Page 58 of That's Amore


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I have blazed out nearly three full chapters when my phone dings a notification from my mom. She wants to call, but she’d rather warn me and have me tell her I’m busy than call and have me not answer. I’ve learned this over the years. It’s been a few days, and my eyes are burning from staring at my laptop screen, so I decide to give myself a break, and I call her.

“How’s Italy?” she asks, clearly thrilled that I called.

“Italy is amazing. The food is unbelievable. You and Dad would love it. You should come here.”

“Well, you’d have to find me a tranquilizer gun and help me shoot him to get him on a plane, but yeah, I’d love to go.” We both laugh, but I file away that if my mom is ever going to make it to Europe, it’ll have to be me or my brother bringing her. My dad has a lot of talents and hobbies, but adventure isn’t one of them. “Is Reggie doing okay?”

“He’s loving it. He makes friends wherever we go.”

“That’s my boy. And what about you?”

“What about me?”

“Areyoumaking any friends? You’ve been there for quite some time now.” You have to know my mom to become fluent in her tone, or Barbara Speak, as my brother AJ and I have called it for years, but I’m a pro. So that means I know she’s both asking me if I’m okay—she really does want to know if I’ve made friends—while at the same time chiding me for being away for so long.

“I’ve made a few,” I say. Not a lie, right? “But I’m here to work, remember?”

She pauses for a moment before dropping “And your niece can’t keep a secret to save her own life,remember?” on me. There’s a definite tint of satisfaction in her voice. Yeah, sheknows about Marina.

Well, shit.

I make a mental note to text Chloe about how she’s getting no Christmas gifts from me this year. It’s not that I’m embarrassed. I’m not. There’s nothing wrong with some casual sex. Or a little fling while away from home. I have needs, don’t I? Nothing wrong with taking care of those, is there?

But this is mymom, and as liberated as she is, I don’t really love the idea of her knowing all about my sex life.

“Fine,” I sigh. “I have met a woman. Her name is Marina and we’ve been…hanging out a bit.”

“Hanging out. Is that code for something?”

“Your delight in this is kind of obvious, Mom.”

“Can I help it if you’ve been single way too long?”

“Gee, thanks.”

She laughs, then gets somewhat serious. “Honey. I just want you to be happy. Is that so wrong?”

“No, Mom. It’s not. I appreciate that. I just…” My thoughts drift, and I inhale a deep breath and let it out slowly. “She’s just keeping me company. That’s all.” My stomach does an uncomfortable flip right then, as if I’ve betrayed something. The truth? Marina? I don’t know. I somehow manage to steer the conversation to other things, and my mother reluctantly follows, finally realizing she’ll get no more from me. But even after we hang up, I feel weird.

Marina and I never had “the talk” about what we’re doing, what we are exactly. But…do we need to? Maybe we don’t after all. I mean, we both know this is just a temporary thing, don’t we? We live on separate continents, our age difference is significant, the logistics are just impossible for anything beyond a fun and casual fling. Right? I know it, and I have to assume Marina knows it.

With a literal shake of my head, I try to get rid of theconfusing train of thought and refocus my attention on my pastry chefs. They’re having a lot of sex, I have to say. More than my usual books. I refuse to wonder about the correlations between my fiction and my life, but I can feel a soft smile playing on my own lips, and I have no control over it.

I take Reggie out for a quick zip around the neighborhood—which has finally cooled off to a pleasant seventy-eight degrees. Once we get back to the suite, I sit down to work some more and whip out another chapter. I never write this much in one day. Never. This Italian inspiration I’m suddenly immersed in has triggered my creative energy in a big way. A very big way, and I absently wonder what I can do to keep it going. I’m contemplating another love scene between my characters when there’s a soft, rapid tapping on my door.

I squint at my screen, make sure to save—I’m a little paranoid about that since my computer crashed three years ago and lost a full twenty-five pages of a screenplay I’d been writing—and cross the room. My door has no peephole, so I pull it open and there she is.

Marina looks like she just stepped out of a European travel magazine, with her linen pants, cropped T-shirt, and large sunglasses. Her lips glisten with gloss and she’s smiling.

I don’t even have time to register my surprise because she steps into the suite, directly into my space, and kisses me soundly, slamming the door shut with her foot.

My body responds immediately, and I marvel at that even as I kiss her back. She backs me into the room until my legs hit the couch and we fall down onto it, our lips fused the entire time. My blood is rushing, hot and fast. My underwear is instantly wet, mybody preparing itself for her. It’s shocking to me, how in tune we are this way. Sexually. Sensually. Erotically. Three minutes ago, I was working diligently, and now I’m on my back on a couch and actively undressing the beautiful woman above me.

We never reach fully naked. We reach naked enough to reach important things. Breasts and nipples. Hot, bare skin. Wet centers. How is it we know each other’s bodies so well after just one night together? This question only has time to bounce around in my head for a couple seconds before her fingers have worked their magic, and my orgasm blasts through my body. All my muscles strain, and I grind my head back into a throw pillow as Marina slides her fingers into me and I contract against them.

I come down slowly, and when I finally open my eyes, she’s looking down at me with that sexy smile and a satisfied twinkle in her dark eyes. “Hi,” she says softly.

“Do I know you?” I joke.