Chapter 2
Laissez Les Bons Temps Roule
Aria Amora
How one summer away from the only home I’d ever known could change my entire perception of it—I had no effing clue. But as I stared out the window of the car Guido was driving, the entire city looked different to me.
All the sights and sounds were the same, but somehow, my entire world had been turned upside down, and I was trying to figure out a way to straighten my life, settle it to some degree. This was my home, but looking at the man making his way around the car, fixing his suit…
He’s my true home, and that’s why I ran away from this one.
Rocco opened my door, and a surge of steaming humidity rushed into the cabin, clashing with the air conditioner turned on full blast from the front seat.
I hadn’t traveled a lot in my life. My grandparents had taken me a few places not all that far from home over the years, and I’d discovered then that each place had a unique smell.
Like a woman or man’s natural perfume or cologne.
Sometimes I wondered if that was why certain people were drawn to certain places more than others. It was something in the makeup of the place, the scent, that drew people closer. Pheromones and all that.
New Orleans still smelled like home to me, but it was nothing compared to when I smelled Rocco in the air.
His scent made my stomach drop and sent my heart into overdrive.
And having him next to me on the streets I’d always ratted…
it did things to me. It gave me a shot of nostalgia and a sense of newness all at the same time.
It was like falling in love twice at the same time.
He held his hand out to me as people passed us on the street, looking at us like we might be royalty or something close.
We’d arrived in different caravans, and we were taking up most of the street.
I was pretty sure all Fausti cars were armored.
They all had dark-tinted windows and gave the impression someone important was tucked inside, especially since the men were all in dark suits and wore dark sunglasses, their fine colognes a masculine melody in the air.
Like bourbon, cigar smoke, and roasting logs in a fireplace.
The accent and foreign language only added to the mystique.
In Italy, Rocco’s family was considered royalty. And Juliette had told me the family name went beyond Italy’s borders. The name was known worldwide. They didn’t have circles. They created eddies.
I blinked at Rocco’s hand, and when I met his eyes, he was staring at me from beneath his dark sunglasses.
He was in no rush and held his hand out like he would hold it out forever, waiting for me to take it.
I refused to make him wait a second longer, and entwining our fingers together, I squeezed his hand and thanked him as I stepped out.
My breath rushed out when he pulled me against him, his eyes intense on mine. “You are a thief, my wife,” he said in Italian. “You steal my breath. In clothes or out of them.”
I ran my hand up my husband’s chest, swaying my hips back and forth to the hypnotic beat coming from Eva and Gabriel’s open window.
Rocco had rented the house next to Brando and Scarlett’s parents’ place in the French Quarter for our stay.
Directly across the street was my girl Eva, who lived there with her husband, Gabriel.
He was an Irish movie star turned musician.
His music floated out through the open windows, lace curtains billowing in the breeze.
If you want…dunt…dunt…dunt…something to play with…
“I want to steal your breath forever, Rocco Fausti.”
“Done,” he said in Italian. “Piccolo ladro.”
I laughed at that, him calling me a little thief, and I could feel his eyes roam to my lips, like I’d cast a spell on him.
Then, like he was returning it, he leaned down and kissed me.
I didn’t even notice the whistle coming from behind me until I couldn’t breathe.
Kissing my husband always felt like drowning, but without the feeling of immense pressure holding the lungs down.
It felt like…letting go, arms out, legs suspended, body floating, being pulled to depths undiscovered, while rays of sunlight pierced the surface of the water and shot around me.
The woman waving at me from the across the street, her auburn hair sparking red in the light, her teal eyes as feline as Scarlett’s, her soft face, skin reminding me of porcelain…made me blink back to this realm, remembering that I was a creature who had to breathe to live.
Eva grinned at me and gave me another wave. “Ari! I see you found a new beginning.” She smiled at my husband. “Hi, Rocco.”
He nodded. “Eva.”
I looked between them. “You know each other?” I asked no one in particular.
Rocco’s hands were around my waist, and at the question, the pressure he had on me increased. I could feel his palms burning through the expensive fabric of the dress. “We met years ago through my fratello and the sister of my heart, Brando and Scarlett.”
