Chapter 34 Emery
After we finish and sit to let our dinners settle in our full bellies, I clear the plates and make my way to the sink.
Luca moves around behind me—packing up leftovers, clearing the linens from the table, putting away unused ingredients—while I start washing the dishes.
We move around each other in easy silence, the comforting sounds of home and music playing through the kitchen speaker in the background.
Before all of this, I honestly can’t remember the last time we ate together in such a leisurely manner, cleaning up the kitchen as a team.
Being so domestic. I’ve left the cooking and cleaning to Luca so many times in the past, I find myself adding it to the mental list of Reasons I Was a Shitty Wife.
With a slow exhale, I wipe down the counters and then rinse the sponge, staring out the window at the side yard my husband has so perfectly cultivated.
The lawn is neat and a healthy green; foxglove, dahlias, and zinnias border the house…
bright, stunning flowers whose names I only know because he’s always talking about plants, and I must absorb details even when I’m not actively listening. Another reason.
I startle when Luca steps up behind me, kissing my shoulder.
“What’re you thinking about?”
“Thinking how awesome you are and how not awesome I’ve been.”
Luca turns me to face him and cages me against the kitchen counter. “I’ve only ever known you to be awesome.”
I grin at him wryly. “Don’t worry, your memory is returning.”
He doesn’t laugh or even smile at this. He stares at me like I’m a frustrating mystery and then leans in, pressing his lips to mine. Things are so good right now, but if he remembers how many times I disappointed him—
“Let it go,” he says into the kiss. “Emery, you have to let all that go.”
“I want to. I really do. But one day you’ll remember, and you might not want to let it go,” I say, and my eyes flutter closed as he kisses me again. “I think I’m worried about getting my hopes up that we can really start over.”
“Try.”
I close my eyes, trying to do just that. I try to live in this moment, sinking into sensation, sliding my hands up his chest and around his neck, feeling the solid heat of him pressing into me.
“We aren’t the same people we were before all of this happened,” he says, kissing along my jaw, down my neck. “If I get to decide who I want to be, you do, too.”
Nodding, I stretch closer, tilting my head to give him better access to my lips, exhaling an involuntary moan as his tongue slides over mine, teasing at first and then sensuously, a deep, claiming kiss.
Luca takes a step backward and then another, drawing me forward to follow, and leads me out of the kitchen and into the living room. He backs into the couch, sitting down and guiding me to straddle him as he stares up at me. “I might not remember everything,” he says, “but I know I missed you.”
I lean in, pressing a kiss to his jaw, humming a quiet “Yeah?”
He nods, his warm hands resting on my thighs. Only his thumbs stroke back and forth; the rest of him remains still beneath me, as if he’s savoring the ache of waiting.
“You always do this,” I say, kissing along his neck.
“What’s that?”
“Pretend you’re patient.”
With his strong hands, he grabs my hips, bringing them flush against his. I gasp, rocking against him as he stretches to return his lips to mine, his breath hot against my mouth.
“And then you prove I’m not?” he asks.
I roll over him slowly, back and forth, watching the way his pupils expand until they’re blown out and black, his grip tightening on my hips.
“I missed you, too,” I tell him. “You have no idea how much.”
“I’m right here. We don’t have to miss each other anymore.”
Beneath me, he’s urgently hard, aligned right where I need him. One big hand slips under my T-shirt, fingers dancing up my spine; the other grips my hip, encouraging the slow, teasing rhythm. The silence between us stretches out, warm and full.
Our lips meet, mouths open and hungry. The slick pleasure of his tongue teasing mine makes the ache between my legs bloom into something heavy and tangible. Luca brings his hand from my hip to my jaw, cupping my face and pulling back slightly to look at me.
“How often did we do this?” he asks, tracing the pad of his thumb along my lower lip.
“A lot.”
His touch drags back and forth across my skin. “But when?”
“Every Sunday,” I say. “During the week it was always in the middle of the night.”
“I would have guessed that.”
“It’s not going to be like that anymore,” I say quietly. “I mean, I still want it to be a lot. Just also when it’s light out.”
Luca’s full mouth curves into a smile. “I think you’re as addicted to me as I have always been to you.”
Stretching, I slide my lips over his, back and forth and back and forth, until they part and the kiss deepens again, his tongue sliding warm and teasing over mine. His groan vibrates between us, sending an electric pulse directly between my legs.
He’s coming back to me.
He’s coming back, yes, but there’s still so much left unknown to explore.
