I’d never taken so much care with my appearance since Paris. Makeup and hair on point. I took a curling iron to my hair and it gave me bouncy and sassy waves. My lashes were thick enough, but I extended them with mascara. Cat eyeliner and shimmery metallic green shadow. Very red lipstick.
My dress was made of black jersey with a plunging back and exposed my bare arms. The skirt hit right at mid-calf but was asymmetrical. I was so thankful to have packed sexy underwear because with all that twirling around, there was no doubt my panties were going to do a peekaboo.
The four-inch heels sexified the shape of my legs. I’d worn nothing but sneakers for the past two years, but before I disappeared, I was used to wearing heels at Mamma’s insistence. Wearing them while practicing the dance with Luca, I was thankful for all those years of ballet that made me flexible because even though Luca said we were going to keep to the simple moves, many times we got carried away. He’d pull my leg over his thigh and drag me along.
It was so damned erotic.
Giving myself one last twirl in front of the mirror, I grabbed my sequined bag and left the room.
My heels clacked on the wooden floor. I came to the kitchen, but movement near the windows drew my attention. Luca was on the phone, but when he saw me, he immediately ended the call and stalked toward me.
He was wearing a tux that left no doubt it was custom made to fit his wide shoulders, the sharp lines crisp and tapered, accentuated his trim torso without being too tight.
“God, Natalya,” he breathed, stopping a foot from me. “I don’t think we’ll make it out of the house.” His eyes were nothing but raw, feral hunger. And they were eating me alive from head to toe. Speaking of which, my toes curled inside my shoes. With the four inches, it brought me almost to the top of Luca’s chin.
The dress became too clingy and my nipples became sensitive to the jersey material.
“I don’t know if I should bring a purse, but can I keep my lipstick in your pocket?”
“Sure, baby.” His gaze was still busy devouring every inch of my body.
“So, shall we?” I was getting self-conscious.
He drew me close. “Are you sure you wanna leave?”
His hooded eyes stoked my awareness that very little encouragement was needed to just change plans and go at it.
“I—” I started.
The ringtone of a phone blasted between us.
It was Luca. He shook his head. “Sera wants to FaceTime.”
“Oh, I had my phone on silent,” I said. “I promised to show her my dress.”
We talked to Sera and Elias every morning and before bedtime.
“You caught us at a bad time,” Luca told his niece.
I grabbed his phone. “Don’t believe him.”
Sera was laughing, but she had Elias on her lap. Our boy tried to grab Sera’s phone for himself.
“Look at Mamma,” Sera said. “Oh my God, I didn’t recognize you. I’m still getting used to you not being blonde. Show me.”
I handed the phone back to Luca. “Here, hold it while I model.”
Luca rolled his eyes but did as he was told. “You don’t want to see how I look?”
“Eh,” Sera said. “I’ve seen you enough times in a tux.”
I laughed. Luca held the phone toward me while I backed up a couple of steps and did a couple of tango steps, including a twirl.
Sera squealed. “I looooove it!”
I walked back to Luca, and he hauled me against him. “The things I want to do to you.”
“Yeah, yeah, you’ve been threatening for a week.”
“Oh my, I can just feel the tension between you two. Say bye, Elias.”
“Wait…” I choked on my amusement that was reflected on Sera’s face. The impatience of the man beside me was as palpable as the throbbing between my legs.
“No more waiting,” Luca grumbled. “Bye, sport.”
“Bye, Papà…” Elias looked at me, then at Sera, then back at me again. “Bye, Waf-waf.”
Sera laughed. “You guys need to fix that.”
“For real.” I stared at Luca. “Next time we’re here, it’ll be the three of us.”
“Sounds good to me.” Luca didn’t wait a second longer and ended the call.
Pocketing the phone, he ushered me to the exit without another word.
“Are we in a rush?”
He glared at me as though his impatience was my fault. “I’m just doing the right thing here.” I detected the strain in his voice. “After the tango…” His eyes glittered with possessive intent. “You’re all mine.”
I could orgasm to those words and the rawness with how he said them.
The Audi SUV was already parked at the entrance. Luca helped me into the seat and closed the door. But he braced his hands on the roof and stared at me through the tinted window. He just stood there looking at me and making me nervous. He straightened and rapped my window lightly with the side of his fist before he prowled around the front of the vehicle, his eyes on the ground, hands in his pockets as though he was still deep in thought.
When he slid into the driver’s side, I asked, “What was that all about?”
He didn’t look at me and started the engine. “I’ll give you three guesses.”
I wasn’t really as dense as I sounded, but I was suddenly feeling all powerful. “You’re having second thoughts of doing the tango in front of everyone?”
