Birthday Wishes - The List: Book 1 (9 page)

"I like you." The words slipped out and for one brief, panicked second, I thought about taking it back. But the way
his smile grew even brighter changed my mind. He kissed my hand and it made me feel like a princess. A wanton, kinky, bruised princess.

"Stay."
He didn't so much ask as vocalize an assumption, but the hope in his eyes let me know he wanted me to.

He
led me around the bed and pulled back the covers. I climbed in and he tucked me in, then circled to the other side. Once in bed with me, he pulled me into a tight embrace and I was certain I'd never be able to sleep wrapped up so closely with another person. My ex-husband was a close sleeper and it drove me to sanity-threatening levels of insomnia. More than once I resorted to sleeping in the guest room just to avoid being smothered.

He
nuzzled my hair. "Are you okay like this?"

I took a deep breath and allowed myself to really feel his arms around me. It was safe and warm and inviting. "Yeah, I think so."

"Good." He kissed me easily and his body relaxed next to mine. The tension of the day eased from him by degrees until his breathing became deep and even, and his arms slackened around me.

The rhythmic rise and fall of
his chest lulled me. My eyes grew heavy and my last thought as I slipped to sleep was "This is nice.
"

I awoke with a start, disoriented and fuzzy from sleep. The faint sound of my mom's ring tone drifted down the hall bringing me to unpleasant, full awareness. Luca was still wrapped around me like a damn octopus and I needed out of the bed. I glanced at his alarm clock. Shit. Church was about to start and my mom was going to kill me. Probably through the phone if I could only make it there in time to answer.

I shoved
him away from me and lurched out of bed. I'd thought briefly about waking Luca with my mouth around his cock. Instead, I swore loudly and ran from the room. Not the best morning after, but hopefully he'd consider it a step above waking up alone.

My phone went to voice mail as I pushed the button and said, "Mami?" All I got in response was dial tone. I checked my call log. Four missed calls and text message from Frankie. I was officially fucked. Frankie's text message confirmed as much.

Mom's frantic. Where the fuck are you?

I called my mom's phone. If she'd entered the church, she wouldn't answer. Dammit, dammit, dammit.

"
Mariposa. Church starts in two minutes. Tell me you are parking your car right now
." My mom spoke in rapid, angry Spanish, something she rarely did outside of her home.

I took a deep breath. No answer I gave was going
to calm her at this point. Even if I ran in the door of the church--not likely since I was naked and in desperate need of a shower--she would still be pissed. Now I had to tell her that not only was I late, I was flat out truant.

"I'm
so
sorry. Luca and I were up late--"

"Luca?" Amazingly, she didn't sound ready to kill me any longer. Instead her voice had a creepy hunter-closing-in-on-prey quality. "You had a date with Luca last night?"

Christ. How did I answer that question? "Yes. . .sort of. And I overslept."

"Are you still with him?"

Oh, sweet baby Jesus. I was thirty years old and I still felt guilty when my mom asked if I spent the night with a man. At what point would I be able to have sex without the worrying that my mom would damn me to hell if she found out?

"Yes, Mami."

"Good. Bring him for Sunday dinner." And with that demand, my mom disconnected the call.

"Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit."

"Everything okay?" He stepped into the living room. He scratched his chest in that sexy-just-woke-up man way, then smiled like he knew of a few ways to make me okay if I wasn't. And just like that I forgot all about my abrupt wake-up call from my mom.

I dropped my phone into my purse and met Luca in the middle. I smoothed my palms over his chest and kissed his nipple.
He wore those fabulous, low-slung sweat pants that completely defied gravity by staying on his hips

"Everything is fine."

He smiled and snugged his arms around me. "Good. I was afraid you had to go."

I really,
really
should have left, but his arms felt
so
good, and he was already semi-hard, his cock pressed against my belly. My mom was already mad, my showing up late to church wouldn't make her any happier. Bringing Luca to dinner later would apparently calm her down, but that wasn't going to happen. She could make demands all day long, that didn't instantly launch me into the land of happily coupled-up. I might as well stay and enjoy Luca.

"Nope, I'm all yours."

"Good." He released me and his smile shifted from sleepy-happy to shy little boy. "I want to fix you breakfast."

"Really?" Most men, as soon as they find out I cooked for a living, refused to go anywhere near the kitchen. They were afraid to be judged or something.

"Really. French toast?"

He
led me to the kitchen. Our joined hands swung gently between us and it felt simple and good. God, the last time I felt like that just holding hands with a guy was high school. He guided me to a tall stool next to the breakfast bar that separated the kitchen from the dining room. He lifted me onto the chair. It was one of the singularly most sexy things Luca has done since we met. Did I
need
him to lift me? No, of course not. Did it make me unreasonably wet that he could? Hell, yes.

"
Wait here." He kissed my nose and ran down the hall toward his bedroom. A moment later he returned with a crisp white dress shirt. He slipped it over my shoulders and worked the buttons together one by one. His fingers were nimble and quick and he only detoured at my breasts for a brief moment. Not nearly long enough.

"I have clothes of my own, you know." I traced my fingers over
his chest. As long as he was my self-appointed dresser, my fingers were free to roam at will.

"I know. But I wanted to see you in this."
He grasped both my hands in his and held them away from his body, then he kissed my nose again. "No more of that. I have work to do and you are distracting me."

