Chapter 3 #2
I laugh, and the tension I’ve been trying unsuccessfully to ignore seeps out of me.
She slathers her stack of French toast with butter and syrup, cuts a triangular piece from it, and lifts the forkful to her mouth, not seeming to mind me watching.
“Oh, that’s so good,” she says with her mouth full and her eyes fluttering closed in ecstasy as she chews.
I’m stuck paying attention to every detail: the drop of syrup on the corner of her mouth, the column of her long white neck with her head thrown slightly back, and her murmurs bordering on orgasmic moaning as she swallows her food.
I clear my throat. She opens her eyes and sees me staring, but it doesn’t throw her or make her blush self-consciously; she only smiles like she’s pleased. With what, I’m not sure. I’m more scared than pleased with any of this, or the sane part of me is.
My dick is thrilled and looking forward to the prospect of getting up close and personal with her.
My stomach, along with my entire digestive tract, growls angrily at me for not even touching the food on my plate. She arches a brow, and I can see her telling me what are you waiting for?
Instead of picking up my burger, I steal one of her pieces of bacon and crunch it between my teeth before she can do more than widen her eyes in surprise.
“Good bacon.” I grin.
Belatedly, she gives my hand a light slap. “You don’t have a right to take my bacon without asking. We don’t have that kind of relationship.”
“If I asked, you would have said yes. I skipped the formalities.”
“We haven’t decided to skip the formalities.”
“Then what are you doing here? What do you want from me, Fifi?”
“I want to see if we could have that kind of relationship.”
“Exactly what kind of relationship are you talking about?”
“A serious one.”
Her words shock me like a bucket of ice, and then the sting stays with me because I can’t push the idea away, and even though I’m shaking my head no, I’m considering her, imagining myself having the right to take the bacon off her plate any time I want, having the right to watch her eat breakfast every day.
Fuck.
“No?” she asks softly, and I hear the unmistakable wobble in her voice. Double fuck.
My hand shoots out to hers automatically because she’s backing away and closing up, and the part of me that doesn’t wait for rational thinking or any kind of decision-making process has already decided that I don’t want to let her go.
Confusion rises to her face as my hand clamps around hers and holds on tight like I’m her kidnapper more than a potential lover. I try to relax, but instead, I lean in close.
“You surprised me. I was expecting… something else. We’ve never had any kind of relationship, let alone a serious one. You want to go from zero to a hundred in the blink of an eye?”
“I thought you were fast.” She suppresses a smile, trying to lighten up. “They called you speed-Trick, don’t they?”
“You’ve been reading my press coverage?” The shot of pleasure that blitzes my senses would knock me over if I weren’t sitting. As it is, I feel the width of my grin stretching my face painfully into unfamiliar territory.
So what if she’s read up on me? Calm down.
She rolls her eyes. “I’m not trying to push you into a serious relationship today. But that’s what I want to consider. I don’t want to waste time dancing around, avoiding each other because there’s too much to lose.”
“Right. Our families. Life as we know it. It’s a lot to risk, Fifi, when we don’t even know… we’ve never done more than flirt and steal a few kisses.”
“And yet, even that small sample of our connection has been enough to make me think about you all this time and wonder.” Her words are so heartfelt and so deep; worst of all, they so accurately reflect the way I feel that I move my hand to cup her face and lean so close that I can taste the maple syrup on her breath.
“What are you suggesting we do?” My words trigger my heart to pound like a stampede in my chest. “You proposing we see each other secretly like we’re having an illicit affair?”
“Sort of. Not exactly.” She heaves a sigh and glances longingly at her plate. “We wouldn’t be illicit, but we don’t need to advertise that we’re together—”
“Together?” I’m wondering what that means exactly if we’re not serious.
“Sort of.”
I shake my head. “I see you’ve really thought this through.”
“Alright. I can see the asshole side to you. Thanks for that.”
“What are you—”
“You’re going to force me to spell out the details when you know exactly what I’m talking about.”
“You overestimate me.” I’m lying because the picture is becoming clearer, and I’m starting to get excited and terrified at the same time, but I want to hear it from her.
“I want a romance, to become lovers, to get to know each other intimately in every way.”
“Shit.” I didn’t mean to say that out loud, but it makes her smile. Must be something in my expression that clues her in that it was a good shit, not a bad shit. Probably the drool dripping from my mouth at the prospect of becoming lovers.
I throw her a monkey wrench. “Romance, eh?” She laughs, not thrown off at all.
“All of it.”
