Hidden Worthiness

by Susan Fanetti

  He didn’t answer.

  She went on as if he had. “No, I don’t. I’d seen photos before I left you that note. I knew what you looked like then. Your scars didn’t change my interest, and tonight has only made me like you more.”

  Donnie didn’t believe her; he couldn’t. But his reaction was different. Usually, he felt anger spike up from his gut when a woman lied to him, especially about what she saw of him. Now, he wanted her words to be true.

  “Why?” The word sounded weak, but it was the only one in his head. Sonia’s harsh judgment must have gotten in there somehow and taken root.

  “You’re fascinating, Mr. Goretti. You’re charming and considerate, and you look at me like you really see me. And I like looking at you. Seeing you.” She took her hand back and looked at her plate. “Well, we got through the salad course. After I finish this amazing entrée, I think I’d like to be chosen, at least for tonight. If you’d choose me.”

  For this night, he wouldn’t ask more questions, demand more answers. For this night, he would enjoy the company of this lovely young woman who was a much better actor than she believed. He would let her lie, and for this night, he’d give himself the fantasy of belief.

  “I choose you.”

  ~ 8 ~

  Ari was both surprised and impressed when Donnie paid for their dinner with an American Express Centurion card. Surprised because she hadn’t expected a Mafioso to use plastic—her Uncle Mel did everything in cash—and impressed for the obvious reason. Though she lived her life in the world of high culture and danced for the wealthy every night, she herself, and all her friends, barely made ends meet. Only those at the pinnacle of their profession, the principal dancers in the most esteemed companies, made real money. She’d never seen a black Amex before.

  After he signed for the bill, he stood and held out his hand. Ari took it and rose from her chair. His hands were good—not coarse, but strong, and nicely shaped—and when he closed his fingers around hers, she felt protected. With just that scant touch.

  When he drew her from the table, she pulled back. “Wait—my flowers.”

  “Not to worry.” With a tug, he pulled her forward, and she let him lead her through the restaurant.

  He stopped at the maître d’ stand and said, “We’re going to take a room tonight. I’d like the roses at our table brought up.”

  “Of course, Mr. Goretti,” the maître d’ replied.

  As they crossed the lobby, Ari laughed, and he smiled back at her. “What?”

  “People really do whatever you want.”

  Still smiling, he gave her the answer he’d given before. “Usually.”

  At the front desk, he set his Amex down again and asked for a room for the night. The desk attendant’s eyes widened just the slightest bit, almost unnoticeably, but Ari was fascinated by the power of that insignificant black rectangle, so she’d caught it. The attendant’s demeanor shifted gears at once, but smoothly, from blithely professional to enthusiastically solicitous.

  Donnie behaved like a man who expected nothing less than this level of devoted service. Ari, standing beside this powerful man, her hand in his, felt like a little girl he’d swept up from the gutter. Next to his bespoke tuxedo and Italian leather shoes, her thrift-shop boho skirt and top and forty-dollar Keds were little better than rags. She loved this outfit, she loved her style, but damn, she wished she’d remembered to bring her cute little black dress and vintage Chanel flats to the theatre. Tonight was an Audrey Hepburn night if ever there was one, and she was standing here looking like Eliza Doolittle.

  Key card in hand, Donnie led her to the elevators. There were seven sets of brushed steel doors—three elevators on each side, facing each other, and another perpendicular to those, in the wall between them. Donnie went to that one and waved his key card over a sensor above the call buttons. The door opened as soon as he pressed the ‘up’ button, and he led her inside. He waved his card over another sensor and pressed the button marked ‘P.’

  She’d felt so self-conscious at the desk that she hadn’t paid attention to the room assignment. He’d taken a penthouse suite. For a one-night stand with a girl he’d just met.

  Was it a one-night stand? It had to be, right? A little masked banter at a party and then a nice dinner a week later was hardly enough to base anything more than a brief fling on, right? Especially considering that he wasn’t a regular guy. He didn’t come home from a hard day at the office and complain about Bill down in Accounting. When he had a hard day at work, he probably washed somebody’s blood off his hands. Or maybe that was a good day for him; she didn’t know. Maybe he was a mobster because he enjoyed violence.