I can see every sensation play across his face as if he’s experiencing it for the first time: my fingers tugging at his hair, my teeth grazing his neck.
I reach for the hem of his T-shirt and draw it up and over his head, tossing it to the side before I slip backward on his lap, lowering myself to the floor between his knees.
“Emery…” He reaches forward, brushing a curl out of my eye. “What’re you doing?”
“Do you really not remember what comes next?”
He laughs, low and rough, mumbling something that sounds a lot like Are you fucking kidding me?
With impatient hands, I unbutton his shorts, coaxing them down his hips and off, dropping them on top of the T-shirt. His boxers are soft white cotton, challenged by the insistent length of him pressing up against his belly.
Teasing, I just pull down the waistband, leaning in to inhale the masculine scent of him, soap and arousal, and press a kiss to the head of his cock. Humming, I ask quietly, “Do you remember this?”
Luca sucks in a sharp breath as his head falls back against the sofa. “Fuck,” he says on an exhale.
I tease him, small licks and kisses, refusing to take him all the way out of his boxers until he’s an absolute mess, wet and rock-hard in my hand. “What about this?”
He huffs out a laugh, his eyes fixed on where I’m holding him. I use his arousal to lubricate his length as I tease him with my mouth, slow and luxuriating, until his thighs tremble, pressing in against my shoulders, and I wonder how long it’s been since he’s come.
“I thought about this,” he says, sucking in a breath. I look up at him to continue. “About fucking you. What we’d look like together. How you’d feel.” He makes an almost painful sound. “Wanted it so much.”
With a moan, I take him deep, sucking him in earnest, relishing the sounds he makes with every deep dip of my head, the way his hips begin to instinctively lift in rhythm, the soft toying of his fingers in the hair at my nape.
“So good,” he whispers; then his grip tightens in my hair. “Ah ah, no, my love… slower.”
I obey, going back to slow teasing, smiling with my eyes up at him, and after a few minutes of toying with his need, bringing him to the edge and then back again, I release him to whisper, “Do you remember this?”
With a grin, I lower my mouth down his length and back up again with suction, again, again, until he’s panting above me. Luca’s hand forms a fist in my hair and he lets out a guttural curse and comes, pulsing in release, his low moan pulling the trigger on my own desire.
Without hesitating, he pulls me up onto his lap, kissing my swollen mouth, huffing out an awed laugh as if he can’t believe what I just did, his fingers making quick work of the buttons on my shorts.
I kick them off as Luca impatiently peels my underwear down my thighs, guiding me back over him so he can reach between my legs.
He releases another rumbling sound when he feels the slickness there.
“I want this all over me,” he says, kissing me urgently, pushing two fingers into me, using the heel of his hand to rub my clit. “Voglio essere bagnato di te.”
I can only let out a whimper, feeling so swollen and tight I know it won’t take long before I’m coming on his hand.
I ride it, circling while he thrusts, and he stares down between us, watching what he’s doing to me, before he pauses with a frustrated growl to rip my shirt up over my head and unclasp my bra, getting me fully naked over him.
I laugh in relief when he returns his focus to the urgent situation between my legs, and I kiss his jaw, his chin, his cheek until I can only bare my teeth against his cheekbone, panting, entirely focused on the sensation I’m chasing.
It’s so close, the moment is just there, that feeling of falling and blooming and expanding, and he whispers that I’m doing so good, I’m so beautiful, get there, amore mio, get there, and he bends to pull my breast into his mouth, sucking and biting, and it’s what I needed to completely fall to pieces on his hand.
It’s eternal, the way I come, drawn out by the press of his palm and the rapid thrusting of his fingers—a skill he’s always had, one that makes my science brain sit up from the sex-hazed slumber to momentarily high-five him—before I slump forward, boneless and leaden, loose with pleasure.
Luca carefully pulls his hand from between us and slides it up my side and around to my breast, where he urges me to sit up so he can kiss and play with my chest, rediscovering my skin and curves.
His hand is wet, covered in me, just like he wanted, and watching him suck and lick makes my skin feel sensitive and electric.
He stretches us out on the sofa, side by side, pulling my leg over his hip, and when he kisses up my chest, my neck, over my chin and up to my mouth, and he tastes like me and him and us…
I fall so much further in love with him that I get lightheaded.
We get lost in the slowest kiss trance, just exploring each other in an ebbing and flowing rhythm of play to heat to loving to calm and back again.
With him naked against me, I feel my eyes grow heavy, hear the way his breaths, too, are becoming deeper and rhythmic, and like this, we fall asleep in each other’s arms.