Beautiful Life: The Carpino Series

by Brynne Asher

  I can’t take it, I need more. I press my hips into his hand. I breathe against his lips, “Tone.”

  “Tell me what you want, Leigh.”

  “Please, more,” I beg as I try and move my hips against his hand again.

  Finally, he gives me another circle, but this one is less lazy and I feel my breathing become deep and labored. All of a sudden he fills me with what feels like two fingers. I lift my hips to get more as I grip his shirt and pull myself close to him.

  “Beautiful,” he murmurs as he keeps filling me with two fingers while roughly running his thumb over my clit.

  Another swipe with even more pressure is all it takes. My body rocks with my orgasm, I feel it wash through me down to my toes as I vaguely hear myself moan and writhe, grasping Tony’s arms. Tony pulls me into him again and I stuff my face in his neck trying to even out my breathing.

  I feel his arms tighten around me as he turns his head to kiss my hair and says, “That’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”

  Oh my.

  That’s kind of embarrassing but weirdly sweet. I have nothing to say to that. Instead, I burrow into his neck deeper and ignore it. This is not what I had planned when I walked around the bed to reassure him.

  Tony doesn’t let me ignore it as he adds with a full body squeeze, “Now I really don’t want you to go this weekend.”

  With the full body squeeze, I realize he is still rock hard against my hip. “Tony,” I start to say into his neck, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for that to happen. You’re…um…you know. I’m sorry.”

  “Gem, don’t worry about it.”

  “But--”

  “I’m fine. Don’t worry about me. I’ll be as patient as you need me to be, but watching you come for me was hot and worth waiting for. Thank you for giving that to me,” he pulls me in for another slow lingering kiss, this one sweet. Pulling away, he puts his lips to my ear and his breath tickles as he says, “I’m sure everything else will be worth the wait, too.”

  Oh shit.

  Something else to worry about.

  “Sweetheart,” he calls. I hesitantly look up at him and he’s back to intense. He belatedly repeats, “You’re coming back to me.”

  I reach up, kiss his jaw and whisper against his neck, “Yes, Tony, I’m coming back to you.”

  I see relief wash across his face, the same look he exposed to me on New Year’s Eve. But I don’t get a chance to enjoy it because I hear Gabby calling for me and her voice is getting louder by the second.

  “Leigh?” she calls for me.

  Tony doesn’t seem to care because he leans down to kiss me again giving my bottom another squeeze since I’m still pressed up against him with my leg thrown over his hip.

  “Leigh? Are you guys down here?” Gabby is much closer now. Too close for comfort with Tony clutching me tight giving me no indication he’s planning on letting me up.

  “Tony,” I whisper. “We’ve got to get up.”

  “Leigh!” I hear again followed by a rap on the door.

  “Hang on!” Tony belts out, none too nicely.

  “Tony!” I admonish, but in a whisper.

  “Are you okay?” I vaguely hear Gabby ask, but I can’t answer because Tony has rolled me to my back and is kissing me intensely again.

  “Sugar, leave them alone,” Jude says through the door.

  Oh shit, again.

  I turn my head to the side because that’s my only choice as Tony is pressing me to the bed now and I admonish, yet again, “Tony, get off me. They’re both out there!”

  “I don’t have time to leave them alone, Jude,” Gabby starts. “You’ve given me eight weeks to plan our wedding, I don’t have a moment to spare. We need to do this now.” Then I hear more rapping on the door as Gabby yells, “Open the door or I’m coming in!”

  “Tone, they’re going to come in and I don’t have any pants on,” I whisper again, but my hands are in his hair because he’s running kisses down my neck. “Please, get up,” I breathe.

  That’s when he lifts his messy haired head and looks down at me, which is a really good look for him, and says, “Call me honey again.”

  “What?” I ask, my voice going high.

  “Open the door, now!” Gabby keeps yelling and rapping on the door.

  “Say it and I’ll let you up,” Tony says with a grin.

  “Gabby, this can be done tomorrow, leave them alone,” I hear Jude’s deep voice again.

  “Why?” I ask.

  “We’re leaving for the airport at oh-dark-thirty. I’m not doing this tomorrow, Jude,” Gabby says.

