He turned off the hall light and slipped into the master bedroom. She’d left a soft blue nightlight on for him. Without it, the heavy curtains would have left the room pitch black. Again, the perfect feminine. Dusky carpet, white walls, white-stained oak furniture, and floor-to-ceiling white curtains. He wondered what lay beyond those. He’d gotten turned around in the building and certainly hadn’t bothered to consider the view his first time here. A quick peek revealed a sweeping panorama of Seattle, Puget Sound, and moonlight on the Olympic Mountains. He could get to like this. He let the curtain slip shut.
The room smelled like Jo. Not some strong floral or citrus scent, as far as he knew she didn’t wear perfume. But it smelled of her nonetheless. A scent, a flavor that he hadn’t been able to erase from his mind since their first ice-creamed kiss. She reminded him of sky and sunlight and, with all apologies to his history teacher, the deep richness he’d always imagined surrounding the Greek Fates, the three women who measured and cut the time of a man’s life. Or better yet, Gaia, wasn’t she the mother of the Three Fates, or something like that? She really did remind him of a mother goddess. The incredible beauty, the perfect posture as if she were dancer rather than lawyer, the groundedness in who she was. Didn’t the woman have any doubts about anything?
In the soft light, he could just make out her hair spread across the white pillow and the deeply embroidered white bed quilt. She lay on her side and the scattered hair hid her face leaving only a dark sheen upon the pillow.
That’s when he remembered her in her office, the dark hair spilling over her face, right after she’d screamed in frustration.
No. He had to keep reminding himself. This wasn’t Counselor Jo Thompson, not in this room. Here was his lover. That sounded so good. It sent a shiver and a heat washing the length of his body.
Strictly human, he reminded himself. No pedestals allowed, no matter how he wished to place her upon one. He undressed and slipped in beside her appreciating the softness of the flannel sheets and the warmth and scent of Jo Thompson that pervaded the bed.
As gently as he could, he brushed the hair back from her face.
She sighed as he did so.
“Angelo.” It was barely a whisper.
“Right here, Jo.”
She slid up against him, draping an arm over his ribs and curling to bury her face against his chest. Then, with another sigh, she fell back asleep.
And what was he supposed to do with that? His body thrummed with need. Her face on his chest placed her hair where he could nuzzle it and inhale even more deeply of sky, sun, and Mother Earth. Her hair, long and thick, was also soft and smelled freshly of a light shampoo.
He considered waking her, but didn’t have the heart to do so. She must be as exhausted as he felt. Eugene still insisted he was departing at the end of the month. Barely two weeks’ notice. Even in a foodie-town like Seattle, there was no way to find a good patissier so quickly. He would put out notices for several positions, hoping to find his way through the current madness as well as begin staffing the new restaurant.
No! He had to stop his whirling mind. He wouldn’t bring work into this place. He didn’t care what Jo said or didn’t, he’d declare this a sanctuary, even if it was one without pedestals. He simply wouldn’t tell her that he’d done so. In this place at least, it would only be about the two of them, the overwhelmed Italian and the woman who filled his senses as if she were indeed born of heaven.
Then he thought of something that calmed his nerves.
Even mostly asleep, she’d called him by his name as if he filled her thoughts as much as she did his.
Jo woke slowly to the smell of coffee and bacon. Coffee! Her body woke faster simply for knowing caffeine would be consumed shortly. She opened one eye and saw the empty pillow beside hers. It was dented. But she’d gone to bed alone and woken alone.
To the smell of coffee her body reminded her. So, she’d apparently been alone at either end, but not in the middle? Had he held her in the night? She thought so, felt as if she had been held, but couldn’t be sure.
Unravished. Held or not, her body was distinctly unravished. The man tells her she is beautiful like a goddess and then doesn’t touch her. It was enough to make a girl downright irritable.
Coffee. Right, she was always irritable before coffee.
She slid from beneath the covers wearing the extra-large gray t-shirt with the arched maroon “Vassar” fading over her chest.
