Misters Series - Nocturnal Stories

Vera

"You talked to him all night."

That's how it started. One simple accusation and everything between us exploded. Four months working for him and his damn dome in his damn building, and the day of the opening we couldn't hold it in anymore.

"He's your friend, 'Mr. Vicenzo,'" I answered. I spat the mister right in his face.

"And that's why you talked to him all night?"

"And what did you expect? You spent the last two weeks telling me not to embarrass you. Fine! I was nice to your friend."

"For forty minutes, Vera?"

He was livid, jealous. His face rigid, his eyes glassy. Right then I wanted to hug him, kiss him, touch every inch of him. I held back. I was risking just as much, I had just as much to lose.

I didn't answer. I took off my shoe first, the one with the broken heel. The one that had gotten stuck on the step while he practically dragged me by the wrist.

"What did you talk about?" he asked.

"He told me bad jokes. Terrible ones." I yanked off the other shoe in anger and threw it through the air; it landed on the last can of paint.

Alberto Vicenzo, the psychopath who hired me to restore the fresco six meters up in some crumbling building. Who harassed me for months on end, climbing up the scaffolding with me, criticizing every damn stroke, every color, every brushstroke. And there I was, flat on my back, my whole body on fire because the son of a bitch would lean in until every inch of his sexy, gorgeous self was pressed against me.

"What joke? Repeat it."

"I don't remember!"

"Don't lie to me!" he shouted, hoarse, teeth clenched. "I know him! I know who he is and what he does! What did he offer you?"

"What did he offer me?"

"Yes! He offered you something to fuck you! Didn't he?"

He was insane! The man was insane! No, he was sick, deranged. He wouldn't let me call him by his first name, I had to say "Mr. Vicenzo." Mister my ass! Sure, the typical rich businessman who thinks everyone is beneath him. The kind who looks at you with that crooked, smug little smirk, like God Himself must have been especially inspired when He created him.

"Who the hell do you think I am?" I shouted back too. "You think I'm some little slutt who'll go with anyone who offers her something?"

"I didn't say that!"

"No? That's exactly what you said! Who do you think you are? Crazy bastard!"

"Then tell me what you talked about!"

"Like it's any of your business!"

He held my gaze and something shifted. I don't know what, but something shifted in his eyes. Every word we screamed at each other, furious, threw fuel on the fire. He took a step, ran a hand through his hair, over his face. He was holding back too.

"My business?" he repeated. "Of course it's my business. You're mine. You work for me, you paint for me, you breathe for me. Even that ridiculous dress - I paid for that."

"I bought that dress myself."

"With my money."

"With money I earned! Working! Or are you going to tell me now that hiring me was some kind of favor?"

"I didn't do you a favor. I chose you. There were twenty restorers in this city. Twenty. All more experienced, all less difficult, all easier to deal with. And I chose you. You know why?"

"Because no one else would put up with your filthy looks, your condescending remarks, your superiority complex," I answered, counting off each of his flaws on my fingers.

"Because you were mine from day one! From the moment you walked into the studio you looked at me like I was some idiot. That's when I knew you were mine. You just hadn't figured it out yet."

I laughed. Out of nerves. He was cornering me, and he wasn't doing it with his body, not even with his six-foot-three looming over me. It was his eyes. That's what weakened me, what stopped me from throwing open the door and telling him to go to hell. It looked like a piece of him was being torn away.

"You're insane. You're completely insane."

"Insane," he agreed. He took a step. "Insane, unhinged, obsessive. Whatever you want to call it. But I'm not going to apologize."

"I'm not asking you to."

"Good. Because I wasn't going to give you any."

Another step. We were a hair's breadth apart now. My shoe still sat on the paint can. My stockings run through. My dress twisted sideways. And him - impeccable, except for his open collar and the strand of hair falling loose. Impeccable, the son of a bitch.

"Forty minutes," he said, lower now, thicker. "Forty minutes with that idiot. What did he ask you?"

God! Same thing all over again - what did he expect me to say?

"Nothing."

"What did he offer you?"

"Nothing!"

"What did you tell him?"

"I don't remember! I was bored out of my mind and I laughed just so I wouldn't tell him to go to hell! Happy now?"

He looked at me. Measured me. Weighed me. Ran his eyes over me from the tips of my feet up to my face, and stayed there.

"No," he said. "I'm not happy. Because you laughed with him. And that laugh was mine."

"Nothing is yours. Not the laugh, not the fresco, not me. Nothing. Do you understand? No-thing."

I watched something short-circuit behind his eyes. I could practically hear it. His whole body went rigid, so much that I stepped back. Not out of fear - out of survival instinct. Whatever was radiating off him was intoxicating me. And he took a step forward, and another, and another. I felt the cold, peeling wall of the storeroom against my back.

"Nothing is mine?" he asked, leaning over my face, whispering in that rough voice.

I looked away and breathed in deep. I don't know why. All that expensive cologne he wore filled my nose, my throat, my lungs. I'd spent months fighting this, fantasizing about him. My joints ached from the effort of holding themselves in place, because he'd look at me for two seconds and I'd melt like an ice cube. So many times I'd kicked myself mentally for fantasizing, for letting myself imagine it. Guys like him don't look twice at women like me. But fantasizing was free.

"Vera, look at me and say that again," he said. "Tell me you don't feel it."

I looked at him.

"Feel what?" I asked.

I felt everything. In my skin, in every muscle, in every hair on my body. Everything. I was burning from the inside out. And I resisted because I didn't want to fall for a man again. Go through all that pain again and then watch him walk away without so much as a glance over his shoulder. Alberto Vicenzo had every single sign pointing to exactly that.

"Feel what's between us, Vera," he whispered, barely audible. "What you make me feel."

God, damn it! Did he have to say it like that, in that voice? Like he was begging for a crumb just to keep from starving. With that kicked-puppy look, that surrender in his face. So handsome, so much a man.

I grabbed him by the collar of his shirt. I was the one starving. Desperate and scared because he was tearing down every defense I had like it was nothing. I wasn't thinking, wasn't processing that if I let him in, I'd end up on my knees like some fool.

"Vera," he said my name, startled. He was always the one in control, and in that moment, everything had flipped.

"Shut up."

I shoved my hand into his chest, not even bothering with the damn buttons, just working my way in. Hot skin, coarse hair, hard muscle. I dug my nails in and he let out a groan, his breath catching, and he pressed me harder against the wall.

"Is this what you wanted?" I asked him. I undid his belt. "This?"

"This."

"Since day one?"

"Since the first day I saw you."

I laughed for real, because so did I. Because from the moment I walked into that studio and saw his ten-thousand-euro shoes covered in dirt, I knew this was going to end badly.

I pulled down his zipper. He shoved my dress up around my waist. My stockings were already ruined. He tore one off my leg completely. The other hung there, a spiderweb of nylon draped over my thigh.

"You're paying for the stockings after this," I said.

"I'll pay for whatever you want."

"I don't want you to pay for anything. I want you to fuck me the way you've been looking at me for the last four months."

His expression changed. It turned serious, dark, hungry.

"Whatever you say," he said.