  “Because I like it,” Tony answers and his lips come back my neck as he presses his hardness into me again.

  “Tony!” Gabby yells this time.

  “She’s gonna come in, you know she will,” Tony says smiling big between kisses.

  Honestly.

  Finally, I inhale a lung full of courage, put my hands to his face forcing him to look at me and whisper, “Honey, please get up.”

  With that, he grins, kisses me fast and gets to his feet while pulling me up with him. I’m still yanking his t-shirt down as far as it will go to my mid thighs as he pulls me into his side while saying, “Come on in.”

  “Finally!” Gabby says as she opens the door but the minute she looks at us she comes to a halt. All she has to say is, “Oh.”

  I look over at Jude who’s standing behind her leaning his shoulder against the door jamb, arms crossed with a crooked grin on his face. He takes a foot and crossing his other ankle, he relaxes his body in further to the door jamb as if settling in for a show. I look back at Gabby and she’s giving Tony a look with one eyebrow raised. With no other choice, I close my eyes out of mortification and turn to rest my forehead on Tony’s shoulder.

  Since Tony has my front plastered up to his side, I feel his arm give me another squeeze and he growls out, “What?”

  I open my eyes and look back to my friend who gives me a knowing grin, as if we were in middle school and I got caught in the closet kissing a boy. I thought she’d give me shit but what she does is throw a hand out in front of her giving it a wave up and down saying, “Whatever. You’re adults and I have a wedding to plan. Tony, I have to ask you something.”

  “What?” he repeats, clearly out of patience.

  “Well,” she starts but inhales what looks to be her own lung full of courage as she starts to worry her hands in front of her. “I’ve talked to Pop and he understands,” she starts, referring to Gabby and Tony’s grandfather who she’s very close to, but still not making any sense.

  “Gabby, what are you talking about?” Tony frowns.

  Gabby turns to look at Jude and he immediately moves to her, puts an arm around her chest and pulls her back to him. He leans down and I barely hear him say into her ear, “Just say it.”

  When she looks back to Tony, she has tears in her eyes and I can see her swallow before she says quietly, “I want you to walk me down the aisle, give me away. If you want to, that is.”

  I feel Tony’s arm drop away from me as he moves to her. Gabby’s tears start to fall down her cheeks and Jude lets go of her when Tony reaches to give his cousin a big hug and says into her hair, “I’ll walk you down the aisle, but no way will I give you away, Gabba. Never.”

  “Okay,” Gabby says as her voice hitches and she burrows into his chest.

  “Anything, Gabby, you know that,” Tony says with meaning.

  “I know,” she says through a shaky voice. Then repeats with meaning I can’t even begin to understand, “I know.”

  I can’t help it, I have to wipe away my own tears. My sweet friend who lost her parents has finally found her happily ever after and even though she won’t have her parents here to see it, she does have a big family to love and support her. She deserves it. Gabby and Tony have always been closer than close, but I have a feeling him jumping in front of a bullet for her has brought them to a new level.

  Gabby finally releases Tony
and announces through her sniffles, “I’m fine, I’m fine. I’ve got to finish packing. You two…well…get back to whatever you were doing.” I feel my face warm as I hear Jude chuckle. But Gabby forges ahead with instructions, “You’ll need to be fitted for your tux, Jude can give you the details this weekend, but it needs to be done by Monday. I can’t believe it’s only four weeks away, there’s still so much to do. I have no business leaving town for the weekend.” Then she turns to Jude and says, “Come on, we need to go over your list that needs to be finished while I’m gone.”

  “Gabby, relax, we’re getting married whether that list is checked off or not. It’ll be fine,” Jude says nonchalantly.

  “Jude Ortiz, I cannot believe you just said that. We had a deal. That list needs to be done by Monday,” Gabby shoots back as she tags his hand to pull him out the door. “Goodnight, see you in the morning,” she calls over her shoulder as they leave, shutting the door in back of them.

  Tony turns to me and I say, “That was really sweet. She loves you.”

  “Yeah,” he sort of agrees as he moves around the bed to me, eyes warm and pinning me to the spot.

