Reno snorts as he tries to keep a straight face. Guess he’s not a romantic like I am, but as long as he’s got steady hands, I’m good.
The tattoo gun hums with a loud buzz, and Reno touches the needle to my skin. My face is already screwed up in anticipation, my breath locked in my lungs, but it’s . . . not bad. Or at least, not as bad as I expected it to be.
“That’s it?” I ask with a smile.
Reno does laugh at that. “I just started. It’ll get worse before it gets better, but yeah . . . that’s it. Only about forty-five more minutes to go, doll.”
Doll? I’m definitely not one of those . . . unless it’s one of those second-rate Barbies that gets left in the bottom of the bin too long and loses one shoe, gets a bit of chewed gum stuck in its hair, and has uncapped marker ink on its naked body.
Well, actually, that last part does make me a doll in a sense, I guess, because when Reno is done, I’ll have ink on my ribcage, just below my left breast.
“Tell me what I’m doing here again?” Reno says. “Not that I care. I’m just happy to not be doing flash art off the wall or copying something from Pinterest.”
I smile though the pain is getting more intense, a deeper burn rather than a stinging sensation. “The circle represents a motorcycle wheel. Tonight was my first time.”
Reno pauses and looks at Lorenzo again. “She’s riding bitch, I hope?”
I answer for myself. “I rode on the back of his bike, if that’s what that means. But it was awesome . . . a milestone in a lot of ways.” A big moment for more than just me sitting on the back of Lorenzo’s bike, that’s for sure.
The idea that I’m not controlling some huge monstrosity of a motorcycle seems to ease Reno, promptly making me want to march right out and get a motorcycle of my own. Hmm, that’s an idea. An image of Lorenzo and me riding alongside each other down some deserted road with beautiful leaves all around us fills my mind. But then I wouldn’t feel the same freedom of just floating along the road tethered to Lorenzo, so I dismiss the idea and decide I don’t care what Reno thinks anyway.
“Hmm,” Reno hums, getting back to work and drawing a hiss of surprise out of me at the return of the stinging. “What else?”
I realize that he’s keeping me distracted, asking me questions that require more than a yes or no answer to keep me focused on something else. Maybe for all his male-assholeness, he’s a semi-decent guy. Or at least a good tattoo artist.
“The numbers across the center of the wheel are the coordinates for Aruba. We just got back. The four compass points are a heart because . . . well, obviously, for my heart. A flower because I’m a floral artist, and the sun and moon are a reminder to live each day to my own standards. No one else’s.” I explain my reasoning in fits and starts, fighting to stay still the whole time.
“Almost done,” Reno says, and Lorenzo takes my hand, running his thumb in a soothing circle along the tender part between my thumb and index finger.
He murmurs into my ear in Italian. I have no idea what he’s saying, but the soothing, rumbling tones help me sit still for the remaining few minutes.
“All right. You up next, man?” Reno asks Lorenzo.
Lorenzo shakes his head. “No, thanks. This was her desire tonight. I’m just here to make sure she gets whatever she wants and support her dreams.”
It’s right then that I know.
I suspected. I probably even knew on some level that I stuffed down in the dirt of my gut and tap-danced on top of to keep it from blooming too fast. But it’s bursting through the dirt in a beanstalk of a sprout now.
Love.
I love Lorenzo.
Big and wild, loud and scary, and so not temporary.
“This is my apartment,” I offer with a wave of my hand. “That’s Delores, my fiddle leaf fig tree. Those succulents are Wilma, Fred, Betty, and Barney. The Monstera is named Loch, the snake plant is Medusa, and the fern is Christofern. And that’s Meredith, my new cactus that’s prickly as hell and keeps falling over, making a mess of dirt I have to clean up.” I sneer at the offending asshole of a cactus. Yeah, I named one of my plants after Meredith Wildeman. It’d seemed appropriate given its phallic shape and how many times I’ve cursed it this week. I might kill it just for some cathartic healing too.
Lorenzo smiles at me, barely giving the plants a glance. He’s judging me, that’s for sure, but he seems to think my habit of naming all my plants is cute rather than weird as fuck.