Angelo stood at the stove cooking, his back mostly toward her. He wore only his jeans riding low enough on his hips to reveal that his underwear probably was still somewhere in her bedroom. His bare back rippled slightly as he tended the bacon. He was beautiful. She was about to slip up behind him when she noticed the cloth-covered cookie sheet on the counter. It had been set with napkins, silverware, and a large stoneware mug that steamed thickly of caffeine and French roast. An impromptu breakfast tray.
Breakfast in bed! She’d never had that except when she’d made it for herself. Well, she certainly wasn’t going to spoil being spoiled for a morning, and scooted back to the bedroom slipping between the covers. Be awake? Feign sleep? Jump him the moment he got through the door no matter the consequences? No, that was too high a risk to the precious caffeine.
Jo went for the second option, burying her face in the pillow that smelled of Angelo, how she’d missed that when she woke up was beyond her, and listened to the song of her pulse gaining tempo rapidly.
She ignored the first whispered, “Jo?”
At the second, closer call of her name, she made a show of waking slowly. Then she had an idea, but she’d have to be fast if she wanted to hide the smile.
“Jacob?” She dragged aside a fistful of hair and looked at Angelo confusedly through a curtain of what remained.
He stood balancing the improvised tray and revealed that breathtaking chest of his on full display.
“I was expecting Jacob,” she shot for a pout and thought she did pretty well.
“And why were you expecting Jacob?” Rather than looking put-out, Angelo’s smile was radiant. Oh well, so the tease hadn’t really worked. Or had it?
“Because Jacob would have ravaged me in the night rather than leaving me to sleep.”
“Well, I could ravage you right now, but your omelet would be cold. And your coffee.”
“Coffee!”
Angelo made a pout in return as he rested the tray at the foot of the bed. “Well, I now know where I rank. Below coffee. And Jacob.”
“Well, Jacob is pretty special.” Jo patted the bed beside her. “Now get back in here under the covers.” She made a grab for his belt.
Angelo took a step back. “You’ll spill the coffee.”
“Well, I’ll behave then…at least until I finish breakfast.” Instead she slipped out of the bed, careful not to jostle the tray, and didn’t behave at all.
Chapter 22
Jo lay on Angelo’s chest and hummed. Her entire body hummed, there was no other word for it. If she were a musician, she’d say she felt like a string vibrating ever so softly and perfectly in tune. She’d use the metaphor even if she wasn’t a musician, it certainly fit.
“Breakfast shouldn’t be that much colder.” His tone was wry. They had certainly sparked their need off each other.
“That was barely a ravage,” she tried on a pout, but it was difficult with how wonderful she was feeling.
“Consider it a deposit on a ravage.”
“Okay, I’ll try to work with that. I should demand a signed and notarized letter of further intent to ravage, but I’ll trust you this one time.” Jo scooted back onto the bed.
Angelo continued to lie there on the floor looking all handsome and content.
“Your omelet is congealing, Master Chef Parrano.”
He smiled but didn’t move. “Too late for that, Counselor Thompson.”
She took a forkful. Barely warm, but still light and fluffy with the nicest hint of oregano.
“St
ill yummy.”
Then Angelo pushed to his feet. “Do you have a pen and paper?”
She pointed at the nightstand. She kept them in the top drawer in case she thought of a good case argument or line of research and didn’t want to lose the thought in the middle of the night.
He scrawled on the pad quickly, tore off the page and folded it in half, and handed it to her. Then he bowed formally and joined her cross-legged on the bed.
She opened the note as he took his coffee.
I, Angelo Parrano, being of weak mind but sound body, do hereby intend, promise, swear, vow, affirm, and otherwise commit that I shall hereafter happily ravage one Jo Thompson at every opportunity.
Signed, Angelo Parrano
Addendum: Ravaging also available by special request.
“I don’t have a notary handy. I hope that’s okay.”
