The Twelve Vitali Ch. 03

Anna and Frankie looked between the two young people and wondered if there were problems in paradise. David's girlfriend complained about him being a work-a-holic and that they'd be lucky to go out for dinner and dancing on Saturday if he didn't fall asleep on the couch watching football again. She gave a long-suffering sigh which had David immediately making excuses and promising to make it up to her, much to Cat's amusement.

Ricco was relatively silent after that conversation. He had thought Cat was happy, she never complained, and they never argued about any of the plans he made for the two of them. He had just naturally taken the lead in their relationship, and she had let him. Why now was she inviting his Uncle and Aunt to dinner and accepting invitations to family dinners on their behalf without even consulting him? As the last of the night played out, he began to seethe with the total lack of regard for what he wanted where his family was concerned.

"Do you want to tell me what that was all about?" Ricco asked curtly as soon as their guests had left the small townhouse.

"Just confirming why we have to break up," she said sadly, stepping behind the couch to keep some distance between them.

"Break up?" His voice rose with incredulity. "Why would we have to break up? You don't mean that, you can't mean that!" He blew out an explosive breath and advanced on her, making her move further away, keeping the couch between them.

"I can't do this anymore," she said, straightening her shoulders and looking him in the eye before saying the words that had been stuck in the pit of her stomach all evening. "At least Ned was honest when he called me his whore. You do it oh so sweetly, but it amounts to the same thing. You don't want me anywhere near your family or friends. I'm just your dirty little secret. Good enough to fuck, but not good enough to be your girlfriend in public."

"That's not true," the fact that she would compare him to the man who had treated her so badly and raped her when she tried to get away from him hit like a punch to the solar plexus.

"Isn't it? Why didn't you tell me about Maryanne's party and how important it was to Cobi to have you there?" She asked in a deadpan voice as she crumbled on the inside.

"Because it's not that important to him!" Ricco almost shouted. "It's important to Maryanne, but Cobi would have understood!"

"The fact is that it is important to them that you are there. Your friends and family miss you because you have been hiding with me. Or, should I say, keeping me hidden from the world so no one would know you were slumming it," she shook her head. "You weren't happy to see Frankie and Anna here tonight either, even though they are friends of mine and David's and have been for years. Face it, Ricco, this, whatever it was between us, was never going to work. I didn't go to court and relive all that happened to me over my sad and sorry life just to be treated like a whore by the next guy who came along. It's over, Ricco, just go. Please," her voice started to break.

"No, you can't mean it," he said. "I'm sorry, I never meant to make you feel like that. We can go to the party this weekend, I don't care who sees us together."

"Yes, you do," she said sadly. "It's okay, I've had a few weeks to think it over since I heard you arguing with your father that day. I know you made a commitment of some sort to your brother that doesn't include being involved with me. I know you are a man of your word and would never break a commitment you made like that, and, if I am honest, I wouldn't respect you if you did."

"I don't want to leave you, not like this, not now," Ricco stared at her, horrified by what she was saying. He couldn't deny any of it, and he didn't want to lie to her. He had hoped to find another way, a way to keep his commitment and keep Cat in his life, but he knew that wasn't fair to her either.

"Please, just go. I will be fine, but you need to leave now," Cat spoke slowly, keeping an even voice and desperately trying to hold herself together.

"What about me? I won't be fine!" he said angrily that this was out of his control. He felt blindsided.

"You are Enrico Vitali, and you will be free to live the perfect life you were meant to. In time you'll look back and remember me as just a spring fling and be relieved that I had the sense to break it off now rather than later. Please, go," she said. "I can't do this anymore tonight. I want us to remember the good times, not a horrible scene at the end. Who knows, maybe one day we can be friends again, but not now; not tonight."

Ricco left reluctantly. He could see that she had every answer to every argument he could think of ready to roll off her tongue. He hated that what she had said had some truth to it. He hated himself for treating her so badly that she likened him to Ned Kelso. That fact cut him deeply, and he felt the tears roll down his face as he drove home. He'd been a bastard, but not for the reasons she assumed. He wasn't embarrassed about her or where she came from. The only thing she had right was that his commitment to his brother had made him keep her at a distance from his family, particularly Maryanne.

