The Younger Man

by Foster, Zoe

  AGAIN with the switching gears! The way he wavered between insouciant and intense was driving Abby mental.

  ‘Okay, well, thanks.’ She got her phone out and checked the time, it was almost 2 a.m.; she should go. What was she even doing here, with this guy who wasn’t making a move, and who she now wasn’t even sure she wanted to? Abby was becoming frustrated: If you decide you’re up for an impulsive, steamy one-night stand with a sexy Italian, you shouldn’t have to spell it out for the lucky gentleman.

  ‘Is something the matter?’

  ‘No, I, I just, it’s late, I should be going …’ She sat on the edge of the lounge and placed her mega shot glass on the beautiful glass coffee table. Acqua Di Parma candles. Very nice. He wasn’t gay, was he? No, no he couldn’t be. She had to remember that Italian men were stylish; they didn’t need to be homosexual to wear good shoes and have taste in homewares.

  Alessandro sat forward to mimic her position, his right knee touching her left. Abby felt a shot of electricity tear down her leg when they connected and she caught another whiff of his scent. She felt lightheaded and giddy being so close to him, as though she were in some kind of Mills and Boon novel.

  He looked at her, his chin slightly lowered.

  ‘May we kiss?’

  She smiled and her heart stirred and her body pulsed with excitement.

  ‘I thought you’d never ask.’ She was not kidding.

  He placed his drink on the coffee table and gently put his right hand at the nape of Abby’s neck. He pulled her towards him gently, and kissed her lips softly. His lips parted ever so slightly and he gently licked her tongue with his: it was the smallest, most insignificant move Abby had ever experienced, but it sent shivers down the back of her knees. Abby opened her mouth to allow more of these delicious kisses and he took that as a signal to move closer towards her, and start caressing her head, his hand massaging her scalp in rhythm with their kisses. Suddenly he pulled back, his nose just centimetres from Abby’s, and looked at her squarely in the eyes. His breath was sweet, far too sweet for a man who’d enjoyed multiple cigarettes, and his heady fragrance was hypnotising; Abby was mesmerised by the sensory experience of his scent and his touch and his outrageous, Enrique Iglesias film-clip stare.

  ‘I wanted you as soon as I see you tonight.’

  Who spoke like that? Abby thought. Honestly, in real life, who spoke like that? Abby conceded that it was kind of sexy in the moment, the stuff romance writers made their fortunes from, but it was also the kind of thing she wished she could record or at least write down to laugh about with the girls later.

  ‘Liar. You didn’t even notice me.’

  ‘Just because I don’t show the desire, does not mean I do not have.’

  And Abby was gone again, melting into his mouth and his kisses, hoping very much that he made love with the same intensity with which he spoke and kissed.

  Two sweaty, passionate hours later and Abby had her answer: Yes.

  He did make love like that. She’d always thought you needed an emotional connection to have truly fantastic sex, but now she realised you just needed an accomplished, passionate partner and a few wines under your belt for confidence. He was a very different lover from Marcus, and even though she had forbidden herself from making comparisons, Marcus popped into her head several times during their session. Mostly because it was all she’d known for the last few months, she told herself. No other reason.

  Abby looked at Alessandro’s toned, tanned body as he walked from the bed – which was extremely low and trendy – to the bathroom, which appeared to be made entirely from black tiles and sans walls. It was an incredible home, minimalistic and slick, with beautiful wooden light fittings and splashes of yellow and chocolate for warmth. She must ask him about those dangling bedside lamps, Abby thought as she pulled a crisp white cotton sheet up over her naked, damp body. They were exceptional – just cords of electrical wire and large clear globes that appeared to be entwined in bendy twigs. She should probably wait until they’d stopped panting and the sweat had dried, she thought, smiling mischievously at the memory of what had just taken place in the bed she lay in. He was a Take Charge man, she concluded. The kind Chelsea always banged on about – ‘I need a man who’ll throw me up against a wall,’ was one of her favourite shocking sex statements – but after being man-handled by Alessandro, in several rooms and double that amount of positions, she now understood exactly what Chelsea was on about.

