A rush of heat swept through her body. When she tried to speak, the words dried up before crossing her lips. At last she managed the only ones that seemed important. “Then I say…yes.”
He nodded solemnly, no longer questioning her. Gently, he lifted her out of his lap. He stood up. “Then we must do this right.”
She watched from the couch as he put on his coat and moved toward the door. A wave of panic and disappointment swept over her. “Where are you going?”
“Shopping,” he said, scooping up her keys. “I’ll be back in an hour. While I am gone—” He returned to drop a kiss on her upturned forehead. “—you will take one of your long, hot baths. But you will not read a book.”
“I won’t?”
“No. You will think of me.” Looking deeply into her eyes, he kissed her again quickly on the lips. “Imagine my body and your body. Think about kisses that last so long you become faint with lack of oxygen.”
Then he was gone.
Maria stared at the door—her throat parched, hands trembling, heart racing.
Good grief. What had she done?
Three
The bath was still steaming around her when Maria heard her apartment door open and close, then the latch turn. Sitting up in the tub she listened.
Keys clinked on the coffee table. Bags rustled. Footsteps—a man’s by the weight of them—crossed her living room to her kitchen. She swallowed nervously, once, then again when the lump in her throat didn’t go away.
There was a gentle knock on the bathroom door. Hastily, Maria slid with a slosh beneath the thick blanket of bubbles. “Yes?”
“I have something for you to put on when you’re ready.” A hand slipped through the crack between the door and the wall, slid a parcel onto the towel shelf. Masculine fingers retracted then appeared again—this time with a champagne flute, filled with liquid gold. “Take your time.”
Positively dizzy with apprehension, she managed to haul herself out of the tub. However, as she dried off then, wrapped in her towel, opened the package and sipped her champagne, she began to feel a little braver. Her persistent curiosity was returning.
She had done as Antonio had asked. She had closed her eyes while soaking in the warm water and imagined a man’s body. She also had thought about the places on her own body where no one’s hand but her own had touched.
She tingled with anticipation.
From the rose-colored box she lifted a layer of pink tissue. Beneath it lay lingerie so delicate, so ethereal it barely whispered through her fingers. She looked at the label, knowing what it would say before she read it—silk. Pure shimmering, eggshell silk, with elegant borders of ecru lace.
She powdered herself and slipped on the delectable creation. It covered her in one long flow of fabric from breasts to ankles, but the contours of her body and her raised nipples showed through. She’d never owned anything so luxurious. So sensual.
When her hair was dry she applied lip gloss and a featherlight coat of mascara. Finally, she took a deep breath and, bringing with her the last of her champagne, stepped out of the bathroom.
She didn’t know what she expected. Antonio in skin-tight briefs? Antonio in the nude? But she found him sitting on her couch, in nearly the same position as before. When he heard her, he stood and gazed approvingly at her, then raised his glass.
“Sei bellissima. You are a beautiful woman, Maria.”
She blinked at him, not believing but pleased none the less. “You’ve changed your clothes too,” she observed. He was wearing slate-hued slacks with a soft caramel-colored sweater that she was sure must be cashmere. The shirt collar was dazzling white, crisp and open, no confining tie.
“I returned to my room to shower and change. I wanted to be fresh for you.”
“That was a nice gesture,” she said, “as are the gown and the champagne. Antonio, I want to help you pay for all of this, it’s really generous of you but it would be wrong of me to expect you—”
He waved off her offer. “The cost is of no concern. Come.”
Standing, he walked toward the kitchenette bar that separated her living room from the food prep area and motioned to her to join him. He’d laid out a bowl of huge strawberries and a dish of whipped cream. Dipping the tip of a strawberry into the frothy mixture, he fed her one.
“Part of the lessons,” he explained.
The fruit was ripe, juicy and delicious, but when he offered her a second she held up a hand.
“Are you having second thoughts?” he asked.
“No,” she answered quickly. But maybe she was. For her feelings were as hard to grasp as if they were a beam of light splintered by a prism into separate bands of color. She could see each individual hue, but what they might form when refocused into the bright, white light of day, she couldn’t say.
He touched her shoulder encouragingly. “We can just talk, if you prefer.”
She looked down at his hand. He wore no wedding band, nor was there an indentation to show that he had recently removed one. He had said he wasn’t married, but she had trouble imagining him without a beautiful woman on his arm. He was just too damn good looking to be on his own for long.
She braced one hip on a high stool at the breakfast bar. “Tell me, Antonio,” she began nervously, “when you make love to a woman, what do you do first?”
“We talk and enjoy something light and delicious to eat, as we are now. Perhaps there is wine, perhaps a little music.” Sweeping her suddenly off the stool and into his arms he demonstrated by spinning her around in a dizzying, musicless waltz. “We dance.”
She laughed, delighted. “And then?”
“That depends. I might touch her softly. Here.” He smoothed the back of his curled fingers across her collarbone, her shoulder, then down the sensitive swell along the outside of her breast. Her flesh warmed beneath his hand. She hissed an involuntary breath between her teeth. “Then I pay close attention to her reaction.”
Maria smiled weakly at him. “That kind of reaction?”
He nodded, looking pleased. “Si.”
“Then what?”
“If she responded with pleasure at my touch—” He looked thoughtful, as if trying to remember steps to a once-familiar dance.
She stared into his midnight-blue eyes, fascinated, wondering what he was thinking and why he hesitated. Even though she had assured him that she wanted him to show her these things.
“If she seemed amenable,” he began again, “I would kiss her.”
“On the mouth?” she asked when he didn’t immediately suit action to words.
“For the moment, yes.” His gaze glittered with interesting highlights and even more interesting secrets.
It seemed to her that she was now leading this dance of theirs. And for some reason that seemed all wrong, all backward, because he, the experienced one, was supposed to be teaching her. It didn’t make sense, except that maybe this was his way of making her feel comfortable. She didn’t feel the least threatened. He didn’t rush at her. He let her show him when she was ready for the next step.
“How on the mouth?” she whispered.
His eyes fell to her lips. “Cara,” he murmured. “I don’t think I can…” He seemed to have trouble finishing his thought.
“You don’t think you can what?” she asked.
He said nothing more for a long while, then it was as if he was speaking only to