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“You know,” she said, making her voice low and husky as she slipped her fingers into the two-button gap of his button-down shirt, “we can have all the privacy we want right back there.”
As her fingers played through the hair in that gap, Zaxx’s eyes fluttered and almost closed. “We can’t, G. You still have stitches. Another week, right?”
“Six days. But I feel pretty good. I can put weight on my leg. And I’m not talking about more sexcapades where we tear my bedroom apart.” She smiled and leaned in to brush her lips over his. “Not tonight, anyway.” When she dropped a hand to slip it between his thighs, he grabbed her wrist.
“You’re gonna get me killed, babe. Or kill me. Not sure which.”
Gia leaned even closer and whispered at his ear, “Maybe, but I’ll be worth it.”
His groan rose up from the depths of his belly; the rumble of it struck her hip and sent shock waves through her core.
Then he gathered her in his arms, swung his legs to the side of the chaise, and stood.
If anybody cared that Gia was leaving her own party and headed to her tiny house in the arms of her ... boyfriend? Yes. In the arms of her boyfriend, Gia didn’t bother to notice.
~oOo~
“I can walk, you know,” she said as Zaxx climbed the porch steps.
“Yes, but you’re not supposed to. Get the doors for me, please.”
She reached to open the screen door and then the main one, and Zaxx carried her over the threshold like a new bride—or a helpless invalid.
She’d thought that last thought like a reflex—no, like an obligation. Gia had expected to hate Zaxx carrying her. She should hate it; it should make her feel weak. She’d made her anemic little protest with the same performativity: because she felt she ought to. But not because she actually did hate it, not because it actually made her feel weak.
The truth? It was surprisingly awesome to be carried like this by this man—and not only the carrying, but it happening in front of her entire family. This was different from how he’d tried (and failed) to carry her to her loft for sexy calisthenics back in May. That had been cool, too, but it had been private. It had been foreplay. This was public.
This was an announcement.
Slap her ass and call her Lady Bridgerton, but Gia had discovered a romance heroine swooning in a hidden chamber of her psyche. This 'claiming’ thing was kind of rad.
She would deny it all the way to her deathbed and beyond, but yeah. It was rad.
After she closed the door again, he stood where he was. “Welcome home.”
From her perch in his arms, Gia looked around. It was the same small space she’d been ambivalent about, but slowly warming to, for almost two months. Now, as if, by carrying her over the threshold and welcoming her home, Zaxx had cast a spell, Gia saw the gift this tiny house had always been. She hadn’t been moved out of her family home. She was still home.
This was home. Her family was right there, just beyond the walls, still celebrating her birthday. She hadn’t been moved out, she’d been moved over. They’d made space for her to grow.
Turning to him, she found Zaxx watching her, his eyes fixed and serious, fathomlessly deep. Within her chest, Gia felt things shifting, moving, expanding, while her lungs seemed to contract. Without thinking about it, impelled by instinct alone, she tightened her arms around his neck and drew him as entirely close as she could get him, burying her head in his hair, pressing her face to this throat. Holding him for all she had. If she could have burrowed into him, or drawn him into her, she would have.
She had no idea what it meant, this sudden need to merge with him, but she ached all over with it. Zaxx stood strong and calm, holding her as tightly as she held him. He stood cradling her in his arms while she wound herself around him like a vine, and time seemed to fall away.
His pulse slowed against her cheek. His breaths deepened and stretched out. In her own body, Gia felt the most profound calm she’d ever known.
Outside, music began to blare again.
The moment thus intruded upon, Gia leaned back. Again, she found Zaxx’s eyes on her.
“Hey,” he said, his voice as soft as if she’d woken him from sleep.
“Hey.” She should tell him to set her down; he’d been holding her for a long while, and she was no willowy slip of a girl. But the words wouldn’t come.
Then he moved, making his way to her sectional. He sat near the corner, arranging her on his lap. He didn’t seem any more interested in separation than she was.
Freed of the burden of her weight, he slipped a hand into his kutte and pulled out a small square box, wrapped in the sparkling moiré-patterned violet paper Geoff and Iris used at Jubilee Antiques.
“Happy birthday, Gia.”