******

Cat lived in a grey fog for the following two weeks. She knew she had done the right thing, not only for herself but for Ricco, but it didn't stop her from hurting. He sent her flowers and constantly tried to call her, but she remained closed off, still hurting too badly to consider seeing him yet. "When I'm ready to renew our friendship, I'll call him back," she told herself, and just to be sure she didn't run into him or Maryanne, she began working from home, claiming she had a sprained ankle and wasn't able to drive. She'd received flowers with a small bear that had its leg in a cast from Ricco as the second week in her self-imposed exile concluded. When she saw it, her resolve broke, and she texted a quick thank you with a smiling emoticon.

She'd managed to paint a series of waterfalls and let herself daydream her way through each of them, wondering if she could ever live her life as a hidden mistress for him. She couldn't, she'd promised David after the trial had concluded that she would never let herself be used by another asshole again. Not that Ricco was an asshole, exactly, but... she shook her head, dispelling him from her thoughts for the hundredth time that day.

"Hey, guess what?" David said, letting himself into the garage she had turned into an art studio. "Frankie wants you to do a painting for the football club charity auction again and said he'd even sit for the portrait," he chuckled. "Something about another coach of the year award. He said he'd pay you this time."

"Sure, it's the least I could do for him, it will have to be after hours though," she grimaced. "I have a heap of work to get done for the HQ building."

"That's why I accepted an invitation for us to hang out at his place this weekend. The weather is hot, he has a pool and a big screen for the football, it'll be fun," he grinned. "Come on, you need to get out of this garage, you've barely moved since you broke up with what's his name."

"I guess I could use a break," she said, putting down her brush and smiling at David's easy dismissal of Ricco. "Is Mick coming?"

"Nah, he has to work, he might come by on Sunday though," David explained.

"Go throw your bikini in a bag, Anna is expecting us this afternoon, because," he began singing, "Friday night's a great night for football."

"Alright, give me an hour to put all of this away and pack an art kit and overnight bag," she rolled her eyes. "I assume I will be starting the portrait this weekend."

*****

"I want you to know I had nothing to do with this," Ricco said as he strolled into the room where Cat was sketching Frankie sitting in his favourite chair on Saturday afternoon.

"Seriously, Coach? Emotional blackmail from my brother, and now this?" Cat sagged in defeat. "I give up."

"It wasn't my idea, it was Anna, and if you weren't so stubborn, we wouldn't have to do this. Now talk, you two can work this out." Frankie said gruffly and walked from the room.

"I didn't know," Ricco held up his hands in a sign of surrender as she turned to look at him. "Your ankle looks healed. That's good, I was worried about you."

"I might have exaggerated the injury a little to avoid going into work," she admitted, putting away her pencils and the sketchbook she had been working on.

"I've been trying to avoid things too," he admitted. "I miss you, more than you can possibly know." He ran his hand through his hair. "I don't know what is worse, not seeing you at all or being this close and knowing you don't want me to touch you."

"That's the whole problem in a nutshell, I do want you to touch me and kiss me. But I want more, I want to know that there's a future for us if we want it. I want to know I am more than just a dirty little secret to stay hidden away from your family and friends," she sighed. "I need to know I'm not going to come between you and Cobi. Sometimes we can't have what we want, and it's hard, but life goes on," she tried to explain again.

"It's complicated," Ricco admitted. "I wish I could tell you that you are totally wrong about everything, but I can't. I never meant to make you feel like a dirty little secret, I was just protective of what we had. I didn't want anyone to influence that in the wrong way by giving you information you wouldn't understand or want to understand," he sat on a couch and raked his fingers through his hair again. "My family is... complicated."

"So tell me, you know I would never say anything to anyone. Tell me why you tried to keep how we feel... felt, about a secret?" She said, feeling angry that he seemed to be saying nothing while telling her he still wanted her.

"It's complicated," he said again, clasping his hands and resting his head on them. "If I had thought for just one minute that I could have met someone like you I never would have agreed to never get deeply involved in a relationship or marry, but I did, and now I either lose you or I lose my destiny and the respect of always honouring my commitments."

