Authors: Tina Bass
When she broke the kiss, “Translate?” she asked with that gorgeous smile that he loved so much.
He held her face in his hands, looking into her eyes. “I said I love you. I love you so much.”
“Say it again,” she pleaded.
“Ti amo,” he repeated softly.
“Ti amo?”
“Yeah, baby.”
“Ti amo, Drakon Vittore.” She kissed his lips lightly before she pulled back. “And the other part?”
“Tanto.”
“Ti amo tanto, my Dra,” she said softly, then kissed his lips lightly again, or started to but when Draco heard her call him Dra and her telling him that she loved him, in Italian, and feeling her lips touch his, something he thought he would never hear, never feel again, he grabbed the back of her head and deepened the kiss as he flipped her over on the sofa. He kissed her with everything that was him.
He broke the kiss and looked down at her. “Fuck, baby. Mi sei mancato tanto!” He couldn’t stop himself, he had to kiss her again. When he broke the kiss again, “I want you so damn bad,” he growled as he jumped up, grabbing her up with him. They were both standing, and he started tugging her toward the door. “C’mon.”
“What? Where?”
“Home.”
“But…but, we’re here and…I have a bed and everything.”
“You also have other people livin’ here.”
“Yes, but nobody’s here tonight.”
He turned, gathered her up in his arms. “Baby, you really wanna explain to a seven-year-old why his auntie Bree is naked and in bed all day?”
“All day?” she asked with the beginnings of that little wicked smile.
“Bree,” he growled. If he didn’t get her home soon, they would be explaining a helluva lot more to the seven-year-old boy.
“Let’s go, let’s go.” She tugged on his arm as she moved toward the door.
“You need anythin’?” he asked before they made it out of the apartment.
She turned back to him, stepped into him as his arms came around her and hers closed around him. “I’ve got everything I’ll ever need,” she mumbled the words into his chest.
His arms tightened around her as he growled, “Fuck, baby, I love you so damn much.”
“Can’t breathe.” He heard muffled into his chest.
He loosened his hold and looked down at her as she tilted her head back, smiling up at him. Damn, he loved that smile on her face, had missed it, and her, so much. He seized her around the waist, lifted, and just like that, her legs wrapped around him. He moved them both out the door.
He walked over to Storm’s door, knocked once, then opened it. “Storm?”
“Yeah?” Storm yelled from somewhere inside his apartment.
“Takin’ my Breezie home.”
“‘Bout damn time.” Draco heard Storm’s reply right before he closed the door and started making his way…
home,
with his Breezie wrapped tight around him.
His Breezie. All four limbs were wrapped tight around him with her head buried in his neck. “Home.” He heard her murmur.
“Yeah, baby, home.”
Then he heard something he thought he would never get to hear again. Bree giggled into his neck, and when she leaned back in his arms he saw that gorgeous smile on the face he loved so much.
“How did you know?” she asked.
“Know what?”
“That that was my favorite boy-going-after-girl-moment?”
“Storm.”
“Storm told you about that movie?”
“Yeah.”
“And you recreated that, in your own way, for me?”
“Yeah.”
She started giggling again. “That’s the sweetest, dorkiest, most incredible thing anyone’s ever done for me.”
“Dorkiest?”
“Well, you got to admit, it was so cliché it borders on dorky.”
“You sayin’ I’m dorky?”
He watched her smile grow even bigger. “Well, maybe just a little, but don’t worry, sparky, I won’t tell…too many.”
“Baby, you’re in my arms, got you wrapped tight around me. If this is what dorky gets me…” he moved his head to hers, “then fuck it. I’ll be the dorkiest son of a—”
Bree cut his words off with a kiss. If he kept talking like that, her knowing the type of man he was, but would do something that was…well, dorky just for her…“I love you,” she whispered against his lips and felt his arms around her tighten.
Only when they reached Draco’s house did he set her on her feet, looked down at her upturned face, and kissed her softly. “Wait here a second,” he whispered against her lips.
“Okay,” she breathed out, not really sure what he had just said, until he turned his back to her and walked through the door to the kitchen, then closed it behind him, leaving her standing on the back porch…alone.
What the heck
? She thought as she looked around. That was when she noticed the little table by the dryer was empty. “My flowers,” she mumbled as a tear ran down her cheek. She had left them there after she had dried them until she could get a case to keep them in and now they were gone.
