Chapter 27
“D o you miss London?” Luca asks, taking a sip of wine and then setting his glass back on the floor.
We’re having a picnic in my apartment, eating food Luca picked up from a pub down the street and drinking an expensive bottle of wine.
The gas fire hissing right beside us is the only light source other than a few candles we have burning.
It’s insanely romantic and I think that’s his ploy, to romance the hell out of me until I have no other choice but to give in to him.
Spoiler alert: It’s totally working!
“Parts of it. Living there felt like home somehow. Maybe because my dad is from there or because the staff house never really did. I don’t know.
I loved the city. The history. The shopping.
The vibe of the pubs and nightlife. I don’t miss the weather so much.
Or how ancient my flat was. And definitely not how expensive everything there was. ”
“I like London and I love Rome and Paris and Barcelona and yeah, all of Europe. But Boston has always been home for me. I always planned to come back after my residency. If for no other reason than Landon and Stella were here, as well as my parents. But Boston is in my blood.”
“That’s because you’re freaking royalty here. Hell, you’re royalty all over the world.”
“I wouldn’t mind it if I wasn’t. If the things I got in this world I knew I was getting because I earned them.” He pauses here, his eyes tracking to the fire as if something else is hitting him.
“What?”
He shakes his head. “It’s nothing. Work stuff. Being famous and having a famous name isn’t all that great sometimes. Especially when a certain raven-haired goddess is so slow to trust me when I tell her I never touched ninety-eight percent of the women I’m photographed with.”
“Ah, but it’s those pesky two percent—”
“That I never slept with and never plan to touch them or anyone other than you again? Yes, I know.”
I chuck a fry at him, and he ducks, catching it in his mouth and chewing it up with a bright, cocky grin.
It’s been the strangest, most wonderfully unexpected night.
When I finally started to turn into a prune, Luca helped me out of the bath and sat on my bed while I got dressed. All the while reading a freaking second chance romance book to me. He didn’t touch me, though his gaze certainly lingered, and his dick was visibly hard through his jeans.
Then he ran out and grabbed the food and now here we are. Sitting on the floor even though there are plenty of places we could sit to eat. Talking.
He’s been feeding me bites of his dinner and I’ve been feeding him bites of mine and it all seems so natural. The way it did four years ago.
We say our hearts break. That they never fully heal. But I think that’s only because that’s where we feel the physical pain the most.
Right in the chest.
But it’s not our hearts that break. And they do fully heal, or maybe just lose interest in remembering. It’s our minds that bear the brunt. That remember. That scar. That are slow to forgive. Not our hearts. They hold on when they shouldn’t and then they’re quick to fall again.
Because staring at Luca, at the permanent half-grin he’s had on his face this entire night whether he’s aware of it or not, has my heart wanting to jump back out of my chest and into his.
Where it feels like it belongs. It’s my head that’s repeatedly throwing buckets of ice water on it.
Only… with each passing second, those buckets get smaller and smaller.
Since I pepper sprayed his face and he still showered me with words of love and longing.
Since the second he showed up at my concert, his green eyes wide and practically unblinking as if he was afraid of missing a single damn second of seeing me again.
Since I left him that Post-it note and swore to love him forever.
“Did I lose you?” he asks, snapping me out of my reverie. I realize I’ve been staring into the fire, and I turn back to him, my focus adjusting.
“Just lost in thought.”
“Good or bad?”
“I’m not sure,” I answer truthfully.
Leaning forward, he places his lips on mine. Soft. Deep. So good, his kiss leaves me dizzy and full of wonder. He tastes salty like our food, and I lick my lips, savoring it.
“Are you done with dinner?” he mumbles against me before sitting back.
I take in the spread of mostly eaten pub fare between us and nod.
“Perfect. Take off your clothes.”
“W-what?”
Luca climbs up onto his knees, gathering up the remains of our dinner and throwing everything into the take-out bag it came in. “Take. Off. Your. Clothes.” His eyes meet mine. “Do it, Raven. Now.”
I shake my head, sitting up fully, spine straight. “I never said we were having sex.”
He laughs like I’m adorable. “I didn’t say we were.”
“But you’re telling me to take my clothes off.”
“Yup.” He stands, bringing the to-go bag with him. “You better get started on that by the time I return with dessert, or I’ll do it for you. I’m fine either way.”
I stare after him. His self-satisfied smile makes me want to say something cutting.
The dirty demand still hangs in the air, there for me to play with in my mind.
Taking off my clothes isn’t a big deal. The man has already seen me naked not just tonight, but a hundred times before, and physical modesty certainly isn’t an emotion I battle with often.
But this is different and both he and I know it.
This is me baring myself for him. Not him going down on me in my bedroom while I’m still partially dressed or a quick fuck in an alleyway or even masturbating together because I asked for that.
It’s as if he’s throwing down the gauntlet.
If I do this, if I get naked for him, I’m allowing him in.
I’m opening myself up to the possibility of us again.
Am I ready for that?
No. Yes. Argh! I hate thinking. I do it too damn much and what good or happiness has it ever brought me? I pull my sweater up and over my head, tossing it over by the couch. Then I scoot my butt left and right, wiggling out of my jeans.
“Panties and bra too, Little Bird. Don’t think that take off your clothes is a technicality to leave them on,” he calls out from the kitchen, doing God only knows what over there.
