Her eyes slowly moved to mine. “No. Wrong dancer.”
“She looks right to me, ah?” She was good enough.
“Should we take her home, lover?” my wife almost purred at me, the snake inside of her pretending to be a kitten.
I nodded, and the three of us left together after the performance was over.
My wife became obsessed with the underground scene after we’d gone to the club in Paris months earlier, and when she offered herself to me—solo—if I would go with her to the one in Volterra, I made the deal with her.
I had not had my wife alone in the bedroom since the day in Monaco. Our arrangement was working, but it would be ideal to fuck my wife occasionally—only the two of us doing the fucking. That was all it would ever be between us, it seemed, but sometimes I caught the way my wife looked at me, especially after the Paris trip. With want in her eyes.
Perhaps there could be more.
Rosaria was too afraid to find out, and even if she did, her instincts were too ruthless to let something as tender as love in for long. She had once told me of having children, “I will do it, for the sake of heirs, but I am too selfish to have a being living off me rent free.”
The thought of her selfishness brought me up cold. I sat up straighter, fixing my suit, on the way to the club in Volterra—a club owned by Olivier Nemours?—
My train of thought derailed, and I stared at my wife as she stared out of the window of the car.Olivier Nemours.He was known for the sexual parties he hosted, and I was sure my wife had been to more than one of them while in Paris. Call it a fucking hunch.
Rosaria turned her face and met my eyes. “What?” It was not said tenderly, but with a snap.
I turned my eyes away from hers, or I might fucking strangle her. The strain in my fists caused them to ball and harden, and I took slow, even breaths to control the sudden anger stuck in my chest, the feel of it as hotas fire.
By the time we pulled up to the ancient building, it had cooled, only because my feelings seemed to feed off hers. She found me not worth fighting for, and I found her of the same value.
Donato and I made eye contact. All the patrons wore masks, but some of them wore cloaks reminiscent of vampires. Rosaria took it all in. Her steps seemed rushed. Her breaths came in pants. Her eyes darted around as if she might find a man or a woman she longed to see her entire life.
I took her by the arm and just looked at her.
She shrugged, answering my silent command—tell me. “We had a good time last time, did we not?”
I only performed my duty as a man, allowing the women to use my body for pleasure, and as a tax, I took some of it for my own, but there was never a connection. I felt separate from the actions. From the shallowness of it. I craved a deeper connection, which Rosaria refused to give a chance between us.
We were connected through my family and our roles in it only.
I freed her, and we walked inside side by side, my men waiting outside. The setup inside was similar to Paris, though this place was above ground and had a larger-scale party in one of the rooms. Cages hung from the ceiling, women and men inside, dressed either like a sensual bird or a woman’s toy in leather. Music pulsated and made the walls tremble.
Rosaria produced another rose, and we were led to a private room.
This show was more intimate. Only a select few patrons in masks. Most of them were dressed in the cloaks I had noticed outside. There was no seating, but when the lights dimmed and the dancer stepped out of the darkness, my breath caught.
The other dancer in Paris was good, but she had nothing on this woman.
This woman moved, and I could feel the caress of her fingertips as they slid across my overheated skin like coolsilk, even though she did not touch me. Unconsciously, I moved to the front of the crowd, knocking men out of my way as if they were not even there. I could not move my eyes away from this woman. The attraction was physical, but it felt as if her power over me went much deeper.
In a crazed part of my mind, I wondered if this woman was what Olivier Nemours sold her as—an otherworldly being. The dancer in Paris was a woman, but this being…she reached inside and caused a man such as myself to feel.
I had to know who she was.
The show lasted for about thirty minutes, and after, she was whisked away by two men in masks. I did not spare them much attention, but my wife did. She kept looking between the three retreating backs and me, as if she wanted to say something, but could not find the words. It did not matter what she felt or the words she needed to speak. I tore through the club, Rosaria a step or two behind, and demanded the doorman allow me to speak with Olivier Nemours.
“Tell him Rocco Fausti requests to speak with him,” I said.
The doorman met my eyes and then looked away, scampering like aratto find his boss. A few minutes later, Olivier Nemours appeared, a mask over his face.
“You wished to see me,SignoreFausti?”
His eyes quickly went to my wife, but I ignored it.
