Words of Lust (7 page)

Chapter Five

“Ready to face the music?” Nick’s teasing only marginally lessened her stress.

She’d never met a boyfriend’s or lover’s parents, much less the entire family en masse. He had unintentionally compounded the anxiety during the drive over when he regaled her with the story of Gia’s spreading the word about their date. It was, apparently, such a major event every member of his immediate family, includes his mother’s parents, were attending. All to get a look at his new lady. That’s what he’d called her, “my lady.” That had given her a nice little thrill, but the joy was quickly overwhelmed by dread.

He occupied the entire drive to his parents’ Forest Hills home with family anecdotes.

“You’re not helping, you know,” she had finally grumbled at him as he drove over the 59th Street Bridge.

“What?” His genuine puzzlement had her rolling her eyes.

“I’ve never met anyone’s parents before and you’re telling me I’m facing the entire Stellato clan in one fell swoop?”

“You’re nervous?”

“Terrified. Why is that so surprising?”

“Puh-lease, Professor. You’re brilliant, gorgeous, gainfully employed, you’re Italian and I’m assuming you have no police record. My mother will probably spend a week in church saying novenas.”

“Maybe they won’t like me.”

“Don’t be nuts. They’ll love you. Gia’s been singing your praises for a week.”

“Yes! Telling them I teach dirty books. Not exactly a desirable topic of conversation when one is meeting a man’s parents for the first time.”

He just laughed as he pulled up in front of a lovely house and cut the engine. He leaned over and kissed her. It was still new, but she had the feeling kissing him would never get old.

“You’re a charmer. They won’t even mention what you teach, I promise. I’ve never brought a woman home before. They’ll be so excited I’m here with a date they’ll be as nice and polite as can be.”

She looked at him and hoped her expression adequately conveyed her skepticism.

“Trust me. I’m only surprised there’s no red carpet.”

“Well. I suppose if I can face the tenure committee, I can face your family.”

At that moment, however, the choice was taken out of her hands as the front door swung open just as he reached for the knob.

“Niccolo!” Behind the wizened, elderly woman who was screeching for him was a horde of Stellatos.

She gulped and put on her committee smile. Cool, confident, welcoming. She hoped.

Nick was swept up into a series of hugs and embraces, but eventually extricated himself and reached out a hand to her. It was like a lifeline to a drowning woman, and his smile said he’d stand by her. She took a deep breath, grabbed his hand and walked into the noisy crowd in the foyer.

A woman who was clearly his mother swept through the milling people, wiping her hands on her apron, before grabbing him and kissing him on both cheeks. She was a bit heavy, dark-haired, with vibrant eyes and a great smile, the ghost of which she could see in Nick’s own. She looked fierce and homey at the same time.

“Finally.” Then his mother reached past him and pulled her into a hug.

“Professor Serafina Luca! The woman our Gia raves about and the one my bachelor boy has finally brought home to supper. Welcome. It must be a miracle.” One of the elderly women tsked her dismay at the sacrilege and Mrs. Stellato shushed her.

“You don’t think so? Has Niccolo ever brought a girl home to meet the family? No! What would you call this big event?”

Behind Mrs. Stellato she caught sight of a grinning Gia, and an older girl she decided had to be Cara. Farther inside were two tall, handsome men she had no trouble determining were Nick’s brothers. He was the biggest and the sexiest, but they had the unmistakable grins, dark eyes and the same thick curling blue-black hair. The Stellatos made beautiful kids.

“Professor Luca, welcome to our home. I’m Santo Stellato.” The Stellato patriarch was an older, silver-haired version of his sons—swarthy, still lean and muscular. He dropped an arm around his wife and led her into the living room, where everyone immediately fell onto chairs and sofas, all focused intently on her. Feeling rather like an exhibit at the zoo, she looked around and smiled.

“Please, I hope everyone will call me Serafina. No professor necessary.”

Then everyone started talking at once.

“Gia, come help me in the kitchen.”

“Ma!”

“Well, Cara can’t. She needs to stay off her feet. I don’t feed lazy children, so make up your mind.”

Gia sighed melodramatically, as she often did during classroom debates, and followed her mother into the kitchen, leaving Nick’s the only friendly face in the room full of eager strangers.

“So, Gia says you teach a class about dirty books?”

