Chapter Sixteen #2
He nodded. “Please don’t take this the wrong way.
I know you’re a strong, independent woman who doesn’t need a man to protect her—and trust me, I know how dangerous you can be armed with your wine mic.
Your dance moves alone could bring a man to his knees.
” He gave his head a slight shake, looking like he was having a silent conversation with himself and calling himself a dumbass.
It was endearing and adorable, and if she didn’t want to hear where this was going, she’d jump him and shut him up with a kiss.
He rubbed the back of his head. “It’s just that I couldn’t live with myself if something happened to you. So would you mind if I sit on the deck until your mother and Bruno come home?”
“I would mind, actually.”
He nodded. “Yeah. I figured you might. Sorry. I should know better. My daughters lecture me about toxic masculinity all the time, and you’d think it would sink in, but I’m a man, so—”
She pressed her fingers to his lips, and she thought he might have groaned. “Shut up and kiss me, Flynn,” she said, fisting her hands in his shirt and pulling him inside. She closed the door with her hip.
His eyes narrowed on her. “Is this a test?”
She shook her head and pressed her body against his. “No.”
“How much have you had to drink?” He placed his hands on her hips.
“No wine, just some sambuca. Kiss me if you don’t believe me.” She stretched up on her toes and put her arms around his neck; his moved around her waist. “And I want you to stay, just not on the deck. I want you to stay with me tonight.”
“I think I might need to sit down,” he said, and she led him to a chair.
“Do you need some water?” she asked as he stared up at her.
“No. I need you to tell me what the hell is going on. I feel like I’m having an out-of-body experience. What changed from ten minutes ago?”
“Can I sit here?” She nodded at his lap.
“No. I need to focus on what you’re telling me, and I won’t be able to do that with you sitting on my lap.” He stood up, offering her the chair, and then pulled one out from the table and sat opposite her.
She rubbed her now-sweaty palms on her thighs. “You know, I thought I’d just kiss you, and then I’d take you up to my apartment, and we’d make love, and we’d be good.”
“I don’t want us to be good for a night, or a week, or a month. I want us to be good for as long as you and I are here on this earth.”
“That’s a long time.” The pressure in her chest made the words come out on a whisper.
“It is, so I need to know why you changed your mind, and I need to know what you want from a relationship with me.”
“I just want you.” She smiled, thinking that would be enough, but he gave her an encouraging look. He wanted more from her, and she groaned. “You know, Flynn, most men would rather skip the talking-it-out part and get to the good stuff.”
“Amateurs. They haven’t figured out that the talking-it-out part elevates the making-love part from good to mind blowing.”
She sighed. “I didn’t want us to end, but given my past history, I knew we would, eventually.
” She tried to gauge his reaction to what she said, but there was no judgment on his face.
He was simply listening. “It wasn’t just that my ex abandoned me.
I mean it wasn’t great, mostly because he left me with two babies and no income, but things hadn’t been good between us. ”
Flynn opened his mouth, and she waved her hand, not wanting to talk about Aaron now.
“But my sister—I loved Cami. I’d practically raised her.
I never blamed her. It wasn’t her fault that Aaron decided he loved her and followed her to Hollywood when she got her big break.
In some way, he probably thought of her as his ticket to the life he’d always wanted.
But what did hurt was that she left me and Willow and never looked back.
It was like we didn’t matter to her. We weren’t enough.
I understand what she was going through better now.
But I’m not sure, even if I knew what I do now, that I could have gotten past her taking Willow from me, from us, the only family she knew. ”
She shook her head. “I still can’t think about it without feeling like I’m going to throw up.
I’ve never been more terrified in my life.
When she brought Willow back three weeks later, I said some things I probably shouldn’t have.
My sister and my mother did too. In that moment, Cami was dead to us.
But no word of a lie, if she would have come to us a year, maybe two years later and told us what she’d been dealing with, we would have worked it out. But she didn’t until just last year.”
She raised a shoulder. “So those are my issues with Cami, and why it makes it a little hard for me to believe the people I love will stick around. Even my sister, my mother, and Willow and Sage are moving on with their lives, and it feels kind of like they’ve abandoned me too.
I know they love me, and I’m happy for them…
Okay, so I’m not happy for Sage because she’s not happy.
But you see, that’s how messed up I am.” Tears welled in her eyes, and she blinked them back.
“I needed you to walk away from me because I couldn’t walk away from you.
I’m falling in…” She made a face. “I’m in love with you, and when you walked away tonight, it hurt so bad, I thought, how can it get any worse?
If you still want me, and honestly, I wouldn’t blame you if you—”
“I’ll never stop wanting you or loving you,” he said, scooping her up and onto his lap while proceeding to kiss her senseless.
“Gia Rosetti!”
Gia pressed a hand to her heart and whipped her head around. Her mother stood by the bar. “Ma, you nearly gave me heart failure.”
