He pulled away with a gasp, still close to me, his eyes darting across my features. “You’re blushing. And you’re panting, just a little.”

I couldn’t speak. I wanted him to kiss me again. My body wanted it. The hairs on my arms stood up when I thought about it.

He put his hand to my chest, between my breasts, and pressed a little. “Your heart is beating hard. This is what it takes.”

He moved his hand slightly, brushing my hard nipple through my dress. I wanted him to stop, but I didn’t want it to end. If I spoke, the spell would be broken. I’d have to go back to the other me, that spurned, unwanted woman. I opened my mouth but just shook my head. What had I become? What was wrong with me?

“Since the minute I saw you,” he said into my neck, “I’ve wanted to open your legs and take you.”

His words had fingers, and as he spoke, they drifted down my body, fondling me and arousing me. No one had ever spoken like that to me, because I would have laughed with discomfort. But when Antonio said it, I forgot everything but his voice and the image of him moving over me.

“I’m not good at casual sex,” I said in a breath.

“I never said it would be casual.”

I didn’t know what he meant. I didn’t know how sex could be just two bodies meeting without being classified as meaningless. I couldn’t wrap my head around it because he was near me, his hands on my hips, the scruff of his face brushing my neck.

“Take me,” I said before I thought about it.

Like a cat leaping into action, he pulled me through an ajar door, clicking it behind us. We were in a bathroom with marble tiles and double sinks. White curtains. A thousand details I couldn’t absorb because his lips were on mine.

When I heard him lock the door, I surrendered to what was happening. I stopped worrying about where I was or what the future might bring. I tangled my hands in his hair and kissed him for all I was worth. He pulled my knee up over his hip, stroking the back of my thigh. I tried to remember to breathe, but when he leaned into me and I felt the hardness between his legs against the softness between mine, I forgot.

“I’m going to fuck you right here,” he growled. “Are you ready?”

“Yes.” The word came out in a hiss.

“Yes, what?” He pushed against me. “What do you want me to do to you?” He took my hands from his hair and put them above me, pinning me to the wall as he kissed my neck.

“Fuck me.” I said it so softly a butterfly wouldn’t have heard me.

“Say it again. But this time, own it.”

“Fuck me.” A little louder.

He let go of my hands. His fingers brushed past my breasts to my waist, where they pushed me down against his erection.

“You are so sweet,” he whispered, wrapping my other knee around him, pinning me with his hips. “Dolce. The way you don’t like to say the word fuck, and you say it to me anyway. I know how bad you want me to make you come.”

With that, he hitched me up and carried me to the vanity. He balanced me on it as he kissed me, grinding between my legs and driving me crazy. I yanked up my skirt.

“Antonio,” I said, “protection.”

“I have it.”

I spent a little time worrying about having sex with a man who carried condoms around. Just a second. Just a stab of my real self, the one who was going to walk out of that bathroom when we were done. He took half a step back and pulled my knees apart. I leaned back as he slipped his fingers under my garter belt, finding the crotch of my panties.

“I like these,” he said.

“Thank you.”

He poked his finger through the lace and yanked with his other hand. The lace gave way with a bark of a rip, leaving my underwear with a gaping hole. He stroked me. I didn’t know if I’d ever been that wet.

“I can’t help it. I have to taste you.” He put his face at the inside of my thigh and brushed his tongue on the sensitive skin. His hands stroked, tongue flicking, lips a soft center to the roughness of his face. When he made it to my pussy with a soft suck at my clit, I moaned. “Do you like it?” he asked before he circled my opening with his tongue.

“Yes.”

“Yes what?”

“Yes, suck it. Eat me. Take me with your mouth.”

The string quartet purred outside, and the party hummed along while I begged for a man’s tongue on me. His tongue flicked, finding every want, every emptiness, and filling it with sensation. He sucked just a little then ran the flat of his tongue over my clit until my pussy felt like a bursting balloon.

“Antonio.” My voice squeaked. I was on the edge.

“Come,” he said, looking up at me. “I’m still going to fuck you.”

When he put his lips on me again, his eyes watching me over the horizon of my gathered skirt, I let him fill me. I came hard, lifting my hips as he grabbed my thighs to keep me from falling over. I was beyond cries, beyond words. I was just a receptacle for the pleasure of a tiny percentage of my body.

