Page 19 of Cusp: A Renzo + Lucia Companion

What he wanted.

He knew that answer.

Of course, Diego didn’t get the opportunity to ruminate on his realization. The elevator came to a shuddering stop before the doors pulled open. A hallway lined with exposed, gray bricks greeted him. Luv was quick to surprise him again by giving him a wink and dragging his skateboard out of the elevator with the toe of her shoe. With a poised twist of her heel on the floor, she balanced on the board with the other and pushed off to roll down the hallway.

Her laughter chased him out of the elevator. The little grin she tossed him over her shoulder made him take a second look at the woman down the hall. The sliver of creamy skin of her lower back peeking out under her bomber jacket had his chest growing tight. The swell of her ass under those tight, low-rise jeans swayed with a beat only she could hear, but he swore whatever music she was doing the little dance to echoed in his own mind, too. Every movement the girl made radiated with her confidence and rawness.

Yeah, he’d noticed she was beautiful. How could he not? Now, he was really seeing it.

His heart thundered hard.

Harder than he expected.

Diego passed two white steel doors with brass numbers overtop peepholes before he reached the one at the far end of the hallway where Luv waited for him.

“You know,” she said, popping his board up with the heel of her shoe to catch it in her hand, “the offer of my couch was just to get you here, right?”

“Was it?”

Luv smacked her red-stained lips, and then her tongue peeked out to wet the seam of her mouth. “Kind of, yeah.”

He stepped closer. She lifted to her tiptoes at the same time.

That red stain on her lips? It tasted like cherries when he kissed her. He only wanted to know if the rest of her would taste the same … and he planned on finding out.

• • •

Diego pulled open the sliding doors that led out to a glass-walled veranda. Sitting on a chair that she’d covered with one of the beige blankets from the bed, Luv peeked up from the book she had spread open on her lap. In a black, silk camisole and short set that showed off her gleaming skin, he was reminded all over again how soft that flesh of hers felt under his hands. And how she tasted in the dark.

At the sight of him, her grin grew wide. She closed the book, and set it aside to the table. With the exposed gray brick behind her, and the natural light coming in from the morning, he thought she looked kind of … perfect.

She opened her mouth.

Maybe to say hey.

Or even good morning.

“Don’t move,” he said before she could get anything out.

The confusion that knotted her brow didn’t last for long. He made quick work of heading back inside her apartment and returning with his camera. She tipped her head to the side a bit, that smile of hers turning slyer in a blink.

“You want a picture, really?”

Diego shrugged. “Why not? It’s … a memory. It’s how I keep them.”

“What is?”

He hesitated in lifting the camera to his sights. “What?”

“What memory,” she clarified.

Oh.

Everything, he wanted to say. Except he didn’t think she would understand. After all, she had only been a very small part of his trip to Vegas, but she had also been a big factor in making him come to a decision about what he planned to do when he left to return home.

“Here,” he settled on saying. “Being here.”

She drew her knee up on the chair and glanced out at the view surrounding the tall building. “Well … okay.”

He took the shot.

Didn’t second-guess it.

Diego didn’t even check it, either.

Luv smiled his way again. “And hey, I got a call this morning. Everything is on track with Ren, so he’ll probably finish with the job before you go back to New York.”

Even better.