  “Tony, I’ve got to get up early,” I say, turning to him as he gets close. “I should really go to bed.”

  “Yeah,” he repeats, reaching around me to grab my suitcase and tossing it to the floor.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Putting you to bed,” he says with a grin while reaching over his head to grab his shirt between his shoulder blades to yank it off. I watch his shirt flit to the floor as his thumbs go to his waistband pushing his track pants down, leaving just his boxers and he grabs me at the waist at the same time he steps out of his pants. He repeats the whole turning-flopping-down-on-the-bed-move pulling me with him. I let out a surprised giggle, but this time, he rolls me instantly pressing me to the bed where he had me earlier.

  His lips go right back to my neck and I remind him, “I’ve got to get up really early.”

  “You’re going to a spa, gem, you’ll have plenty of time to relax,” he explains.

  “You’re family seems pretty high energy. I have a feeling a trip to the spa with the Carpino women won’t be the normal kind of relaxing,” I go on, but my hand slides up into his hair again.

  “True,” he mutters. I feel his tongue dart out and trace my ear, making me shiver.

  “What are you doing?” I ask, even though I know what he’s doing.

  “I’m going to relax you. Again. You know, in case you can’t relax this weekend because my family’s too high energy and all,” I feel him smile against my neck.

  “I don’t think that’s a very good idea,” I respond, albeit distractedly.

  “I disagree.” He looks into my eyes and says, “Gem, relax.”

  So I suck in another lung full of air and realize I don’t have the will to fight it. Over the next twenty minutes, Tony takes his time and eventually has me begging him to relax me in delightful ways before tucking me in tight. With my face smushed into his neck, his big heavy thigh smushed in between my legs and his arms around me, I go to sleep more relaxed than I can remember from my second Tony induced orgasm. As I fall into a deep sleep, I remotely wonder why I didn’t fight it, but I decide not to think about it. Maybe I’ll think about it this weekend. But I doubt I will.

  Chapter 9 - Sleep Naked

  “This is totally Cindy Lauper’s Girls Just Wanna Have Fun!”

  I look across the fire at Paige who is past the point of tipsy. I’ve learned Paige not only lives her life to music but comes up with a theme song to commemorate special moments. I’ve found most every moment is special to Paige because she’s an abnormally happy person, so if this trip had a playlist, it would be long and varied.

  But who am I kidding? We’re all past the point of tipsy.

  It’s Saturday night and we’ve had two full days of fun and somewhat relaxation. I was not wrong in my estimation of the Carpino women. They’re all high energy, but when you get them together, it’s off the charts. Other than the two massages, facial and pedicure I’ve had, the rest of our bachelorette-spa-tranquil weekend has been go-go-go.

  We hiked in the Arizona mountains, which should be tranquil but not with this group. It was loud, funny and chaotic. Until Tia, Gabby’s aunt tripped and skinned her knees. Of course Gabby’s other aunt, Emma, being the oldest and self-anointed matriarch of our group, unearthed Band-Aids with antibiotic ointment to save the day. Then it was back to loud, fun and chaos.

  This morning we went horseback riding and I’m not sure the poor horses have ever experienced the likes of our group. Half way through our mosey, Lizzie’s horse stopped and refused to budge another inch. I’m pretty sure this had everything to do with the decibel of Lizzie’s voice. After much coaxing from our guide with zero success, the horse refused to move and Lizzie had to ride back with Sophia. Paige commemorated the moment with Save a Horse (Ride a Cowboy). Sophia’s horse had a happier disposition because he didn’t seem to mind the singing, giggling and horse dancing (I didn’t know you could dance on a horse, but Sophia and Lizzie did it).

  We ended our afternoon with a sunset meditation session. We were perched atop a plateau overlooking the beautiful orangish-redish mountain ranges. It was supposed to be a thirty minute session, but I’m pretty sure our instructor cut it short. Let’s just say this group isn’t capable of meditating, at least not together. In the beginning our instructor gently tried to discourage the whispering, but the whispers became giggles and that’s when it happened.

  Someone passed gas.

  And all hell broke loose.