  Ari was a bit more mob-tolerant than the average girl, but Donnie was a bit more mobster than the average mobster. The second-in-command of the Pagano Brothers was like mobster concentrate. Sharing a sexy night with him after sharing a nice meal was one thing, but she had to take a breath and really think before anything more than that happened.

  If he even wanted anything more himself. Wasn’t she getting just a bit ahead of herself here? She could have severed her own tongue for that stupid line about how she’d felt ‘chosen’—what even did that mean? It made her sound sappy and besotted, like a teenager with a crush on her teacher. But she sort of felt that way. Everything about the night had her bewitched, from that moment during intermission, when his gaze had drawn her onto the stage, to finding the beautiful roses in her dressing room, and the handwritten note with them, to seeing him standing under the big tit, in his perfectly tailored tux. He’d taken her hand and led her into a fairy world of privilege and light, and yes, she was dazzled.

  She barely thought about his scars. As the night had progressed, they’d factored less and less, and all she’d seen was a man who was interested in her, who listened when she spoke, even when she yammered on too long, who smiled at her with real enjoyment and maybe affection, who treated her with respect and consideration.

  Besides, he was good looking. Really handsome. Not his scarred side, no. It wasn’t pretty, what had happened to him, and when she imagined what kind of accident he must have had, she hurt for him. But his scars didn’t lessen her attraction. They just were.

  He didn’t seem to believe that, but she really wanted him to.

  While her brain had been spinning, the elevator had been rising, and Donnie had stepped behind her. His hands cupped her shoulders and slid slowly down her arms; at her wrists, his fingers retraced the path. Gooseflesh stippled her arms, and she sighed.

  At her shoulders again, his fingers eased forward around her neck, enclosing her throat gently, and then dipped down, over her collarbones, her chest, into her t-shirt. She wasn’t wearing a bra. He paused just inside her shirt, like a silent question. Asking permission. Wanting her consent.

  Well, she wasn’t heading up to the penthouse with him for a quick game of parcheesi. She tipped her head back and arched her back, offering her chest for his exploration.

  He took the offer at once. His fingers swept around the curve of her breasts and then found her nipples. He plucked them, and when she moaned in response to that bright snap of pleasure, he grunted softly and plucked a bit harder. Flames of desire lapped through her blood, and she felt her underwear go damp. She put her hands over his and pressed her ass backward, finding the hard ridge she’d hoped to find.

  The elevator doors opened. She’d sort of forgotten they were in one. Had all that happened in only a few seconds?

  Donnie took her hand. “Come on.”

  The penthouse floor had significantly fewer rooms, each with a sleek double door. He found theirs quickly, as if he knew the layout already, and opened the door.

  The room was dark, only the soft light of two sconces over a console table near the door. She set her little purse on the table. The first thing she really noticed, because it dominated the room, was the view—a full wall of glass, showing what seemed like the entire state of Rhode Island, twinkling beneath them, far and wide. Cap
tivated, Ari walked through the room—a sitting room with furnishings she noted as elegantly modern without really seeing them—and went to the windows.

  She even thought she could see the ocean, but that had to have been an illusion. The Atlantic was more than thirty miles off.

  Lights came on behind her, and a glowing sketch of the room was superimposed on her view beyond. She saw Donnie, a shimmering shadow, come up behind her, undoing his tie as he walked. He’d shed his jacket already.

  “You like the view?” he asked, standing behind her. His hands came to her hips and clutched, gently but firmly.

  “I do. I’ve lived in Providence for a pretty long time, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen it like this.”

  “How long have you been here?” One hand left her hip, and his fingers slid through her hair.

  She sighed at the pleasure and closed her eyes, thinking back to that scary time, losing her position in the corps de ballet at the ABT, losing herself in the failure, curled in her childhood bedroom with the curtains drawn until her father had grabbed her by the shoulders and pulled her to her feet. They’d sat together for most of a day, plotting out her ‘next chapter,’ in his words. She’d found her place here at the Rhode Island Ballet as part of that plot.