“You? How do you think I feel when I walk in and see you kissing your sister’s boyfriend.” Her mother fisted her hands on her hips. “Are you trying to get back at her for Aaron? Because Flynn doesn’t deserve that. He’s a good man. He—”
“Ma, stop. This…” Gia moved her hand between herself and Flynn. “… has nothing to do with Cami or what happened with Aaron. And Flynn isn’t dating her, he’s dating me. We’ve been seeing each other for weeks.”
Her mother looked at Flynn, who nodded. “It’s true, Ms. Rosetti. Cami and I are just friends.”
“Friends who have a daughter together,” Carmen said, making a duck face. Gia didn’t know why she hadn’t seen it before, but it was the same face Cami made when she wanted to tick Gia off.
“That’s true, we do. But I’m not in love with Cami. I’m in love with Gia, and lucky me, she’s just told me she loves me too.” He smiled down at her.
“You do?” her mother asked her.
Despite Carmen’s reaction, Gia couldn’t keep the smile from her face. “I do, Ma.” She took Flynn’s hand. “Very much, and I hope you can be happy for me, for us.”
Her mother shook her head. “It’s too fast. You’ve been with him for weeks. Cami, she was with him for years. They won’t be happy, you know. Your sister and your daughter.”
She winced at her mother voicing her own fears, but Gia hid her nerves from the man she loved and the woman who knew her best with a glib smile. “That’s their problem, not mine.”
Bruno, carrying her mother’s purse, joined Carmen at the bar and gave Flynn a grateful smile. “I’m glad you’re here, son. I was worried about Gia being on her own.”
A guilty expression crossed her mother’s face before she replaced it with a judgmental one.
It was just as Gia had suspected. Her mother hadn’t given a second thought to leaving her on her own.
And perhaps to cover her guilt, Carmen said, “You might not be so glad he came to protect her when you hear what they’ve been up to. ”
Bruno frowned. “What have they been up to?”
“Okay. We’re leaving now,” Gia said before her mother filled Bruno in. He’d been her surrogate father for a quarter century, and she didn’t feel like discussing her love life with him. She’d much rather be having sex with Flynn.
“Are you okay?” Flynn asked as he closed the restaurant door behind them.
“I’m good. What about you? Having second thoughts? My mother can be a lot.”
“About you and me? I’m good, better than good, actually. I’m happy. But your mother has a point about Willow. We should probably let her know we’re together before she hears it secondhand.”
“You’re right, and what about your kids?
Are they going to be okay with us being together?
” She hadn’t really thought his kids would have an issue with her.
She’d asked because they were talking about Willow, and she didn’t want to not mention his other children.
But from the way he hesitated, she had a sneaking suspicion she was wrong.
“Flynn, are they going to have a problem with me?”
“August won’t, but you know girls.” She couldn’t tell in the dim lighting, but she thought he might have grimaced before covering it with a smile. “I’m sure it’ll be fine.”
“Is this something else we need to talk about before we get to the good stuff?”
He laughed, taking her hand as they walked side by side up the stairs to her apartment. “No. I’m more than ready to blow your mind.” Which he proceeded to do before she’d even gotten the door open, and that was just with his kisses.
She dragged her mouth from his. “I need to open the door.”
“You do that,” he said, his chest pressed to her back. His arms came around her, and his fingers moved to the buttons of her shirt. He undid one and then two…
“Put the key in the lock,” he ordered in her ear.
She shivered, trying to do as he said, but she had a hard time focusing when he undid a third button and lowered her shirt off her shoulders, his fingers sweeping over her collarbones to the lace edging the cups of her bra.
“Madonna santa, grazie,” she cried as the key turned in the lock and she opened the door.
They practically tripped over each other in their rush to get inside.
The remaining buttons popped off Gia’s shirt, and she brushed aside Flynn’s apologies, moving his hands away to take it off herself.
His gaze was heated as it moved over her, standing in her bra, skirt, and heels.
She hummed her appreciation as she helped him take off his shirt.
Smoothing her hands over his six-pack, gleaming golden in the moonlight shining through her studio window, she dragged a nail lightly along his skin just above the waistband of his jeans, loving the way his muscles twitched in reaction to her touch, the way he sucked in a breath.
Her phone rang from where she’d dropped it on the floor. She ignored it and went back to teasing him, only this time she undid the top button of his jeans. His phone vibrated in his pocket, and hers started ringing again.
They looked at each other, and the lightbulb went off at the same time for them both. “I’m going to kill her,” Gia said, reaching for her phone as Flynn withdrew his from his pocket.
“Where’s your bedroom?”
She pointed, and he took her hand, leading the way. “Why are we going to my bedroom?”
“We might as well be comfortable while we spend half the night talking to your sister, Willow, and my kids.” He brushed a kiss over her cheek and then whispered in her ear. “And after we talk to them, we’re going to finish what we started and blow each other’s minds. Over and over again.”