I go with an answer that barely scratches the surface. “We kissed.”
There’s a pause before he leans in slightly, allowing some of his weight to rest against me rather than on his injured leg. We’re pressed thigh to thigh. He’s looking down at me and there’s hesitancy in his eyes, yes, but there’s something else there, too. Hunger.
The air between us grows thick with quiet tension. I tilt my chin. He’s so tall; his body blocks out everything around us. It’s the same sensation I had that day: The only thing in the world I want is him. He swallows again, and I watch the way his Adam’s apple moves in his throat. I can see the blond tips of his dark eyelashes, his faint stubble, the shape of his mouth, lower lip heavier than the top.
I miss that new, infatuated version of us so much it’s like a hollow pit in my chest.
He leans forward. “Okay?”
Nodding, I feel the warmth of his breath just a moment before the heat of his lips. They’re so soft, and taste of the ocean, warm from the sun and salty from the wind. We fit so perfectly, our mouths lush, partially open, meeting in flawless symmetry. He makes a low, surprised sound, almost a moan, but pulls back before it deepens, and rests his forehead against mine.
“Fuck,” he whispers. A starving man standing before a closed buffet. Dying of thirst with only the ocean in front of me, I’m ravenous for him.
Sending my hand up his chest and around his neck, I pull him back to me, wondering if I’ll have to coax him, but I don’t. He bendswillingly, setting his mouth on mine, and again we come together with perfect, hungry precision.
Instinct. It’s inside him, inside me, the way our mouths move in unison, pulling, sucking, tasting. A sweep of his tongue over mine makes me moan, tripping something inside him that sends his hands sliding up my arms, up my neck, his hands coming to my face, his teeth grazing my bottom lip. Luca’s elbows tuck in tight to his sides, like he’s holding back so much need while cupping my face so gently, and I slide my hands down his shoulders, wrapping my hands around his biceps, digging my fingers into the muscle there.
I need you, I think.I am obsessed with you. I adore you.
With a soft grunt, he pulls away, his breath a warm puff of air, rhythmically gusting against my mouth. Like this, we rest our heads together, catching our breath.
“Holy shit,” he whispers.
“I know.”
I want to take him home, carefully lay him down, climb over him. I want to feel the stretch of him inside me, the weight of his hands on my body, the rumbling sounds of his pleasure.
Straightening, Luca looks down at me and runs his thumb over my chin. “I tell you one thing,” he says, voice raspy. “I might not remember it, but I know in my bones I’ve done that before.”
25LUCA
Back home in the driveway, Emery hits the garage remote, and the door rolls open to reveal an empty space where I know my work truck used to be.
I realize there’s nothing I can do with it for now, but its absence makes me feel weirdly hollow. “Where’s my truck?”
“Oh, shit, sorry.” She puts her hand on my arm. “I had Crash come get it earlier. You can’t use it for now, and I’d rather have the car in the garage while you’re home recuperating so that Betty next door can’t track my every move.”
“Why doesn’t she like you?”
“For starters, we’ve already established that I work a lot. I don’t think she approves.” She frowns as she carefully steers her car into the tight space. “I’m not very domestic or particularly talented in the ways a woman her age probably thinks a wife should be. She loves you and thinks you deserve better. There’s also my job. Most people just take things at face value, but I always got the sense that she never bought the story. I’m probably being paranoid, but I can’t shake this sense that she’s hovering over us.”
“I’m sure you’re overthinking it.” Carefully, I climb out once she’s put the car in park. My leg is sore from all the walking, and it takes me longer to stand than I’d like.
“She came over the other day,” Em says, walking around the car to the house. “She wanted to talk to you, and I said you weren’t feeling well. You talk to her almost every day; she’d know immediately that something’s off.”
Honey barks excitedly when she hears the door open, and I follow Emery into the house through the garage door, watching her routine of dropping her keys in the ceramic bowl, kicking off her shoes, washing her hands before grabbing a glass from the cabinet and filling it with water. She lifts it to her lips, drinking deeply. Her throat is long and smooth, and the urge rises up inside me to move closer and press my mouth there.
“Won’t she think that’s weird?” I say. “If she goes from talking to me every day to never seeing me?”
Emery walks to the living room, letting Honey out of her crate. Honey bounds excitedly forward, straight to me, where she presses her head into my palm for attention. Careful of my leg, I crouch down, pressing my face to her fur. “Hey, baby.”
Sending her hand down Honey’s back, Emery says, “Honey-girl, do you need to go potty?”
Honey is very on board with this plan and races to the back door. We follow, letting her out and watching her noodle around the lawn.
“There’s more,” Emery says, leaning against the doorway. “I’m almost positive she saw me the night of your accident. She’s older, and I have to imagine her eyesight isn’t what it used to be, but I think she saw me inject you with the compound—” To illustrate, she lifts her arm and brings it down hard enough to get through a sternum. Holy shit. It really would look like I was being stabbed. “Then I put you in my car and drove away, and she hasn’t seen you since.”
“Fuck.”
