“What do I have to do to make you mine?” he groaned, mouth against mouth.
“I am yours.”
“Not tonight, it seems.” He tugged her lower lip backwards into his mouth, nipping it with his teeth. “Didn’t you understand my lecture? Every word, every painting was for you.” His hand slid up her dress, teasing the skin of her thigh until it reached the string that stretched across her hip.
He pulled back to see her face. “No garters tonight?”
She shook her head.
“Then what’s this?” His fingers tugged at the very thin string.
“Panties,” she breathed.
His eyes glinted in the semi-darkness. “What kind of panties?”
“A thong.”
He smiled dangerously before pressing his lips to her ear. “Am I to assume that you wore this for me?”
“Only for you. Always.”
Without warning, Gabriel lifted her, pressing her against the cold wall. His lips on her neck, he pushed their hips closer. The long, thin heels of Julia’s tangerine stilettos caught the curves of his ass. He fixed her with wild, blue eyes.
“I want you. Right now.”
With one hand, he tugged at the string until it tore. Suddenly, she found herself bare. He reached back to stuff the thong in his jacket pocket, and her heels shifted, digging into his ass so much that he winced.
“Do you know how difficult it was for me to control myself after the lecture? How I longed to take you in my arms? Conducting small talk was torture when all I wanted was this.
“I wish you could see how sexy you are with your back against the wall and your legs wrapped around me. I want you like this, except I want you panting my name.”
Gabriel dipped his tongue in the hollow at the base of her throat and Julia’s eyes closed. Her passions were struggling with her mind, which urged her to push him away and take a moment to think. In a mood such as this, Gabriel was dangerous.
All of a sudden, Julia heard voices echoing down the hallway. Her eyes flew open.
The sound of footsteps and merry laughter grew closer. Gabriel lifted his head, bringing his mouth to her ear. “Don’t make a sound,” he whispered. She could feel his lips curve up into a smile as they pressed against her.
The footsteps stopped a few feet away, and Julia heard two male voices conversing in Italian. Her heart continued to race as she strained her hearing for any sign of movement. Gabriel kept stroking her gently, swallowing her sounds with his mouth. From time to time, he’d whisper sensual things to her—phrases that made her flush.
One of the male voices laughed loudly. Julia lifted her head in surprise, while Gabriel took that opportunity to kiss her throat, nibbling at the delicate skin.
“Please don’t bite me.”
The murmuring voices echoed around them. It took a moment, but eventually the import of her words sliced through his aroused, frantic state. He lifted his face from her neck.
With their chests pressed so tightly together, he could feel her heart. He closed his eyes, as if entranced by its staccato rhythm. When he opened them again, most of the fire was gone.
Julia had carefully concealed Simon’s bite mark with makeup, but Gabriel found it with his finger, tracing its perimeter lightly before kissing it. He exhaled slowly, very slowly, and shook his head.
“You’re the only woman who has ever said no to me.”
“I’m not saying no.”
He looked over his shoulder and spied two older gentlemen, deep in conversation. They were close enough to see him if they looked in his direction.
He turned back to Julia and gave her a sad smile. “You deserve better than a jealous lover taking you against a wall. And I’m not in favor of being caught by our host. Forgive me.”
He kissed her and traced below her swollen lower lip with his thumb, removing the slight smear of crimson lipstick from her pale skin.
“I’m not about to undo the trust I saw in your eyes last night. When I’m in my right mind and we have the museum all to ourselves…” His expression darkened as he fantasized. “Another time, perhaps.”
He removed her heels from his backside and placed her on her feet, leaning over to straighten the skirt of her dress. The taffeta rustled breathlessly at his touch and then forlornly, was silent.
Fortunately, Dottore Vitali and his companion chose that moment to return to the party, their footsteps growing fainter and fainter as they walked away.
“The banquet is supposed to begin shortly. I can’t insult them by leaving. But when I get you home…” His eyes fixed on hers. “The wall just inside our room will be our first stop.”
