Chapter 31 Emery
In my head, it looked something like this: Luca out in the sun, hands covered in soil, cradling delicate plants as he splits and transplants them.
Honey would be happily chasing butterflies.
I would have a drink, lemonade or something a little stronger, while making encouraging observations from the cool shade of the patio.
Maybe, eventually, it would be so warm that Luca would be shirtless.
I’m a big fan of this scenario. Big fan.
And yet, somehow I’ve been roped into yard work.
Honey is digging somewhere—she’s already brought me a gift: a dead, desiccated worm.
The whole neighborhood probably heard my reaction.
It’s muggy and there’s not an icy drink to be found.
Luca is, regretfully, fully clothed. My assignment: weeding the vegetable patch.
“Carrot or weed?” I ask.
Luca doesn’t turn from where he’s doing something by the new trees Crash planted between our yard and Betty’s, which undoubtedly triggered her homicide fears, checking nitrogen levels or soil pH or something.
I should have been listening more carefully while he explained, but he was bending over at the time.
I’m only human. “Carrot tops look like parsley,” he says.
“I know that should be helpful,” I tell him. “But I’d like to remind you that you’re the chef in the house.”
He laughs, looking over his shoulder to where I’m kneeling next to the raised bed. “Smell it.”
Unsure, I lean in, sniffing. “Oh. It smells like carrot!”
“There you go.”
Honey trots over to me as if to double-check, and, frankly, who can blame her?
I wouldn’t trust me in the garden, either.
But we both trust Luca. I am on horny overload today because it is so insanely sexy to see him like this, back in his element.
Hopefully any concerns that he’d lost the parts of him that made him who he was are gone now.
Some things are just instinct, and Luca has plenty of that.
“I can’t believe Betty thought I’d buried you in the yard. Do you know how big a hole you’d need for that? I am way too lazy.”
Luca huffs out a laugh.
“You should have seen this yard when we first moved in,” I tell him.
“Great or terrible?”
“They had a putting green.”
He turns around, his face a portrait of horrified offense. “Astroturf?”
“Mm-hmm. From the eighties. You wanted to take money off the asking price.”
“God.” He turns back to his work, shaking his head, truly insulted. “I’m sure I’m a fan of xeriscaping and water conservation, but there are ways to do that with native plants.”
I watch him for just a moment, loving that he just dropped a bit of landscaping lingo and didn’t even notice. But also the bunch of muscle under his T-shirt, and the way his ass looks bending away from me. I should have taken up yard work sooner. “I love it when you talk gardener.”
He laughs. “How long before I tore it out?”
I snap back to the conversation and away from his ass. “Huh?”
Luca laughs, reading me like a book. “The Astroturf.”
“Oh, immediately,” I say, sniffing another seedling. Definitely a weed. “By the time I moved in, you’d already started putting down sod.”
And now, it looks like something out of a magazine.
Luca wasted no time and doubled the size of our patio the summer we moved in.
He and Crash built a pergola that spans the entire length, added a fire pit, and installed solar lighting throughout the entire yard.
When I told him I got a bonus last year, he picked out a modern but classic outdoor rattan sectional and two chairs.
The low coffee table offers a smaller gas fire if we want romantic ambiance without the fuss of chopping wood.
I look up from my weeding, surprised to find that Luca has stopped what he was doing, and is standing there watching me. “What?” I ask, self-consciously using the back of my wrist to wipe at my face. “Am I covered in dirt? Oh God, did some of the worm get on me?”
“I moved in before you?”
I feel the way my spine stiffens in mild defensiveness. “Just by a couple weeks. I had to finish a big project, and my old apartment was closer to work.”
“Huh.”
“I had a lot of late nights, and you were working a lot, too. I swear it made sense to us both at the time.” This isn’t even me trying to justify anything, but on top of everything else, I know how it sounds.
We were both insanely busy. I suggested we wait, but Luca was so excited to start this next chapter of our lives that he suggested he move in and get started on the renovations.
“No, no. I get it.” He gives me a small, reassuring smile. “Don’t worry. I’m not mad. Just want to know the history.”
“I—”
“I’m glad that we’re doing things over again,” he interrupts, but soothingly.
I think I’ve plucked all the weeds and none of the baby vegetables, so I stand, too, wanting to be closer to him. Dusting off my hands, I walk to where he’s now carefully pruning a flowering bush.
“Okay, gardening wasn’t terrible,” I admit.
When he smiles down at me, his wind-mussed blond hair falls in his eyes.
His hands are filthy, and he flips his head, but the hair doesn’t budge.
He ineffectually blows at it, and on instinct, I reach to sweep it out of the way and my hand stills at the side of his face.
I love this face. I love this look in his eyes.
I love him. I can’t believe how long I took his calm sweetness, his steady capability, his downright hotness for granted.
Luca’s gaze drops to my mouth, and I don’t think it’s even conscious, the way we move toward each other, me stretching, him bending.
The first touch of our lips is tentative, a sweep from one side to the other, and he pulls back, checking in with me, but what he sees there must be all the answer he needs, because his pruning shears drop somewhere behind me and his hands come to my waist, pulling me in against him.
The feel of this kiss is a bliss so enormous it’s dizzying, it’s euphoric.
Luca’s kiss is as familiar as breathing but new, too, like our first—but better because I know where it will lead.
His hands press into my sides and slide higher, to my ribs, with his lips firm and full, demanding and hungry with the same relief I’m feeling.
I thread my hands into his hair, tugging, standing on my toes to get as close as I can.
His tongue is teasing, flicking against mine, hinting at more, and when I whimper helplessly, he sends his hands down to my ass, cupping, lifting me, guiding my legs around his waist as he walks toward the house.
“Your leg,” I say between kisses.
“I have a leg?”
I laugh against his lips. “Two, actually.”
“It’s fine. They’re both fine,” he says into my mouth. “Tell me if you want me to stop.”
“Don’t you dare.”
His laugh is a soft exhale, a low growl, and as he walks, he nips at my jaw, my neck, sucking. “You taste like sunshine,” he says. “Your skin is so warm and soft.”
I tilt my head back, giving him better access, marveling at how he can walk and kiss and talk at the same time, how this man is an actual landscaping lover superhero, and when my eyes flicker over his shoulder, for just a heartbeat, I think I can ignore what I see there.
But I can’t.
Because the latched back gate is somehow open, and Honey is gone.