Our table at this hole-in-the-wall Italian restaurant is so humbly intimate, it’s a wonder our two dinner plates don’t hang off the side for lack of space. You stare at me over your wine glass, eyes sharp and playful. The hand that holds the glass is tensed ever so slightly, solid, strong, the glass stem shooting up between your fingers to disappear behind your palm. I bite my lower lip and lean forward, wishing that slightly rugged hand - strong, inviting, like wrought iron wrapped in velvet - was cupping my breast with as much gentle determination as it was cupping that cup of crystal.
“You’re quiet this evening,” you say, your voice rolling across the table like far off thunder. My mind snaps to attention.
“Sorry,” I say, smiling, looking at you from deep under my lashes, a look I know you love. “Just thinking about something…”
You look intrigued, that left eyebrow of yours raising ever so slightly above the cobalt orb of your eye.
“About?”
I shrug my shoulders, the thin straps of my black dress slackening and falling off my shoulders just enough to catch your eye. I place the top of my left foot against the strap crossing the heel of my right, and slip my foot out of its high heel. I raise it to reach the front of your chair, brushing against your inner thigh. Your eyes jump in surprise, but your posture remains collected and unchanged, except for a distinguished flicker of a smile across your lips.
“Ohh…” you say, softly, and drop a discrete hand down, fingers wrapping around my ankle, palm pressed against that delicate place above my heel. You keep your clasp, and move your hand up my leg. I shiver, and lick the corner of my mouth. I watch your own lips part slightly as I do, and I can tell you’re aching for something.
Having just ordered, our food isn’t due for a while now, and I slip my leg out of your grasp, inspired. You look puzzled as I slip on my shoe and push back from the table. Standing, my eyes scan the room for that tell-tale sign, alcove, door - and there it is, scrawled in thin red script over the doorframe with an arrow pointing down: “
Signore
” - “