Page 35 of Harbor

“Ren?” Lucia asked as she came up to the door. She kept her tone quiet, still not wanting to wake Diego up. Listening for a response, she heard nothing coming from inside the bathroom. The next time she spoke, she knocked softly at the same time. “Ren, you in there?”

That time, she did hear a shuffling and a rustle of fabric behind the bathroom door. She still wasn’t worried—not really. Of all the things Lucia had come to learn about Renzo, the fact that he was not like her in a lot of ways was the most prominent. She was a talker. No matter what. If something happened that upset her, she did not withdraw into her head and deal with shit silently. She needed to talk it out to figure it out.

Renzo was different.

Silent.

Stewing.

Private.

That was how he dealt with everything. Maybe it was because his life had taught him that no one cared to hear about his problems or feelings, and he was simply better off dealing with them quietly and alone. That way, he wasn’t going to be reminded time and time again that no, he wasn’t that important to the rest of the world. He wasn’t even a blip on their radar.

And that was fine, too. Perfectly fine if that’s what he needed. At the same time, Lucia still needed Renzo to know that he didn’t need to do any of that at all when it came to her. He could talk with her, and she wasn’t ever going to dismiss him or the things he was feeling. Ever.

That’s not what people did when they loved someone else.

“Ren?”

One more soft call of his name accompanied by a gentle knock.

Finally, he answered.

“Yeah?”

His gruff reply made Lucia smile. She recognized that tone—not that he was irritated or feeling way about being interrupted, but rather, he’d been sleeping. Or fucking close to it. She loved his voice the best when he was fresh off sleep. All throaty, hoarse, and deep.

Like his face buried between her thighs, it could make her shiver like nothing else. And damn, her mind had gone there quick, fast, and in a real hurry, too.

“What are you doing?” she asked, hating that there was a door between them now. “It’s three in the morning.”

“Is it?” Renzo’s words were mumbled that time, like maybe he’d scrubbed his hands down over his face as he spoke. She barely understood his words at all. “The door is open, baby.”

Lucia didn’t need to be told again. She turned the knob on the door, and pushed it open. Her gaze immediately searched out the man she wanted to see the most. Surprisingly, or maybe it wasn’t a surprise considering what he had once told her, she found him resting in the large, empty bathtub.

He wore nothing except his boxer-briefs, while the rest of his clothes rested in a pile beside the tub. Using one of his arms as a pillow, he smiled at her from the other side of the room. The sexy little grin almost came off as a little sheepish as he stretched one leg out in the bathtub, and bent his other at the knee to rest his arm over.

“You know,” she half-teased, “there is a bed in this room that you are more than welcome to use. Actually, I like you better in that bed with me.”

Renzo cleared his throat, and glanced downward. The action made his dark, long lashes fan over his cheeks, but it did nothing to hide his smile. “Oh, is that so?”

“Very much so, yeah.”

“I was going to come back to bed. Then, I went outside for a smoke, my head was full of nonsense, and I knew I was going to toss and turn until I did finally sleep again. Didn’t want to wake you or Diego up, baby. That’s all.”

Lucia’s smile softened. “There’s a couch, Ren. It pulls out into a bed, too.”

“I know.”

“And yet, you found yourself in a bathtub again.”

In fact, she could plainly see that he’d even gone as far as taking out the items in his pockets, and lining them up along the tub’s edge. A handful of change, some cash, an extra lighter he kept on hand, a herb grinder, pack of matches, and the face of a watch that he liked to use to check the time, but didn’t have a band on it. That all told her he had not simply made a decision to just come in and sleep in the bathtub, but rather, he’d taken time to relax in there and make it more comfortable for himself. How long had he been stuck inside his head in here instead of coming to wake her up?

“Just how long were you in here?”

“Since one,” he admitted.

Lucia sighed, and gave him a look.