He gripped her thigh, high up, where he could circle his fingertip delicately around the top of her sensitive slit. “No! Really?”
“I didn’t mean just sex,” she said tartly. “Believe it or not.”
“Guess I’m not trying hard enough,” he remarked.
She batted his hand away. “Shhh. What I mean is, you finally have a chance to put it right. To straighten out the great painful dilemmas of your existence. When do people ever get to do that? Never, Bruno. Most of us just have to suck it up. Whatever our baggage is.”
Suck it up. Yeah, that’s what he’d done, for eighteen years. “Aside from the question of whether we survive this great opportunity, what the hell’s with you? You working on that glass-half-full attitude again?”
She slid off the bed and to her knees, facing him. “You bet I am,” she said throatily. “And I am going to help you do the same thing.”
His blood thundered, looking into those lovely eyes, at those hot, soft lips. “Oh, yeah? And how ae you going to do that?”
“Like this.” She leaned forward and sucked his cock into her mouth.
She’d meant for it to be playful, to lighten the mood, make him laugh. But her sensual assault had the opposite effect.
He dragged in a ragged gulp of air and arched over her, clenching handfuls of the sheet. He shook, his body as taut as a mass of high-tension cables. She caressed him, voluptuous twisting strokes and swirls with her hands and tongue, but his quivering tension worried her.
She looked up. “Hey, Bruno,” she urged. “Relax. Breathe.”
He cupped her face and kissed her. Sweet, desperate kisses, so tender and pleading, they undid her utterly. Any plan she might have had of cajoling him into a better head space fell apart. He was seething with raw feeling. No games, no tricks. Just two naked souls, trying to knot themselves together for all eternity.
It made her heart flower, hot and helplessly yearning. Expanding into something bigger, wider, someone who could maybe take in the world and accept it. Love it, even. Good and bad.
He spread her out, and she stretched and arched for him in total trust. His weight pinned her down against the cool linen, the boundaries of her universe exquisitely defined by his body. His mouth moving over hers, drinking her in.
He poised himself over her, tongue thrusting and twining with hers while he stroked the bulb of his penis between her pussy lips. Up and down, dipping tenderly into the well of lube, and then up, over. More moist, sliding, licking strokes, teasing and swirling himself juicily around her clit. She shuddered and jerked, raising her hips. Silently begging for him to thrust inside and be done with it.
He lifted his head, letting her gasp in some badly needed air. His face was shrouded in shadows, but she felt the raw hunger, barely controlled. It made her heart swell until it hurt. She arched, pushed, forcing his cock inside, crying out with delight at the slow invasion.
They gasped, sighed, with each slow drag out and plunge back in.
She rocked and heaved to get him deeper. She felt flushed and throbbing inside, clenching and moaning as he stirred her around with his thick, hot club. Every squeeze pumped pleasure through her body.
It didn’t matter who was on top, who beneath, who gave, who took. They each gave and took everything, with frantic tenderness. The storm took them, tossed them, like leaves and twigs in wild water.
It washed them up finally, limp and helpless on the other side.
Lily was lying on top of him when she floated back. Sweat cooled on her back, but she was warmed by the scorching heat of his body, the thick presence of his cock, still wedged deep inside her. His heartbeat throbbed, slow and heavy against her womb. Against her heart, too. She rose and fell with the rhythm of his breath.
Only when the chilled sweat made her start to shiver did she lift herself carefully off, sliding his half-hard penis out of her body.
And found herself awash with come.
Hello.
She sucked in air. Reality slammed back. She flopped onto her side next to him, trying to breathe. The bedside table had been stocked with condoms. Tam had told them, pointedly.
And they’d just jumped off that cliff without a thought. Again.
Her brain was fried with sex hormones. By now, they were spoiled rotten for skin on skin, hot and wet and intimate. And once a barrier was breached, it was so hard to go back and reestablish it.
God knows, if she ever wanted to conceive a baby, he was the man she wanted to father it. They belonged together. If Fate would just stop smashing at them with a sledgehammer, they’d be fine. They could make it work. That scenario had never been even remotely imaginable to her before. But with Bruno, it was. It really was.
She’d do anything to make that a reality. She would try so hard.
But that didn’t make the timing any less horrific, considering recent events. Or she herself any less irresponsible and stupid.