He used the heel of one hand to steer the vehicle around. Points for making that look sexy.
“It’s related.” The Audi started up the driveway.
“You’d rather stay at home and cuddle and watch movies?” I tongue-in-cheeked.
Still staring straight ahead, he emitted a brief chuckle. It was a few seconds before he stole a glance at me, then he returned his attention to the road. “Oh, tesoro, you’re really asking for it.”
I’d been asking for it since day three. We had more self-restraint than a dating couple with a three-date rule. But given everything that had happened between us, I thought we were handling things just fine. Reconnecting was harder than falling in love for the first time because of all the baggage that came with it.
Forget fine, I was damned proud of how far we’d come. Until tonight, I didn’t know how much I’d missed the girl who had the confidence to flirt with her husband.
Husband. I finally could refer to Luca as my husband and my own possessiveness had been sharpening its claws. Much to my relief, he’d stopped walking on eggshells around me. He didn’t rein in his dirty talk. He didn’t disguise his desire for me. It went a long way to restoring the confidence I’d lost. I still had to work on deserving Elias, but with Luca at my side, I didn’t feel that it was insurmountable.
Luca glanced at me again when I didn’t respond. I merely shot him a flirtatious smile. The SUV had turned onto Montauk Highway and it was a brief five minutes to the festival. Whether he could see it in the dim light of the interior or not, I didn’t really care. I thought how our talks on the beach had been so liberating and cleansing. This final one where I allowed myself to enjoy Elias’s first two years was cathartic. All emotions. All at once. The anger was less. The sadness was there and the bittersweet, but it ended with joy and hope and forgiveness. And hope was what propelled me the whole day because I’d finally reached the point of allowing my heart to fall in love with my husband again.
How could I hold back and let myself doubt when Luca never moved on?
He searched for me.
He fought another man for me and almost killed him.
He built a shrine for me.
I wasn’t even appalled the first time I saw it. It was quite endearing. But my emotions then were for a man grieving for a woman that wasn’t me. The day when we visited the burnt house was the day I felt all that grief directed at me. As I thought back to it now, that must have triggered how I remembered my laptop from the teddy bear.
The brain and heart worked in mysterious ways.
“You’re deep in thought,” he said. “Care to share?”
“I’m thinking about the shrine you made for me.”
Another rumble of laughter shook his chest. It suited Luca as much as his brooding did. We shared so much unfettered joy in the past few days, of shared laughter over silly things like burnt toast to how sneaky the gulls were in dropping bread in the freshwater pond to lure the fish to the surface.
“And you’re not afraid of how obsessed I am with you?” he asked.
“It seemed obsessive, especially since you weren’t sure if I was alive or dead.”
“I stopped lying to myself a long time ago,” he said, turning into the parking lot of the festival. “I’ve always been obsessed. I just didn’t know it…”
He left those words hanging, and I mulled them over while he looked for a space to park. Nessa said he was the king of denial. I bit my inner cheek to keep from laughing. Luca really was.
“Vaffanculo,” he cursed at the car in front of us with the matching gesture. “Make up your mind.”
“There’s a lot of parking over on that end. You don’t have to squeeze in beside that car.”
“I don’t want you walking a long way in those heels,” Luca said shortly.
“Aw,” I said. “That’s sweet, but you can carry me, caro.”
Luca smiled at me. “Of course I can and I will.”
The tango festival was at a recreation center that had an outdoor space. I wasn’t sure if the organizers were going to hold it outside, though, unless they had a wooden platform for the dancers. I cringed at the idea of dancing on concrete and grass.
Plus, the weather called for rain later that night.
Festivalgoers crowded the parking lot. They were not confined to the people who arrived in cars, but also those who walked in from nearby hotels and establishments.
Luca finally parked the Audi. “Don’t get down. I’ll come get you.”
“You don’t have to carry me. I was kidding.”
I clasped my fingers together. I couldn’t believe the giddiness and excitement I was feeling. Luca rounded the vehicle, adjusting his bow tie. When he opened my door, he held out his hand. I put mine in his and gingerly slid to the ground.
His eyes darkened when I looked up at him. I was taken aback by the naked hunger I saw there. Oh boy. “Don’t carry me, okay? It’s a short distance, and I probably should get used to these shoes.”
He tucked my hand on his elbow and whispered in my ear, “Just remember, I’m at your service.”
The way he said service scattered my thoughts, and I had an image of his face between my legs while I was flat on my back with my legs spread and cocked frog-style. I was looking at myself from above and I realized it had been from a dream. Thankfully, my motor skills were in order as I put one foot ahead of the other. The sounds of the orchestra drifted into the parking lot and it added to the energy of the night.