He threw them away
, she thought, as another tear slid down. She hadn’t forgotten about them and was going to ask Storm to get them for her. She just hadn’t had the strength to handle the pain of seeing them again, yet. But she wanted them, just like she had told Draco, she wanted to keep them forever. Now they were gone, and it was all her fault. If she hadn’t been so cruel to Draco, accuse him of lying when really he never did. The only thing Draco ever did was keep his word, and she turned on him for it. “He really should hate me.”
“Bree?” Draco called from the doorway and when she turned back to face him, he crossed to her and grabbed her up. “Don’t,” he murmured as he held her tight.
He walked them through the kitchen with her in his arms, but when he turned to set the alarm she was able to see the kitchen and living room. “Dra.” She gasped. “What did you do?” The half wall that separated the kitchen and living room was now gone and the small kitchen table was now sitting where that wall used to be. Just taking out that one half wall made both rooms look so much bigger, or was it the fact that there was no longer a sofa sitting in the living room?
“I took out that wall, just like in your sketch,” Draco answered her as she unwrapped herself from him and when her feet hit the floor she stepped away from him and farther into the room.
“And the sofa?”
He just looked at her for a second before he shrugged his shoulders in an almost shy gesture. “You didn’t like it.”
“But I…we…why?” she stuttered. Why would he get rid of the sofa because she didn’t like it when they weren’t even together?
“Bree.”
“I treated you so bad. Said awful things to you. You should hate me.”
He crossed to her and wrapped his arms around her. “I don’t hate you.” He held her tight to him, laid his head on top of hers. “I could never hate you.” He stepped back and looked down at her face. “Baby, you were hurtin’ and scared for Storm, and I hurt you by lyin’, but I swear to you, I’ll do whatever it takes to make it up to you.” He kissed her lightly. “Anything,” he growled before he scooped her up in his arms and kissed her while he carried her up the steps.
He broke the kiss when Bree’s back touched the bed and only then did she realize they were upstairs in his bedroom. He stepped over to the nightstand and Peabo Bryson’s
If Ever You’re in My Arms Again
started playing softly as she looked around. It might have still been light outside, but with the curtains drawn tight the room was dark with the only light coming from all the lit candles that glowed from every available space. And there, sitting on the nightstand on the other side of the bed, were her flowers, just as they were the morning she woke up to them.
“Dra.” She felt breathless as she turned back to him and her eyes met his.
He sat on the bed facing her. “Breezie, baby, I’m so damn sorry I lied to you. But I promise you if you give me, give us, another chance—”
“Stop. You never lied to me. I thought about it, remembered every question I asked you, and not one time did you ever lie to me.”
“I did. I knew what you were askin’, but instead I used your words to avoid it, but it was still lyin’, and I should have—”
“Broken your word to Storm? Could you make a promise and then so easily break it? No, you couldn’t, and Storm told me you asked him over and over to tell me the truth. A truth, by the way, that wasn’t yours to tell. So can I blame you? Hold you at fault? No, Dra, I don’t. You were put in a spot you should never have had to be in, and part of that was my fault. I am so, so, very sorry for everything I said and everything I did. It’s me that should be begging you for another chance—”
She never finished what she was saying as his mouth crashed against hers. It was many moments later when Draco broke the kiss. “Breezie, from the moment I saw you, I wanted you. Wanted you in a way I’ve never wanted any other woman. I love you, baby, and I will, I swear to you, baby, if you give me the chance, I’ll spend the rest of my life provin’ to you that you can trust me. All of me.” He paused and reached out for her hand. “Make my house a home. Our home.”
She looked into his eyes, down at their joined hands, then back to his eyes. Could she hope? Could he really mean it? “You want me to…stay here in your house…like, live here? With you?”
“No, baby, not like. And not mine. Live here with me.” He raised their hands, then turned hers over. “As my wife. In
our
house.” He slid a ring on her finger. “I had a taste of what life could be with you, and this past week showed me what life is without you. I want you in my life always, and I want you, all of you, baby, in this house.”
“All of me?”
“Yeah, in every damn room of this house I wanna see you. Not a bag hidden in the back of the closet.”
“I thought if I kept my things put away that you wouldn’t—”
“I know what you thought, but I’m tellin’ you what I want with you.” He leaned in and kissed her. “Only you.”
“Dra—”
“I love you, Breezie. Marry me?”
One month later...
