“It’s where my heart is.”
“I get that.” I take out some butter and onions, and place a frying pan on the stove. “I feel the same.”
“Sometimes, you just know,” she says. She doesn’t look at me, but keeps her eyes trained on the busyness of the street below our window. “Where you belong. Where you’re going. Who you’re,” she pauses. “—well, things like that.”
“Yeah, cara,” I agree. “Sometimes you do.”
She turns to me and puts her hands on her hips. “Would you believe I haven’t had a proper gelato since I came here, not one.”
I shake my head as if it’s a travesty. “Are you serious?”
She nods. “Dead serious. I used to eat gelato every night in August in Calabria. My friends and I would go to this little place. They served every flavor you could imagine.”
She talks with her hands like her family, waving her pretty fingers in the air while her eyes light up. “And those hot, humid nights were filled with so much joy and happiness. I didn’t care about money or shoes or designer handbags, my grades or what my father was up to. All I cared about was eating my gelato quick enough so it didn’t melt.”
I chop up an onion, listening to her. I like that she’s opening up to me, telling me the little things that are on her mind and heart.
“You miss being home. I do, too.”
“What do you miss?” she asks.
I don’t have to think about my response.
“My brothers. My mother. Family.”
She leans her bottom gently against the edge of the table and nods at me. “It means a lot to you guys, doesn’t it?”
“What?”
She swallows. “The family.”
“Mia, it’s everything. It’s my whole damn life.”
I slide diced onion from the cutting board into the melted butter and it sizzles.
“I admire that, you know.”
“Mmm? What?”
“Your dedication to each other. How loyal you are.”
I nod. “It’s at the very heart of what we do.”
She tells me stories of her adventures as a crime lord’s daughter, the stories both funny and poignant. How she learned her ABC’s with a tutor because her father was too scared to put her in school. And how she begged and pleaded until he let her go, because all she wanted was a lunchbox and a new pencil case.
“I had more made men by my side than little girls,” she says. “And I’m sorry, Enzo. I think I had prejudices about you before I even met you. Because of them.”
“I get it.”
“Hey, will you teach me how to do that?”
“Do what?”
“Make the onions all brown like that? How to cook what you’re making?”
“Of course,” I tell her. “Come here.”
She eyes the wooden spoon in my hand. “Something tells me it’s not wise coming near you when you’re wielding a wooden spoon.”
I grin at her. “As long as you’re a good little girl, you don’t have to fear my wooden spoon.”
She bites her lip. “Well, what’s the fun in that?”
I swat her little butt with the spoon and yank her over to me. She squeals as I position her in front of the stove. I stand behind her, place the spoon in her hand, and point to the stove.
“Make sure it isn’t smoking,” I tell her. Just bubbling and hot.”
She stirs the onions in the pan, smiling to herself. “I was never allowed to do anything in the kitchen.”
It doesn’t surprise me. Locked away from danger and anything that smacked of servant’s work.
I lean in, closer, my voice at her ear. “I think it’s smart for you to learn your way around the kitchen,” I tell her. “Skills that help anyone to have.”
I can tell by the way she’s swaying and her breathing’s heavier that she’s turned on. Hell, I don’t think either of us have stopped being turned on since we met.
“Stir,” I tell her, showing her how to move the spoon and prevent the onions from burning. When they’re nice and brown, we put the ravioli in for just a few minutes, then top with a fistful of fresh basil.
“This looks amazing,” she says. I fix us plates while she pours us tall glasses of lemonade, then we sit at the table and eat, talking of Calabria.
“Why’d you come to America, then?” I ask her. “If you love Calabria so much?’
She shrugs and looks out the window. “I needed to get away from it all.” She gives me a sheepish look. “No offense, but...well, men like you. Breathing down my neck all day.” She bites her lip. “Not that I mind your breath on my neck.”
And then she’s on my lap, straddling me, and I’m kissing her. Her lips are sweet with the taste of lemonade, her hot ass pressed to my cock. I run my hands over her thin top and feel the tight buds of her nipples straight through the fabric.