"I'll always care; you're a good man, Ricco. I just can't keep waiting for the final siren to sound and you to leave me. I can't live like that. I really hope we can be friends eventually and continue to care about each other, but I need time, you obviously need time as well. I don't hate you, Ricco, I never could, but I can't be your booty call or your mistress, or whatever the hell I was to you," she stopped short of calling herself a whore again. "I want the happily ever after," she admitted, not believing she deserved it or would ever get it, but she wanted it, and she had wanted it with him.

Ricco opened his mouth to argue but had no words. He'd come to the realisation that he had treated her like a mistress. A mistress he loved, to be sure, but a mistress he could never marry or legitimise the love he felt for. He stood up and went to her, taking her into his arms and holding her close, breathing in her scent.

"I'm so sorry, I never meant to hurt you. I swear that is the last thing I intended to do," Ricco murmured emotionally in Cat's ear. "I'll give you all the time you need, just promise you won't disappear completely from my life." The thought of losing her forever was killing him. He bent his head to kiss her, taking possession of her mouth and finding her yielding to his need.

Passion was never their problem, Cat thought, as he let her up for air and she stared into his eyes looking for something, anything to tell her to stop this before it went any further. It could never be what it once was with them both now scarred by confusion, misunderstandings and hurt feelings. Could they share a last moment of intimacy and walk away as friends, never to be lovers again? Ricco's hands slowly caressed down her body, and she knew she had no self-control left to push him away; she had missed his touch and wanted him, despite everything.

Ricco didn't so much make the conscious decision as he let the desire and need for her he felt at that moment to overtake him as he guided her down to the floor where they had been standing and kissed her deeply again. His hands slowly stroked down her body, and he felt her respond as only she could. She fit him perfectly, she always had.

Ricco's palms moved down to rest on her hips, and his thumbs dipped under the hem of her shirt, lifting it until they made contact with the bare skin of her lower back and stroking gently upwards on either side of her spine. Cat drew a deep breath and he froze. The pads of his thumbs were still lightly touching her skin. He could withdraw them; that would be the safer thing to do. Their relationship was ending, despite the feelings they had for each other. He didn't know what was going on in her head, but this could be a sweet final farewell or turn into something dangerous and wrong.

The thoughts entered his mind and then swiftly departed as the rest of his fingers found the hem of Cat's shirt and his hands slipped underneath. He never had been good at resisting temptation, and she seemed to melt under the heat of his touch and desire for her.

Her back felt slightly cool against his palms, though it could have been Ricco's hands that were hot. His fingertips grazed the sides of her stomach as he followed the curve back to her waist, and he resumed the slow, teasing circles that had made her react to him. Ricco's heart was rattling his ribcage with such force that he worried she'd be able to hear it.

He could feel her move back slightly into his hands as he traced down her shoulder blades with his thumbs and brushed his palms against her sides. Cat's large t-shirt had a wide collar, and it exposed a bit of the slightly flushed area between her neck and her shoulder. After a moment of inner debate, Ricco leaned forward and kissed her there. In what seemed like an automatic response, she tilted her head slightly to allow him access to her neck, and his hesitation evaporated.

Ricco kissed Cat's shoulder and up her neck, tasted the hollow of her throat. He slid his hands upward to cup her breasts and gave them a gentle squeeze, savouring the full curve of the soft undersides against his palms. Her nipples were already fully erect, and she pushed her breasts into his hands with a quiet moan when he took the tips between his fingers and pulled lightly. She turned and caught his lips with her own, their kisses interspersed with her soft sighs as he teased her breasts, rolling the nipples between thumb and forefinger.

When they broke the kiss they paused for a moment and looked into each other's eyes for the first time since they'd begun. Ricco's breath was ragged. He was fighting to slow down and pace himself. The floodgates that had held back the lustful need he felt for this woman had broken, and he wanted all of her at once.

"Ricco..." she said in a near-whisper.

