Holiday Loves
Page 17
I swallowed past the gargantuan lump in my throat and tried again. “Mrs. Meyers?”
Nothing.
“Savannah,” I finally barked, my nerves breaking under the stress of her silence.
Immediately, her head jerked up, her lips parted and eyes wide as if I had caught her doing something she shouldn’t.
“We’re here,” I repeated.
“Oh,” she said, surprised. “Do you have someone else to drive after me?”
“No…”
She nodded curtly. “Excellent. Then, as I am assuming you won’t want to part with these papers, you can either sit quietly or go for a walk while I continue reading.”
Before I could formulate a response, she was pushing the button for the partition to rise between us and simultaneously sitting back comfortably in her seat.
I was dismissed.
Not knowing whether to curse at her or do as she said, I chose the latter because it meant keeping my job. But I muttered filthy, derisive Italian words about the rich taking liberties as I shoved out of the Rolls and made my way north to Belgrave Square.
I tried to let the clean, classic lines of Chelsea’s mostly Georgian architecture distract me from the strange power the woman in the Rolls held over me. Mostly, it worked. I loved the meticulousness of the neighborhood; how clean the streets were right down to the flowers trimmed perfectly in their window boxes and the acute angles of the hedgerows. It was the antithesis to Naples with its sloping buildings, cracked and painted sun-dried colors that hurt the eyes under the yellow afternoon glare. The people too, wrapped up neatly like presents in expensive scarves and layers of thickly knit weaves. They nodded or smiled demurely at me as I passed, their conversations muted, contained just to the pocket of air between them. In Naples, on any given day the streets were teeming with families, markets or traffic, the people sweating, yelling because they were aggravated by the heat and the noise and their small, small lives.
I inhaled a deep, cleansing lungful of damp, cold air and held it tight in my lungs. It helped to anchor me to this place, so special to me because it was nothing like home.
Yet, it was also empty to me in a way that home never had been.
Simply, I had no one to love in London.
And I was Italian enough, man enough, and romantic enough to believe that life wasn’t worth living unless you were loving.
I’d had a brief fling with a handful of women in the few months I’d been there, and countless nights with others just to slake my unquenchable thirst for sex, but none of that was intimate, and intimacy was something entirely different from sex. It was the way a body knew another, lusted after its uniqueness so much that only that single form could satisfy it. The way one human could anticipate another, the way they could strip you down to the bolts and build you back up again with their mouths used to form kisses or words.
It was intimacy I craved and it was the promise of it that I found in Savannah Meyers.
So even though I was terrified to have someone of her caliber read my words, I was also oddly touched and fiercely aroused because it was a part of me she held between her hands and scrutinized with her eyes. I felt the phantom touch of her even then as I walked down the streets away from her, trying to purge my mind of her.
I couldn’t.
There was something to this woman that echoed in me and I knew that if I was given even the slightest opportunity, I’d explore it.
Explore her until I knew her tight curves and satin edges as intimately as a tailor with his custom creations. I wanted to run my fingers over her seams and into her silk-lined depths, pin down her hands and sew her mouth to mine with unyielding kisses.
My mind reeled with the imagery, loops of grainy black and white film clips on repeat behind the screens of my eyes. I tried to calm down, bit the inside of my cheek until it bled, thought of Neapolitan grandmothers sweating and sagging in the sun but still, by the time I reached the pink awning of Peggy Porchsen Cakes, my cock was so hard it was an actual miracle it hadn’t punched a hole through my trousers.
I figured, eyeing the explosion of pink and girly that was the bakery, that going inside to buy an outrageously priced cupcake was a good distraction. But the delicately frosted, pale pink frothed cakes seemed like something la duchessa would enjoy so I bought one for the both of us.
I ate mine on the way back to the car, unable to stop the impulse to stick my thumb in the sweet icing and suck it off with a curl of my tongue and hard suction with my lips. I knew without knowing that Savannah Meyer’s nipples would taste just as sweet. And when the chocolatey cake melted on my tongue, I knew her pussy would melt between my lips just the same.