  Marcus certainly knew how to throw Abby around, but was more of an emotional, adoring lover than a strong, stuff-of-fantasies, Take Care of Business type that Alessandro was. She’d felt a pang of reality and a twinge of wrong when she waited, naked and pent up on the bed, as Alessandro reached for the condoms from his bedside drawer – which was under the bed and part of the frame, of course – was she cheating on Marcus? No, she’d decided, they were definitely separated. And weren’t in a relationship to begin with, besides. He was probably doing the exact same thing, she confirmed, although probably not with an Italian man.

  Alessandro returned with a towel wrapped around his waist and his hair wet. Abby noticed the hair on his chest was half grey, like that on his head, and while his body was firm, he had that little bit of skin sag on the stomach that comes with age. She really was dealing with a man here. A man who could be nearing fifty. Her previous record was forty, so if nothing else, she had broken that record. Oh, and climaxed on a staircase, that was also something new. He had clearly slept with his fair share of women. Abby tried not to think of herself as just another conquest, instead flipping it to be in her power: she had chosen to have sex with him tonight, because she was in Italy and she was single and it was perfect and he had a black Ferrari and a small bar fridge full of bottled San Pellegrino. It was a terrific choice and she regretted nothing. Except for maybe that part where he asked her to do that thing with her tongue. Abby decided it was better not to think about that. Put it all down to experience.

  ‘You will stay for breakfast?’ he asked this as he applied face cream like a woman, delicately and carefully. Abby tried not to notice, because if she did it would turn her off.

  Abby couldn’t tell whether he was asking her to stay.

  ‘Um, I’m not sure, I guess it might be too late to go home now …’

  ‘I can drive you, if you prefer.’

  Did he want her to stay, or go? It was impossible to know what he meant, and it instantly made Abby feel frustrated and vulnerable. She wasn’t typically the kind of girl to sleep over, but she also wasn’t the kind of girl who typical fucked a man she’d spoken less than 100 words to, either, so why stop the Eurostar of unusual now?

  ‘Maybe I’ll stay, if that is okay? And I can walk home in the morning.’

  Alessandro laughed and walked over to sit next to Abby on the bed.

  ‘You will get so lost you will wind up back in my bed anyway. I will drive you after I make breakfast. A towel?’

  He kissed her on the lips gently and stood up to get her a huge, soft grey towel from a cupboard posing as a wall.

  Abby didn’t really feel like a shower, but he was clearly a man into hygiene, so she wrapped the towel around her body and walked to the bathroom, which had no door and offered him a full view of her body as she showered. She took a deep breath and sucked it up – he’d seen her in far more compromising positions in the past few hours than innocently standing under a stream of water; she needed to get over it. Still, she faced the bedroom as much as possible, so he didn’t see her cellulite and could focus on her tits instead, which he seemed rather enamoured with, to the point were they ached a little from all the kneading and tweaking. That was new, too.

  ‘When do you come in Florence?’ he asked from bed as she tried to finger brush her hair and dry off her body elegantly, like Jennifer Aniston types did in the movies.

  ‘I think the day after tomorrow … Do you think five nights is too many there?’

  ‘Never too many nights in Firenze.’
r />   ‘I thought that might be the case, I can’t wait to see it …’

  ‘You will stay with me.’

  Abby came out and sat on the bed, wondering where she’d left her knickers in the explosion of sexual misdemeanour. She hoped/assumed he lived here alone, and that no poor soul would wake up to find them at the bottom of the stairs.

  ‘You mean the house you won’t be in?’ Abby laughed. ‘That’s very kind of you, Alessandro. But I am so happy finding my own place. I genuinely am.’

  ‘It would be my pleasure to host you.’

  ‘Will you really not be there the whole time I am there?’ Abby asked. She realised she quite liked the idea of seeing him again, and was a bit hurt he wasn’t suggesting he would like to see her again. Which was interesting, considering he was a veritable stranger and seemed to not like her very much half the time. Surely holiday flings were meant to be a bit more gushing and ridiculous and teenagey and lusty?

  ‘I can, if you would like. Show you my city.’ He looked at her with those eyes, the same ones that had gotten her into this whole situation. ‘But I know women like to travel alone. It is not for me to intrude.’

