Well, fuck John. I never would’ve been good enough for him. His loss.
I look down at Carlo, and his glory of hard muscle and uncompromising lines, his masculine power no less potent in sleep. Just the sight of him makes me ache. Could a man like him be captured? I doubt it. The way he handled me last night and the week before tells me he has a thousand times more experience in bed than I do. And you only get that way with a lot of variety. Of course, John had a lot of variety and still never got me off. All this time, I thought I was defective. He made me feel that way.
No one makes you feel. That’s what my best friend Maggie, with her studies in psychology, would say.
I slip out of bed, taking inventory of my body. Sore in all the right places. I slip on the dress from the night before and find one of Carlo’s t-shirts in a drawer.
He rolls over at the sound and mumbles something in Italian. I catch the word bambina. He looks content. I sure as hell hope he’s dreaming about me and not some other “baby” he has for a sleepover.
Pulling Carlo’s t-shirt on over last night’s dress and tying a knot at my waist so I didn’t look obscene, I slip on my strappy heels. Not the best walking shoes, but I could really use a latte.
I grab my purse, fishing out my phone. Maggie texted me. We usually have coffee together on Saturday mornings, so she might have already knocked on my apartment door and might be worried that I didn’t answer. I hit the call button next to Maggie’s name as I slip out the door.
“Hey, girl, how’s it going?”
I step into the elevator and press the button for the ground floor. “You’ll never believe it. Well, you might.” I didn’t tell Maggie about the first time with Carlo, but now—if his bedroom talk of last night can be believed—things are going to continue.
“What?”
“Well, I know you warned me something like this might happen.” The elevator door opens, and I walk outside, heading down the sidewalk. The Starbucks locator on my phone shows one just a couple of blocks away. My foot doesn’t love the walk, but sometimes caffeine requires sacrifice.
“Oh no, what?”
“No, no, it’s not that bad. Last week Carlo showed up at The Candy Store when I was working. You remember, my dad’s... um, employee?” I’m pretty sure Maggie understands what kind of biz my father’s in, but the two of us have a tacit agreement not to talk about it.
“Oh, crap.”
“Yeah. He pretty much hauled me out by my ear.”
“Are you serious?”
“Mm, no, not literally. But pretty close.”
“So what happened?”
My face heats. There’s no way in hell I’m going to tell Maggie that Carlo took me home and, er, punished me. My ass clenches at the memory, accompanied by thrills of excitement. “So, um, he took me home.”
Maggie must catch the awkwardness in my tone because she leaps on it. “Wait, wait, wait—are you telling me something happened?”
My naughty parts tingle with the memory of the way Carlo pleasured me. “Yeah.”
“Wait a second.” Maggie sounds mad. “He hauled you out of The Candy Store and then brought you home and had sex with you? What the hell? Because he assumed you were a slut just because you were dancing?”
I stop walking, annoyed. “No, he didn’t bring me home to have sex. He brought me home—well, to...talk,” I improvise. “And we didn’t have sex. We just fooled around a little. After we talked.” Yeah, you could call it a form of talking.
I start walking again as Maggie digests that.
“So, was it good?”
“Yeah. Really good. Amazing, actually. And then we, um, hooked up again last night. I spent the night at his place.”
“O.M.G. Are you serious?”
I giggle. “Yep.”
“And? Are you there now?”
“Yeah. Well, I’m walking to get coffee, but yeah. He said he wants me to stay with him for a while. I guess he thinks I need to get my shit together, and he wants to help.”
“Well, I agree with him. But what’s his motivation? Did your dad put him up to this?”
My throat tightens. I had the same thought originally, but Carlo swore he wasn’t just doing it for my dad. “Uh, no. I don’t think my dad would approve, actually. I’m not sure what his motivation is. I guess it’s more sex. Which I’m totally up for.”
“Summer—” Maggie’s voice holds reproof.
“What? You’re the one who told me I need to have a rebound fling. So this is my fling.”
“Listen...this sounds too intense. Staying with him? That’s not rebound sex. That’s entering into a new relationship way too soon.”
“It’s not a relationship. Believe me, I know better than to imagine this is going to be anything permanent. But Maggie, the sex was good. Really good. I mean out of this world good. And he’s not going to let me go back to stripping. So I need this.”