As we entered the facility, someone checked our tickets and wrapped our event tags around our wrists. Past the check-in table, there were groups of people already practicing. The festival had offered private lessons throughout the week, but Luca said I didn’t need them since he taught me himself.
They held the competition outdoors. Festival lights reminiscent of fiestas surrounded the raised platform in the middle of the lawn. An orchestra was playing on a separate raised stage with dominant melodies from violins and cellos.
We got our drinks. Mine was a strawberry margarita while Luca had the Malbec. Then we walked around to check the vast array of Argentinian finger foods. I think I’d eaten three empanadas, but I was careful not to eat too much. Luca and I had our caricature drawn by an artist. There were other activities to pass the time and in between we watched the competition. The dance moves were awe-inspiring, but I couldn’t envision myself doing all the fancy leg flicking.
Luca was behind me, hugging me close. I glanced up at him. “I’d like to continue our dancing when we go home, but I don’t think I want to do all that leg-flicking stuff. I don’t want to end up with a dislocated kneecap.”
He gave a hearty chuckle and sipped his wine. “Not a fan of that either. I prefer the leg wrap.”
I rolled my eyes. “I bet you do.”
When the emcee started announcing the winners, Luca put our things in the vehicle and returned in time for the opening of the main dance floor to the public. However, reminiscent of the street tango of Buenos Aires, several platforms were also set up in different spots around the center. Soon, it was a jumble of music, punching up the craziness of the night.
To prevent a crowded dance floor, each couple was assigned sets, but we got on the first one.
I breathed a sigh of relief when the orchestra started with “Por Una Cabeza.” It was the quintessential tango music of the movies, a melody people were familiar with and one Luca and I loved rehearsing to.
Picking up my right hand, Luca led me to the dance floor. My feet were like lead and wobbled on my heels, but I kept my chin up. When we claimed our space, we made a quarter turn to face each other. Luca stepped into me and caressed my face like he was touching the most precious jewel in the world. Our gazes locked, the intensity in his eyes trapping the oxygen in my lungs. His hand trailed down my side before he picked up my right hand once more and I put my left one on his shoulder.
We started to move.
At first I was too busy remembering the steps—when to walk, when to do the figure of eight, and its reverse.
Luca’s hand on my back straightened my spine, and he said in a commanding voice, “Eyes on me, tesoro.”
I felt those words all the way between my legs and I saw all the passion and smolder in Luca’s eyes.
“Just watch me, baby,” he murmured.
His tone and the crescendo of the music sunk all the way into my veins and set my skin on fire. Soon, the dance floor receded to just us. Even when Luca moved behind me and we walked diagonally one way, and then back, I flowed with him seamlessly. We spun around, fluid like water, and when he lifted me up and then lowered me into a dip, I trusted him not to let me fall.
He pulled me back into an embrace and we continued to spin, our gazes locked on each other, while we traced the floor with our steps. My confidence grew, and when I hooked my leg over his thigh and he back-stepped, dragging me along with my legs spread, the dance became a sensual expression between lovers. An ode to our passion. When the music faded and stopped, we stood there, breathless for a few beats.
His head lowered to meet mine, nose to nose. “You were magnificent, tesoro.”
“So were you.”
“You want to try the others?” he asked.
“Sure.”
He grinned, knowing as much as I did we were testing our limits. We flitted from one dance platform to another. Each dance was foreplay that tuned our awareness for each other to a peak.
It was close to midnight when I fell into Luca’s arms in surrender. “I can’t feel my feet.”
“I’ll massage them for you when we get home.”
His hair was unkempt, and it made him look less like a polished Lucifer in a tuxedo, more like a mortal man.
A big fat drop of rain fell on my cheek. “Uh-oh,” I said. “Party’s over.”
And true to my words, the big fat drops turned into a downpour. “Come on.” Luca hurriedly shed his jacket and put it over me while we zigzagged through the crowd, rounding the rec center, and then raced for our SUV. We were laughing and soaked by the time we reached the Audi. He lifted me in, then hurried around to slide into the driver’s side.
The moment he closed his door, the laughter died on our lips and tension pulled our gazes together.
We crashed into each other, our lips locking and devouring. His fingers dug into my hair as he angled my head so he could go deeper. He made an impatient sound and broke the kiss.
I was dazed and wet and aroused.
“This is a bad place to do this,” he growled, firing the engine. “Now it’s a madhouse to get out.”
My hand went between my legs. My pussy was pulsing with need and my whole body was in a weird state of shivering because I was wet but fevered because I very much wanted to fuck.
“Do not make yourself come,” he warned.