“But—”
“We need to keep it from our parents. Until we…”
“Until we end the romance.” I can’t help my harsh words because I’m no one’s idea of a romantic. Until today, no one’s come close to thinking of me in the same universe as romance, let alone the same sentence. I’m not boyfriend material. Never aspired to be. Was never inspired to be.
“Until we figure out whether or not we can have the kind of relationship that will stand up to the test that our families will throw at us.”
Her words lance whatever scenario I’d been imagining; whatever picture in my head was conjured by her proposal to get to know her intimately is gone.
I force a shrug, but an onslaught of tension brought on by the new vision of her angry family makes me stiff and uncomfortable.
“It would be more your parents than mine.”
She raises her brows. “You mean your dad would be okay with me at your family’s dinner table?”
“Not okay, maybe uncomfortable.” In private, he’d probably ream me out, but Mom would talk sense into him. It’s the hurt that I would dread, the sense of betrayal we would both feel. Shit.
“This is all speculation,” I insist. But tension has me by the balls no matter how theoretical and improbable her imagined future for us might be.
She slides her hand forward and covers mine with her soft warm palm.
“I know. But I have a feeling about us.” She pulls back and eyes me.
“Our families will—I mean would—feel betrayed. That’s the worst. If I didn’t have my sister Carmela for support, I don’t know what I’d do. You have Connor. He would understand.”
Fuck. “He has his own issues.” I arch a brow at her, knowing Connor thinks of himself as a cautionary tale.
“How about Sean?”
I don’t know why I’m bothering to answer her questions, and I don’t know how to explain about my brothers and the pecking order of respect in my family. “I’m a middle brother. My older brothers have spent my whole life bossing me around and beating me up.” I try a wry smile.
She nods as if she understands, and maybe she does since she has three older brothers herself. “What about your younger brothers?”
“The twins, Rory and Liam, are like their own island, and Daniel is too young. I wouldn’t confuse him with talk about complicated relationship issues, let alone allow him to take sides.
” My older sister automatically comes to mind, and I know immediately and confidently that she would one hundred percent support me.
But it’s the last thing I’d want to put on her.
She has enough on her plate to deal with every day.
“Kathleen will understand,” Fifi says. “She has a kind soul. I know she—”
“I wouldn’t burden her with taking sides.” My voice is firm, and she doesn’t push it.
“Then you’ll have to appeal to your mom for support.”
I smile at her because she’s clever how she’s bringing me down this dangerous road one step at a time.
She’s also right about my mother. Mom’s always been the moderator in the family—or the referee if things get too crazy.
She helped Connor through the Holiday Hunk Auction debacle when Carmela bid on him and made it clear to both families how she felt—hell, made it clear to the whole town.
Now Connor hardly ever comes home, staying with Carmela.
He steers clear of everyone, but mostly avoids their old man, Rossi Senior, and their oldest brother Frank.
Even so, Mom hasn’t had to deal with anything this serious from me, not since I was born.
“Maybe.” I don’t make any commitment partly because it’s not my thing. But also, the last thing I’d want to do is cause friction between Mom and Dad.
My stomach growls, and I pick up one of the burgers, needing the distraction, needing to look at something else besides Fifi’s face.
She takes one of my pickles like she’s entitled, and I don’t stop her, feeling more amused than annoyed.
It may not seem like much, but I’m protective of my food coming from a family of six hockey-playing brothers.
I glance up at her. The shit-eating grin on her face widens as she bites into the pickle, making it a sensual gesture.
“You never let people steal your food,” she says.
“How would you know?” I’m not as surprised as I should be that she gets it.
“I’m observant.”
“I’m observant too,” I say, pinning her stare with mine. “For instance, I happen to know for a fact that you don’t even like pickles.” I give her a look that tells her I see what she’s doing.
She laughs and drops the remainder of the pickle back on my plate. “Touché.”
“You expect me to eat that?” I tease, my heart pumping faster because something about eating a pickle she’s taken a bite of tempts me like a teenager visiting a brothel.
“Yes. No need to worry about my saliva all over it because your mouth and my mouth are going to be exchanging all kinds of saliva. Soon.”
My mouth goes dry like it’s clearing out for a taste of her saliva, of her lips, her tongue. Shit. My pants tighten around the crotch as my dick starts looking forward to all the tasting I’m going to do.
“Be careful what you wish for.” I croak out the words.
“You be careful of what you’re going to get.” She stands, picking up her tray and pushing back her chair in a move equivalent to a mic drop.
“I don’t have your number—” I grab her hand to slow her down as she walks by me.
“I have yours.”