Chapter Twenty-eight #2
My lips widened into a smile, liking the way she had just forced me to look at her. “Yes, ma’am. Can we go sit?” I jerk my head toward a bench on the outskirts of the woods, camouflaged by the greenery.
Once we're seated, I force her legs up and onto my thighs, pulling her closer to me. My eyes roam over her face, seeing the flutter of freckles on her cheeks, how her cupid's bow has the perfect indent, and the small freckle that graces her top lip. Perfection. My thumb rubs her fingers, and I silently smile to myself. Her fingers are healing; well, there aren’t any new picks. I can’t help but imagine a ring gracing her finger, capturing her for a lifetime and thereafter.
All mine. “I love you more than anything in this world, baby. Before you, I never knew what love was; now I know the all-consuming, infuriating feeling of it. And I never want to not feel it. This next job.” I breathe in, because this next sentence will cement the reality, because I won’t change my mind after I tell her.
She stares at me with her eyebrows etched on her forehead, unsure of what’s fixing to come next.
“This will be my last job, Rowan.”
She stays straight-faced. “Why?” Her eyes bounce over my face, trying to see any tells I’ll give.
I know Rowan, and she’s fixing to think the worst when I tell her why. “Because of you.”
Her eyes widen. “Luca, I’ve never asked you not to do what you do for a living. You can’t blame this on me.” Her cheeks heat, crimson marring them.
Squeezing her hand tighter, “Rowan, you. You have made me want to live. I want to be here longer than I thought I would. I have a time bomb strapped to me if I stay any longer. I know this. Just because I’m stepping away doesn’t mean I won’t still be in that field of work; I’ll just be behind the scenes. ”
“Who’s going to take your place?” She asks like she doesn't already know. Because I can see the way her face becomes crestfallen. Biting her lip, not wanting the name to come out, she finally whispers his name. “Damian.”
With a nod, I see the way the what-ifs play behind her eyes.
“He’s ready for it. And he still needs an outlet. Hell, it could be two jobs, and he says he’s done, but for the moment, I’m passing the torch onto him. And maybe when he decides he’s done, then we’re all done.” Fuck, I’ve never said that thought out loud. All. Done.
Rowan closes the small gap between us, laying her head on my shoulder.
I pan my eyes down to her; I watch the way the leaves above cast shadows over her face; her pupils dilate, taking up more of her blue oceans I’ve fallen into many times, wanting to drown in them.
“I like knowing you will not be out there and in danger. Each time you leave, I’m scared.
I pray that the moment you walk out of that door, God brings you back to me safely.
And you know me and God, we’re not on good terms, but for you, I’d give myself to the Devil himself if it meant you’d make it back to where you belong… with me.”
Tucking a brown strand that blows onto her lips behind her ear, I steal them.
One minute she’s sitting with her legs over me, and the next she maneuvers herself straddling me on this rickety bench.
We feast on each other, starving. Her chest molds against mine as she grinds herself against my cock.
Enjoying the way my cock pushes the zipper seam into her pussy.
“This is a place of mourning,” someone screams across the yard. Roxy’s barking follows.
Breaking contact with her lips, “Motherfucker,” I mutter, placing my forehead on hers. We’re both breathless, trying to even our breathing out, but she still slowly rubs her pussy against my now aching dick, from both the need of her and the strain against my jeans.
“Thomas.” She growls his name like he can hear it, especially over his cackling that’s drawing closer to us.
Huffing, Rowan lifts her body from me, standing to block Thomas from my view, while I try to rearrange my dick.
“Well, look at you two trying to raise the dead, like Rowan’s rising that dick, I see.”
“You have the worst timing, asshole,” I grunt at him, standing, knowing I’m going to have blue balls.
“That’s what my momma says, too.”
“Why? Because you’re alive.” I ask him.
Rowan pushes him, but he’s a tree and doesn't move an inch, before he opens his enormous arms, giving her a hug. I thought next to me, she looks small, but every time I see her with him, I’m amazed at how little he makes her look, because he’s just a gigantic asshole.
Roxy comes to sit next to Rowan, her tongue hanging out of her mouth, looking goofy as hell.
“You want some water, baby doll,” she coos to her; Roxy's tail wags.
“What are you doing here?” I ask while grabbing Rowan’s hand.
“I’m here early, but for dinner.”
At the same time, Rowan and I laugh. “Of course you are. Did you bring your maid's outfit, cockblocker?”
“Ha. Funny.”
Slapping Thomas on the back, we head inside.
