Dramatic, Mushy, Complicated Love

by Leah Sharelle

  He couldn’t give that up for me to make my life easier. I won’t and can’t allow it.

  “Luca?” I prompted, waving the phone, then bringing it to my face and reading the message out loud.

  “My son, please forgive me. You were right when you said your father would be ashamed of my behaviour since you met Meadow.” I raised my brow at the use of my actual name; that was definitely a first.

  “I know now that I have manipulated you since Massimo’s passing and allowed your sisters to follow my lead. You never complained and I think that is why I continued to behave so deplorably. Can we at least talk about this? I am happy to wait until you and Meadow get back together. I hate that you are so sad with her gone, I honestly believed that you would get over her, but I did not count on the love you feel for Meadow. Why this did not occur to me shames me. You are your father’s son, of course, you love so deeply. Please call me. Mum x”

  Getting out of the message screen, I locked the phone and placed it on the counter. “What happened Luca, why is she practically in begging and pleading mode?”

  Luca stared at the phone, his lips in a thin line, his eyes glazed and unreadable.

  “Before we get into that, can I ask you something?” Nodding my head, I gripped the island counter for support. “Were you ever going to reach out to me? You disappeared and wouldn’t take my calls, leaving me no way to contact you?”

  A fair question and one I could answer with complete honesty. “Yes, I was. I just needed time to get over my hurt and humiliation from that day. Everything got so complicated so fast, and we started tiptoeing around one another. We stopped communicating with honesty and were turning into strangers unless we were in bed.”

  “I know, I let that happen all because I talked myself into believing I could handle Mum and the girls my way. When I should have stood up for you when they began their plan to break us up.” Luca hung his head, and his shoulders dropped in a gesture of defeat.

  “A part of my brain acknowledged and saw what they were doing, all those interruptions and emergencies in the middle of the night. The phone calls for help, the way Mum got so clingy, always needing me. I just didn’t want to believe she … they could be so calculated. Playing on my loyalty to Dad, knowing how serious I took my vow I made to him.”

  “But now you do see what they were doing? Why now?”

  Luca raised his head and I was stunned to see tears in his brown eyes.

  “Because I know them, and while I didn’t want to see the truth, I knew it was there for everyone to see. It isn’t an easy thing for me to get my head around the fact my mother is a bad person, baby.”

  “She isn’t bad, she …” I hedged, rolling my eyes when Luca scoffed loudly. “Okay, she is, but it sounds like she wants to change.”

  “I’m not sure if she is capable of being nice, Meadow. I won’t let her ugly touch you or your family. Lennie and Trish are on the way to forgiving me, Breck now works for the company and Spring doesn’t threaten me with cutting my balls off four times a day in a text message.”

  “Progress!” I offered, laughing with him, then sobered. The main problem in our relationship was still his mother. Luca may think it was his misguided loyalty, but that was just a participating factor after the fact. Pushing her away and not seeing her did nothing to ease Luca’s guilt. It will still be between us, festering away until it got too much for him. I knew him too well; Luca Massimo Donatella was a good man and the son of a meddling shrew, whether he liked it or not. The solution wasn’t kicking her to the curb; he just had to learn to say no to her.

  “Not having your mum in your life isn’t the answer, Spunk, I don’t want to be the reason you don’t have your family. The baby either. Families aren’t always perfect; look at my crazy loons, for instance. Trish and Lennie are certifiably nuts, but I love them and could not cope without them. Spring drives me crazy, and Breck does my head in most days, but they are my best friends, my biggest support team.” I had no Illusions that Mrs Donatella and I were ever going to be best buds, or anything like that. But, I was not going to be a wedge between mother, son and siblings. Luca might think this decision was in my hands but in reality all I was doing was using some clever reverse phycology.

  “My sisters are bitches, and Mum judges everyone,” Luca reminded me unnecessarily.

  Pursing my lips, I pretended to think about that. “True, but your sisters are also half of your dad. Somewhere under their prickly exteriors, there has to be something of him.”

  Luca moved closer to me, his fingers dancing over the counter, coming to rest on mine. The barest touch warming me instantly.

  “And Mum?” he asked, with a grimace.

  Turning my hand around, my palm up, I laced our fingers together.

  “The word no is a powerful word, Spunk Rat, learn to use it,” I sassed, giving him a wink. “I’m not saying that I want to see her or speak to her yet. As far as I am concerned, she has a big job in front of her convincing me that she is the type of person I want around our baby, but she can have a chance to prove it.” Luca nodded, his expression sage and thoughtful.

  “I love it when you call me Spunk,” Luca murmured, cupping my cheek with his free hand. I didn’t miss the way he didn’t want to talk about his mum, not that I blamed him. Fixing us was the priority right now.

  Rubbing my cheek into his palm, I relished the soft roughness and the contact.

  “I know, I also know I love you. Being away from you is not something I ever want to do again, honey. This baby might not have been planned, but our love made this little miracle, and I can’t think of a better way of telling you how much you mean to me than getting fat and stretchmarks.”

