Chapter Twenty-Seven
chapter twenty-seven
ISLA
Caio runs around like a mad man with his fancy little vacuum cleaner as I sit at the kitchen counter arranging the charcuterie board in front of me.
Who ever thought watching a guy vacuum would be so appealing? I like seeing him domesticated.
“Why are you so stressed?” I ask.
“I’m not stressed,” Caio says, turning off the vacuum. “I just like the place to be clean.”
“Yeah, you really displayed that when you threw my pancake batter across the room.”
He leans against the wall, crossing his arms as he smirks at me in the way that makes my chest blush. “You didn’t seem all that concerned when you were coming around my cock a minute later.”
The heat rushes to my cheeks. I’ve given up on thinking I’ll ever win this back and forth between us, not when Caio shuts me up with comments like that. But I’ll keep trying.
“Well I hate to break it to you, but I think you missed a spot.”
“And where is that?”
“Right there,” I say, dropping a broken section of a cracker onto the newly vacuumed floor just beneath my feet. “You might have to come and clean that up.” I drop another piece right next to my dangling feet.
Caio pushes of the wall and stalks over to me. He bends down on one knee, his focus solely on me, cracker forgotten as I rest my foot on his shoulder and push down, prompting him to bring his other knee down so he is kneeling in front of me.
He trails his knuckles from my ankle all the way up my leg. “If you wanted me on my knees in front of you sweetheart, all you had to do was ask.” His hands grip the outsides of my thighs as he looks up at me. And god is it a pretty sight.
He presses a kiss to my innermost thigh, making me tingle with anticipation.
“Caio,” I whisper.
A ding resounds through the room. “Caio, we’re here let us up.” Marina’s voice booms through the intercom.
Caio doesn’t move. His eyes locked on mine as he kisses my other thigh, his hands rising up and sitting just underneath the hem of my skirt. I let out a breathy moan, unable to hold it in.
“Isla stop boning your boyfriend and push the damn button.” May’s voice breaks me out of my lust induced haze as I laugh at the fact that she knows exactly what’s going on up here.
If only they’d been another five minutes.
Caio doesn’t look in any rush to move so I hop off the stool, going to press the buzzer to let them up. I turn back to see him still in the same position on his knees, looking over his shoulder at me.
“You better get those crumbs,” I wink, trying my best to embody his confidence, and it looks like it worked as he scoffs shaking his head. But he does exactly what I suggested, scooping up the crumbs before he gets up going to brush them into the bin, and I can’t help but feel a sense of accomplishment that I finally managed to render Caio speechless.
I shake with laughter as Leo and Marina bicker about who is the better cocktail mixer. I don’t really know why this is even a topic of debate as one of them owns a bar and the other runs a security firm…but the conversation spiraled, and this is where we’ve ended up.
Caio’s quiet chuckle reverberates through me from behind. He pulled my back to his front around an hour ago, cozying us up in the corner of the big sectional couch we are all sitting on, and we’ve been like this ever since.
The comfortable feeling of being with him like this in front of his friends is effortless, and no one bats an eye at any affection between the two of us. Unless you count May’s not so subtle eyebrow raises at me every time Caio’s hand slips into mine.
But if feels like more than just the physical, and every glance from my best friend tells me she can see right through me.
The charcuterie board I poured my heart into arranging was devoured within the first twenty minutes of everyone getting here.
I swipe the board off the table, taking my wine glass with me to fill it up in the kitchen.
I open up the fridge and grab the bottle of Prosecco to pour myself another glass.
“Hey,” Marina says, sitting on one of the stools and putting her glass up next to mine for a refill.
I feel a weight on me, and I look up to see Caio looking over at me. Marina follows my line of sight, and she smiles, turning back to face me. “You know I wasn’t joking when I said I’ve never seen him look at anyone the way he looks at you.” She picks up her glass smiling faintly as she swirls the liquid in the bottom of it. “I don’t think you realize the impact that you’ve made.”
“What do you mean?”
“Before you came here, he was…distant. A shadow of the person that I knew he was. I’d see hints of it occasionally, but you’ve made him come alive again, Isla.”
It sounds weird to me, that I’ve made any difference at all. This is the only Caio I’ve ever known, I can’t imagine him the way she’s explaining.
“He’s lucky to have you, we all are,” she continues. “You brought him back to me, to all of us,” she gestures to the group of hooligans behind us, filling the open space with laughter.
“I hope you know that it’s not just Caio that you can rely on, we are all here for you, whenever you need us.” She grabs my hand from across the bench, squeezing as she smiles up at me.
How can I even respond to that?
But she obviously see’s the moisture gathering in my eyes. She clinks her glass against mine that’s sitting on the bench before she walks back to the couch, laying her head on Leo’s shoulder as she joins back into the conversation at hand.
But I can’t move from my spot in the kitchen.
I smile as I focus on the bubbles rising to the surface in my glass. If you told me a couple of months ago that this is where I’d be, I would’ve laughed out loud.
A couple of months ago I didn’t have a group of people who lift me up at every turn. It was just May and I, our very own little support crew. It feels good to have that crew expand. To include the people that have become so important to me in such a short period of time. That have become like a family. That bicker and argue over stupid shit, but who show up for each other without fail. That’s special, and I can’t explain how lucky I feel to have somehow been dragged into it.
“Watcha thinking bout?” Arms wrap around my waist.
I melt into Caio’s touch, my head leaning against his chest. “Thank you,” I say.
“For what?”
“For them,” I nod to our friends.
I know he catches my meaning when he presses a kiss to my bare shoulder, squeezing me just a bit tighter.
“Caio!” Rafael yells.
“Yeah?”
“We need to set up a game of poker, May here thinks she could ‘school me’ in a game.“ He adds the air quotations.
“He’s got no idea what’s coming for him, does he?” Caio whispers, his lips just above my ear, his breath sending tingles down my spine.
I shake my head. “Not a clue.”