The Perfect Someday (A standalone novel ~ Book three in The Mathews Family) (9 page)

“But,” her voice croaked and she couldn’t
carry on. Tracy’s vision blurred, but she continued in the soft hush, “I wanna take my mask off.”

The back of Giovanni
’s knuckles coasted along the underneath of her cheek, the ball of his thumb tracing the edge of her mask. Every touch brought a new emotion to the surface of her heart, lust in the rawest of forms. All her feelings muddled together, overwhelming her with panic, dejection, and desire. She trembled from head to toe.

A small
sound of compassion seeped out of his exhale.

Dropping her forehead to his chest, she said in a taunt whisper, “I’m afraid I’m going to regret this moment if I leave.”

JC opened the car door. “You’ll regret this night forever if you don’t get in the car, Maggie.”

Tracy ignored her sister
’s headed advice. She clutched at his jacket, silently probing the easy creases near his eyes for the certainty. His hungry grey stare mimicked hers, attentively absorbing each and every question sifting through her mind.

“
Save the mask for when we see each other again,” he simmered into her hair. The virile undertone filled with promise.

JC cleared her thro
at. “Give him your number.” She instructed sardonically as if she’d done this a dozen times.

He reached into his pocket and handed Tracy his phone
. Her fingers trembled, fumbling the numbers into his cell phone. Her chest expanded with each breath coming in anxious pants. Giovanni captured her face in the palms of his hands, claiming her attention. “I will come see you. Prometto.”

Her heart soared.
Those were the reassuring words she needed to hear. I promise. She smiled wide and full, and a heated blush prickled her cheeks. She felt the strength of his fingers thread into her hair, gently gripping. Giovanni bent, grazing her lips, teasing slowly enticing her to open. A shaky gust of laughter climbed in her throat and he pulled back to flash a grin before descending.

Blindly, she dropped
the phone into his pants pocket, and curled her arms around his back. The tenseness in her bones unraveled with the penetration of each searching stroke of his tongue. Tracy clung to him, digging into the rigid muscles flanking his spine. The intensity of the kiss thickened, rising into a pleasure strung erotic act like nothing she’d experienced in her life.

S
agging against him, she let go, rejoicing in the ripe exotic flavor of his kisses. Warmth from his palm spread down the slope of her neck, the pad of his thumb turning circles over the thin skin throbbing at the base of her throat. Tracy groaned, feeling the weight of his hand descend down her chest, gripping at the ribs beneath her breast.

Giovanni
pulled back, the smile evaporating from his face. Anguish notched between his brows and shadows played against his masculine features. A flush of anticipation swept through her. His arms closed around her and Tracy melted into his powerful frame. The sweet taste of wine filled her senses, tender and consuming. He devoured the hums of her desire, possessing her with his kiss.

The sounds of JC rambling off a s
hort list of garbled remarks, full of awe and sarcasm, echoed through the evening air.

Tracy pulled back, panting, s
aturated with need and distress. She brought her hands to his wrists, clutching the thickness. He pressed a soft kiss to her lips and then another. She couldn’t force herself to let go, leaning against the comforting contours of his body.

Folding her hands in his,
Giovanni brought the pale flesh of her palms to his lips. He gave her a short nod, conceding that it was time to go and escorted her to the open door of the taxi. He kissed her one last time, dragging his mouth over her forehead, hairline and the sensitive spot behind her ear. “Buona notte, Amore Mio.”

“
Good night.” Breathless, she nipped the lobe of his ear. Tracy whispered her own promise as she kissed him goodbye, “I’m saving this mask for you.”

JC ducked
into the taxi and slid across the seat. Tracy followed.

“
Giovanni —“ She beamed up at him, “—best date ever.”

A sultry
smile tugged at the corner of his mouth as he shut the door.

The taxi pulled away from the cathedral and Tracy closed her eyes sinking into the back seat.

“What. The. Hell. Was that?” JC exclaimed.

H
appiness radiated off her in a glow of energy. She shrugged like a giddy schoolgirl. “He is amazing!” She squealed in delight grabbing her sister’s hands and wiggling her bum in the seat. 

“Thank God I don’t smoke! I would’ve burned through a pack of cigarettes just watching
the two of you.” JC flopped back in the seat, throwing her hands in the air with orgasmic magnitude. “That was like…like…fucking hot!”

A rush of heat scorched across her chest and face. Tracy held her hands out. “I’m shaking.”

“No wonder you wanted to go home with him! Have you been making out like that all night long?”

“
Hmm?” Tracy delayed, pondering how many details she should share with her sister. No. No, no. I can’t tell her that. The scent of him filled her nose as she searched for the ribbon in her hair. Tracy knew she wouldn’t wash her hair in the morning just so his memory would keep with her on the flight home. I might even wear my damn dress on the way home.

“I said, how long—“ JC narrowed
one eye raking and inquisitive glare over Tracy. “Holy shit! Did you have sex with him?”

“Shhh
.” Tracy wrinkled her nose pointing at the driver.

“
Oh calm down, he doesn’t even speak English. Did you?”

“No. We didn’t, I only, we just kissed.”

“I call bullshit! There is no way you only made out with him. You look like you just had an extreme case of Cirque du Soleil sex!”

Tracy felt as if she’d been slayed by Casanova himself. “
You saw the way he kisses. I feel like I just had sex with just my mouth.”

JC mouth dropped open with a gasp. “We call that a blowjob.”

“No, no!”

“
He went downtown?” JC screeched, her enthusiasm spiked to an all-time high. “Oh my God! Was he Cherry Garcia?”