  Luca grinned, then picked me up, leaving my feet dangling off the floor, my arms flying over his shoulders to hang on.

  “They are great ways of showing me, baby, but I can come up with a hell of a lot more,” he argued, his eyes shining with love.

  “It’s you, me, and our baby, Meadow, for the rest of our lives. Now kiss me, I haven’t had your lips for three weeks, and I need that sweet connection, or else I will die.”

  Closing the short distance between us, Luca covered my mouth in the sweetest, most passionate kiss. His tongue demanding to be let in, and of course, I let it, opening my mouth wide to accommodate him.

  “You are so mushy,” I panted when I pulled away for a needed intake of air.

  “Hmmm, well, you are dramatic, as is your family,” he countered, pecking at the corners of my lips, his hands at the small of my back and heading inside the waistband of my pyjama bottoms.

  “I can also be complicated, remember.” My hiss loud when he traced the tips of his fingers along the crack of my butt.

  “Tell me about it! Your independent streak is going to put me in an early grave.” A moan rumbling in his throat when I licked the length of his neck with the flat of my tongue, leaving a wet trail in its wake.

  “But you love me anyway, don’t ya, Spunk?”

  Luca stilled his fingers, his forehead leaning on mine. His deep sigh happy and contented.

  “With everything I am, Meadow Tessler. More and more every day and will forever.”

  Smiling at him, his handsome face blurred from the wetness gathering in my eyes.

  This man was my future, my beginning and my ending. Family could be a pain in the arse at times, but life would be boring with normal. Right?

  Rubbing my nose up his then down again, I kissed the tip.

  “You are so mushy,” I repeated in a whisper before my lips claimed his again.

  “Only for you, baby, only for you.”

  “Wife, why are you on your feet?” I demanded to know, coming up behind my bride and wrapping my arms around her massive belly, my hands not quite meeting.

  “Umm, because I am dancing, husband. And please make more of an effort to get your hands to reach together; honestly, Spunk, didn’t your vows include the words to do anything in your power to make me happy?” Meadow sas
sed, leaning her head back, fitting it into my neck, her hands resting on my forearms. During the course of the night, I’d tossed the tie and rolled up my sleeves. Meadow’s hand with her new wedding band resting on my new tattoo. I finally decided to finish off my sleeve after much thought and discussions with Meadow. At first, I didn’t know how to add to the tribal design, but my stunner took over and came up with a never-ending mandala knot. It wrapped all the way around my forearm with the letters making up her name entwined throughout the knot. It stopped just above my wrist so I could still wear a shirt to meetings and push the sleeves up just a little and not reveal my ink.

  It was perfect, just like the woman in my arms.

  “I believe so, and I remember you said something along the lines that you promised to make my life easier by doing as you are told,” I retorted, loving the easy banter we were so good at with each other.

  “I said I would try, not promise. Wash your ears out, Spunk, as if I would promise you that,” Meadow scoffed at the same time one of my two children kicked under my palm.

  To say Meadow and I were surprised when we found out she was carrying twins was a major understatement. Our minds were blown was more fitting. We left the doctor’s office so stunned I even let Meadow drive home. Seven months pregnant! According to the baby doc, one of the babies had stayed hidden behind its twin for the first two trimesters. Now, she was about to pop, and we only married that day. Meadow was stubborn and annoyingly persistent that we postponed the wedding until everything was fixed properly between Mum, the girls and me. As much as I hated that Meadow had dragged her feet to take my last name, I had to grudgingly agree that she had been right.

  It took months of quarrelling with Mum and Kayla, deep and meaningful talks, and even a month of family therapy for me to truly trust my family again and to believe Mum’s claim that she was sorry and was capable of being a better person. During our sessions, there was a time there bringing up old wounds, talking about my younger years, leaving university, and coming home after Dad died, that I thought we would never come to an understanding.

  I kept Meadow away from Mum during those first months, she and I got back to our normal straight away, and there had been no way in hell I was going to jeopardise our love ever again. I worried that the stress would set Meadow back into not being about to eat, so I did what any man would do and put my foot down. Of course, my beautiful pain in the arse had a lot to say about that.

  Meadow and Trish kidnapped my mum and sisters for a whole weekend for the miracle to happen. Mum came back a new woman. She still sniffed from time to time, and Kayla still liked to boss me around at the office, but whatever happened during those two days gave me a more loving, affectionate and less demanding mother. I wasn’t complaining, as my mum and I were well on the way to a better relationship. She had even taken to working one day a week at Meadow and Spring’s shop, suddenly developing a liking for antiques and scuffed up furniture. I’m not saying it was all sunshine and rainbows, and Meadow’s mum had a way of grating on my mother’s nerves, but mostly it was a harmonious family unit.

  Rubbing the spot where the baby kicked, I smiled against Meadow’s soft skin. I loved my time with her big belly, playing and talking to the kids, getting them used to my voice before their birth.

  “They are active today, aren’t they?” I grinned, feeling another kick then another.

  “Must be the excitement that they aren’t going to be born out of wedlock,” Meadow quipped, pushing her lush arse back into my groin.