She snagged the duvet with her toe, yanked it up to cover them both. Entertained a vague notion of going downstairs to wash, but her legs were so limp. She’d probably tumble down that staircase and break her neck. Her body pulsed, glowed. The sore parts that she’d hurt in the last couple of days were tender, but the glow was stronger.
She leaned close to him, just staring. He was so beautiful, it just blew her mind. The sweeping design of dark eyebrows, those smile crinkles at the corners of his eyes, the noble shape of his nose. His chiseled cheekbones and jaw, that sexy beard shadow. Those sensual lips. Her eyes were famished for him, no matter how long she gazed.
He was fast asleep, but what the hell. She said it, right out loud. “I love you, too.”
He didn’t move. The words didn’t technically count if they didn’t reach their target, so she’d say it to his face in the morning. She’d say it, and say it, and say it. She’d shout it and sing it. It made her feel stronger. Like, maybe she could beat this crazy thing and come out the other side. Into something more real and beautiful and special than she’d ever dreamed of. It was possible. Anything felt possible.
She started to giggle, and then silently sob, huddled under the duvet, tears soaking into the sheets. Wow. Look at her, morphing into a weeping optimist. The power of sex hormones was miraculous.
And love, of course. And love.
21
T
he little kid was making him nervous.
Bruno fidgeted a
t the breakfast table, hiding behind his coffee mug. Six-year-old Rachel, Tam and Val’s little girl, eyed him intently. She was a pretty thing, thin and wiry, her pointy face dominated by huge, heavily lashed eyes, a rosebud mouth, and a tangle of gleaming dark ringlets. She wore pink-framed glasses and slurped pink-tinted milk out of her cereal bowl. She studied Bruno as if he were some fascinating swamp creature that she wanted to catalog and dissect.
The kitchen was a crowded, noisy place, packed with hungry people. Davy sat beside him, chowing down on steak, eggs, and bagels. Getting Davy to talk was like prying rusted nails out of a board, which made him the perfect breakfast companion for Bruno that morning. Zia Rosa was in hog heaven, gleefully presiding over sizzling frying pans as she tossed out short orders right and left.
Bruno sat sullenly in the midst of that loud, banging, clinking, laughing swirl of activity. All he could think about was what a cowardly thing it was to sneak out of bed while Lily was still asleep, but he didn’t know if he’d dreamed what he’d heard her say the night before.
I love you, too.
It might have been real. It really might, and in that case, he could justo ahead and let his head explode. But if it were not, he’d have to open a wormhole and tunnel into a parallel universe in which he had never been born. He was also jazzed by the strange fact that he hadn’t had one of his fight dreams last night. First time in months.
“. . . me that cereal?”
He wrenched his attention to Rachel, who was yelling in a way that suggested it was not the first time she’d spoken. “Huh?”
“The cereal,” Rachel said impatiently. “Pass me the cereal box!”
Bruno looked where she was pointing on the shelf. Looked back, at the open cereal box in front of Rachel’s bowl, some of which was still floating in the pink milk. It was the same exact type of cereal.
He leaned across the table, hefted the box, rattling its contents. It was almost completely full. “Use the open box. There’s plenty in there.”
The little girl gave him a calculating look and glanced furtively to the right and left. “I want the prize,” she confided. She pointed to the undersea scene pictured on the box, which sported cartoon fish and a treasure chest dripping with jewels, festooned with ropes of pearls. “I already have the ring and two of the bracelets. But I don’t have the necklace yet. Maybe there’s one in that box.” She paused, made an impatient but still furtive gesture. “Well? Get it!”
Bruno glanced around the kitchen for her parents. Not there. He was probably committing a huge faux pas, but hell. One look at the kid, and a guy knew he didn’t want to get on her bad side.
He snagged the cereal box and passed it to Rachel, who tore into it with feral eagerness. The inner bag got torn, cereal flew right and left, scattering over the table and floor as she dug for her prize. Yikes.
He was relieved when she unearthed the plastic bag with a shriek of delight. It was a heart-shaped locket, painted plastic, studded with big fake jewels. Then the energy in the room changed. The sound level dropped. Everyone took a simultaneous breath in their conversation. The fine hairs prickled up on the back of Bruno’s neck. Heat raced under his skin as he turned to look. God. He was
blushing,
for God’s sake.
Lily was framed in the door, offering shy smiles and nods. She glanced at him. He couldn’t breathe. Her hair was damp, spiraling in lush corkscrewing waves. Her lips were soft, luscious. She had color.
