desire a good American meal.” She concentrated on that. Back to Trader Joe’s? She shook her head. “Oh well, regardless, it’ll be good.” She placed the French bread, a large platter of antipasti from Trade Joe’s and a just-opened bottle of Valpolicella on the table, and busied herself with choosing the sexiest CD, for she— Her stomach tightened. What was she thinking? She wasn’t as…friendly as Carol. She didn’t even know how to be so. In fact she was rather stiff. She angrily punched ‘eject’ and began to take out the CD. But she stayed her hand. “George Benson. Nice music is all.” She reinserted it. Get in the mood.
* * *
At exactly eight a firm and confident knock sent chills up her spine. She turned down the lights, peered at her reflection in the mirror, smoothed down her dress with moist, shaking hands, and opened the door. My God! She hoped he didn’t hear her sharp intake of breath. If it was possible he was even more handsome in a dark blue pullover (no shirt underneath) and gray gabardine trousers.
He offered a bottle of wine then his right arm gestured, “Bello, Signorina.”
All her life she had been told that she was beautiful but she could never see herself as anything but so-so. So she blushed and surreptitiously looked down for she had momentarily forgotten what she had finally chosen to wear – oh yes, the cream. No wonder his eyes held a little too long on her cleavage. “Come in, come in.” She took his hand and drew him to the settee that faced the gas fireplace. He sat as men usually do – with his legs splayed out in front of him. Her eyes were riveted to the bulge between his… Once more, she blushed; had he noticed where she had been gazing? She moved away from him and promptly caught her heel in the nap of the carpet. His hands immediately went out to grab her. When she righted herself, her shoulders drooped – klutzy even in my own home. It suddenly occurred to her that even in her own home this date might not transpire as she had imagined.
“Drink?”
“Wine. I want to bring Barolo but I forget so I buy Montepulciano,” he apologized.
“Still sounds good. We’ll have it with dinner. I have an open bottle. Valpolicella,” she turned and said to him, “another Italian wine.” She rolled her eyes – how stupid! With shaky hands, she poured some of the wine in one of the glasses at the dinner table. In her nervousness she knocked over the glass. “Shit!” she growled. She grabbed the accompanying cloth napkin and sopped the wine up. “Oh God! Stupid! Why didn’t I get paper napkins?” She was glad her grandmother wasn’t around anymore for even though the cleaners would try to remove the stain, her 100-year-old ivory tablecloth would most probably be discolored and the lacy napkin she had just used would never again match the others. How she wanted the evening to be over before it had barely begun! Even with George Benson’s silky voice in the background it was far too quiet. Thank God Silvio hadn’t been watching her. He was staring up at the Andre Masson with a dreamy smile on his handsome face. With a muffled oath, she ran into her kitchen to grab a sponge.
Silvio half-stood, offering, “I help you?”
“No! I’ve almost got it up. Please, stay there.” She scrambled for something more to say as she squeezed cool water from the sopping sponge and tried to dab at the purple stain. Still looking down she asked, “Is the restaurant your first job in this country?”
“No, I work at hamburger place, then gas station, then as busboy for little,” he waved his hands, “place for drivers.”
“Ah, at a truck diner.”
“Si, yes.”
“Where was that?”
“Um, a road from Wicheeta?”
“Oh, Wichita, yes,” she said idly as she poured some more wine in his glass, spilled more and decided to gulp it down (if she couldn’t get a hold of her emotions maybe the wine would). What was she doing? This wasn’t her. She’d try again: More slowly, she filled another glass for him. “So, you’re from Italy. How interesting.” Oh God!
He smiled. She saw that even this Italian could roll his eyes. “Si, it is.”
“Do you have any brothers or sisters?”
“No, I am one child.”
She turned holding the sponge under a fresh glass. “As am I.” She carried it to him.
“Ah, we are both one children. My mother, she want more but—”
“Father did not?”
He nodded, “He say children cost money that he not have,” he answered.
“Ah children… My mother used to say, ’Doesn’t matter if you have one or ten. You’ll find a way to support them.’”
“Yes. Yes!” he said eagerly. “When my father not around she said these things and I nodded.”
“So, you want children?”
“Oh yes. And like you I would find way to make happy.”
She nodded and rounded the coffee table to sit beside him.
He stood, took the wine from her and placed the glass none too gently on the coffee table. Before she could comment further, she was in his arms. He held her to him and her head fit snuggly under his chin as if she were a part of him. The scent of him, his woody cologne, the warmth of his body and his arms wrapped firmly about her sent her reeling. Though the faint tinkle of a warning bell sounded in her brain, her body ignored what her head had begun to hint at – something’s not right. Ah, but no matter. Look at those eyes!
‘Silvio.’ Did she say that aloud?
Chapter 15
His body began to sway back and forth to ‘Masquerade.’ He whispered in her ear, “This song was first song I hear when I see friends at jazz in San Francisco.”
Already, she could feel his need through his trousers. If he weren’t holding her so tightly, she knew she would fall to the floor…though in the circumstances the floor didn’t seem such a bad place to be, especially if he came along.
He whispered, “Il mio amore,” and his lips touched hers, first gently, tasting, then with more passion. He ran the tip of his tongue around her mouth murmuring, “Bello.” She flinched and then moaned as his tongue began to plunder, to twine about hers. Her nipples grew firm with desire and once again her knees buckled. His tongue began to slide in and out of her mouth in a sexual rhythm and she felt her bones melt. She was drowning but she wanted to drown. His hands ran up her back, pressing her into him, molding her to him. She thought fleetingly of the cooling lasagna but…they weren’t hungry for food anyways.
George Benson grew quieter as Silvio slowly moved her with every languorous beat towards the door of the bedroom that he nudged open with his foot, never taking his lips from hers.
“Bar—bara,” he crooned in her mouth. She had never loved her name more than when it fell from this man’s lips. But the warning bell increased in intensity.
She had said to Carol, ‘I can’t jump into bed with a guy, even one as delicious as Silvio.’ That was another Barbara. Of course I can. But the bell intensified. She finally became aware of the insistent sound. “No, no, please