Walking into the foyer of the Funeral home, Clover stands at the stairs. When she spots Roxy, a smile overtakes her face, bending down. “Hi, little one,” she whispers not to scare Roxy.
I don’t know Clover well, just what Matteo has told me and what I know from everything that has happened, but I watch her as she slowly stands, fixing her dress. She has pain and uncertainty etched on her face. Even I, a stranger, can tell she’s battling.
Rowan squeezes my hand, letting me know she wants a moment with her.
Kissing her cheek, I leave them both standing in the foyer to talk.
“Did Weeks fill you in on everything?” I ask Thomas, who leads us upstairs to find Matteo.
Smoothing his black hair into a pony, “Are you ready to hand over the reins, though? Are you going to sit back and let Damian do what he needs to do?”
Can I? I guess we’ll see. “Of course. We both need this.” I tell him, even though I don’t know how this will pan out.
Knocking on Matteo’s office door, his voice booms on the other side through the thick mahogany wood. Walking in, you know you're stepping into a home built from way back; everything is grand, the fireplace you could stand in, something they don’t build anymore.
Matteo sits behind an ornate desk. A painting of the graveyard outside is the main focal point.
He looks worse for wear, his dark eyes even darker from the surrounding circles and hollow eyes.
A few days' growth of stubble covers his face, and his usually neat hair is disheveled. This man is fighting for the woman downstairs, fighting for her survival, to live. And it’s evident in his appearance.
“Come, sit.” Matteo waves both Thomas and I in.
The chairs are uncomfortable, more for looks than for the comfort of those who occupy them.
“You good, brother?” I ask him right out of the gate, even though I know he’s not.
Fumbling in his desk, he pulls out a small silver tray and busies himself, breaking the bud on it apart meticulously.
Spreading the small white paper with the greenery, the potent smell already hitting my nose, he looks at me and Thomas as he licks the paper, melding it together, before lighting it.
Holding his breath longer than needed, when he blows out, there is no smoke to follow.
Easing back in his chair, he lets his eyes close, all while holding his hand out to us.
“I’m good,” Thomas tells him, but I immediately take the joint, inhaling the burn, letting my lungs fill up, before blowing it out. We pass the joint back a few times before I wave it away, my eyelids feeling heavy.
“Why is this all so fucking hard?”
With a slow gaze, I find Matteo with his head on the desk.
“I wish someone would tell me as well. I don’t have any clue.”
Thomas’ chair creaks, trying to get himself comfortable, having both of us wincing, worried it’s going to break with him in it.
“Sometimes, the broken ones are what our souls yearn for. They love and fight harder. Brokenness teaches us our strength. Just at the moment we don’t think we’re worthy of them, here they come, rearranging themselves to fit us in. Molding together just right.”
My high ass mind tries to piece together what he just said, looking at him, dumbfounded.
I’ve never heard Thomas speak that way. He’s always the one with a joke or a snide comment.
The jokester of the group, for him to talk like he just did, is new.
And I know right then and there, he has a broken woman he’s trying to help piece back together, from something he didn’t even break.
He looks at me and smiles, knowing what I’m thinking.
But I don’t ask him; he’ll tell me more about her when the time is right.
“I love her more than life itself. I’d do whatever it takes to help her heal, but she just pushes me away.” Matteo’s accent peaks through the words.
“I feel you, man,” I agree with him. Because I know all too well.
The time blends together while we're in his office until our conversation about what lies next for me is broken by a knock on the door before Clover's red head peeks in. In a joking motion, she acts like the lingering smoke is too thick. “Damian and Soleil won’t be able to make it to family dinner.” She informs us.
“That’s okay,” Thomas tells her.
I was hoping he’d come, but I know they got their own shit going on.
The last time I saw them both together was when we came and had family dinner a while back.
And apparently, that ended badly for Matteo and Clover, him hearing what she was telling the girls while they were talking to each other. Girls gossip.
“How long till dinner?” Matteo’s voice is authoritative when speaking to her.
“Another thirty minutes.” Without another word, she closes the door.
I can’t help but shake my head. “You both have to find a common meeting ground, or this really will not work.”
“We did; it’s called the embalming table.”
“Holy shit.” Both Thomas and I call out at the same time.
“I’m fucking trying.” He shrugs.
An embalming table… I try to envision that, but I’m glad I can’t piece that together in my head.
The dinner is amazing; Clover put her cooking skills to the test once again and aced it.
I watch her and Matteo throughout dinner, but it’s so hard to understand them.
But it’s not my story to understand, either.