  No one owned up to it, but I do know it came from the other end of our group so I wasn’t blamed. Our instructor finally got everyone settled down, when from her meditation pose, Paige started to quietly sing Against the Wind. Now, I love Bob Segar, but that song will never be the same to me if that tells you depths of Paige’s power to label a moment. It was then our instructor, with a tight face, announced our session was over and it was time for us to get ready for dinner even though the sun hadn’t set below the mountains yet. We climbed off our plateau giggling with no remorse for ruining our meditation session.

  After dinner, we congregated in the lush cushy furniture around the low outdoor fire pit wrapped in blankets provided by the resort. Gabby and I are drinking Prickly Pear Martini’s. I think they’re made with some sort of cactus fruit, but it doesn’t really matter what’s in it, they’re like candy and I’ve lost count of how many I’ve had.

  “Enough fun!” Lizzie slurs over those who have started singing Girls Just Wanna Have Fun. “Quiet! All right, ladies, we’ve come to the time of the weekend for marital advice. Who wants to go first?”

  I feel my stomach clench and I’m sure I just sobered up about three martini’s out of my who-knows-how-many martini’s because I have absolutely nothing to add to this conversation.

  “If you start talking about sex with dad, I’m going to puke,” Charlotte says to Lizzie.

  “I’m not sure about this…” Gabby starts.

  “No, no,” Tia adds and then hiccups. “We have many, many years of valuable experience you can benefit from.”

  “You should have kids right away! There’s no reason to wait,” Reagan annunciates her words to communicate their importance.

  Feeling a lot loose lipped, Gabby waves her hand around sloshing her martini and says, “Done! Jude wants to start having babies eee-meee-diate-ly.”

  “Really?” Susan gasps. Susan is Jude’s mom and I think she’s had the same experience I’ve had this weekend, playing the part of the observer to the Carpino Craziness. She’s either really shy or doesn’t know what to think of them. But I can tell she loves Gabby and she loves that her son is happy.

  “Oh,” Gabby mutters as she frowns. “I’m not sure we were planning on telling anyone that. No one can tell anyone!” she says, pointing her finger at random, demanding secrecy from the huge group in front of her. I’m not sure there’s anyone
left to tell, but I look over to see Audrey drawing an X over her chest and Susan looks as happy as a clam. Getting over it quickly, Gabby belts out, “That was easy. Next?”

  “If you get in a fight and even if you’re still fighting, you should never sleep apart,” Emma says, sagely.

  “Done again. Jude would never allow that anyway. Wow, this is way easier than I thought it would be. Next?” Gabby semi-yells.

  “Don’t let him railroad you,” Paige mumbles with attitude as she drains her beer, getting the attention of the waiter for more drinks.

  “Paige,” Micah enters the conversation. “You’ve never had a serious boyfriend. What do you know about being railroaded?”

  “No one wants to be bossed around,” Paige mutters.

  Gabby bursts into laughter, puts her almost empty martini glass down, giggling so hard she snorts. Trying to calm herself down, she wipes her eyes to say, “Ah, that’s funny.”

  “What’s funny?” Clara asks.

  “Jude is uber bossy, but it’s okay. He works it and he’s bossy about everything, if you know what I mean. But most of it is totally delish,” Gabby says with a dreamy look on her face until her eyes move through the group and hit Susan. Her dreamy look turns horrified as she exclaims, “Oh, I’m sorry Susan!”

  “It’s okay, Gabby. I’ve had so much to drink, I’m sure I won’t remember that tomorrow,” she says on a smile. Gabby looks over at me with big eyes and a tight mouth and I can’t do anything but giggle at her faux pas.

  “Lanny can be bossy,” Sophia whispers loudly with a grin and a raised eyebrow.

  “Yeah, so can Vic,” Charlotte adds, who is usually much more reserved but apparently not when she’s three sheets, agrees with a giggle.

  “I do not need to know this about my daughters,” Lizzie mutters.

  “Trust me, Paige, you’ll like bossy someday,” Sophia informs her little sister with a grin.

  “Whatever,” Paige mutters.

  “Smut!” Audrey shouts. “Read lots of smut. It helps to keep things interesting in, well, that department.”