“Abigail,” he starts, his voice low and rumbly in a way that makes my belly flip and my core clench.
“Yeah?” I drawl out.
“I need you to tell me what we’re doing here. You told me where to take you, and I did, but I’m about to take you over that couch and let all of your plants watch. If that’s not what you want, tell me now because it’s been too long since . . .”
I don’t let him finish, knowing exactly what he’s saying. We left Aruba, left that massage room, almost a week ago. A week that I have spent feeling empty without him—mentally, emotionally, and physically.
And I’m done with that.
I slowly pull my shirt over my head to not disturb my sore ribs and watch his eyes dilate at my bare chest, my bra an impossibility after the impromptu tattoo. He stomps my way, and I let him have three steps before I turn and take off down the hallway toward my bedroom.
“What?” he mutters, and then he realizes it's game time and gives chase.
Fuck, I love the sound of him running down the hall after me, the feel of his heat getting closer, the focus of his attention on me, not whatever surroundings we’re in.
Through the door first, I spin to sit on my ass on my fluffy peach comforter-covered bed. I expect him to stop at the bed’s edge, either between my knees or straddling them with his own.
He doesn’t. He keeps coming, forcing me back on the bed. I writhe beneath him, careful to not stretch the sensitive, tattooed skin.
“Don’t move, mia rosa. Do not hurt yourself. Let me,” he groans. “Fuck, let me.” He drops to his knees, his hands undoing my jeans and yanking them down and off, taking my shoes with them. He gives my panties the same treatment and then shoves my knees apart.
There’s something so obscenely sexy about being nude and vulnerable when he’s fully dressed and looming over my most sensitive part. His eyes trace over my core, his thumbs teasing at my lips to open me even wider.
He leans in, nudging my center with his nose, and I hear him inhale. “Nectar of the gods. You smell so good and taste even better.” I feel the heat of his breath a moment before I feel the flat of his tongue lick a long line over my entire pussy as if he wants to claim every inch as his own.
“Fuck, Lorenzo. Yes,” I moan.
“That’s it. Let me hear how much you’ve missed me, how much you’ve needed me, and know that I will never leave you again, even if you want me to. Even if you beg me to.” He switches to soft kisses and lapping licks, from one thigh, across my middle, to the other thigh. “Sweet, wild Abigail . . . I’m afraid you’re stuck with me . . . forever.”
I’m already on edge embarrassingly easily with his words that pierce directly into my romantic heart and his tongue that’s hitting my needy clit.
I reach down with my hand, twining it into his hair and holding him to me, demanding what I want. What I deserve.
“Please . . . fuck.” The plea is for more—more of his tongue, more of his poetry, more of something I can’t even name as I’m swirling higher and higher under his power.
But he knows. I don’t know how, but he does. “You’re mine.” The soft claim is paired with a fierce suck on my clit, and together, they send me flying into the abyss. My eyes flutter closed and I see white sparkles against the black of my eyelids. He grunts against me, demanding more until I’m wrung out from the bliss.
Slowly, I come back to the moment and to my body, unsure where I disappeared to but knowing I went on a journey to somewhere magical. Lorenzo is slowly circling my clit with his
thumb, patiently waiting on my vision to clear, and when I look down between my legs, it’s to see him with a lazy smile of awe on his face.
“Bellissima, mia rosa.”
I wiggle and he lets me move. I scoot up the bed, waving him closer with one hand. His eyes narrow, asking carefully, “Are you hurting?” He nods his head toward the tattoo.
I bite my lip, not willing to admit that it’s sore and moving around isn’t helping because I want to keep going, especially when I see the hard ridge in his jeans. “Not too much. I might just have to be a starfish this time.”
His brows knit together. “Starfish?”
I lay my arms and legs out wide and lax, telling him dramatically, “Do with me what you will.”
Oh, shit. There’s a fresh gleam in his eye instantly, and his hand goes to his cock, massaging it through the denim. “You’re asking for it,” he warns.