“Berto!” He threw a glare at his brother. She gave Nick one of her own but refused to back down.

“That’s something that’s been debated as long as there have been books. What is obscene to one mind is merely intriguing to another. There’s a story about a famous judge who once said, when asked to define obscenity, ‘I’ll know it when I see it.’ Often a book that’s been labeled obscene in the past would seem pretty tame to us now.”

“It’s just porn, though, right?”

“Absolutely not. It is literature whose subject is human sexuality. How it’s expressed depends on the author. How it’s interpreted depends on the reader. Nick’s reading Henry Miller and he’s quite graphic. But even the Bible has erotic passages, like the ‘Song of Solomon,’ which I dare anyone to claim is porn.”

“Right.” Vincenzo guffawed.

She could not resist defending her canon. “Now, see, that sort of thinking leads to censorship and book banning. In fact, if you read some of the books, I bet you’ll wonder where the dirty parts are. What’s capable of inspiring lust in one individual might be seen as peculiar or bizarre or downright boring by another. I think something is erotic when it possesses what de Mandiargues described in his preface to
Story of O
—voluptuousness.”

Berto rolled his eyes and snickered, but just then his father weighed in.

“Alberto, cut it out. You don’t embarrass company. Besides, the lady’s read all those books and knows what she’s talking about. The last thing you read only had pictures in it and they were pretty dirty themselves.”

Everyone except Alberto howled with laughter at Mr. Stellato’s put-down. She had to say she enjoyed the moment.

“So, tell us. How’s our Gia doing?” Her father’s booming voice carried into the kitchen, where his daughter let out a howl.

“She’s brilliant. I have to say she’s my best student.” She smiled at the various Stellato men, noting the brothers’ grumpy expressions and their father’s proud smile.

“Serafina’s working on her doctorate. And she’ll be taking over another professor’s classes too. The dean asked her to.” Nick trailed a hand across her arm, and the sensation, coupled with his proud tone, felt good. He pulled her a bit closer to him on the sofa, which felt even better, though she noticed everyone else noticed.

“It happens. It’s a small college and the departments are small so there isn’t much in the way of backup. It will be a fun change and I’ll meet some new students.”

A raucous Lady Gaga ringtone cut through the conversation and everyone’s eyes turned to the massive sack she identified as Gia’s purse.

She came tearing out of the kitchen, rummaged through the bag and grabbed the phone. With a look of annoyance at everyone, she hurried out of the house and stood talking in the front yard, pointedly letting them know it was a private call. Serafina could guess who it was and adopted a noncommittal expression in case Nick was watching her.

“Gia! Get back here!” The bellow of Mrs. Stellato’s voice gave her the definitive clue as to where her daughter had inherited her own vocal projection skills.

“Excuse me.” She stood and smiled at Cara and the men and then went into the kitchen. “Mrs. Stellato, Gia’s on the phone. May I help with anything?” She spotted stacks of dishes and silverware. “I can set the table for you.”

“How about you do the pasta? I’ll finish the salad and then we’ll be done.”

Blanching, she studied the huge mound of what appeared to be fresh pasta.

“Ah, that’s probably not a good idea. I don’t know how to cook pasta.”

“What?”

“I don’t cook much. I mean, I live alone, and...” She choked to a stop at the look of incredulity on the woman’s face.

“Don’t cook...at all?”

Oh boy.

“No, in fact I’m a terrible cook.”

“Ma, enough with the inquisition.”

“Nicky, she doesn’t cook!”

“Then it’s a good thing I do, isn’t it?” He kissed his mother, picked up the plates and handed them to her. “Here. Make yourself useful and don’t break anything. I’ll help with the pasta.”

She didn’t argue, but instead took advantage of the opportunity to escape and suffer her mortification in private.

To her surprise, however, the very pregnant, and obviously uncomfortable Cara waddled in and joined her in the dining room. The table was huge, and there were so many chairs it was almost impossible for the two of them to move around it at the same time, so Cara took the silverware and followed behind her as she laid down the plates and napkins.

“Don’t mind the family. The guys are animals, and Mom will get over your very obvious flaw because Nick likes you.”

“Well, what if I have more than one flaw?”

“Religion? Mom pretty much got over insisting everyone date a Catholic a while ago.”