I didn’t have a second to breathe before he positioned himself above me. His pants were open, and his dick lay against my engorged clit. I reached down. He’d gotten it out and wrapped while he was eating me.

“You’re very skilled,” I said. “And you’re huge.”

He put his fingers in me. I was sensitive and swollen, soaked in desire.

“You’re tight. So tight. Fuck.” His eyes went to half-mast, and he sucked in a breath. “Spread your legs all the way.”

I did, and he guided the head of his dick into me. I stretched when he thrust, a little sting of pain drowned by pleasure.

“You okay?” he asked.

I nodded. I felt as if I had a telephone pole in me, but I wouldn’t complain about it. Maybe I should have asked him to go slow, because he shoved himself in until my expression told him he couldn’t go any farther. He shifted my hips then pushed forward. He found space to fill and drove into me up to the base, pushing his body into me. I put my hands on his face, and he leaned down. We were eye to eye, nose to nose, bodies moving together, the swell of tension returning.

“You’re beautiful,” I said, my thumb on his lips.

He kissed my thumb, running his tongue along the length as he fucked me. We were dressed up but joined in our most vulnerable places. My back hurt where it was pushed against the stone vanity, and my shoulder was jammed into a cabinet. I heard the sounds of the party, and one of my shoes was about to fall off. I felt ripped apart by the size of him.

But I was going to come again, and I couldn’t come with anything inside me. I knew that. It was an indelible fact.

“I’m coming inside you,” he gasped. “I’m going to come so fucking hard in you.”

“Me too.” I didn’t even believe it. “You’re making me come.”

The swirl of feeling dropped away then coalesced, increasing until my limbs stiffened and I put my face in his neck to stifle my cries. The impossible happened. I came just from a man inside me. I pulsed around him, drowning in the power of it.

He thrust hard with a grunt then a moan. I felt the pulse at the base of his dick on my stretched pussy. He was coming. Making that beautiful man lose himself in me felt like a gift. I pushed into him until he slowed, stopped, and kissed my neck.

“Grazie,” he said.

“You’re welcome.”

Slowly, he slipped his dick out of me. It was still rigid, and I felt every inch of it against my raw skin. He tied off the condom and wrapped it in toilet paper as I sat up.

“Stay there,” he said, pressing my legs open.

Was he going to have me again? I didn’t think I could take it. Though I was already feeling twinges of shame and guilt, I wouldn’t have turned him down. He balled up a wad of tissue and pressed it between my legs, cleaning me. The gesture was so much more intimate than the actual sex that I blushed.

“I can’t send you back outside with sex dripping down your leg, now can I?”

Despite the sounds from the party, I’d forgotten that there would be a “back outside.” I’d forgotten about Daniel, his meek request that I come back to him, and the air of forgiveness my attendance was supposed to provide. I closed my legs and sat up.

“I have to get back out there.” I put my left shoe on all the way and popped off the vanity. “Thank you.”

“My pleasure.”

The shreds of my underwear tickled my inner thighs, bunching as only ripped lace could. I straightened my skirt and smoothed my stockings, knowing he was watching me. I didn’t look at him as I went for the door.

He slipped between me and the knob. “Contessa.”

“Yes?”

“Don’t leave like this.”

“How should I leave?”

He kissed my forehead, and I let myself enjoy the tenderness. I didn’t want to rush out, but I couldn’t delude myself into thinking I was fully present, either.

“It doesn’t have to be meaningless,” he said.

“You won’t answer questions about your life, and I’m still in love with my ex. I don’t know how it can be meaningful.”

“I’ll answer one question right now if you kiss me back like you mean it.”

“Why are you doing this? You’re the one who wanted two bodies meeting and no more.”

“Because I can’t walk out of this room like this. You’re like a stranger all of a sudden. One question.”

“The girl. Who was she? To you, I mean? Why did you come here for her?”

“That’s three questions.”

“Pick one.”

“My sister. She’s my sister. Her name is Nella.”

“And?”

He bit his lip and looked down at my face. After a second, I realized he wasn’t going to answer me.

“Excuse me.” I pushed him away, but he shoved me against the door.