Page 10 of I Would Beg For You
How I’d wanted for us to be close.
That first summer when he moved back home next door to me, he caught me by glorious surprise. I was fifteen at the time. All my friends could talk of nothing else but boys and having sex.
I didn’t get it. Sex seemed messy and slobbery, not at all a badge of honor in my book. It was a guy sticking his penis into a girl’s mouth, vagina, or ass. Crass and demeaning, mechanical. But there’s a difference between looking at porn and seeing sex happening for real, though. Like what I saw when Valentino Andretti brought a girl home after coming back to live in his family’s house.
That first night, I heard giggles, which made me creep up to my bedroom window. There, two people rushing up the newly added stairs leading to his bedroom from the side of the yard. A thump against the door—had one of them gotten hurt?
Then the lights came on in his room, and a couple was tumbling in, wrapped in an embrace.
She was tall, thin, and dressed in a skintight dress. She tipped her head and kissed him. And man, were they kissing. Open-mouthed, like they were devouring each other, his lips slanted over hers as he drank from her mouth.
She pushed him away—was she insane? No, it was so she could rip his shirt open and tug it off him. How right she was. I could only see his broad back, but even that looked like a work of art, the strong muscles rippling with multiple tattoos highlighting each move.
In turn, he made quick work of her top as he dove in for another kiss. What she did next startled me. She grabbed a fistful of his glorious dark hair and tugged his head away from her. Craning her neck, she redirected his mouth onto the column of her throat. He didn’t seem to mind, instead taking her cue and delving in, his lips hot on her skin, his tongue running the length of her neck.
Thiswas real sex and not just porn, nothing simulated or fake. He opened my eyes in that moment. And when he trailed his tongue lower, his hands coming up to push her breasts together, his thumb pulling back a lacy bra cup before his mouth closed on the exposed nipple, I cried out with my first orgasm.
At the time, I didn’t know what had happened to me.
Then Valentino stilled, turned around, and came to the window. I was mortified to think he might have heard me even though that seemed unlikely since his window was closed. Our eyes met. I was still stunned by the eruption that had taken over my lower region, my panties soaking with my juices. My lower belly was still contracting.
I swear he smiled in satisfaction before closing the curtains. Did he know what happened to me? The lights went off a second later.
Did that woman call him Val when she came? I know she must’ve come. Multiple times. I came just by watching him. She was having him doing delectable and forbidden things to her.
I wanted to rip her hair out.
Every time he kept this little play up, I knew it was a wink to me. When he started closing the curtains completely, it dawned. This was no longer a game. He wasn’t playing anymore.
All I ever wanted was the right to call him Val, to be close to him. To belong to him. So, I waited patiently until I next saw him. Cue the night of the Christmas party, when the stars aligned for me. Watching him go around the room was the highlight of my night as I nursed a glass of spiked punch.
Then there he was under the mistletoe. I took it as a sign that this was my chance. He accepted a kiss from the big boss herself—it must mean he was open to kissing as he still stood under the mistletoe. From I don’t know where at the time, courage liquefied in my veins and lit up a fire in me.
I would kiss Valentino Andretti and tell him I love him. Of course, we wouldn’t get married right away and live happily ever after, but it would be a start. He would know how I feel about him.
Except…it didn’t turn out like a Taylor Swift music video. Valentino turned on me that day. Telling me I was playing with fire—I could show him I wasn’t afraid to get burned.
But calling me ‘Little Naomi Smith’ like I was still a child… It broke me. He would never see me as a woman, so why bother? And instead of that question being answered with a dump load of the blues and depression, I turned it into the drive to get me where I am today, gravitating the steps of the policy-making world and trying to make a name for myself.
In hindsight, I can see I had a huge crush on him that was entirely one-sided. I acted like a silly little girl. At the time, Iwasa silly little girl who didn’t know how to handle her grown-up feelings. He was a mature man and I didn’t blame him for turning down the advances of my teenage self. But did he have to be so rude to me, so callous?
And now, how dare he insinuate I am nothing but a puppet for my father? Who does he think he—
The plane jolts, and I stiffen in fear. The cocoon turns to swirling grey clouds that close around me, threatening to choke me.We’re going to die. We’re going to die.
I sputter and start coughing.
“Keep your eyes on me, Naomi. Come on, gattina. You can do it.” He runs his hand down my arm to once again cradle my hand in his.
His voice has grown stronger, sterner, and it brooked no argument. I have no idea how a part of me that hasn’t shut down answers his call and I find myself looking at his gorgeous face while I’m hyperventilating.
“That’s it. Focus.”
Another jolt shakes the plane. A whimper escapes my lips.
“Focus. Slow down your breathing,” he commands gently.
I follow his instruction like someone who is being rescued from an endless labyrinth. He will lead me out of this tortuous prison. With everything in my being, I close my eyes and slow down the rate of my breaths and try to deepen my inhale and draw out my exhale.
