Read With Your Heart: a small town romance
Page 27
“You are so beautiful,” I say to her, my eyes gazing over her body spread out on the antique wood like a feast. Her legs dangle off the edge of the table, and my arms hold me upright as I repeatedly surge into her. My fingers reach for her clit. On a final cry, she stills, arching her back like she does when she comes, and I go off inside her, giving her more of me each time we join like this. I’m waiting for the day she says it takes—we’re having a baby—but I’m prepared to keep trying until it does.
That night as we lounge on our bed, and she turns to me. “I don’t think I can top a kitchen with my Christmas gift for you.”
“You already give me everything, baby. I don’t need anything more.” I really don’t, and I’m not just saying that to get into her pants one more time before we sleep.
“How did you afford the kitchen?” I’ve been telling her I planned to get a truck near the holidays.
“Uhm…” Yeah, the truck needs to wait a little longer, but I don’t mention it until her hand claps on my forearm.
“Leon, what did you do?”
“I gave you a kitchen,” I state, looking up at her sitting next to me.
“But a truck?”
“Can wait.”
She groans. “Leon, why would you do this?”
“Want to give the kitchen back?”
“No, but still.”
“I love you, baby. I want to give you everything. I want you to feel safe. A home. A baby. Me.”
I can almost read her thoughts, rambling over the list I just gave her.
“I love you, too, but what will you do?” she says.
“Be extra careful on my bike.” Her concern warms my heart because I know she worries I’ll skid on black ice. “Let’s not talk about the bike. Let me tell you what I want.”
Her brows pinch, and I hold her gaze until she agrees.
“Pick a nightie.”
Her smile grows. We’ve already had sex twice and showered together. I don’t know if I can go for another round after setting up that kitchen all day, but this isn’t about sex. I watch as she stands, goes to the dresser and puts on a skin-colored item with lace down the middle. It’s the nightie she considered delicate laundry before we were together.
“Now, put on those red-rimmed glasses of yours.”
“How do you…?” Her voice drifts.
“The window, remember?” Her lips curl into a smile. She knows what I’m talking about. We used to watch one another.
“I have different lenses now.” Sometimes she wears glasses when she grades papers.
“I want the red ones,” I tell her, and she digs them out of a basket under her nightstand. At the same time, I reach for a book near my side of the bed. She sits on the covers, but I pull them back and tell her to bend her knees and tuck only her feet under the blanket.
Looking up at her, I perch up on my elbow and watch as she does what I ask.
“I’d look over here and see you sitting like this. Toes tucked, glasses on, a book in hand, and I’d wonder what you were reading. How it made you laugh or gasp, or did it make you hot? I wanted whatever it was that gave you those expressions. I wanted it for me. So, pretty lady, you are my gift this holiday. Just sitting like this with those red lenses and that nightie, you can read me some of this, and I’ll be the happiest man ever.”
She bites her lower lip, fighting a smile, and takes the book from me. “Shakespeare, of course.”
I point at the page I want her to read, and she begins Juliet’s lines about being bought and sold but not yet bedded. As she reads, my fingers trace along the underside of her raised, bent knee, and I skim under the back of her thigh to the curve of her ass on the mattress. Her breath hitches, but I tell her to keep reading. I slip my finger inside her panties because that view from the window used to make me hot, but the real thing, being in our bed, is even hotter. In minutes, Shakespeare is forgotten, but her nightie and red glasses remain on as I make love to her in our bed, grateful for the gift of her.
Epilogue
The greatest lesson we learn is to love.
Two months later
[Tricia]
Somehow, I’d convinced Leon to help me coach my middle school girls’ basketball team. It might be all the sexual favors I offered him, but he doesn’t seem to mind. The girls are not the best, but they have heart, and they are only eleven. It’s February, and we’ve just finished our season finals. Leon asks me to stay after the game and shoot around a little while. My back aches a bit. I haven’t been feeling well most of this month, finding my energy has been zapped this winter, but our team lingers on the sidelines.
“How about a little one-on-one between Coach Carter and me?” Leon taunts the team, and I glare at him. We can’t play ball in front of them. He’ll get all handsy and inappropriate. And they. Are. Eleven. Unfortunately for me, the girls cheer and scream, and I give in easily to peer pressure.
“Shirts and skins,” I grumble. Leon will not agree to us playing in that manner before a crowded gym.
“Skin on skin later, baby,” Leon teases, giving me a crooked smile. Then his voice gets louder as he explains his rules. “How about this? We’ll play a little spelling game. Each time I make a shot, the girls will flip over a card.”