  “Seven years. Almost eight.”

  A knock at the door drew their attention, and Donnie went to answer it. Ari turned and watched a hotel staffer come in with her orange roses. At Donnie’s direction, he set them on the desk near the window, and Donnie handed him a tip. He followed the staffer to the door and put the ‘Privacy, Please’ notice on the knob. Then he locked the door completely.

  When he turned, he stood at the end of the little hall that served as an entrance to this suite, and, facing her, he unbuttoned his shirt. Behind Ari was a wall of pristinely clear glass, and the entire city beyond it, but dancers lived their lives displaying their bodies, so she wasn’t shy about showing hers, whether in a flesh-toned leotard or simply her flesh. She grasped the hem of her top and lifted.

  “No.” Donnie said. “I want to do it. Turn around.”

  “What?” A faint tremor of fear goosed her knees. His tone had been sharp, almost adversarial, and a voice that had been AWOL to this point, gamboling around in four full glasses of expensive wine, piped up now and asked if it had been smart to come up to a Mafioso’s hotel room on the first date.

  His shirt was unbuttoned fully, and he’d pulled it free of his trousers. He wore no undershirt. His black tie was loose, hanging over his neck and down along the open sides of the fitted white shirt.

  Oh, just that glimpse of his chest was nice. He was fit and firm but not overdeveloped. In that inch or two of gap, she saw a lean torso, a sweep of definition at the pecs, and a moderate covering of dark hair. Maybe a little sharpness at the inguinal crease. Oh, yeah.

  He stood, relaxed and commanding, his body positioned so the light highlighted his left and shadowed his right, as if he’d arranged himself like that intentionally, and Ari saw a handsome, powerful, confident man.

  That was the man she’d seen all night, in fact. But now he seemed unburdened.

  “Turn around,” he said again, in that same tone that brooked no argument.

  Still feeling that wary zing, but too turned on to heed it—and maybe too drunk, though she felt only tipsy—Ari obeyed him. That was what it felt like: she obeyed.

  When she did, and faced the window wall again, Donnie came to her. She watched him in the glass, coming toward her like a shimmering ghost. He picked up the hem of her top and lifted. Her eyes open and watching, Ari raised her arms high, and he took her top up and over her head.

  “No one can see us up here,” he murmured as he tossed her top away.

  “I don’t care if they do.”

  At that, his eyes met hers in reflection, and the moment paused.

  Without breaking their spectral gaze, his fingers went to the waistband of her skirt. He found the tie inside the front as if he’d known it would be there, and pulled it loose. Easing his fingers along her hips, he caught the sides of her underwear, too, and pushed everything down until it was loose enough to fall the rest of the way. Ari toed her sneakers off as she stepped out of the pool of fabric, and kicked the mess away.

  Now she was standing before a wall of glass in a well-lit room, before a man nearly fully dressed. That tremor in her joints wasn’t fear anymore. Maybe it should have been. Maybe she was doing tonight the stupidest thing she’d ever done in her life. But it didn’t feel that way. She didn’t think he’d hurt her. Nothing about her interaction with Donnie Goretti had been threatening, not even his firmness now. He’d treated her kindly, and gently. Honorably. Like she was precious. Like she was chosen.

  She wasn’t afraid of him. Quite the opposite—she’d never wanted anyone this much in her life. This was, like, fantasy material here—an elegant suite, a beautiful view, a handsome man in a tuxedo, a little exhibitionism—and here she was, living it.

  Donnie swept her hair over one shoulder and leaned down to the one he’d bared. Ari thought he’d kiss her, but instead, he brushed his left cheek over her, lightly grazing her skin with the stubble of his beard. At the same time, his hands smoothed down her arms to her fingers, slid inward, over her hips, her belly, up, sweeping around her breasts, up over her shoulders, around her throat, down her back, over her ass, and back up her arms. He touched her nearly everywhere, his strokes slow and focused, like he was trying to memorize her, but he didn’t touch the parts that ached most for him.