  “Meadow,” I warned, biting her flesh gently. “We are not having sex tonight, so just forget about it.

  “But your dick is hard, Spunk Rat.”

  “When isn’t it hard around you, baby?” I chuckled. “You’re due any day now; we’ve been lucky avoiding any more bed rest, and the babies are healthy and right on track. Let’s not push our luck, hey.”

  “You know we could have found out the sex of the twins, and then we wouldn’t have had to call them babies the whole pregnancy,” Meadow pouted, bringing up our only reason for arguing.

  “No! We want to be surprised, we agreed on this.”

  “You wanted a surprise, and I wanted to know what colour to paint the nurseries.”

  “Woman, we just got married, don’t mess with my bliss by being annoying,” I mumbled pleadingly.

  Giggling, Meadow tapped my hands, “Turn me around, Spunk.”

  Acquiescing, I helped my wife shift her unbalanced body, facing her to me.

  “Hey there, beautiful.” Kissing her lips, I pulled her into me as much as our children would allow.

  “We got married today,” Meadow squealed, doing a little jig in my arms.

  “Yep, I’ve got the ring and the certificate to prove it,” I answered, running my thumb over the thick band of tungsten metal. Meadow had it custom-made for me by a local jewellery maker Meadow had met when the artist came into the shop with her son and firefighter husband.

  “And you’ve got me too,” Meadow breathed, her eyes running over my face, taking me in.

  “You are the best part, Meadow Donatella, the best part of me.” Mushy spilling out of me, making her smile.

  Just then, the twins belted their feet, or hands or their head into my belly, Meadow hissing with the pain as our kids pounded on their mum.

  “Come on, baby, let’s get rid of the riffraff so I can get you into bed and have my nightly taste of your succulent pussy,” I suggested, wiggling my brows at her.

  “If we must, Spunk, you know I’ll do anything you ask.”

  Choking on my spit, I guided my wife slowly back to the deck of our home. Our families calling out to us as we passed them.

  “If only!” I groaned, but secretly I hoped Meadow continued to give me a hard time, waving her independence in my face until I took my last breath.

  Loving a dramatic, mushy, complicated woman turned out to be the best thing that ever happened to me.

  Who knew?

  I allowed Luca to walk me back to the house. I was even going to let him help me out of my wedding gown and tuck me into bed, let him eat me to orgasm and hopefully talk him into feeding his cock down my throat. Or maybe we were going to have to forego that …

  Because I had to tell him that I have been in early labour for most of the ceremony, just twinges, nothing too serious for a trip to the hospital just yet.

  Then when he forgives me for not letting him know I secretly found out the sex of our babies months ago, I will tell him that we will be calling our children Axel and Harlow.

  Lucky for me, my husband loved me to distraction. Lucky for him, I loved him just as much.

  THE END

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  My first stand-alone!!! To say I am excited about this one would be a major understatement. These two characters have been stuck in my mind for so long, talking and yelling at me, and I finally decided to listen to them.

  I truly loved writing this book, a new world, and not a Soul or Son in sight. Although I will say I couldn’t help myself by adding one of my hunky hose men, did you catch it???? It was very subtle, but he was there.

  Thank you to everyone that kept me awake while writing this book and your attempts to keep me focused. Yes, Pirate, I am speaking of you too.

  My kids, my grandkids, and my sister from another mister thank you for getting me out of the house, oh and thank you, Lila Rose and Amanda Berry, for ambushing me and cleaning my office!!!! I actually love the clean and useable room it is now.

  I love writing, and I love creating that perfect love story, the one we all want or perhaps for some, already have.

  A huge thank you to Eric and Mel Morris for being Luca and Meadow. There was no more perfect couple for the job.

  A special shout out to my youngest spawn, Tamara. Kid, I don’t know where I would be today without you. You see what I see, and whether it is possible or not, you support me no matter what. I love you to the moon and back, Marty-Jane xxx.

  To Handsome, the
same goes for you. There is no one I would want to share a cuppa with than you. Also, the more I think about it the more convinced I am you should plant Yucca plants in your front yard. Don’t roll your eyes, you know I’m right.

  ALSO BY LEAH SHARELLE

  WOUNDED SOULS SERIES

  His Sweetness

  His Honey

  His Beauty

  His Lady

  His Angel

  His Man

  Her Prince

  FIREMEN DO IT BETTER

  Into the Fire

  Out of the Flames

  From the Inferno

  A LOVE DUET

  Love Hurts

  Love Heals

  THE WOUNDED SONS SERIES

  Gabriel

  Bastian

  Grill

  Rafe

  THE HOTT BROTHERS

  Hott and Taken

  Hott and Ready

  Hott and Handled

  CONNECT WITH LEAH SHARELLE

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  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Leah Sharelle loves the idea of being in love. Since her early teens, when she first discovered Silhouette Desire novels, her life has been all about reading. She would find herself rewriting scenes if she wasn’t happy with them and then would hide them under her bed. That led her to writing love stories of her own. They all ended up under her bed and are still there - where she says they will stay.