Chapter 24 #2
He leans back, and I slow-clap his performance.
“Well done. How many times did you practice that?” One second, he’s glaring at me and the next, he’s given me his back.
I follow him into the apartment, where a group of people has hopped back from the door where they were presumably watching through the peephole and listening.
Oh! No peephole needed, I guess, because there’s a security screen television with a live feed of the hallway.
Of all the people staring at me, only one matters.
Abigail is standing off to the side with her shoulders back and those beautiful brown eyes locked on me. Questions swirl and nerves glitter in their depths, and I hate that I gave her any reason to doubt me, to distrust what we feel.
I rush her, my hands cupping her face to lift her jaw so I can devour her mouth. It’s been days, which might as well be an eternity for how much I’ve missed her. I steal her breath, replacing it with my own. “Mia rosa,” I murmur against her lips.
“I didn’t know if you wanted . . .” she tries to say, but I cannot stop tasting her.
“I did. I do. Always.” I finish her thought with my own as I lay tiny, sweet kisses along her jaw toward the shell of her ear. “Do you?” I whisper.
“Yes,” she moans. An answer, an urging for more, or both? I don’t know, but I take it as agreement and kiss her again.
From behind me, I hear a voice say, “Bravo! Keep going, keep it going, puh-leese.”
“Archie!” That was Violet for sure. “Hush, and maybe they’ll forget we’re here,” she whispers.
I press my forehead to Abigail’s, certainly not able to forget our audience now, though I fall into her smile once more and lay another soft peck to the edge of her lips to nudge it higher. Her smile blooms in response, and I feel like a god for being the cause of her returning joy.
“It seems Violet was right this time. I’m an asshole,” I tell Abigail as an apology. “I’ve been dying without you, mia rosa.” I have no shame and will admit to being weak for this woman and utterly destroyed without her.
She shakes her head. “I should’ve called or said something. This is on both of us.”
My sweet Abigail, so responsible and reasonable when she’s not driving me crazy.
“Great! Now that you admitted I was right—which we got on video, by the way,” Violet informs us, “let’s sit down to dinner.
I made lasagna. And you two can take it easy, not just inhale each other’s soul through mouth-to-mouth.
Maybe, I don’t know, do something unheard of like date and get to know each other for more than a week while you’re faking some stupid honeymoon scheme?
” Violet sounds quite proud of herself for getting us back in the same room.
I hear the tiniest hitch in Abigail’s breath and meet her eyes. Knowledge shines brightly there, sure certainty that’s reflected in mine.
We could do what Violet suggests, sit down to dinner and chat about the mundane whatever they discuss over pasta. Or . . .
I shake my head. “You said not half-ass, Vi, so that’s not how this goes.”
“What do you mean?” Ross demands.
“We have to go,” Abigail blurts out. “Now.”
She takes my hand and drags me toward the door despite everyone’s argument that we’re supposed to have dinner so they can interrogate me to see if I’m worthy of Abi.
“I was told to write my top three questions for these two and assured that I’d have the floor, only to be dismissed this easily?” Archie protests snarkily. I’m sure it was Violet who told him he’d get the chance to play twenty-questions, firing squad style.
“Oh, let them go. I don’t want the chef judging my lasagna, anyway. It’s too much pressure,” Violet tells everyone. “No telling what he’ll tell the people back in Italy about my American bastardization of the family recipes.”
“Are they leaving to have sex?” Ross makes a gagging sound as if he can’t fathom his sister having sex, much less fucking me in the elevator, which feels like a very real possibility.
I wonder if there are security cameras there too?
“More likely to find the closest Justice of the Peace,” Courtney answers. I recognize her and her husband, Kaede, from the wedding when I first met Abigail. And I like the way she thinks.
If I put a ring on Abigail’s finger and my cock inside her, I could stop her from ever leaving me again. The idea has merit.
“Absolutely not! I forbid it!” Ross shouts after us, but we’re already in the hallway with the elevator button lit up.
“Of course it’s not forbidden,” Violet encourages. To Ross, I think, she says, “It’s Abi, and she always does whatever the hell she wants. Why would finding a man be any different?”
I have no idea where Abi’s taking me, but wherever it is . . . I’m in. Even if it’s a JP to put a ring on her finger.
For some reason, that actually doesn’t sound like a terrifying, ridiculous idea. It sounds . . . beautiful.
The elevator doors open, and I have her pressed against the back wall in a blink, sipping at her lips once more. “Fuck, I missed you. It felt like half of my soul was gone,” I murmur between kisses.