“Look, I’m sorry. I didn’t realize okay?”
“Okay, Paolo, understood.”
Hell, he hadn’t meant to hurt her. ‘Smooth Pablo, excellent going’ he chided himself. He needed to do something to turn this around, exploit the advantage. He found himself curiously reluctant though. Cora was such an open book; you’d think she’d know better by now. He almost wanted to yell at her for making this too easy.
“How long?”
“How long what, Paolo?”
“You know what I mean… How long have you, you know…”
He could say it. He was a modern, cultural guy in touch with his feminine side, damn it.
“How long have I been attracted to you?”
Thank God.
“Yeah, that.”
“Well, Paolo, I would have to say… Since I bumped into you at the school. I remember thinking that you were pretty buff for a geek.”
Paolo couldn’t help it – he threw his head back and laughed helplessly at the ceiling. He was aware that he sounded slightly hysterical. In front of them the gate to Cora’s building.
“I’m sorry, Cora, that’s just so…”
Completely backwards, weird, illogical, tragic, funny…
“…us.”
He stopped the car just before the green gate as the security guard came out to see who it was.
“Cora, I’m sorry.”
He didn’t know what else to say. The street light flickered, leaving them in darkness for a couple of seconds before switching back on.
“So am I, Paolo,”
Cora grabbed her purse from where she had placed it on the dashboard, and opened the car door. Paolo wanted to stop her – maybe say something – but he didn’t know quite what, and a moment after Cora was out, closing the door carefully and already disappearing into the shadow of the main entrance of his building.
Paolo should get going. He reached to turn the ignition key.
He was still kind of shell-shocked with the revelations of the night.
It was one thing to seduce the daughter of his enemy; but what he was feeling toward her; that wasn’t in the plan. And he couldn’t walk into that like a fool. It was bad enough that Lafitte had played him – he wasn’t about to play himself too.
When he was fifteen he’d ignored his mother’s warnings and gotten involved with
Rachel Saunders. Her father ran the grocery store that competed with the one in which his mother’s boyfriend was invested. It was pretty serious with Marco and he knew the only reason they weren’t married was because Paolo hated his mother’s beau. Sexing Rachel Saunders seemed like the ultimate Romeo and Juliet situation; defying all odds just to be together. Turned out Rachel just wanted access to Marco’s supplier files so they could sabotage his business. She’d been caught red handed by Giovanni as he was trying to break in to Marco’s office to get at the good scotch. It was a cluster fuck of epic proportions and Paolo vowed never to get himself in such a stupid situation ever again.
It had taught Paolo a lesson.
He let out a deep sigh, and turned the key in the ignition. On the first floor the lights turned on in Cora’s apartment. He pulled away from the curb and turned right in the intersection, heading back home.
There were things he hadn’t let himself think about in words for a long time – even if the images were there, as clear as photographs. Made life a lot easier.
Michigan Avenue was almost deserted. It was too quiet in the car, it made him antsy. He turned on the radio, surfed through the stations, but all of them were playing sad love songs. He turned the radio off and leaned back in his seat.
Yeah, there were things he hadn’t let himself think about.
Like putting a hand on Cora’s shoulder and accidentally running his index finger against the flexed tendon standing out just above the collar. Like noticing Cora’s pink tongue darting out across her lower lip when she was nervous. Like being all too aware of the sweet, musky scent on Cora that time she had opened the door half-dressed, with Fridah in there, in her apartment.
Paolo lifted his foot off the accelerator and pulled over to the side. He rested his head on the wheel for a couple of minutes before straightening up and turning the car around.
*****
The lights were still on in Cora’s apartment when he parked the car. The hall light was broken, but Paolo knew his way well enough to make it up the stairs in the dark.
He knocked lightly on the door and Cora opened wearing only boxers and a white undershirt. Paolo tried not to stare, before remembering that it was okay – that he could.
“Paolo, what…?”
Paolo tried to make out Cora’s expression in the lighting.
“Look, Cora, I’m sorry.”
Cora, clearly baffled, said, “No need to be, Paolo. As you can see, I wasn’t yet asleep.”
Paolo shook his head, “Not that.”
And then – because Paolo Agnelli wasn’t a coward, because maybe he didn’t want it easy, and because he was that way inclined – he leaned in and kissed Cora firmly.
Paolo pulled back, squeezed Cora’s bare shoulders.
“Oh,” Cora breathed out, licking his lips.
“Yeah,” Paolo replied smiling, and stepped inside.
*****
She gave him a blowjob as Prince’s Sign O’ the Times played in the background and it was actually pretty fantastic. Seriously, he didn’t know what she did with Travis or how many guys she dated in-between but Paolo was blown away, all puns aside, by Cora’s oral capabilities. Her mouth was like a fucking Hoover vac but gentler. Theoretically, because it’s not like he would know for sure.
It was with great disappointment that he detached her from his cock and maneuvered her onto her back knowing that if he didn’t get inside her, he was going to come in her mouth and then he would be down for the night. Literally. He was 35 and despite the giant fucking multivitamin he took every morning, he couldn’t do a fucking marathon. Again, literally.