"You want this, don't you?" he asked, his need masking his uncertainty and making the question more of a statement. One of his hands left its place at Cat's breast to run fingertips up from her knee along the soft, pale flesh of her inner thigh. Her legs immediately parted for him, but he paused when he reached the leg of her loose shorts. "You want me to touch you?" Ricco asked, pushing the fabric up slightly and tracing teasing patterns onto her heated skin. She nodded, and he meandered the last few inches into her shorts to make contact with her pussy, covered by a thin pair of panties. She pushed forward encouragingly at the touch.

Ricco was teasing her to give himself time to calm down. He knew if he let himself he'd simply tear away any obstructions and drive his cock as far as it could go into her. He held off from moving her panties aside and just rubbed her through them at first, surprised at how wet she already was, the panties sliding easily over her slick, swollen lips. Cat ground eagerly against his hand, hips jerking slightly each time he touched her clit.

His other hand came down to slip beneath her waistband a moment before Cat hooked her thumbs into it and lifted her butt off the floor enough to slide her shorts down her long legs. Her panties came down with them and she tossed both to the floor. She turned back to him, now wearing just her shirt, she realised he had taken the time to pull off his own shirt and was beginning to remove his shorts.

It was too late to turn back now, too late to deny him or herself the needful desire that had pushed to this point. Cat became the aggressor for the first time ever and pushed him down onto the floor and straddled him so that all that remained between her heated sex and his now painfully hard length were his half-lowered pants.

Cat kissed him with an intensity that he quickly matched, and then it was Ricco's turn to breathe in sharply when she brought a hand between them, dipping it into the loosened pants, grabbed his shaft and began to stroke it, roughly impeded by the thick material. If she kept that up he doubted he would last long, and he reached between her legs and resumed the teasing he had started before she took her panties off.

She moaned at the raw sensation of his fingers gliding over her bare pussy and pushed her hips back against his hand. He parted her inner lips with his middle finger and stroked up and down her slit, pausing to rub the hood over her slippery, swollen little bud and to tease her opening, which quickly had his digit coated in sticky moisture. Her movements on his cock became more erratic and she simply squeezed it with a small moan and dropped her head down to his shoulder when his finger slid effortlessly into her.

He added a second finger and curled them inside her. He could feel Cat's hot breath on his collarbone as he tormented her, her hips pushing her clit into his palm in a slow, shaky rhythm. The hand that wasn't periodically squeezing his shaft was digging her nails into his bare chest. Part of him was still trying to come to grips with what was happening, and he tried to use that to keep in check what was rapidly becoming an all-consuming need for her. Then Cat moaned his name, and he felt a rivulet of her wetness run down his arm.

Ricco reversed their places quickly and bit her neck from his new position on top of her. She sighed when he kissed his way down her throat, shivered when his lips brushed over her nipple through her shirt. When he pulled up her shirt to kiss her navel and then lick her lower stomach, Cat realised what he was going to do. She tangled her fingers in his hair with a whimper and urged his head lower. That put an end to his ability to tease her, or himself, and Ricco hurried the rest of the way down. He pressed against her entrance and gathered her wetness on his tongue as he dragged it up to her clit, rewarded by a long, almost feral moan that she struggled to stifle.

He closed his eyes and focused on the moans and whimpers she let out as she bucked against him. With a hand on either side of her hips, Ricco gave Cat's pussy the same passionate kiss he'd given her mouth, trying to keep up with the constant flow of wetness. He pushed his tongue inside her and she tilted her hips so he could lick as deep as possible. He pulled the hood of her clit back and sucked on the little button and she arched up off of the floor. Her grip on his hair tightened painfully and her breath went from panting to short gasps.

"Oh, Ricco!" Cat breathed. Ricco held her firmly, took her clit between his teeth and flicked over the tip with his tongue. Every muscle in her body tensed and she froze with her hips in the air as he pushed his tongue inside her and felt her pussy spasm around it.

She came down after what could have been a few seconds or a few minutes to either of them. She spent the time catching her breath, an effort not helped by the fact that he spent the time kissing her outer lips and tasting the insides of her thighs. Once she recovered, Cat sat up and hauled him by the grip she still had on his hair to get a taste of herself. Determined to finish what she'd started, she pushed Ricco's pants lower and felt his cock twitch when she brushed against it. He sucked air in through his teeth when she wrapped her hand around him and freed his cock when his rigid length got stuck on the waistband.