When I finally arrived back at the car, I was as agitated as a caged animal. I slammed the door closed behind me after I got in the front seat and immediately twisted to look at Savannah. Some time while I’d been walking, she had lowered the partition and the papers in her hands so when I found her, she was utterly demure, her hands crossed primly in her lap and her face held in perfect repose.
Porca miseria, the need to fuck her wet, rough and messy, until she was ruined with orgasms, until I’d laid waste to her perfection, thrummed through me nearly too powerfully to ignore.
“Well,” I barked out.
She smiled only slightly, but it was smug nonetheless. “I see that the ever-charming Sebastian succumbs to grumpiness when he’s nervous.”
My teeth ground together until a muscle in my jaw spasmed. “Hardly, if I’m ‘grumpy’ it’s because I should have been off the clock an hour ago.”
“We both know you can count this as overtime. Don’t be mean and spoil my fun, Sebastian. I was just about to tell you what I thought of your screenplay, aren’t you at all curious?”
I glared at her faux innocent expression even as I loved her playfulness. “Of course, Mrs. Meyers, it’s not as if you practically forced me to give you my words. Why wouldn’t I want your very solicited opinion?”
She bit her lip in mock apology, but I knew it was to hide her smile. “Excellent. Well then, quite simply, I loved it.”
My eyebrows shot into my hairline. “Do not play with me, Savannah.”
“No play, not about this,” she said, all playfulness gone. “Tell me, you’re meant to play the lead, aren’t you?”
I shrugged churlishly but lifted my chin in confirmation.
“I see it,” she said softly, her gaze pressed like soothing hands to my cheeks. “The intensity and the passion and the faux swagger all undercut by a soft heart.”
“What do you know of my heart?” I retorted.
Her lashes fluttered over her eyes like curtain caught in a breeze and I realized that she was showing me everything in that gaze, a panoramic view of her soul. “Sebastian, you’re an artist.” She gently rustled the papers as she picked them up. “I just spent the last ninety minutes reading it and now, I’m holding it in my hands.”
I swallowed thickly and rubbed at the back of my neck.
“Do you have work as an actor?”
“Si,” I answered, forgetting myself for a moment. “I’m over at Finborough Theatre doing ‘Bury the Dead.’”
She pursed her lips in thought for a moment before she straightened her shoulders and said, “I’m sure you know that my husband is a very well-regarded actor and producer here in England.”
I snorted. To say that her husband was ‘very well-regarded’ was such a typically British understatement. After I’d learned I would be driving his wife, I’d done my research. I’d watched him for years through the silver screen but finding out more about his life had been a revelation.
Adam Meyers’ story had been open to public consumption since he was a boy. He had been born to a family of nobility that had long ago lost their estate but not their brand of wealth or elegance. He’d been a top student at Eton, which is where he met and became best friends with the princes of England, Arthur and Alasdair Whitley-Fairfax, and hobnobbed with the crème de la crème of Brit
ish society before he’d gone on to study business at Oxford University. When Arthur enlisted in the navy, Adam had too. After four years in the service, they had both emerged as men, but surprisingly, while Arthur had resumed his princely duties, Adam had turned to acting. Unsurprisingly, his fame was assured before he took his first step on the London stage as the youngest ever Hamlet to be cast in the West End, but it was secured the moment after the curtains closed and he received the first of many standing ovations.
If Cosima thought I was gifted, Adam Meyers was a messiah.
So, yeah, I understood that Adam Meyers was “very well-regarded.”
“I may be Italian, but I haven’t been living under a rock for the last decade,” I told her.
“So dramatic, it’s a wonder I didn’t guess you were an actor from our first meeting,” she scolded me. “Well, what most people don’t know is that Adam’s secret weapon is me.”
“You?”
“Yes,” she said, sitting up straight like a straight-A student preening under attention from her teacher. “Me. We met on his first trip to Hollywood and ever since then, I’ve scouted his projects for him. You see, I have an eye.”
