Chapter 7 #2
“This has to have a happy ending, or else there wouldn’t be a red and pink explosion happening every year,” Luca said grumpily.
“Just wait,” Oliver said. “Eliza became the town pariah. Everyone thought she had lost her mind. There was talk of bundling her off to a sanatorium in Georgia, of sending her to relatives in Boston. But she refused to leave. She said she had to stay here, and be here for Nathaniel, not if he came back, but when. Then one night, a terrible storm blew in. Like the hand of God, they said, touching the space between the land and the sea.”
Luca squeezed his hand. “You’re good at telling this,” he said.
Oliver nodded. “My mom actually wrote the history of this. Her first book was Eliza and Nathaniel’s love story. So I think I get it from her.”
“I think it’s also you,” Luca said. “You believe.”
He supposed Luca wasn’t wrong. He did believe. In love and loyalty and steadfastness beyond common sense. He believed in pie for breakfast and delicious coffee and in putting love into his food so that not only could everyone taste it, they could feel it.
“After the storm cleared,” Oliver continued, “the residents of the town could see that a ship had been dashed on the rocks, and floating on a big spar in the bay, all among the wreckage, was a man with long dark hair and a big bushy beard, and blue eyes that everyone recognized. It was Nathaniel.”
“I knew it!” Luca crowed with delight. “But Eliza loved him, only Nathaniel didn’t love her. He loved Betsy.”
“But Betsy was married with three children now. He came to her little house she’d lived in with her parents and there was no room for him there.”
“And then he fell in love with Eliza?”
“I told you it was a long story,” Oliver said with a grin.
“But yes, eventually, he did. She took care of him, nursed him back to health, physical and mental, and as winter turned to spring, he fell in love with her, too. They married a year later and had five children, one of whom is, yes, my ancestor. The anniversary of their marriage is the date of the festival each year.”
“What prevented him from coming home for all those years?” Luca wanted to know.
“Their boat had sunk off a tiny island in the Caribbean and they’d been stranded there for years. When they’d been picked up, he headed to England, because that was where the ship was going, and it took him ten long years to make it back.”
“He expected Betsy would wait for him, didn’t he?” Luca sounded mad she hadn’t.
“Of course he did. Because he’d waited for her. But he discovered his love for her wasn’t as real as he’d believed. Not as real as his feelings for Eliza.”
“She was standing in front of him all along.”
“Yes,” Oliver said with a satisfied nod. “Yes, she was.”
“That’s actually . . .” Luca looked surprised again. “Actually a great story.”
“Worthy of a festival?” Oliver asked slyly.
“If any story is,” Luca agreed, his tone begrudging. “It’s still a lot of pink and red.”
“Which is why I went with magenta and purple for my bakery colors.” Oliver grinned. “Gotta mix it up. Can’t be too expected.”
“It’s okay, I think the rest of the town has got you plenty covered.” Luca paused. “I have to say I didn’t expect that story.”
“Did you think a story that inspired an entire town to obsess about love wouldn’t be romantic?” Oliver teased.
“No. But you know what did surprise me?” The corner of Luca’s mouth tilted up in a sexy smirk. “How it made me want to kiss you even more than I did before.”
“Oh.” Oliver was sure he looked at least semistupid right now, his mouth falling open a little right before Luca leaned down and captured it.
Oliver had only been thinking—and okay, dreaming—about kissing Luca since he’d nearly mowed him down. Would it be a hard kiss? Fierce and intense like Luca was a lot of the time, or sweet, like Luca’s soft secret underbelly he’d kept under wraps until tonight?
The kiss was neither.
Luca cradled his cheeks in his palms and devoted himself to the kiss. It was sweet and passionate and gentle and intense, all wrapped up into one unexpectedly incredible package.
Oliver groaned as Luca tilted his head and their tongues brushed.
“God, I knew you’d taste like this,” Luca said breathlessly as they broke apart.
Probably better, Oliver thought, his head spinning with a surge of lust and affection.
He was so goddamned charmed by this man.
“Taste like what?” Oliver said, licking his lips and nearly reaching a hand up to fist in Luca’s collar so he could drag him right back where he belonged—that big hard body pressed against his own.
“Sweet, like sugar.” Luca dipped his head down and stole another brief kiss. “But a little spicy too like cinnamon. Like cardamom. Like nutmeg.”
“I didn’t . . .” Oliver didn’t get the rest of the sentence out, before Luca was there, intoxicatingly big and warm and present, pressing their lips together again.