A shriek of chair legs scraping, and Davy McCloud wiped his mouth, shoved a last chunk of bagel into his mouth, and piled up his plate, glass, cup, and silverware. He vacated his place, gesturing with his chin for Lily to take his chair and sit next to Bruno.
She smiled her thanks and slid into the chair, looking at everything except for him. Zia Rosa headed over with a cup of coffee and set it before her, having already administered sugar and cream for Lily according to her own personal and inflexible criteria.
“You eat a big breakfast, honey,” she announced. “Watcha want, omelet, pancakes, French toast? Over easy, scrambled, ham, bacon?”
Lily looked bewildered. “Ah, whatever’s around is fine. A piece of toast, if there is some. I can do it myself. Please don’t worry about it.”
Zia snorted. “Girls these days! What are you gonna make babies out of if you don’t eat? What are they s’posed to be built out of, air?”
Lily choked on her coffee.
“Zia, you start in on her, and I’m wrapping duct tape around your head,” he warned her, but the damage was done.
“You shut up, boy. I wasn’t talkin’ to you.” Zia barreled back to the stove to dish Lily up, a woman on a mission.
“Sorry about that,” he muttered. “Should have warned you. She’s got this thing about grandkids. Huge pain in the ass.”
Lily started to reply, but Zia Rosa came marching back, bearing a platter of food that made their eyes widen in awe. A huge omelet was splayed over the plate, stuffed with cheese, vegetables, and sliced ham. A mountainous heap of fried potatoes teetered over it. Three pieces of toast. She laid it down, crossed her arms over her bosom, dark eyes narrowed. Daring them to defy her.
“Mangia,”
she said, her voice steely.
Lily looked intimidated. “You’ll help, right?” she asked him.
“Sure.” Looking at her at that close, intimate range, smelling her shampoo, it made his body stir. Gave a man an appetite.
There was a commotion outside the kitchen, and voices outside, one of which made his heart jump.
Kev.
Bruno’s chair shot back. He leaped up as his adopted brother strode into the room.
Kev’s dull green canvas raincoat billowed around his knees. His dirty blond hair had grown out past his shoulders, loose and tousled. He looked grim and as tired as a guy ought to look after flying from New Zealand, but even so, he looked better than Bruno had ever seen him.
Months of traveling the world with Edie, his bride-to-be, had agreed with him. He was filled out, had color. He looked a lot more like Sean now, his biological identical twin, than he ever had before. Except for the scars that seamed half of his face from cheekbone to jaw.
Edie was making the rounds of hugs, but Kev cut through the crowd. He made his way to Bruno, grabbed the front of his sweatshirt, and jerked Bruno up until their faces were inches apart. “What the fuck is going on?” His voice suddenly silenced all other conversation.
“Uh . . . long story,” Bruno said.
Thud.
Kev shoved him against the wall, which made the various bruises on Bruno’s ribs hurt like hell. “I hear you met some femme fatale and started slaughtering people for her? Dead bodies on the streets? Posses of commandos coming to blow your ass up? Over some chick you just met?” The words hissed out like water from a fire hose.
Bruno was taken aback. “Ah . . . ah, not exactly.”
“Let go of him!” Lily chopped at his adopted brother’s huge, unyielding fist, which pressed painfully against Bruno’s Adam’s apple.
Kev’s fierce stare swung to Lily, taking in her furious face and fiery eyes. “This is the femme fatale?”
“Femme fatale, my ass!” she snapped. “Put him down, you jerk!”
Kev let go. Bruno ducked out of arm’s reach, rubbing his larynx.
But Kev didn’t attack again. “And then you don’t call,” he said, more quietly. “What in the fuck is that about? Why didn’t you call?”
Bruno glanced around. Everyone was listening for his excuse.
“Uh. Didn’t want to worry you,” he mumbled.
A harsh sound came out of Kev. “And when you got my text? Did you figure I’d just let it go, stop being worried? Aw, shucks, he didn’t answer me, so I guess everything must be fine. Let’s just go back to the beach. Is that what you thought?”
Bruno swallowed. “I wasn’t really thinking,” he admted, shamefaced. “I was, ah . . . I was—”
“Too busy getting jerked around by your dick?” Kev suggested.
Lily shot up a few inches taller. “You asshole!”
“Kev!” A shocked female voice from behind made Kev jerk and glance over his shoulder. His lady, Edie, was staring at him, appalled.