  It was all Abby could do not to say ‘awwwww’. If he was playing her, he was at concert pianist level. Her instinct – which, if she was falling into his “trap”, was probably unreliable – was to say, ‘No, no! You must come!’ but she decided to think about it. Let him feel vulnerable for a bit.

  ‘Let’s talk on this in the morning.’ She smiled, dropped her towel and slipped under the sheets with him, feeling one of his soft arms wrap around her affectionately as his other arm switched off the bedside lamp from a switch she’d not noticed, probably visible only to the Italian eye. It felt very boyfriend-girlfriend, which was extremely disconcerting for Abby, and threw her immediately into a memory of Marcus and her, entwined in bed together, him trying to slip his left arm under her neck and Abby pushing it out straight away because it gave her a sore neck. ‘It means I can hold you closer,’ he’d argue lovingly.

  Mentally shaking away thoughts of Marcus, Abby gently rolled her way out of Alessandro’s embrace and faced the opposite way, with her back and naked bum against him. She felt him rise and nudge into her back, and for a thrilling moment wondered if they were about to go another round … how devilish! He softly kissed her shoulder, and a smile spread across her face … before feeling him roll over so that his back was to hers and fluff and settle into his pillow for sleep. Why didn’t he ever chase for longer than two seconds? She lay there, eyes open and flashing wildly in the light of the breaking dawn, wondering how in the space of six hours this man had already managed to not only screw her, but get under her skin, too. He was clearly used to women fawning over him. Well, she wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction. Even on a holiday fling Abby had to assert some control; it was impossible for her to completely let go.

  After Marcus’s transparent and generous adoration, it was a nice change to be a little unsure, play the game a bit, enjoy the challenge and the chase.

  Confirming this helped Abby fall asleep, instead of wondering why she was naked in a stranger’s bed, on the other side of the world from the man she was too terrified to admit she was in love with.

  33

  Mads’s expression was one of disbelief, even with the shitty, robotic Skype connection.

  ‘Let me get this straight. Last week, you send me an email in which you are unbearably, desperately devastated about Marcus and thinking you made an enormous mistake letting him go, and today you tell me you are living in some Italian lothario’s palace in Florence brimming with outlandish sports cars and vintage champagne.’

  ‘Si,’ Abby said, smiling smugly.

  Mads had actively changed the conversation to something light-hearted after she’d reluctantly confirmed that her and Dyl’s first attempt at IVF had failed. Mads’s heart was a little bit broken, but her tenacity to conceive a little bit stronger. They were both exhausted. Abby felt utterly selfish blathering on about Alessandro, but Mads had demanded conversational frivolity.

  ‘Goodness. Sounds tough, sweetlips. Hang in there for one more day, yeah?’

  Abby laughed. ‘I’ll do my best.’

  ‘All that hairy-chested Mediterranean sex has gone to your head. Next thing you’ll be telling me you’ve bought a vineyard and are staying over there to run a B&B.’

  Mads was right; it was all unquestionably ludicrous. But that’s what holidays were for, being ludicrous! And living dangerously! And having crazy sex! And going in helicopters to lunch!

  ‘What, not a good idea?’

  ‘So this … AleSSANdro is obviously riddled with Euro, but that’s more Chelsea’s bag, not yours: what do you actually like about him? Is he your future husband? Will you end up living in Florence in an enormous villa with spare rooms for your best friends from Australia?’

  ‘Little to no chance of that. He did ask me to change my flight tomorrow, so he could take me to Rome, but I have to come home. I’ve left Charlie in charge, all by herself, for over five weeks, it seems a bit uncool.’

  Not that Charlie seemed to care. She was so efficient Abby was starting to feel a bit territorial. Any time Abby started to fire emails off about things, cc’ing Charlie in on them, Charlie completely took over, leaving Abby with nothing to do or say. It should’ve made Abby feel at ease, and lucky, but instead she felt a bit left out. It was ridiculous, Abby told herself. Charlie was the best thing that had happened to Allure.

  ‘… That was a very not-him move, though. He’s no gushing romantic. He’s powerful and intelligent and driven and sexy, but he’s a playboy and he’s holding all the cards. One minute he’s telling me I could change his life forever, the next he’s saying my hair is awful and why do I not grow it? He’s terrific at keeping me just insecure enough to want to hang around for another compliment. Which is something I always thought I was too smart to fall for.’