I look up to find the team holding up blank sheets of paper, high and proud above their heads. Lys stands at the end of the line, and I’m wondering what she’s up to as she smiles at her brother.
“If Coach Carter makes the shot following mine, the letter stays. If Coach Carter misses, it goes away. Follow me?”
It’s a basic around-the-key basketball drill with this additional element.
“What the heck, Ramirez?” I grouse, but he steps to the left of the basket, makes a simple layup, and I follow. Allison flips the first paper and a giant M appears.
Leon steps to the right of the hoop, shoots again, and the next girl turns over an A. My heart races, and my suspicion skyrockets. I shoot and miss, and the A goes away.
Panic settles in. “Let me try again,” I cry out, but the girls sigh and groan, refusing to allow me a second chance.
Leon shoots again. The A returns. I shoot, and the A stays.
He moves to the top of the key. With two shots in a row and two following shots by me, a set of Rs appear.
“Leon,” I whisper, as he passes me on his way to the free throw line. His shot sails through the hoop. Mine wobbles the rim before dropping through the net. I almost have a heart attack. Once it drops, Hannah proudly turns her paper to Y, and the girls start to hop up and down.
I turn on Leon.
“Oh my God,” I whisper as his silver eyes dance.
“Three more cards, baby.”
I keep the ball, shoot and rebound my own shot. I shoot again and again.
“She’s cheating,” Leon teases, but he nods at the girls to flip the final three cards, and I read them altogether.
M -A - R - R - Y - M - E - ?
The girls bounce around, and the letters jiggle while they cheer. Lys stands with the girls wearing the largest smile I’ve ever seen on her. I turn back to Leon who stands at the top of the key. With parents and family friends as witnesses, he drops to his knee, and I slowly walk to him.
“There are many things I don’t know to be true, but this I give to you. My heart, my soul, my body. My essential being belongs with you.”
“I don’t know that one,” I say, focused on the box in his hand as it blurs from the tears in my eyes.
“It’s a Leon original,” he says, popping open the box to show me a square cut diamond with an emerald on either side of it.
“I love Leon originals,” I whisper, staring down at the ring.
“This next line isn’t so original, but I’ve been waiting to use it on you for a while. Will you marry me, pretty lady?”
My eyes see his sparkling, just like the ring before him.
“Yes, honey. I would love to marry you.” I cup his cheek as I give him my answer, my entire body tr
embling. Leon slips the ring on my finger as my head continues to nod. Once finished, I kiss him before our audience. The small crowd erupts. The team screams and hollers, but I don’t hear any of it over the beating of my heart.
“I have a line for you, too, honey,” I say as he rises from his knee, his hands on my hips. “I’m pregnant.”
Leon stares at me, his eyes widening while the crowd around us still cheers a bit.
“That’s it. Not very original. I’m preg—”
Leon lets out a whoop, wraps his arms around me, and hoists me into the air by my waist. His mouth crushes mine, and more cheers follow along with some ews and a couple of gags.
“Quit kissing,” someone calls out.
“You’re frightening the children,” Jess says somewhere to the side of us. Leon sets me down, puts his hand over my belly, and looks up at my brother. Lys has made it to center court, and I reach out an arm for her, drawing her into our moment with a side hug.
“She’s having my baby.”
Jess’s brows lift. “That happened fast. Did you hear that, Katie bug? He asked her to marry him, kissed her, and now she’s pregnant, so no kissing allowed and no marriage proposals until fifty.” Katie stands next to Jess and giggles into her hand.
“Who’s not allowed to kiss?” Emily asks, making her way to us and slipping a hand across Jess’s back.
“Leon got Tricia pregnant because he kissed her,” Jess explains incorrectly.
Emily’s eyes widen, and she looks at me for confirmation. When I nod, she nearly leaps for me, hugging me and screaming in my ear about how excited she is.
“Take it easy. Precious cargo,” Leon says, freeing me from Emily’s clasp and bringing me back to his side.
“If kissing makes you pregnant, does that mean Emily’s having a baby because Daddy’s always kissing her?” Katie asks. Her voice is still low after years of disuse, but her observations are as sharp as ever. She giggles again, the sweetest sound, and we all laugh while Emily shakes her head. Her twisted smile tells me they’ve been trying as well, but they have a wedding to plan. They’re getting married this coming summer.
+ + +
After the congratulations are received and the crowd thins, only Leon and I remain in the middle school gym. Lys went out for pizza with Jess, Emily, and Katie, and we’ll be meeting them at the pizza place.
“I know I’ve only just asked, but I don’t really want to wait, so when can we get married?” Leon says as we stand in the center of the court once again. His arms are wrapped around me, and I lean into him.