Kev looked sheepish. Edie, a tall and willowy brunette with shadowy gray eyes and long dark hair, gaped at Kev as if she didn’t recognize him. Everyone in the room stared. As if Kev had sprouted an extra head.
Kev flung his hands out and glared back. “What? Can’t I get upset? Everybody else around here freaks out. Why not me?”
Bruno rubbed his aching neck. “He’s not usually like this,” he explained to Lily under his breath. “He’s usually, you know, Mr. Zen. Supercalm. I’m the hyper one.”
“So let me take a goddamn turn,” Kev snarled.
Con spoke up from his perch at the end of the long bar. “Glad to see you still have it in you, bro.”
Kev turned to his brother. “What the fuck does that mean?”
Connor took a meditative sip of his coffee. “A little emotion,” he said, finally. “It’s a good thing. Haven’t seen a whole lot of that out of you. Like Bruno says. You’re always . . . supercalm.”
“And that’s a problem?” Kev demanded.
“No way,” Sean piped up, his voice as flat as Connor’s. “No problem. Just a random observation.”
Kev stared wildly from one brother to another. “What the fuck? What is this? What do you guys want from me?”
“Niente. Non è niente
.” Zia Rosa bustled into the middle of the room and barreled into Kev’s big body. She gave him a bear hug.
He hugged her back, fiercely. “
Ciao,
Zia.”
“You two are just tired, that’s all,” Zia Rosa said. “And hungry. Sit down.” She shooed them over to the far end of the long table, as far from Lily and Bruno as possible. “I got food, lotsa food. Ah, honey, lemme take a look at you.” She grabbed Edie’s chin, pinched her cheek. “You’re fatter,” she said approvingly. She stared into Edie’s eyes, clucking her tongue. “You got that look, honey. The eyes, with those dark shadows? Eh? You losin’ your breakfast?”
Edie shook her head, smiling. “No, Zia. I was just on a series of airplanes for the last thirty-six hours,” she said. “My stomach’s fine.”
“Hmmph. We’ll just see.” Zia Rosa bustled off to procure food, clearly eager to test that hypothesis personally.
Bruno shepherded Lily back to her seat and sat her down, snagging a piece of toast to gnaw on, just to have something to do with his hands. Kev shot him a telling look from his end of the table. A look that said,
I’m not through with you yet.
Lily took a bite of her omelet, staring as Zia Rosa built two plates up to staggering proportions.
“So, the baby thing,” she said. “It’s just her schtick.”
“One-trick pony,” Bruno said. “Never fails.”
She gave him a look that made his heart skip and hiccup. “She gets a spectacular reaction when she teases you. Who could resist?”
Bruno decided to shrug that off. “She’s hell on wheels.”
Her hand seized his. “It’s just a Ranieri thing,” said. “That hell-on-wheels thing. Must be genetic.”
They stared at each other. The energy between them felt like physical pressure. Lily tore her gaze away. “Your brother’s no joke, either,” she commented, her voice sharpening. “Wow, what a charmer.”
“I swear to God, he’s never like that,” Bruno protested. “He must have taken up smoking crank. He’s always been so mellow.”
“Would you fix my locket?” A small hand grabbed his sleeve and tugged, and he looked down into Rachel’s beseeching eyes. “It broke!”
Bruno turned his attention to Rachel’s dilemma. It was simple to fit the two pieces of plastic back together and apply pressure until the joint hinge popped back into place. “Good as new.” He handed it to her.
She draped the chain around her neck and turned, holding up the clasps. “Would you close it for me?” she asked, conscious of the honor she was doing him.
Bruno fitted the clasp together and got a blinding smile for his trouble. Rachel was beautiful, yet he had a heavy feeling in his gut. Something about the necklace, her slender neck . . . he couldn’t put his finger on the feeling and wasn’t sure if he wanted to. It wasn’t good.
An old memory, heaving up out of the deeps. The bulk of it still hanging below the surface, like one of those deadly icebergs that brought down the
Titanic.
Aw, fuck it. He’d have the bellyache anyway, might as well dredge up the memory that went with it. At least then he’d have a scrap of data, not just nausea. Sort of. Memory was so damn malleable and tricky. It couldn’t be trusted.
He sank into himself and followed the feeling back to its source. The pendant, the clasp, Rachel’s neck. That day that Mamma gave him her necklace. There, that was it. That was the source of the ache.