orders.

Slowly, I turn until he’s behind me once more.

“Bend over,” he says.

I don’t understand why he’s doing this. I don’t know what he wants. This isn’t what I expected when I came to meet him. I thought we’d talk, or he might kiss me again.

Instead, I’m bending over to touch my toes, which is difficult to do in stilettos on the uneven ground.

It’s humiliating, exposing myself like this. What is he planning? What if he took a picture of me like this? I’d die of shame.

I can hear him move behind me, and I almost straighten up. I only hold this awful position because I’m more afraid to disobey him.

Dante kneels behind me.

He puts his face between my legs.

From behind, I feel his warm, wet tongue sliding up the length of my pussy.

It feels so good that my knees almost buckle. I only stay upright because his massive hands are gripping my hips.

Dante eats my pussy like he’s starving. He licks and sucks and shoves his tongue inside me. He licks me absolutely everywhere. It’s wet and intense, and absolutely fucking outrageous.

The vulnerability of my position and the intimacy of the places he’s putting his tongue is insane. I can’t believe I’m allowing it. But it feels too good to stop. I feel filthy and naughty, and I fucking love it.

As he’s fucking me with his tongue, he reaches around and rubs my clit with his hand.

Oh my god, I feel like I’ve been waiting years for him to do that again. I’ve been so pent up thinking about him that in seconds I can feel the climax building, the relentless headlong rush into that release that I feared I might never experience again.

Dante buries his face even deeper in my most delicate parts. He uses those thick, rough fingers to rub and press and coax me exactly where he wants me to go.

Bent over like this, my head is down by my ankles and all the blood is rushing to my brain. As I start to cum, I feel like I might be having an aneurysm. Fireworks are bursting behind my closed eyelids, and I have no idea if I’m crying out as loud as I did in my bedroom. God, I hope not.

The orgasm rips through me, even stronger than before. I collapse, only saved from tumbling over on the ground by Dante’s huge arms wrapped around me.

He holds me against his chest. I’m limp, and he’s as solid as an oak tree.

When I can see again, he helps me step into my dress. My underwear is gone, impossible to see in the dark.

“Did you like that?” he asks me.

“Yes,” I say, in my most proper tone. “It was very nice.”

Dante laughs. It’s the first time I’ve heard him laugh—a deep rumble that vibrates in his chest.

“Do you want to go for a drive?” he asks me.

“I would love that.”

6

Dante

I take Simone over to my car. It’s just an old Bronco, battered and gunmetal gray. It’s not good to drive a flashy car in my business. Not good to draw too much attention. Besides, I wouldn’t fit in some tiny sports car.

Simone doesn’t seem to mind. She waits by her door for a second, not touching the handle. I realize she expects me to open it.

I lean forward to grab it right at the same second that she does. We bump into each other, which does nothing to me but almost knocks her off her feet. She blushes and says, “Sorry, that was—”

“No, I’ve got it,” I say.

I’ve never opened a door for a girl before. I wouldn’t have thought about it.

I’m not exactly the “dating” type. More the “get drunk at a bar, and if someone’s giving me the eye, I guess I’ll take them home” type.

I like women the same way I like burgers—if I’m hungry and there’s one available, then I’ll eat.

Simone is no burger.

She’s a ten-course meal, if I’d been starving for fifty years.

She could bring me back to life if I were almost dead.

She climbs into the passenger side, looking around at the cracked leather seats, the worn steering wheel, and the little woven band hanging from the rear-view mirror.

“What’s that?” Simone asks, pointing.

“It’s a friendship bracelet. My little sister made it for me. But she made it the size of her wrist, so it doesn’t fit,” I chuckle.

“You have a sister?” Simone asks, surprised. Like she thought I was raised by mountain trolls.

“Yeah,” I say, putting the car in reverse. “I’ve got one baby sister, and two brothers.”

“Oh,” Simone sighs. “I always wished I came from a big family.”

“There’s no family like Italian family,” I say. “I’ve got so many uncles, cousins, and people who think we’re related because our great-great-grandparents came from the same town in Piemonte that you could fill the whole damn city with them.”

“You’ve always lived here?” Simone says.

“All my life.”

“I am jealous,” she says.

“What are you talking about? You’ve been everywhere.”

“Visitor everywhere, citizen nowhere,” Simone says. “Do you know we’ve never owned a house? We rent these palaces . . . but it’s always temporary.”

“You should come to my house,” I say. “It’s so old it’s probably put down roots.”

“I’d like to see it,” she says, with real excitement. Then she asks, “Where are we going now?”

“Where would you like to go?”

“I don’t know.” She hesitates. “Are you afraid to be seen with me?”

“No. Are you?”

“A little,” she says honestly. “My parents have an itinerary for me. Wilson drives me everywhere I go.”

“I’ll take you somewhere nobody will see us,” I promise. “Or at least, nobody you know.”

I drive us over to Lakeview, to an old brick building with a nondescript door halfway down its alley. Simone looks like she barely wants to get out of the car once I’ve parked. Still, she follows me out, slipping her hand in the crook of my arm as we walk, holding onto me for protection. Nobody around here would fuck with us, but I like the feel of her clinging to my arm.

I knock twice on the door. After a moment it cracks just wide enough for the bouncer to give me a once over. Tony breaks into a grin at the sight of me.

“There he is,” he says. “Where’ve you been, Dante?”

“Places where they don’t skimp on olives, ya cheap fuckers,” I say, clapping him on the shoulder.

“You’re not supposed to eat a whole jar with your drink.” Tony grins. “Guess they never taught you that in finishing school.”

Tony cocks an eyebrow at Simone, hiding behind my arm.

“Dante,” he says. “What are you doing with a pretty girl like that? Are you so tall she can’t see your face? Come on love—you know you can do better than this guy.”