Bree stood at the corner of the platform, peeked around and there, sitting in the audience taking up the first couple of rows, her friends, her
family
. She scanned them all, picking out Kade and Krista, Lee and Minga, Marco and Ellie, T-Rex and Nicki, Cole, Ryder, Skylar, little Caleb standing in his chair beside Storm and there, front and center, Draco, her Dra. Her…
“Breezie Winters Vittore.” She heard her name announced.
My husband
, she thought, as she walked across the stage to the whoops, hollers, and cheers to accept her diploma. She did it! She was finally graduating. All the years of hard work. The studying, missed sleep, and days spent on nothing but preparing for this day, for this one piece of paper. And now with a Bachelor’s of Science in Business Administration in hand, she turned to face the crowd, and yes, they were all standing, clapping, and yelling her name.
My family,
she thought, as she again let her eyes take them all in and when her eyes locked with Draco’s. “Ti amo, Breezie.” She heard his shout above all the other cheers.
“I love you.” She mouthed back to him, then walked to the other end of the stage.
As she made her way back to her seat and waited for her remaining classmates to accept their diploma, her thoughts took her back to her wedding day.
Only a week after Draco had asked her, they married, because Draco didn’t want to wait. She smiled at that thought. If he’d had his way, that next day they would have been at the court house saying their ‘I dos,’ but she told him she wanted a real wedding. Nothing big and fancy; just simple, sweet, and with all their friends. And he gave that to her. He had turned his backyard into a beautiful,
wedding
. When she walked down the ‘aisle’ in between the groups of chairs, every step she took was on yellow and white daffodils petals, which matched the yellow and white daffodils she carried. She loved her bouquet, but she did throw it, well, all except one. The one right in the middle. That one she put right back in the center of her vase of flowers that Draco had given to her. That one was the one he had laid on the pillow, the one she had woken up to. The first flower anyone had ever given her. That one was her very favorite, and she wouldn’t marry the man who gave it to her without it. So she had that one added to her bouquet.
And Draco, she remembered, her Dra, stood dressed in his dress uniform because he wanted her to know that she was marrying the man, and the cop, and that all of him would honor his vows he made to her that day. That day, was the happiest day of her life, but then again, every day with Draco was a happy one. Yeah, they still argued sometimes, and she still frustrated him at times, and his alpha-male-macho-over-protective-self drove her crazy sometimes, but then there was the making up where she got to drive him crazy. She giggled as she thought of last night, when she found him in the basement working out and she proceeded to drive him crazy and oh, what he did to her. “Woo,” she breathed out a whole body shiver at that thought.
* * *
Draco stood waiting while Bree’s graduating class started to file out, going this way and that to meet up with their friends and family. Then finally, there she was, walking toward him with that big, gorgeous smile on her face. His wife. His Breezie. He was so proud of her. Just looking at her anytime, he fell in love with her all over again, but now, today, it felt as though his heart would burst from his chest.
Damn, I love that woman
, he thought, and couldn’t wait to get her out of there so he could give her, her graduation present. When she made it to him, he scooped her up in his arms. “I love you, baby, and I’m so damn proud of you,” he whispered to her just before he kissed her.
After taking what seemed like a million pictures, Bree sat in her car as Draco drove. Yes, he was driving and yes, she had to again
remind
him to ask first. Which he did, with a cocky grin and a kiss. The kind of kiss that makes a girl forget the cocky grin and the question, but she wouldn’t tell him that.
A girl’s gotta have some secrets
. She grinned at that thought.
“What are you grinnin’ about?” He reached over and placed his hand on her thigh; high up on her thigh.
She turned, looked at him, and the grin turned to a smile. “I’m happy,” she told him, because she was; happier than she’d ever been.
“Yeah?”
“Yes, very.”
“Me too, baby.” He squeezed her thigh. “Never been happier.”
“Thank you.”
“For what?”
“For being there for my graduation. I’m glad everybody was able to make it, but most importantly, I’m glad you and Storm were there for me.”
“Baby, there’s no other place I would’ve been.”
“You know you can’t just keep taking off from work because of me, though. You’re already working more nights than you are days, and I know that’s because of me, because of my job.” She turned sideways in her seat to face him. “I think it’s time I gave that up.”
“What? Bree, you can’t just quit your job.”
“I don’t mean not work at all. I just mean work during the day.”
“Thought you said you didn’t like workin’ the bar durin’ the day.”
“I didn’t say I didn’t like it, I said it didn’t pay nowhere near as much as nights did. But I wasn’t talking about working at a bar. I was talking about finding something else.”
“Something else? Bree, you love your job. Why the hell would you ever wanna give that up?”