“I know,” Luca said, and the look in his eyes said it all when the kiss ended. “It’s just you,” he added helplessly. “Like it’s in you. Like it’s just you.”
“Well, there’s more of me, too.” Oliver couldn’t help himself.
He angled his body against Luca’s, felt his sharp intake of breath.
Felt something else, too. Something insistently hard and hot.
Something he couldn’t deny any longer he wanted desperately.
“I think you’ve got to check me out, top to bottom. Maybe part of me won’t taste so good.”
“Not possible,” Luca swore under his breath. “Not even fucking possible.”
“But you’re not sure,” Oliver said in a low voice, fluttering his eyelashes in what he hoped was an enticing way. “Let’s go back to your room and make sure. Gotta do your due diligence, right?”
“You’re such a tease,” Luca said roughly.
“Exactly the idea,” Oliver said. “Come on, the Inn’s only a few blocks out.”
“That wouldn’t bother you?” Luca paused. “You know, cause your mom . . .”
Oliver raised an eyebrow. “Are we really going to talk about my mom right now?”
“Trust me, I don’t want to, but she does own the Inn,” Luca said.
“And? It’s not like people don’t have sex there all the time. Like really, all the time. You don’t even want to know the shit they find in the rooms sometimes. Sweethearts Festival, right?”
“Makes sense.” Luca swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple working. “So you wouldn’t mind if I took you back to my room and . . .”
“And?”
Luca leaned in. Oliver could smell his cologne, or maybe the sharp lemon tang of him was just his skin. It made Oliver’s mouth water. “And took all your clothes off. Made you feel good. Anything I want. Anything you want.”
“We could . . .” Oliver stuttered a little over the words, because he wanted that so much he was nearly burning up with it. “We could do that.”
“Then what are we waiting for?” Luca grinned at him. “Let’s go.”
It was highly possible Joy was still at her desk, working, since it wasn’t quite seven yet, and she was on a deadline. So Oliver took them in the back way, typing in the code to the back door, and up the old servants’ staircase.
A minute later, Luca was letting them into his room with his keycard.
He’d left a light on in the corner, and as Oliver glanced around, he wasn’t surprised at all to see Luca’s clothes were tucked away in the dresser and the wardrobe in the corner, and the bed made neatly.
This was not a man who enjoyed chaos.
But maybe Luca might enjoy a little bit of sexy chaos.
Before he could say a word, or dictate everything—which, Oliver could acknowledge was probably how he normally had sex—he reached up and tugged Luca down, kissing him as he pushed him toward the edge of the bed.
Luca went, to Oliver’s surprise, as pliant as anything, kissing Oliver back like he was starving for it.
Touching him like it, too, those big, capable, competent hands feeling him everywhere. His chest, his waist, and finally his bare skin, Oliver shivering as Luca’s fingertips brushed the line of his spine.
Oliver reached for him, thumbing open one button at a time on his shirt.
Luca groaned, rough and deep, nearly a growl of desperation, his kiss growing more passionate as Oliver wrenched off his shirt and took a step back, breathing hard, to admire what he’d done.
Luca’s eyes were pitch-black with desire, his hair mussed from Oliver’s hands, and as he leaned back, his smooth, toned olive muscles bunched up. He was thick and solid and built, with honest-to-God abs Oliver couldn’t wait to touch, to taste.
“How do you look so . . .” Oliver swallowed hard. “Your family is famous for pasta.”
But Luca just shrugged. “I like to work out. It . . .it helps.”
Oliver wanted to know what it helped with. Restraint? Controlling his temper? The fact that he was probably practically living like a monk because he worked so goddamn much?
Just like you, his body reminded him firmly, and this whole celibacy thing is gonna come to a screaming, wonderful end.
But he wasn’t about to stop any of this to have a conversation about why Luca looked like a freaking Roman god brought to life.
Instead, he was going to enjoy it.
Pressing a palm to the taut muscles of Luca’s chest, he trailed his fingertips down, feeling Luca quiver with anticipation when Oliver finally reached the button of his jeans.
Oliver could see the hard outline of his cock, and now he wanted to feel it. Licking his lips, he popped the button open and lowered his zipper, tugging his jeans down, as he sank to his knees.
“Oh, fuck,” Luca swore and both his arms and his glorious thighs flexed when Oliver ran a teasing fingertip down his hard cock, encased in a pair of tight black briefs that would probably focus heavily in every single fantasy he had for the rest of his life.
If Oliver had known he looked like this, he’d have forgone any of the lecturing about crosswalks and teasing about dates and just dragged him back to any available room with a lock the first time their eyes had met.