“An eye,” I repeated, amusement washing away my anger.
“Yes,” she pouted. “You don’t believe me, but you see, I’m a modern-day muse.”
“Oh, I don’t doubt that,” I said, my eyes moving over the loveliness of her. “You certainly inspire me.”
She rolled her eyes and I loved that I’d broken through her porcelain doll shell to see the spirited woman beneath it. “Focus, Sebastian. I’m trying to tell you that not only do I love this screenplay, I’m in a position to do something about it.”
My heart stopped then restarted with a painful, stuttering thud.
“I’m serious,” she stated before I could doubt her again. “Please, let me make a copy of this quickly. I’ll run up and photocopy it and then give you back the original. I won’t make any promises, but I think I can get this into the right hands.”
I peered at her and swallowed four times before I found my voice. “Why would you do that?” When her face softened, I sharpened my tone. “And don’t give me some cazzate about you just doing something nice for a fellow human being. Everyone has a reason tied to greed for doing anything and you? The classy wife of a celebrated actor, what reason could you possibly have to help an Irish-Italian immigrant chauffeur wannabe writer and actor?”
Suddenly Mrs. Savannah Meyers looked as I imagined she had as a child, a little lost but edgy with restless need and impossible hope. She licked her lips nervously and looked up at me through her lashes. “You’re right, I’m not altruistic by nature. I’m selfish and savage in my pursuit of what I want…You don’t get to where I am by being generous.”
“A society wife?” I asked, hiding my vulnerability behind cruelty.
“Yes,” she sniffed. “And a muse. It might not seem like such an accomplishment to you but I was born in hell on earth and now I live in Heaven. I can do that for you. Just let me copy these papers, Sebastian. Trust me even though you have no real reason to besides the fact that it feels right.”
I hated her for knowing how right it felt. If she remained impervious and perfect, hidden behind the partition meant to separate us, I would have said no. But she’d let down her guard enough to show me her flaws, and it was those, her selfishness and ruthless ambition, that made her tangible to me. The intimacy that had been germinating between us took root and began to flourish.
I held her wide blue eyes solemnly as I said, “Make the copies, but if nothing comes of it, I don’t want to know about it, capisco?”
Savannah pressed my screenplay to her chest and I imagined that through those pages, pure extensions of myself, I could feel the thrum of her heartbeat against my own.
“Capisco,” she said with a bad accent and the most beautiful grin I’d ever seen.
And I decided even if she trampled all over my dreams, it was worth it to see a woman like Savannah Meyers gift me with her smile.
* * *
Bach was on.
Cello Suite Number 9 in G Major.
I’d done my homework and listened to everything I could find by him and then, wanting to impress, I’d borrowed a book about him from the London Public Library. Savannah was la duchessa. If I wanted on the right side of the partition (her side), I needed to step up my game in a way I’d never had to before.
So, I read the book and listened to his compositions every night after work for a week.
I was ready to impress her.
It had been nearly a week since she’d photocopied my screenplay, but we hadn’t spoken of it. Instead, she had distracted me each time I drove her with tidbits about London society and I learned that she had her fingers in many, many pies. Savannah may have been a socialite but she worked hard to network for her husband and it seemed that she knew anyone who was anyone in town, up to and including most of the Royal Family. After eating the cupcake I’d bought her from Peggy Porschen’s, we’d been back four times and I’d discovered Savannah had a weakness for all things pumpkin spice. So, being the utter stronzo I was, that is falling in love with her over the lowered partition in her town car, I made sure to pick her up bearing ridiculous autumn themed confections like pumpkin spice lattes and pumpkin chai loaf. Each time she reacted as if I’d pulled down the moon and had it faceted like the world’s biggest diamond for her and her alone to wear.