She couldn’t meet his eyes. She’d hugged the note to her chest without realizing it. She held it out and read it again.
It wasn’t the promise to ravage that had set her heart stuttering. It was that he’d done it in her language. She’d received plenty of mash notes over the years, though most of them had been back in Schoenbar Middle School when she’d been among the first of the girls to develop a chest. But even the couple that she’d received as an adult had never so thoroughly acknowledged who she was. They’d always been about her body, not about her. The fact that he’d used the “sound mind” quote from a standard will, probably without intending to evoke death and estate law, only made it more charming.
He offered her a forkful of omelet that she dutifully took and chewed, though she barely tasted it. There was another taste on her tongue. One she didn’t know, couldn’t identify. No, not a taste. A taste that made her think of Angelo’s wonderful skin.
This was as if there was flavor running all through her insides. It was good, but unfamiliar. It was as if it came from the inside rather than the outside, but she still couldn’t define it. But she knew how it made her feel. It made her feel desired. It made her feel alive.
She climbed from the bed and carefully tucked the precious note under her alarm clock. Then she shifted the tray to the top of the dresser, and, facing Angelo, stripped the t-shirt off over her head, dropped it behind her, and climbed back into bed.
His eyes were transfixed upon her, the coffee mug frozen halfway to his lips. She’d never had such an effect on a man and it made her feel freer than she could have imagined possible.
She lay back on the pillow atop the covers, “By special request.”
He set his coffee on the coaster on the nightstand.
Then he slid over her and whispered in her ear, “By special request.”
Chapter 23
“Mama. We need to talk.”
Angelo and his mother were walking in the sun together, moseying along First Avenue from the apartment up to the restaurant. The Saturday morning traffic was busy with some tourists, some locals, and monstrous city buses jockeying for position like sumo wrestlers amidst a stampede of Chihuahuas. Seattle was always busy during the day. Thankfully, unlike New York, the city did sleep at night. He liked that, felt it added some character that the Big Apple had somehow lost.
Men kept turning to look at them. No. To look at his mother and he didn’t like it a bit. She wore her hair loose, with a bright floral scarf over it. The powder blue sweater swept low across her chest and clung in all of the right places. She wore a dark skirt that wrapped tight about her hips and revealed good legs.
He wanted to buy her a trenchcoat.
“Is it about this girl, this Jo? When does she come by? When do I get to sit and share a meal with her?”
“No, it’s not about Jo.” They’d never made their bike ride. They’d barely made it through breakfast.
“What I see, my son, is a very happy man. But he confuses me. It also looks as if you slept last night. That is not a nice thing to do to a new girlfriend. You are not supposed to sleep a wink together.”
“Mama!” He really couldn’t be having this conversation with her. And she agreed with Jo that he should have just ravaged her though she’d been sleeping so sweetly. What did he know anyway, he was just a guy.
“What? I don’t get to be glad for my boy? You should marry her.”
“We are so not having this conversation.”
“Why not? You marry her and we can all live happy together.”
Angelo caught his shoe on a shifted block in the sidewalk and almost planted his face on Madison Street. The cars were bolting down the steep Seattle hills as if the waterfront shops would float away before they got to visit every one. Or, perhaps more realistically, as if the last available parking spot on the full length of Alaskan Way was about to be filled.
His mother grabbed his arm to keep him on the sidewalk and burst out laughing. It was such a merry sound. He was being sassed by his mother. What was up with that?
“It was the restaurant I wanted to talk about.” And he definitely didn’t want to talk about Jo or marriage or married life with his mother in the apartment or…
She harrumphed at him as they waited for the red light at Spring Street.
“Okay, so talk.”
“You shopped with Manuel this morning, like I asked?”
“Of course I did. I take care of things so that you can not sleep with this Jo, but instead you—”
“Mama!”
She offered an elaborate shrug that only an Italian mother could achieve which told him, “Fine, change the topic if you want but I gave birth to you and cleaned your bottom and you still need someone much smarter than you to take care of you and this topic is not even a little bit done with.”