  ‘Booooooooooring! The SEX??’

  ‘Oh, don’t you worry about that, Mads, I bring home a veritable encyclopaedia of innovative, exciting and disgusting sexual positions. We’ve had one steamy little week together in Florence, yesiree.’

  ‘OutSTANDING! So has the Italian cured you of Marcus? Has this little penetration vacation changed how you feel about him?’

  Abby rested her head on her knuckle in thought, and looked at Mads’s face intently on screen.

  ‘D’you know what? I think it has. I feel like maybe Alessandro has shown me I need a man. Someone accomplished and mature, someone who can teach me things, y’know, inspire me.’ Even as she said it, the words felt hollow to her. Detective Mads picked up on it immediately.

  ‘I think the lady doth yank thy cranks,’ Mads said, disdain on her face. ‘You’re doing what you think you should be doing, because women our age should be with impressive, golden raisins in their forties. We’ve been socially conditioned to date up in age and status since we were little girls, but you don’t need anyone to look after you, or teach you things, Abby Robert Brian David Vaughn. You can do it yourself, you have for years!’ Mads took a breath and exhaled slowly.

  ‘Hormone blitz, sorry. But, Abs, do you really feel this way? Does Alessandro make you laugh? Are you having the time of your stonkin’ life? I don’t know, I just feel like, well, Marcus made you more you than any man I’ve ever seen you with.’

  ‘Well, I mean we have great conversations … Alessandro knows so much about history and architecture and design and food, he’s an amazing cook, and he—’

  ‘And does he ever ask what you think? Or does he just talk at you? Older men usually want to make love to the sound of their own voice; they want an audience, not a partner.’

  Abby recoiled slightly.

  ‘Look, whatever happens down the track, this is all helpful stuff, Abs. You’re starting to understand what you really want in a relationship.’ She looked at Abby with big eyes, trying to jam her message into Abby’s head visually as well as verbally.
/>   ‘Mads, it’s just a fling, just a little holiday fling, let’s not analyse it too much, eh?’ Abby needed this conversation to end. It was too heavy for her last day in Italy, a day that was brilliant with sunshine and begging for exploration and credit card swiping. Alessandro had shown her some incredible areas of Florence that she never would’ve seen by herself. She was very grateful to him. He was a generous, kind man. But Mads was right: they didn’t have much fun.

  ‘I’ve gotta go make something of my last day here, maybe buy my friends some stuff from Gucci or Celine.’

  ‘Chelsea doesn’t deserve or need gifts. Buy double for poor, childless Mads instead.’

  ‘She has been a total turd, actually. You’re right. For someone with her BlackBerry on an IV drip, she is so incredibly shit at responding to messages.’

  ‘Well I’ve seen her about as much as you have in the past month so don’t look to me for answers.’

  ‘Hmmm. Must be all back on with Jezza again. You know how she gets when she’s in love.’

  ‘Yes: Invisible. Okay, I’ll see you in a few days, I guess. Hey, do you need a pick up on Thursday? Text me the details. Will give me something to look forward to.’

  ‘You’re the best.’

  ‘In all transparency, I just want my luxury leather goods.’

  ‘Bye, Madsy.’ Abby blew her a kiss.

  ‘Ciaaaaaaooooo.’ Mads waved theatrically at the camera, blowing multiple kisses and taking over the whole screen with her hands.

  Abby put her laptop to sleep and grabbed her phone in preparation to go out. Of course there was no email or text from Marcus. He had not contacted her once since she’d left Australia. What a thoughtless brute, she thought, before remembering she was in another man’s home and had been for six nights now, and couldn’t really be angry with a boy she had totally blindsided with her ‘issues’ and then dumped a few days before jetting out to have a sexy Italian fling.

  Still, she thought as she applied some sunscreen and makeup. He didn’t know that. Abby looked at herself in the mirror. It was easy, considering it took up the entire wall of Alessandro’s bedroom. She looked good: she was tanned and her hair had gone lighter in the sun. Her skin was glowing, her eyes shone bright – she looked healthy, happy, relaxed. Or very well sexed. Either way, she was in fine form to ‘run into Marcus’ should she see him around this weekend back home.