Chapter Fifty-Eight Tyler #2
“While I’m thankful for the private dentist you sent, do you happen to have a chiropractor on speed dial?
I’m going to need him in the morning!” I shout over the music, and she reddens further before making herself busy with the food.
It’s as I watch her, music blaring in my ears, that I realize something has her spooked.
“Baby, you look nervous!” I shout over the obnoxiously loud Italian tenor serenading us as she leans over me, her silky hair brushing my cheek as she begins to load a plate. “If this is too much—”
“I’m not nervous!” she shouts back in a fast lie as I palm her hip to try and get her attention.
“You’re something! You’re sweating like you just robbed the Vatican!” I can’t help my chuckle. “Which I wouldn’t put past you. Did you rob the Vatican?!”
“I am not nervous!” she insists, proving it by ripping a piece of focaccia, slathering it with tapenade, and shoving it in my mouth. “Try this!”
I chew slowly, humming obnoxiously. “Mmm. Tastes like … anxiety!”
Her eyes narrow, but her lips twitch. “You like it!?”
“Larissa!” I roar over the music. “I’m sorry, I can’t hear you because that orchestra is literally playing for the entire fucking grove! Can we maybe turn it down!?”
“This is good, right?” she yells back, ignoring my request entirely as she spins her hips a little. “I love this song!”
“You’re acting a little off! Like you might be the one in need of a rabies shot!”
She straddles me in a blink, dress sliding high. My cock instantly stands at attention as my idiotic mouth speaks in objection for her comfort, trying to talk around the bread just shoveled into my mouth. “So, whith is it tomight!?” I chew enough to speak. “Death by bread or by lap dance!?”
Her answering grin is wicked as she smears another hunk of bread in tapenade and crams it into my mouth just as I open it to object. Some of it flying out as she stuffs me like I’m the Cheermeister Grinch judging at the fucking Whobilation.
“Do you like it?! I made it from olives I picked from the grove!” she booms proudly.
I cough crumbs, narrowing my eyes at her before swallowing and holding my hand up to stop her.
“It would be delicious if I had a chance to taste it! What the fuck is happening right now!?” I glance around in a fruitless search. “Can we turn the music down!?”
“One more song!” she insists, sipping her wine, head canting to the side as if she could possibly hear anything over the opera boiling our eardrums.
After another few nightmarish minutes, I finally haul her off my lap and stalk toward the radio, fighting the claws and protests as she ruins my sweater to stop me—barely managing to click it off before catching her shoulders slumping in defeat.
Seeing it, I tip her chin up with my finger.
“Spill, little mobster. What in the hell is going on?”
“What?” She blinks up at me innocently through dark lashes, head shifting, ears perking.
“How much wine have you had tonight?”
“Yes,” she says in reply, not at all answering my question. Straining in wait, her expression starts to even out with relief before she finally fixes her focus on me.
“Oh, there you are,” I say. “Is this personality shift typical? Do we have any more versions of you joining the party tonight, or are we all booked? Not that I have room to judge. I’m happy to meet them all, truly. So far, we have aggressive dater—kudos on that, really—and a gluttony enthusiast.”
“Stai zitto, imbecile.” Shut up, fool.
“Scemo per te.” Fool for you.
Her lips part as her eyes light.
“Like that?” I brush my lips against her ear. “Fai la brava e dimmi il segreto che tieni nascosto—poi ti sussurrerò certe cose sporche.” Be a good girl and tell me the secret you’re hiding—then I’ll whisper some filthy things.
“Nice try, but if I fell for a filthy Italian tongue, I would have gotten pregnant long before you.”
“Don’t make me jealous while wearing that dress, I have ways of interrogation I’m sure you’ve never experienced,” I warn as her lips lift in a sultry smile. “Are you going to tell me why you’re acting like you’re being electrocuted?”
“Nothing to tell?” she lies through her teeth.
“All right, blowtorch it is,” I jest, tickling her sides as she laughs, and the melodic sound hits me solidly in the chest. After flipping the music back on at a bearable volume, we share a glass of wine back at the table.
Within a few sips, finally able to hear myself think, I take in the sight of her and her efforts.
“Aside from the extremely aggressive start, this is really nice,” I utter, putting my elbows on the table. “What made you change your mind?”
She takes a muting sip of wine, seeming to contemplate her words. “Macey smiled tonight, really smiled.”
“She did?” My heart lights.
“It was so beautiful,” she murmurs, “and well, you’re leaving soon, and I know you don’t want to be a part-time father.”
“No,” I counter instantly.
She frowns. “No?”
“No, I’m not—”
When a loud clanging sound above interrupts me, Italian shouting breaking out, she jumps, and I set down my wine and stand. “Stay here, I’ll go check it out.”
“No, it’s just … midnight!” She circles me, placing a halting palm on my chest. “That’s why the pans were missing!
” she shouts. “It’s tradition to bang pans at midnight.
Happy New Year!” she blurts in verbal vomit, looking like she’s about to jump out of her skin, her head cocking again for several beats before her face relaxes.
“All right, baby, time’s up. I’ve hit my limit,” I say, gently pushing her to the side with my threat. “And make no mistake, I will find your hidden lover.”
Narrowly escaping her grasping hands, I make a break for it, pounding up the steps, Larissa hot on my heels as I reach the top. Shouting a declaration I can’t understand just as I burst through the door, take a step into the kitchen, and freeze …
My heart going raw as the reason for her anxiety and erratic behavior explodes before my eyes.
Clarity setting in as the sky outside the kitchen window lights up with unrelenting explosions of dozens upon dozens of fireworks.
Their sizzling cracks and booms echoing back throughout the villa and kitchen.
Chest exploding right along with them, I stand, utterly stupefied by her dire need to protect me.
Disbelieving the lengths she’s gone to tonight …
out of fear they would trigger me … I sink in utter incredulity at the capabilities of the heart that beats within her.
At its strength and resilience, and the fact that even after all I’ve done, it still manages to share some of its beat—for me.
Spotting her reflection in the window behind me as the endless sea of glittering sparks explodes above it, my heart detonates right along with them as the declaration she spoke as I burst through the door finally registers—“I’m yours. ”
Heart soaring, I turn back to see her scanning me for harm.
Her expression filled with worry, the love and protection in her eyes so obvious that I damn near hit my knees.
Feeling safe and utterly whole at the look of her, I barely manage to speak around the lump lodging in my throat, vision blurring.
“Still on a mission to save me, little mobster?”
“Always,” she croaks, her own eyes spilling over.
“You’re mine? Did you mean that? Or—” I can’t finish my question for fear of what her answer may be.
“I’m yours,” she rushes out shakily as my heart starts to pump with life itself, with the second chance she just gifted me.
Determined to erase the fear lingering in her eyes and claim her for good, within a breath, I’m rushing her.
Within the next, I’m sweeping her back through the cellar door.
Pinning her to the back of it the way I did the night we met.
Refusing either of us any retreat as I prepare for the most important battle of my life.