Angelo inspected the blue sky between the towering buildings, searching for patience. William was just unlocking McCormick and Schmick’s as they passed by. Angelo waved at him as he put out the “Lunch Specials” sign, a classy chalkboard sign with cheerful yellow chalk. Angelo’s Hearth didn’t do “specials” but he was considering it. The board did catch the eye.
“Hey, Angelo,” they knew each other by name, but not much more. Then he turned to his mother, “Hello, Mrs. Parrano. When are you going to leave your son and come live with me in sin?”
She patted his cheek as if he were a little boy rather than a man her own age, “Just as soon as your wife stops choosing your clothes for you. You are dressed far too nicely to have chosen that yourself.” They traded air kisses.
William did look sharp, even if Angelo couldn’t quite identify why. He looked at his own comfortable clothes and knew his mother had not been talking to William alone.
Angelo rolled his eyes at her back.
William just winked at him over her shoulder.
Once they’d left William behind, Angelo opened his mouth and then closed it sharply. Had she charmed every male in the whole city while he wasn’t watching? If he started down the path of that topic, he’d never find his way to where he wanted to go.
“Mama,” he tried again. “I’m going to have a problem at the restaurant and I was hoping you could help me.” What on Earth was he doing? Jo. This was Jo’s fault. She’d cooked up the idea this morning when they’d finally pulled on handy clothes and then taken their cold breakfast and reheated coffee out onto her umpteenth floor balcony. The egg and bacon flavors had still been good, but retoasting the toast hadn’t helped the texture of it. He’d told her about Eugene leaving and the complications his mother was causing the restaurant.
“It’s perfect, Angelo,” Jo had assured him as she glowed in the morning light and ate cold eggs. “It sounds as if she’s doing wonderful things for you, but I would conjecture that retired life is not sitting well with her. I’ll bet she’s bored. She wants to help you, which is so sweet. I wish I’d had parents, or even one parent like that.”
When he’d asked her about that, the subject had changed without his really noticing, at least not until just now.
“My pastry chef, Eugene, is following his girlfriend
to Hawaii,” he told his mother.
“Is he sure that she wants to be followed?” She didn’t even miss a pulse beat before jumping to the question that had taken Angelo some time to arrive at. And that Marlys had been unable to answer when Angelo had gotten her aside.
Angelo gave her a shrug that felt both uncomfortable and made it clear that in the end it was none of his business.
“The problem is, Mama, I need a pastry chef, at least until I can hire another one.”
“And what does this have to do with my shopping with Manuel?”
“That’s different. Last night I decided that you have made us too successful. So,” he took a deep breath because it was still too huge to really comprehend. “I’m going to open another restaurant.”
“Just like that?” She stopped in front of a storefront window and posed with her hands on her hips. Not realizing that she’d taken exactly the pose of the anorexic, aqua-clad mannequin in the clothing store window behind her. He started to smile until he saw the fire on her face.
“Just like that you go and decide to open another restaurant and you don’t even consult your mother?”
“Ah...”
A business man in smart Saturday attire, but still swinging his briefcase on the way to work, cut right between them without a glance either way.
“Ah. Mama, I’m sorry. I didn’t think—”
“No! You no think!” She began ticking points off on her fingers. “You no think about little treats to advertise your food. You no think that Manuel can shop just as good as can you.” As her ire rose, her English frayed even more than usual around the edges.
“This Eugene,” she flicked her fingers. “You are so worried about losing him. Well, his Panna Cotta is not one-half so good as mine. His Zabaglione is a disgrace. And his Lemon Olive-Oil Cake is so sad that little girl Graziella could make better. You no understand why you, the head chef, the owner, spend so much time at the desserts. Let him go, that boy is why you waste so much time with them. Oh,” she continued her rant as more people passed close by eyeing him curiously as to why the beautiful Italian matron was yelling at him.
The Complete Where Dreams Page 44