But I don’t need a warning. I need whatever devious thought is running through his mind right now because it’s written all over the hard lines of his face as he grits his teeth, making the muscles in his jaw flex.
My hips buck, looking for something in the empty air above me.
“Don’t move. You’ll hurt yourself.”
The order is clear. And I’m not a girl who takes orders. I’m a girl who gives them. But my hips still, curious at what he’s going to do.
He yanks his shirt over his head, toes off his boots, and slowly, so damn slowly, undoes his jeans. He pushes them and his underwear down in the front, freeing himself. I must make some sound of hunger because his hand goes to the base, squeezing himself tightly. “Cazzo,” he groans.
I’m pretty sure that means ‘fuck’, but even if I wasn’t sure, his tone would tell me. “You said don’t move. You didn’t say I couldn’t talk, Lorenzo. Are you going to climb up here and fuck me or stand there and jerk off onto me?”
Honestly, both options sound pretty stellar right now.
He pushes his jeans and underwear the rest of the way down, leaving a puddle of clothes on the floor. Stroking himself, he tells me, “Neither.”
But he kneels on the bed between my legs, lining up with my entrance. He gives a few shallow thrusts, not breeching me but coating his crown with my juices. My hips buck as I try to impale myself on him to ease this aching need that only he can fix.
His hands find my hips. Pushing me into the softness of the bed, he forces me still beneath him. I gasp in disappointment at losing the contact when I was so close to having him fill me again.
“Abigail, look at me.”
I have to blink to focus on him, but once I do, I can see that he’s on the edge too, holding on by a fraying thread.
“I’m not going to fuck you. Not this time.” He shakes his head, and I swallow a cry. “I’m going to make love to you, and you’re going to let me worship you the way you deserve. You’re going to be still and let me love you. This is a time for you to take, to feel, to receive.”
He doesn’t give me a chance to agree or disagree. He slides inside me in one smooth thrust forward, stealing my breath.
Complete. That’s what I feel with him inside me, his eyes locked on mine and his heart written all over his face. It’s been in his every action. I was just too fearful to trust. Until now.
Cathartic tears pour out of my eyes as he strokes into me, keeping a steady and even pace as he whispers love, tells me all the things he sees in me that are beautiful, and appreciates my passion, needing nothing less or nothing more than exactly who and what I am.
I didn’t know I wanted this. I certainly didn’t know I needed this.
But this is what my romance looks like. A little reckless, a lot spontaneous, and a whole lot of carpe the shit outta that diem. With Lorenzo.
I wrap my legs around his and grip his shoulder with my one hand, staying still but wanting to be there with him, giving him back as much as he’s giving me.
“I love you, Lorenzo,” I shout.
I know, I know. Women aren’t supposed to say it first. It’s like the kiss of death that instantly scares guys off. But it’s the truth, and I don’t play by others’ rules. I feel it, so I’ll own that, and he deserves to know.
Instantly, he grunts and thrusts deep into me, holding still for a split second with his neck muscles strained and his eyes locked on mine. I feel him throbbing, the pulse of his hot cum filling me as he vows, “I love you too, mia rosa.”
“I think there’s a spatula in that drawer,” I tell Lorenzo the next morning while he tries to make us breakfast with the woeful lack of supplies in my apartment.
He opens the drawer only to find more take-out menus.
He glares at me, holding up a flyer from my favorite pizza place. I don’t move from my perch on a stool at the counter and only offer a shrug, knowing I’m blushing and hoping he thinks it’s cute that I can barely boil water.
“I need to eat. I don’t need to cook,” I tease.
He digs around a bit more and comes out victorious with a spatula after all. He then promptly gathers up all of my menus and dumps them in the trash.
“Hey!”
“I’ll cook for you now.”
Uhm, well . . . okay, then. Anything Lorenzo makes is better than the pizzas I only get because they’re fast, cheap, and good for two nights.
“F-Y-I, I’m gonna hold you to that,” I promise. He smiles as though he hopes I do. “I can’t believe that train wreck of a week got us to here.” I gesture from me to him, and okay, to the fresh-cooked breakfast.