“Bastard,” I grumble, and his warm, happy chuckle has me fighting a grin as I remove my bra and panties. “The floor is cold,” I complain just as he steps back into view carrying a blanket. “Ugh. Get out of my head and stop reading my mind already.”
“Not a chance.” His eyes instantly grow dark and hooded when they find me, poring over every inch of me. “Spread your legs.”
My heart ricochets around my chest.
“I thought you said we weren’t having sex.”
“Do it.”
Heat floods my skin and suddenly I’m no longer cold. I lean back on my hands, which pushes my tits out toward him, and spread my bent knees.
“Good girl. Now don’t move.”
“Are you going to paint a picture?” I tease, but something in his eyes has my heart beating faster. The way they vacillate between playful, curious, and excited.
“No. I’m going to take one.”
I bolt up, covering myself. “The fuck you are.”
He grins, walking over to me and setting down a cloth bag from his hands that I hadn’t noticed him holding before. “Relax. They’re just for me.”
“Until someone hacks your phone, Mr. Celebrity, or somehow stumbles upon them.”
“Do you trust me?”
“Luca!”
“Do. You. Trust. Me?”
“No!”
“Woman, don’t play games and tell me the truth.”
Damn him. “Yes. I trust you. Ish,” I tack on because I’m like ninety-four percent there with him.
“Then know that I will never allow anyone to see something that is only meant for my eyes. I was planning on keeping your face out of them anyway. And one day, when you fully trust me again, you won’t even think to question the things I do with you.
” His hand meets my shoulder, and he pushes me back, uncovering my hands from my chest. “Now, back into that position.”
This is it. After tonight, I can’t pretend I want nothing to do with him. I can’t go back to hating him. I can’t pretend my heart doesn’t sprint every time he walks into a room, or my body doesn’t crave to run up to him, jump in his arms, and kiss him senseless.
“I’m scared.”
His eyes meet mine. “It’s just pictures, baby.”
“No. I’m scared , Luca. You can’t hurt me again, okay? I mean it. I won’t… I won’t be able to take it if you do that.”
His hand dives into my hair, his forehead pressing against mine as he stares straight into my eyes. Into my heart. “You’re my endgame. My no matter what. I’d burn down the world for you. You and I are meant to be. You stole my heart and never gave it back. All I want to do is return the favor.”
“We’re the tortoise and the hare.”
“What?” He chuckles against me.
“We did fast, and we lost. Maybe this time we should try slow so we can win the race?”
“There is no finish line for us.”
I angle up and kiss him, cupping his jaw in my hand. “I trust you.”
“No more ish?”
“No more ish.”
Another kiss and then he sits back, picking up his phone from the floor.
“Good because the picture you sent me earlier tonight got me thinking. I’ve never done that with anyone.
Taken pictures. Videoed anything. As you said, Mr. Celebrity and I’m not a dumb fuck.
I’d rather not end up in the tabloids for a sex tape or blackmail or whatever. So this is me trusting you too.”
My breasts feel heavier. My nipples tighten and my pussy grows impossibly wet.
“What if I’m just using you for your money?”
Leaning down, he bites my nipple. Hard. “Are you?” Two fingers push inside of me, and my head falls back on a moan. Click .
“Yes.”
He smacks my breast, making it jiggle. Click .
“Your skin. Glowing like this against the fire. The light and the dark playing against you. You are fucking art.”
“Luca,” I whimper as he drags his fingers in and out of me, so slowly I feel like I’m going to die.
Click .
I open my eyes to find him snapping a picture of his hand between my thighs. Wet with my arousal. I didn’t think this was something I’d ever find as a turn-on, but knowing he has these images of me on his phone. Knowing he’ll look at them later and get hard, seeing us, remembering this…
Luca slides his fingers out, painting my lips with them, and then sets his phone down. In my next breath, he picks me up, dropping me onto his lap. “Hold on.”
I wrap my arms around his neck and then he lays the blanket down on the floor where I just was before he shifts me back onto it.
“Close your pretty eyes, beautiful. Time for some dessert.”
He pulls a red silk scarf out of the bag and brings it up to my face, covering my eyes and tying it tight behind my head. My hands tremble as I tentatively touch it.
Click .
I can only imagine what I look like and that drags a moan from my lips. Blind, my hearing and touch senses are heightened. The soft cashmere of the blanket beneath me. The hissing of the fire. The warmth it lets off.
But I don’t hear him. Not even his breathing.
“Luca?”
“Relax.”
Gently, he lowers me down until I’m fully laid out on the blanket, his fingers the lightest touch as they trickle across my face, over the scarf, to my lips.
“Open.”
Oh Jesus. What is he doing?
“The way you’re trembling and your breathing is all over the place, I’d think you didn’t believe that I love you and would never do anything I didn’t already know you would enjoy.
Relax. We’ll do this your way and go slow.
Other than right now, which is going to be my way, but I promise you’ll love it. ”
I laugh, the tense coil wrapped around my heart untethering something only to be replaced by a lightness I haven’t felt in I don’t even know how long.
“We good?” he asks.
“I’m good. You good?”
“I’m staring down at a blindfolded naked woman who has no idea what I have planned for her. I’m fucking fantastic.”
“Not helping my nerves.”
His lips meet mine, stealing my breath as his tongue plunges inside my mouth. “I’m going to eat you for dessert. Now be a good girl and lie still for me while I do that.”