“With Emily and Jess getting married next summer, could we wait until next winter?”
“Winter? Do you know how cold it gets up here?” He shivers against me.
“You grew up in Chicago. Think it’s any warmer there?”
He laughs and bends forward, taking my lips, and giving me a long kiss which lingers after he releases me.
“‘Now is the winter of our discontent,’” Leon quotes, and then he pauses.
“You know that one does not work unless you’re saying you’re unhappy,” I explain.
“Unhappy? Never—but I always knew you’d be trouble.” He winks. “The best kind of trouble, of course.” His mouth returns to mine for a brief kiss.
“But speaking of winter. I was thinking more like this winter, as in, say . . . next week?” Leon hesitates, and I’m surprised by the suggestion.
“Don’t you want a wedding?” He’s never been married. Doesn’t he want some of the fanfare of a ceremony?
“As long as you’re the one I’m tying myself to, I don’t need anything special, baby. Unless you want to do it.” He leaves off the word again, and I’m grateful. I don’t really need to repeat a large church wedding with all the trimmings. “Could we still have a party? A way to celebrate?”
Leon glances at me skeptically. “If we what, get married at a courthouse?”
“Yes?”
“Is that a yes to a courthouse wedding?”
“Yes, again,” I tease in return.
“Absolutely. We definitely need a party. Think Jess and Emily will be our witnesses? I’d ask Lys and Levi, but they aren’t old enough. Maybe they can just be present as well.”
“I love that.” I love that he wants to include his sister and Levi, and I have no doubt Jess and Emily will proudly stand up with us.
We kiss again until I need to get him home. The early stages of pregnancy have had some benefits, including my already raised libido being turned up a notch. Leon and I thought it was just baby-making desire, but now we know I’m pregnant. I had my suspicions but didn’t want to hope. A week ago, I finally went to the doctor after not feeling so well, and he told me the good news.
“Next time, you tell me right away,” Leon scolds, and I laugh.
“What makes you think there will be a next time?” I say, rubbing a hand over my belly, which has a long way to go before it shows I’m pregnant.
“Oh, there will be a next time, and a next, and maybe a next. And one more for a full team.”
“Five?” I choke.
“Five.” Leon exhales. “That’s a good number,” he says. “It was mine when I played in the Little League. Always knew it would be lucky for me one day.” He looks down at me, tugging me into his side as we walk. “Today is that lucky day, pretty lady.”
He pauses, and I wonder where his thoughts have gone, but I know my man. Shakespeare rears his head again.
“‘The course of true love doth not run smooth,’ but by some unknown force, that course eventually led me to you, and I’d take those bumps again and again as long as I found you in the end.”
“Leon,” I whisper. He really is romantic. I mean, a reformed gang member who loves his motorcycle, Shakespeare, and babies? Be still my beating heart. It’s not a Shakespeare original, but I don’t need one. I read this man with my heart, and I plan to re-read him again and again.
+ + +
Thank you for reading.
Up next in the Heart Collection: Look With Your Heart.
Did you read the first book? Speak From Your Heart.
Want to know what happens to Levi Walker in the future:
The History in Us
Want to stay up to date on all things L.B. Dunbar: Love Notes
+ + +
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Turn the page for an excerpt of Look With Your Heart.
Excerpt
Look With Your Heart – Book 3 in the Heart Collection
Card 1: Scotch-on-the-rocks
Ice, cubed; glass half-empty
[Ethan]
When are you ever going to own your own home, E? I ask myself as I ride my Harley through the quiet streets of my small town.
When I grow up, I counter.
Isn’t thirty-three grown up enough?
By most people’s standards it is. By my standard, also, but I’ve had some setbacks on my journey through life, like giving up a promising job near Detroit to come back to the area for Mum. Cancer sucks. My previous employment at The Elk Resort wasn’t bad. The name is impressive on a resume but moving from one kitchen to another as a chef is only lateral. I want to move up. I want to own my own place. A restaurant is more important to me than a house.
Then again, if it was so important, I shouldn’t have gotten caught with my cookie in the cookie jar of the resort owner’s barely-over-age daughter. In my defense, I didn’t know she was so young or related to the boss. I needed that job, dammit, if for no other reason than I had a rent-free room at the resort. I save every extra penny for my dream, and I refused to move back home when I returned to this lakeside town. I cannot live with my dad, a cherry farmer whose disappointment in me is larger than all the orchards of this area combined. My father stopped caring about my life the second I announced I was dropping out of college to work in a restaurant kitchen. I needed practical experience, not a classroom education, I argued back then.