“It wasn’t a total train wreck. We had fun, ten of ten, would do again,” he jokes.
“Oh, God, you sound like Violet or Archie when you say that,” I lament, but then I admit, “You’re right, though. You met Esmar, and I told Emily off, which was a fair amount of closure until the whole country club kerfuffle.”
His questioning look tells me that Violet didn’t share that little tidbit with him, so I fill him in about Emily trying to ruin our family dinner and doing so rather loudly. “But now the whole club thinks we’re married too because Dad had to basically defend me by saying we were celebrating my good work and new marriage.”
Lorenzo smiles around a laugh. “So, the scheme continues?”
He doesn’t sound disappointed about that at all. Not one bit.
“And you know how Claire basically told Meredith she was second-choice at the wedding? Well, her whole wedding album online has both Meredith and the original planner tagged. I wish I’d been a fly on the wall when she saw that!” I laugh.
“Fly on the wall?” Lorenzo repeats, looking confused.
“Weird expression. Basically means I would’ve loved to see that,” I explain.
“That woman . . . she is . . .”
He seems to be searching for a word, so I help. “We’ve decided on ‘bitch’. Even my mom said so, and that’s basically a miracle.”
“Yeah, that bitch held you over my head when she couldn’t get me to do her bidding.”
“What?” I screech, slapping the counter with both palms.
I’m going to kill her. Kill her and have Archie give me an alibi.
Sigh. I’m not.
But I am going to skip watering Meredith the cactus. Maybe poke it with a few pins, voodoo-doll style too. I wonder if a pin hurts a cactus? You know, because they’re already full of stabby sticks? I should look that up.
Lorenzo nods as he stirs the eggs, oblivious to my new botany plans. “She has it out for you, more than just the wedding. She told me that she would refuse to work with you so her brides wouldn’t be able to use you as their florist. I don’t know what kind of power she might have in your town, in your crowd,” he warns.
“Not that kind of power, that’s for damn sure.”
I am furious. How dare she? I rocked that wedding, made Claire over-the-moon happy, and created some of my absolute best work. What is her deal? I mean, does she hate flowers on principle or just me?
“What are you gonna do?” Lorenzo asks as
he sets a plate of perfectly fluffy eggs in front of me.
He doesn’t tell me to let it go, doesn’t suggest that maybe I’m overreacting, doesn’t even come up with some crazy scheme of his own. He just lets me be me.
“I don’t know yet, but I’ll figure it out. I always do.” I take a bite of eggs and moan at the deliciousness. “Oh ma gawd, these are so good,” I say around the mouthful. After I swallow, and before the next bite that’s already poised on my fork, I ask, “Speaking of, what’s the deal with this job offer from Esmar? That’s what Meredith hung over my head about you.”
“That bitch! How did she even know about that?” Lorenzo says around his own monster bite of half-chewed eggs, not shy at all about the new label we’ve bestowed upon Meredith’s head.
Maybe I should rename that cactus? Bitch has a nice ring to it.
“He offered, but I couldn’t accept. I couldn’t leave you, even when you weren’t mine,” he confesses boldly.
“I was always yours,” I tell him.
“And I yours, mia rosa.”
We lock eyes, no words needed before we shovel the rest of our eggs down our throats at eating-contest pace and run back to the bedroom.
Chapter 26
Lorenzo
We roar down the tree-lined street. I can feel the eyes peeking out of the windows as we pass by each house, the inhabitants wondering who dares to disturb their peaceful, gate-controlled community.
Abigail points right, and I follow her directions, praying that our destination is what she promises it is. Not that I think she’d mislead me, but we grew up in very different worlds and this will be my first true step into hers.
I’m nervous.
Fine, I’m fucking mental about it. I’m not the sort of guy girls ever took home to their fathers. And later, when women would suggest it, I’d run for the nearest exit before their misconceptions could go any further astray. But this time? When Morgan Andrews invites you to dinner, you do not say no. You go.
My Big Fat Fake Honeymoon Page 30