Growing up
, the girls shared every important detail in their lives. JC was the yin to her yang. Tracy dated vicariously through her little sister.  JC categorized her boyfriends like ice cream and never had a problem divulging the delicious specifics of her dates. Vanilla was boring, Butter Pecan stood for so-so, chocolate chip mint meant the end came too quick, and Cherry Garcia ranked as a ten.

JC leaned closer for privacy, frothing at the mouth waiting for juicy details. Tracy gnawed on the inside of her cheek, contemplating. There was no way she
could admit the intimacies of her evening, not even to JC. It was going to be hard enough to look in the mirror.

“
Oh he was Cherry Garcia, all the way, but no, no downtown.” Tracy frowned and threw her head against the back of the seat. “I wanted to stay with him. I can’t even imagine how good of a lover he’s gonna be.”

“Judging
by the kiss…” JC mocked, dragging her fingers through her hair, imitating their passionate lip-lock. “He’s going to be fantastico. What does he do?”

“Huh?” She sat up tall,
recollecting their conversation. “I don’t know. We never talked about it. I think he started to mention it, but we got sidetracked talking about Greek mythology and astronomy.”

“
Seriously, mythology? You’re killing me, sis! And you talk about me! At least I would’ve asked what he did for a living.”

“I would’ve asked.”

“Umm hmm, I’m sure you would’ve. With his tongue in—”

“
I have to explain the whole name thing when he calls too.” Tracy grasped her sister’s knee. “He will call, right?”

“Oh yeah
. I’ll give him three weeks.”

“Three weeks?” She shrieked.

“To be knocking on your front door!”

The reality
of the situation started to close around her. She had so many questions, so much more she wanted to know about Giovanni. She wanted to know everything about him. Hysteria mounted with her accelerated breathing. 

JC patted her hand.
“Trust me, he’ll call.”

CHAPTER
FOUR

All of the stars fell out of the sky that night. After experiencing the most euphoric high she’d ever endured in her life, Tracy crashed into a bottomless pit of downheartedness.

Giovanni
never called.

There would be no more trust. No more passionate kisses. No more feeling anything except despondent,
heartbroken and lonely.

The long flight home from Greece and
the days that followed had been occupied with delirious smiles and long delicious daydreams of seeing Giovanni again. Tracy couldn’t add the lustful words to her audible vocabulary, but certainly managed to let them roll silently through her thoughts.

The man unlocked hidden
inhibitions. The freedom emanating from her soul allowed her to crave things she’d waved off until the perfect someday rolled around. Her imagination ran wild, making a list of places she planned to take him and things she wanted to do with him.

Priorities that kept her focused, shifted, and for the first time in her life education took a back seat
to her personal life. On the first day home she changed her class schedule, freeing up long weekends. She even went as far as dropping two classes to alleviate a little stress from her crammed calendar.

The essence of liberation brimming from her spirit had less to do with
Giovanni, and more to do with her newfound sensual awakening. He set fire to an entirely new magnitude of inner confidence.

Tracy let herself step back from personal boundaries and simply listen to her heart.
She shopped for a fine bottle of cabernet and a skimpy royal blue negligée that pushed beyond her comfort levels. She even purchased a set of new sheets, grey sateen cotton that would wrap up nicely next to his gorgeous eyes. The mere thought of having him in her bed made her blush and break out into a sweat right in the middle of the bedding section.

Tr
acy checked her phone regularly waiting to hear Giovanni’s voice. However, after days of still no phone call, regularity turned to obsession. Every time it rang, her heart spurred into frantic beats, hoping it would be him. She persistently tapped it, shook it and began waking up in the middle of the night to check it for missed calls. Her phone began to feel like a leech, sucking the life out of her.

“Hey. Would you mind calling me to make sure my cell works.”

Tracy hadn’t talked to JC since she got home. Her sister flew straight to Malibu from Greece for her first big modeling gig. Their stepdad
, Tom hooked her up with an agent and she immediately landed a multi ad contract with a top athletic corporation.

“Well, you just called me
, so it seems to be working just fine.” JC snickered sarcastically through a painful groan.

“I can call out just fine, but I’m not sure if I’m getting incoming calls.”

“Okay. I’ll call you right back.” There was a long silence followed by a guttural exhale. “Have you heard from the Italian?”

“No
t yet.” Tracy tucked the phone in between her jaw and shoulder. “What are you grunting for?”

“I’m working out
. I only have a few weeks before the shoot and apparently my trainer hates me.” She grumbled humorously at her trainer’s complaints.

Tracy smiled, impressed with her little sister
’s devotion to her new job, but couldn’t hide the melancholy in her tone. “I’m sure you’ll need to spend countless hours burning off calories. Just teasing, good luck with the shoot.”

“H
e’ll call.” Empathy cut through a small sigh, dimming her conviction a bit.

The memories of the night spent with
Giovanni hid in her soul, lurking like a dark shadow cast over her heart. His hands skimmed over her skin when she closed her eyes at night. Tracy found the dreams of his warm caress comforting at first, but hurt and humiliation always followed. Shame soon turned to anger. She was furious at herself for falling for a man she barely knew and at Giovanni for hurting her so deeply.

Pathetically, rage manipulated
its way into worry, and she wondered if something happened to him that night. Was he in an accident? Did he fall and hit his head? Is he even alive?  Tears soaked her pillowcase as she prayed nothing horrific happened to him, but five minutes later she wanted to scream. Tracy tossed and turned, flopping from one side to the other, fluffing her pillow. The more excuses she allowed her mind to conjure up, the angrier she got. Before she realized it, she pounded her fist into the pillow. Unleashing emotions on the dense material gave new meaning to the term memory foam.