It made me feel fucking ten feet tall and after a lifetime of feeling small and poor, always striving for me, it was ridiculously heady. Her beauty was magnified by the knowledge that I had the power to amplify it. It was me who gave her reason to smile that smile and laugh that musical laugh. So, it was no surprise my fierce attraction to her had escalated to a near sexual obsession.
My fingers drummed on the steering wheel as I waited for her that evening, the sound muted by the thickness of my leather driving gloves. I wanted to finger that classy pussy while wearing those gloves, see the smear of her wetness on the fine finish, smell her fragrance embedded in the seams whenever I brought them to my nose.
I adjusted my hardening cock in my uniform and took a deep breath as I spotted Savannah gliding out the doors to of The Goring Dining Room. My breath caught then held in my throat at the sight of her slim curves tucked away in a silk dress the same shade as the inside of an oyster. Her pale blond hair curled around her heart-shaped face, catching the light like a halo, her deep red lips the same shape as Cupid’s bow.
She was made for me, by the hands of God or the Devil, I didn’t care.
I had to have her.
The cold October air felt good against my burning skin as I stepped out of the car. My pulse was hammering erratically as if I had a heart murmur and my collar felt too tight as I watched her walk down the few steps in ridiculously sexy spiked heels.
She smiled at me as she drew closer, and it was a smile I’d yet to see.
A wide parting of her red lips, pearly teeth on full display and a tiny dimple tacked neatly high into her left cheek. Her eyes shone with uninhibited joy at seeing me.
“Mozzafiato,” I said without deciding to, so enchanted by the beguiling child-like wonder in her eyes as she stared up at me that I could have been mugged in that moment and not noticed or cared.
She laughed and then, distracted, lost her footing so that her body collided softly with mine. I caught her easily and pressed her hand over the lapel of my suit, over the rapid tap of my heart against its cage. I watched with male satisfaction as her mouth fell open like a blooming rose.
“What does that mean?” she questioned softly.
“Breathtaking.”
“Oh,” she muttered, adorably.
I grinned down at her, noting the fluttering pale blue vein in her neck. I wanted to bite it, feel the pulse between my teeth.
“I think you are the most beautiful person I’ve ever seen,” she whispered, my arms her confessional and me, her priest.
&n
bsp; It wasn’t the first time I’d heard that, there was a reason my twin sister and I were in the entertainment business and that was because our beauty had rocketed us out of the mire we’d been born into. Still, her words wrapped a bow around my pounding heart and I wondered vaguely if it was a gift someone like her would except.
The heart of a poor Italian man with no formal education and very little money.
She blinked up at me owlishly and I didn’t bother to beat back my deep chuckle even as unease tightened my chest. I gave her a squeeze before releasing her to open the back door. “As much as I like holding you, I would hate to see you embarrassed if anyone saw the lady cavorting with the tramp.”
She rolled her eyes at me as she slid into the backseat and then shocked by her less than perfect demeanor, she covered her eyes with a hand. “Oh Lord, I must have had more champagne than was prudent. That was incredibly rude of me.”
I shook my head as I closed her in then moved to the front seat to get behind the wheel. When I looked in the rearview mirror at her, a blush stained the skin above the collar of her dress like a wine spill.
“I’m inebriated,” she told me soberly.
“I’m assuming that isn’t something you do a lot of,” I teased her as I pulled into traffic.
“My husband doesn’t like it when I drink. It’s… uncouth.”
Our eyes caught in the reflection of the mirror and fused together as if attached by electric cables. I felt the currents race along my skin and my voice was deeper, dangerously dark when I said, “Well, duchessa, I prefer you like this.”
“Drunk?”
“Intoxicating,” I corrected as the swell of Bach’s movement undulated throughout the Rolls. “As intoxicated as I feel, being near you.”
“You are either the cheesiest man I’ve ever met or…” She laughed softly, an edge to the musicality of it.
“Or?” I asked over the snap, crackle and electric pop of chemistry between us.
Her wide eyes found mine in the mirror, utterly guileless and slightly confused. “Or you’re too good to be true.”