“Oh, that’s right! I remember Nonna mentioning Scarlett visiting with her husband…” I didn’t finish that thought, though, because Nonna had warned me about the Faustis when she had told me that.
She had wanted me to stay out of their way.
Nonna wasn’t a meek woman, but she picked her battles.
We were alone in the world, and she didn’t want any trouble she didn’t feel she could handle.
But it gave me a frisson to think of Rocco being in the same house with me, and I had no clue that one day he’d be my husband.
My husband looked at Eva, then at me, like he was finding a common similarity between us.
It’s in the eyes, I wanted to say but didn’t.
Rocco was an intelligent man. He would have it in a second.
Judging by the slight nod of his head, like he was confirming his findings, he had come to that same conclusion.
Eva smiled. “I’ll be by later to say hello.”
Scarlett had mentioned going out for dinner, and we all agreed after a long flight it would be nice to grab dinner, drinks, and relax.
“Would you and Gabriel like to go out to dinner with us?” I asked.
She turned around and asked her husband if he was up for it. “Sure!” she called back. “See ya’ll at…?”
“Eight,” Rocco said.
“Eight!” I echoed as he started to lead me toward the house.
No two places in the French Quarter seemed identical, and Scarlett’s parents’ place and the one Rocco had rented were no exception.
But they had similarities. That was as far as I got in the comparison.
Rocco led me through the house like we were being chased, and once inside our room, he shut the door and had me pinned against it in almost one smooth move.
Even though we’d fooled around on the plane, it was like he couldn’t wait to get me naked and hear me cry out.
He swallowed down any noise I made on the plane.
He was proprietary even over that. Though he was a master at dragging the time out, like he controlled it and my body’s response to him.
So, our time together always felt like a slow-moving underwater grotto dream.
We floated through time…mouths searching, hands reaching, our bodies together erasing any sign of the real world through our souls connecting.
By the time we were about to leave for dinner, I’d orgasmed so many times, I doubled checked to make sure my heels matched.
Rocco grinned at me, buttoning the black dress shirt I’d picked out for him.
That was his attire for the night, a collared shirt with the sleeves rolled up to the elbows, jeans, and boots.
I almost drowned in my own drool when he was naked.
I drooled whenever he wore a suit.
I drooled when we were on the island and his clothes reflected that.
I was drooling at him then.
I’d never really seen him out in the real world, meaning outside of the island in anything other than a custom suit.
I had a feeling this was a rare sight. The shirt wasn’t overly snug or overly big—it fit him just right, molding to his wide shoulders and muscular frame, and so did his jeans.
He had an ass that I could sink my nails into.
And if we didn’t get going, we were never going to leave the house again.
That was how much danger I was in. I was being altogether serious.
Nothing metaphorical about what my body was proposing.
He was just too effing…what word to even use for his looks? I was a writer and had no clue. If I had to go around describing him on the regular, I’d be out of a job. All I knew was that a man that fine—it wasn’t normal. Just looking at him destroyed all sensibilities.
I checked my heels again.
Right. Two black heels that showed some toe. And both were on the feet they were supposed to go on. And, oh, he had slipped them on for me, his hands lingering on my ankles and legs after he slid each one on.
I closed my eyes and shivered.
He threw his head back and laughed, and the sound did nothing to help my senses.
It went straight between my legs, where a pulse heated up and throbbed, as if he’d rubbed his swollen cock against my nub of overreacting nerves.
I might just orgasm from how sensitive I was from earlier, and the sound of his laugh.
It felt like his tongue was running over my skin in slow strokes.
This couldn’t be normal, could it? That just the sound of his laughter could cause me to lose all focus on anything but him.
I’d never experienced anything so powerful before.
The world had shrunk to the size of the two of us, just like when we were tangled up in each other.
It was only after my heart receded into a normal rhythm and I could breathe again that the world rushed back in.
And even much longer than that when he wrapped me in his powerful arms and legs, refusing to let go for even a second.
If I had to go to the bathroom, he carried me there and back.