“Great. On top of the fact I’m not Catholic and can’t cook, I don’t speak Italian. Nick seemed to think that might be the kiss of death.”

“Whoa! Three strikes!” But Cara grinned and waved her hand dismissively.

“Look, as much fun as it is to razz him, and my brother’s love life is none of my business, Mom’s right. He’s never brought any woman home before. Most of the girls he used to date were either neighborhood girls or women he met in the city, and them we never met at all. Mom and the grandmas have been waiting desperately for him to find a girl to settle down with and have babies. Old-fashioned, I know, but there it is.”

Her heart twisted a little bit, but Cara rambled on. “Mom and Dad are thrilled. Besides, they’re crazy about Gia, and if you think she’s brilliant, it can only mean you’re brilliant too.” Cara suddenly put her hand to her back and frowned.

“Here. Sit down.” She helped Cara settle into a chair. “Shouldn’t you be resting with your feet up?”

“I’m so sick of having my feet up I could scream.” The color slowly returned to her cheeks, but her face was marred by lines of pain and exhaustion.

“I get tired so easy, and with my husband Rocco on the road, thank God for Ma and Rocco’s mom and sisters. My other two little maniacs would drive me crazy if it weren’t for them.”

“It must be a nice feeling having people to take care of each other.”

Cara looked at her with intelligent eyes. Her face softened.

“Nick told us your parents are gone?”

“Yes. A while ago.”

“No brothers or sisters?”

Surprised he hadn’t provided a dossier on her, she shook her head. “Mom and Dad got married late, and I was a surprise. The only surprise.”

“Wow. Don’t take this the wrong way, but I don’t know what I’d do without my family. I mean the guys are not the most mature adults, and Gia’s a nut, but we’re all here for each other.”

Cara’s obvious pity chafed. “I got used to it. If you never have something you can’t miss it.”

“Well, good thing we’ve got a big family. You can borrow us,” Cara huffed from the chair.

“Aren’t you done with the table yet? Dinner’s ready.” Mrs. Stellato spotted Cara and hustled over. “Stupid girl.” Her affectionate clucking took the sting out, and Cara just leaned her head against her mother. “You need to rest. You know what the doctor said.”

“What does it look like I’m doing, Ma? I’m sitting in a chair, not doing the Macarena.”

“Santo, get in here and talk some sense into your daughter.”

From the living room he hollered, “Didn’t we already try that once? I don’t remember it worked so well.”

“
Ingannare!
”

“I heard that, Amelia.”

And everyone laughed uproariously.

Over the course of the next couple of hours she discovered a Stellato family meal involved constant banter, laughter, head slaps and frequent snarky comments among the siblings.

Mrs. Stellato’s dismay over her inability to cook evaporated in the face of lively discussion about her own job, Nick’s job, Cara’s children and dozens of other innocuous topics. Everyone was especially excited to hear the story of how Nick had rescued her. Then Gia piped in.

“Nick’s always coming to the rescue. Remember, Cara, when that snotty kid, what was his name—the one who always used to pull your skirt up?”

“Ronnie Gregorio.”

“Right! One day Cara was coming home from junior high and this guy gets in her face. He’s trying to flip her skirt up and Nick blindsides him. Knocked out two of his teeth and his face looked like a rotten tomato by the time Nick was done.”

“God, I’d forgotten all about that. Every time Ronnie saw me after that, he ran in the opposite direction he was so afraid of Nick.”

Everyone, including Gia, agreed he was a good man to have at your back in a fight. Strangely, hearing about his heroic physical exploits made her even hotter.

Neither brother raised the issue of the dirty books again, and she had a feeling he’d threatened them with bodily harm. Which was actually kind of sweet. The good-natured teasing about the two of them, however, continued unabated throughout the meal. He suffered the majority of the ribbing for having managed to snag such a smart woman.

“Don’t know how you did it, man. Denise? She couldn’t walk and chew gum at the same time.”

“That’s not why he dated her, moron.” Berto threw a roll at Vincenzo and the two guffawed. Their mother let them have it.

“Stop that. Since no nice woman in her right mind wants to date either one of you, I wouldn’t talk.”

“Hey, Ma, just looking out for my brother. Can’t hurt to check out The Professor’s other dudes either, right, Nick? See how you measure up? Seeing as how Serafina’s beating the competition in the Niccolo Romance Playbook.”