She nodded, relieved that he wasn’t angry anymore. Truthfully, she was somewhat nervous but very excited about the prospect of wall sex.
He adjusted himself through his trousers and buttoned up his suit jacket, willing his body to calm. He tried to smooth his hair but only succeeded in making it look more like he had dragged his lover into a dark corner for museum sex.
Museum sex is a peculiar compunction of certain academics. (But it should not be disdained without trying it.)
Julia fixed his hair and straightened his tie, checking his face and collar for lipstick. When she was finished, he picked up her clutch and her sweater, handing them to her with a kiss. Smirking, he adjusted her panties in his suit pocket so they were no longer visible.
She took an experimental step forward, finding the absence of her panties surprisingly liberating.
“I could drink you like champagne,” he whispered.
She reached up on tiptoe to kiss his cheek. “I wish you’d teach me your tricks of seduction.”
“Only if you will teach me how to love as you love.”
Gabriel escorted her through the empty corridor and down the stairs to the first floor, where the banquet was just beginning.
* * *
Professor Pacciani stumbled back to his apartment by the Pitti Palace in the wee hours of the morning. This was not an unusual occurrence.
He fumbled with his keys, cursing as he dropped them, and entered the flat, closing the door behind him. He walked to the small room in which his twin four-year-old sons were asleep, kissing them before shuffling to his study.
He smoked a leisurely cigarette as he waited for his computer to boot up, then he logged into his email. He ignored his inbox and composed a short message to a former student and lover. They had not been in contact since her graduation.
He mentioned meeting Professor Emerson and his very young Canadian fidanzata. He mused that although he’d been impressed with Emerson’s monograph with Oxford University Press, the Professor’s lecture smacked of a pseudo-intellectualism that truly had no place in a professional academic lecture. One should either be intellectual and academic, or one should be a public speaker and entertaining, but not both. Pacciani queried churlishly if this was what passed for excellence in North American universities.
He ended his email with an explicit and detailed suggestion of a prospective sexual rendezvous, possibly in the late spring. Then he finished his cigarette in the darkness and joined his wife in their matrimonial bed.
Chapter 3
Christa Peterson had a privileged upbringing, so really, there was no excuse for her vicious nature. She had two parents who loved each other and their only daughter very much. Her father was a well-respected oncologist in Toronto. Her mother was a librarian at Havergal College, an elite, private girl’s school that Christa attended from kindergarten through grade twelve.
Christa went to Sunday school. She was confirmed as an Anglican. She studied Thomas Cranmer’s Book of Common Prayer, but none of these actions touched her heart. And when she was fifteen years old she discovered the immense power of female sexuality. Once she discovered it, it became not only her currency but her weapon of choice.
Her best friend, Lisa Malcolm, had an older brother called Brent. Brent was handsome. He looked like so many other graduates of Upper Canada College, a private boy’s school that catered to Canada’s old moneyed families. He had blond hair and blue eyes and was tall and fit. He was a rower for the University of Toronto’s men’s team and could easily have starred in a J.Crew commercial.
Christa had admired Brent from afar but because of the four-year age difference, he’d never noticed her. But then, late one night while sleeping over at Lisa’s house, Christa ran into Brent on her way to the bathroom. He’d been extremely taken by her long dark hair, big brown eyes, and youthful, nubile form. He’d kissed her gently in the hallway and brushed tentative fingers across her breast. Then he’d taken her hand and invited her to his room.
After thirty minutes of making out and feeling one another through their clothes, he was eager to take things further. Christa hesitated, because she was a virgin, so Brent began making wild and extravagant promises—gifts, romantic dates, and finally, a Baume & Mercier stainless steel watch that had been a present from his parents on his eighteenth birthday.
Christa had admired his watch. She knew it well, for Brent treasured it. In truth, she wanted it almost more than she wanted him.
Brent fastened the watch on her wrist, and she stared at it, marveling at the coolness of the steel against her flesh and the way it slid easily up and down her narrow forearm. It was a token. A sign that he desired her so intensely, he was willing to give her one of his most prized possessions.