He
grabbed eggs and milk from his fridge and set them next to the stove, then took a pan down from the hanging rack on the wall. He set it on the burner, added oil, then cracked the eggs into a bowl. He moved with smooth fluid motions, without pause for thought. He was comfortable in his kitchen and that was almost as sexy as his lifting me onto the chair.

"Who taught you to cook?" My mom taught me the basics, and culinary school added the fancy bow on top. But my mom didn't teach my brother to cook. He was busy learning man things. Now that he's twenty-eight and unable to feed himself, I think she might regret that decision. He still shows up at her house to eat five nights out of seven.

He winked. "Like what you see?" He added milk, sugar, vanilla, and a pinch of salt to the egg mixture.

"Absolutely." I'll admit it, my voice was a tad too lecherous for a nice girl, but I was sure
he’d caught on that I'm not really all that nice. "But you didn't answer my question."

"Mi abuela."
He focused on the eggs, his tone no longer flirty.

This was the first time Luca had come even remotely close to using Spanish with me, but the way he said it made me think there was simply no other way to think of her. My grandmother still lived in Mexico. I'd met her twice and the only thing I'd ever gotten from her was a lecture about my poor Spanish.

"Yeah? She did a good job."

"She was a special woman. You would have liked her."
He grabbed a loaf of bread and smiled at me before removing a healthy stack and setting it next to the eggs.

"What else did she teach you?" I recognized the warning signs that we were rapidly approaching the point of no return on a serious conversation, but this was the first indication that
he had given about his family. Prior to this, my best guess would have been that he was delivered from Ixchel, the Mayan goddess of pregnant women. She ushered new life to the world and he certainly looked like the descendant of gods.

"Plenty."
He stopped prepping food and joined me at the breakfast bar. He stood on the opposite side and leaned down on his elbows. "She raised me. I miss her a lot."

Oh, this just got very serious.

"I'm sorry." I leaned over and kissed him gently. I didn't know how else to comfort him, or even if he wanted it, but couldn't do nothing. "You want to tell me about her?"

He
went back to cooking. "Can we save that for another time?"

I nodded. "Sure." Thank God. It was already far too serious. I didn't really want to delve any deeper but hadn't seen a graceful way out of it.
He was a better navigator of tricky social small talk. A benefit of being an actuary? Or just part of the overall Luca package?

He
relaxed. I hadn't realized how tense the conversation was making him until I watched the stress drain from his face and shoulders.

While the French toast cooked,
he sliced fresh strawberries. He was a lot slower that I was with a knife and unsuspecting fruit, but he held his own. In fact, he probably could have given Rachel a run for her money.

He
glanced over and caught me smiling.

"What?" He tossed a strawberry at me. I caught it and ate it.

"You're pretty good." I nodded toward the cutting board.

"As good as you?"

I laughed. Perhaps not the most polite response, but who was he kidding? "Not even close."

"No?" Luca flipped the toast. "Why don't you show me?"

"Because you're done." He'd thrown the last whole strawberry at me. "Besides, I'm enjoying myself. This is the first time a man has cooked for me."

"Yeah?"
He blushed.

"Yeah." I blushed right back.

"Good." He stared at me dumbly with a small smile on his face. It was very sweet and completely ill-timed. French toast couldn't sit on a hot burner forever.

"You're burning."

"Huh?"

I pointed at the stove. He wasn't past the point of no return just yet. If he moved quickly, he could save breakfast. It took everything in me to remain seated.

"Oh! Shit." He spun back to the stove and lifted the pan from the burner. He grabbed a plate at the same time and slid the French toast onto it. He topped it with whipped cream and strawberries, turned off the stove, grabbed a fork, and joined me at the breakfast bar again.

"Nice save."

"Thank you." He gave a formal, short bow and laughed.

With food directly in front of me, I was instantly starved. Thank goodness I didn't normally react like that or I'd weigh four thousand pounds. I reached for the fork and
he slapped my hand away.

"I got this." He cut off a bite and offered it to me.

I raised my eyebrow. Was he serious? This was breakfast, not foreplay. I could totally feed myself.

"Are you going to let me do this or do I need to tie your hands behind your back again?"
He used that sexy in charge voice and I melted.

Apparently
, I was wrong. This was totally foreplay. I clasped my hands together behind my back and opened my mouth.

"Good."
He slipped the fork between my lips, his eyes darkened as he watched me lick the whipped cream from the fork.

He fed me the entire serving, watching closely as I took the food into my mouth. I ran my tongue over my lips, over the fork, over every single thing I could think of. I really wanted to run it over his lips, but he was clearly in charge and lunging at him was not allowed. I wasn't in the mood for punishment. It didn't feel like a good match with sexy morning time. It was on my list of things for dark and seedy, not bright and cheery.

When I finished, he rewarded me with a hungry, needy kiss and I whimpered. He could make me breakfast every day of the week if he kissed me like that at the end.

"Such a good girl."
He encircled me and gripped my hands where they were still clasped together. He held them both in one of his hands and squeezed gently, the same way he had the night before and my cunt was on instant alert, hot, throbbing, and ready for Luca. It didn't matter that all my girl parts were totally battered and aching, I longed to be filled by him again. Right here, right now.

"Luca, please." I moaned into his open mouth, then sucked his tongue deeper.

He ripped his lips away and I was lost. I wanted his mouth on me.

"I want you on your knees."
His hands gripped my shoulders, his fingers digging in and pushing me down before I even realized I'd left the stool.

"Yes." I struggled for balance with my hands behind my back, but kept them there to please
him. He liked them there and the way he rewarded me made it worth the effort.