  Her legs began to tremble all over. She stepped her foot out a bit, opening herself in invitation, and arched her back, presenting the nipples he’d briefly teased in the elevator. She saw him smile in the glass, and felt his breath at her ear. Again, she expected to feel his mouth on her, but it was nothing but his breath.

  With a whimper of burgeoning frustration, wanting more, more of his touch, more of him in any way, she tried to turn. She wanted to feel that chest, explore it, wrap her arms and legs around him, find his mouth and taste it.

  His hands became steel grips and held her in place. “No.” His mouth was so close, the words were hot breeze on her neck.

  “I want to touch you.”

  “No. I touch you.” He made the words true as he said them, taking her breasts in his hands, brushing her nipples with his thumbs until she shuddered and moaned and forgot that she wanted anything else but what he was doing.

  He plucked at her nipples, again and again, softly, so softly, like he was trying to shape foam into peaks. Every kiss of his fingertips was charged with fire, making her swell and throb inside and out. She arched back more strongly, raised her arms, reached back for his head, but he stopped his feathery torment and caught her wrists. “No.” He pulled her arms forward and set her hands on the glass. Now she leaned in a little, and when his fingers returned to tease her nipples, his pressure was firmer, almost a pinch now, and she cried out at the blast of hot need. He held on and pulled, and Ari made a sound more keen than moan. Dear God, her pussy ached. Her wet trickled down her inner thigh. She hurt, she needed so hard.

  “Please, please, please,” she heard herself beg, panting.

  He stopped and let go. “You don’t like it?” His tone suggested that he knew very well how much she liked it. He was teasing her.

  “Please don’t stop. Please.”

  “You want more?” He plucked again—harder, and added a twist.

  Ari reared back, slamming into his chest. The rich cotton of his shirt was soft on her shoulder blades, and she felt the firm, hot chest beneath it. “Please. Yes, please.”

  One arm scooped around her waist, and he tucked his left cheek against her head. “What do you want, Arianna?”

  “Make me come, make me come. Please make me come.”

  His other hand slid between her legs, through her folds, and the pleasure of that touch rolled her eyes up and stopped her breath.

  “Ah, stella mia, you’re dripping wet. That’s what I li
ke. You’re silk in my hand.”

  He found her clit. At the same time, the hand holding her against him slid upward and claimed a breast. He pinched her nipple and flicked his finger over her clit, and Ari’s head and body filled with throbbing, noisy pleasure. She couldn’t think or talk or do anything but feel. She could scarcely breathe.

  He brought her to orgasm just like that, relentless and perfect, and when she gulped in a shrieking breath and crashed over the crest of it, he stepped closer to the glass, pinning her between it and him, containing her flailing, spasming body. Before she could catch her breath, while her body still twitched, and flares of bright light danced before her eyes, he took her other breast, caught hold of its nipple, and the fingers of his hand between her legs pushed deep into her. He leaned over her, pushing her to the glass again, and delved deep, finding the intense, painful pleasure of her g-spot and slamming against it, hard, so hard, but not too hard, except she hadn’t come all the way down from the first climax and already the next one was on her. She screamed this time, she felt it claw out of her throat, and she soaked his hand, and he kept going, pulling at her nipple, pounding his fingers inside her, keeping her coming and coming in waves, until all that was left of her was quivering, insensible ecstasy.

  He let her go, let her rest her forehead on the glass, and she tried to pull her senses back from the wild reaches they’d scattered to. The lights of the world below shifted and spun. She heard his zipper, heard the soft crinkle of a condom packet, and barely understood what the sounds meant.

  “Can you take more?” He asked when his hands came back to her, one resting now on a hip, the other rubbing gently over her back. “Do you want me?”

  She didn’t know the answer to the first question, but she knew how to answer the second. She had no idea what she was asking for, had barely seen any of his body at all, but she knew she wanted what he’d give her. “Yes. Oh yes.”