“Because I love you more.”
“Fuck, baby, you think cuz you love me you gotta give up something else you love?”
“No, I want to.” She blew out a breath. “Dra, you can’t keep going the way you are. You’re the last one to get to work, someone is always playing catch up with you, and your captain is not all that happy with you right now. And I know that’s because you are either at the bar with me until close or still awake when I get home after my shift in the mornings. It’s not—”
“I’m quittin’ the unit,” Draco stated flatly, cutting her off.
“What?”
“I’m quittin’.”
“Why?”
“Because I love you more,” he repeated her words.
“Dra, you can’t just quit.”
“I can. Talked to the captain this mornin’.”
“But why? I thought you liked being a cop?”
“Breezie, bein’ a cop, doin’ what I do, yeah, I like it. But it was never a dream. Never something I worked for most of my life. Me becomin’ a cop, a part of the specialty units, it just happened that way. When I joined the Army it was with the purpose of helpin’ my mom and Marco. I never went in wantin’ to be an MP or a police officer when I got out. It just happened that way. It was steps that led me to where I am. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t regret not one step because, baby, those steps brought me to you. And you’re right, I can’t keep goin’ the way I am, but I’ll be damned if I’m gonna work a job that takes me away from you.”
“Dra—”
“Your dream, baby. What you do is a dream for you. You think I would ever ask, ever want you to give that up?”
“I’m a bartender, Dra. Big dang difference between a bartender and a cop, a specialty cop, with special abilities.”
He grinned at her. “You think I got special abilities?”
“You know what I mean,” she answered seriously, but she couldn’t help but think,
oh yeah, lots of special abilities
.
“Don’t matter what you are,” he stated, bringing her thoughts back on track. “What matters is your dream versus my job.” He looked back at her. “Your dreams win.”
Then they were turning into a parking lot of what she thought used to be a restaurant, or something like that, but had closed down long before she had moved to Mt. Eve. There were sheets of wood covering all the windows, and some kind of paper covering the window on the door, so the building not only looked abandoned, it also looked a little creepy. “What are you doing?” she asked as he put the car in park and turned it off.
“Stoppin’.”
“Yes, I can see that. Why?”
“Cuz,” was all he said as he got out of the car and came around to her door.
“Cuz,” she mimicked his words when he opened the door and helped her out. “Because why?” He didn’t say anything else, just tugged her toward the building.
“Cuz,” he repeated as he opened the door and gave her a little push inside.
“Surprise!” She heard shouted from all her friends that stood in a cleaned and decorated room with streamers, balloons, banners with congratulations written on them, as well as little miniature caps with the tassels hanging from them. All the booths had table cloths and on each table sat daffodils in all their colors. The counter also had table cloths all the way across and food was piled high from one end to the other.
She felt Draco’s arms come around her middle, and he pulled her back to his chest “Happy graduation, baby,” he whispered in her ear.
She stood speechless. Her friends, her family did this…all of this. For her. But here? In an old building that looked to have been closed down for years?
Before she could voice her questions, Storm was standing in front of her with a manila envelope in hand. “From me and Draco,” he said as he handed her the envelope.
She opened it, pulled out the papers and began to read them, then jerked her up to stare at them. “A deed?”
“Yeah, to this place. It doesn’t look like much right now, but Ree, me and Draco checked it out. From top to bottom and it’s a good solid building.” Storm shrugged his shoulders. “And I’ve seen too many of your sketches, know you can turn it into whatever you want.”
“But—”
“It’s yours,” Storm continued. “I know you’ve wanted to own your own bar and saved for it while workin’ your ass off. Now you got it. Free and clear so you can use what you’ve saved to make it yours.”
“But how? Why?”
“The how, well, that’s kind of funny,” Storm answered. “You know all those times you insisted on helpin’ me out cuz you thought I wasn’t workin’ or was only workin’ some shit job?” When she nodded, confused, he continued, “Since you wouldn’t take ‘no’ for an answer, all that money went into savings for you. For this.” He stepped to her, pulled her out of Draco’s arms and into his. “The why? You’re my sister and as much as I tried I couldn’t give you what you wanted, or half the time the shit you needed growin’ up, but this,” he waved one hand out, indicating the room, “this, I can.”
“Breezie.” Draco turned her and pulled her back into his arms. “You gave me my dream. You gave me you. I wanted to give your dream to you. Saw this place, talked to Storm, and now it’s yours.” He kissed her lightly.
“Live your dream, baby.”