“Honestly, you’re what’s wrong with her. For some stupid reason, she misses you.” She rolls her eyes and sounds like that’s the most ridiculous thing she’s ever heard.
“She does? She hasn’t called me,” I argue, but I’m so surprised that I give her space, falling back on my heels. Giving a woman like Violet the win is never the right thing to do. She’ll hold it over my head for the rest of my days that all it took to bowl me over was the barest hint that Abigail might . . . maybe . . . sort of want me.
“Have you called her?” Violet argues right back. She’s got fire in her veins now and is ready to call me on any shit I might spew about it being a vacation-only thing at Abigail’s request.
The truth is, I’ve called a hundred times but never hit Send. I’ve driven by SweetPea daily, and yesterday, I hit a low point and started Googling for images of her. Seeing her done up with fancy hair and makeup at socialite events hadn’t made me feel better, though. I like the beachy Abigail who was bare-faced, open-hearted, and . . . mine.
Violet takes my non-answer as a no. She scowls and gets up, strutting for the door.
“Wait!” I beg.
She freezes with her hand on the knob but doesn’t come back. The glance over her shoulder says this had better be good.
I’ve never been a coward, so I dig deep to find some bravery and tell Violet the truth, praying that she really will help me. “I’ve been killing myself to stay away from her because I thought that’s what she wanted. I should be halfway across the country . . . or in another country by now. But I couldn’t leave her. I’m on the edge of a fine line of ex and stalker at this point, but I just . . . miss her, can’t be without her.” My voice is deep, rough with emotion at the admission of what the last few days have been like.
Violet spins in place and points a pink nail at me. “That’s what I want to hear.”
“You want to hear that I’m destroyed? That I’m fucking falling apart without her? That I can’t cook, can’t sleep, can’t do anything without wondering what she’s doing every minute of the day?” I shout, my hands flailing through the air dramatically. I’m Italian. It’s what we do. “Fine, there you go.” I grab my chest through my T-shirt. “That’s all I’ve got laid bare. Do with it what you will.”
She click-clacks her way back across my floor and pats my cheek too hard, somewhere between affection and assault. “I will. I’m going to help you.”
“You are?” I’m relieved, hopeful for the first time in days.
“Yep. For her, not for you, so remember that.” But she’s smiling openly as though I passed some significant test. Or maybe that I failed the test of being away from Abigail and that pleases her. Who knows with Violet?
“First things first, you need to do something about that.” She motions from my head down to my toes, making a face of disgust. “Do I need to call Archie?”
I shake my head. “I can shower and shave myself, Vi.”
I park my Ducati in the private parking garage, already sensing the security guard heading my way. I pull my helmet off, hooking it over the handlebar to run my hands through my hair. Freshly washed it on my own, thank you very much, Violet.
“You can’t park here,” the security guard tells me, thinking I give a shit about his supposed authority. I know what he sees when he looks at me—dirty motorbike rider, hair too unkempt, jeans too holey, shirt too off-the-rack, and attitude too fuck-off.
But I am who I am. Abi never seemed to mind my roughness, though I was more ‘board shorts and flip flops’ in Aruba than biker.
“I was invited,” I tell the guard, making no sudden moves—to leave or to obey.
He sneers in disbelief. “By whom?”
“Violet Andrews. She’s my cousin.”
I can see the color drain from the guard’s face. Apparently, my cousin’s name means something significant to him. I imagine Violet’s told him off a time or two, probably at fingerpoint. “Hold, please,” he says, less fierce than he was initially, but his eyes stay locked on me as though I’m some major threat even though I’m chilling on my bike with my arms relaxed at my sides. He messes with the radio at his shoulder, which crackles in response.
“Ten-four,” he says to whoever’s on the other end of the radio. To me, he’s now casual and at ease. “You’re good, man. Have a great night.” He offers me a wave and continues on his patrol route around the garage while whistling a tune I’m unfamiliar with.
I can’t help but chuckle a bit at Deputy Do-Good thinking he was going to stop me from getting upstairs to my Abigail. But he has delayed me long enough. I jam the button for the elevator, willing it to hurry.
The elevator eventually lets me out on the top floor, and I approach Violet’s penthouse apartment, ready to break through the door.
It’s not until this very moment that I wish I hadn’t arrived with empty hands. Riding the bike, I couldn’t bring a bottle of wine or flowers and arrive with them in anything other than shambles, but I feel unprepared for what’s on the other side of the door.
Is Abigail waiting for me eagerly? Or angrily? Should I grovel or shove her up against the nearest flat surface and remind her how well we fit together?
I won’t know until I see her, so I knock. Ross opens the door, his jaw tight and his eyes hard, and instead of letting me in, he comes out into the hallway, pushing me back with a palm on my chest. Instinctually, I want to swat his hand away, but I deserve this if Violet was telling the truth. Ross needs to defend his sister, vet me, and question my intentions.
“Why are you here?” he spits out.
“You already know. This whole round two is unnecessary.” I might understand his right to do this, but that doesn’t mean I have to play along. “Violet interrogated me thoroughly and is, quite honestly, scarier than you. I passed her test, and we both know that’s good enough.”
He growls at my brutal honesty because he’s well aware that I’m right and equally because I’m not giving him the challenge he wants. For all his suit and tie persona, Ross Andrews would throw down with me at the slightest provocation. I respect that, his utter willingness to bleed, both himself and others, for his family. I’m the same way.
“Hurt her and I will torture you,” he grits out.
“Not kill me?” I ask with a fuck-off smirk.
He moves another inch closer, so close I can feel his breath on my cheek. “No, torture is pain, the second by second agony through your entire soul. Death will be what you beg for.”
He leans back, and I slow-clap his performance. “Well done. How many times did you practice that?” One second, he’s glaring at me and the next, he’s given me his back. I follow him into the apartment, where a group of people has hopped back from the door where they were presumably watching through the peephole and listening.
Oh! No peephole needed, I guess, because there’s a security screen television with a live feed of the hallway.
Of all the people staring at me, only one matters.
Abigail is standing off to the side with her shoulders back and those beautiful brown eyes locked on me. Questions swirl and nerves glitter in their depths, and I hate that I gave her any reason to doubt me, to distrust what we feel.
I rush her, my hands cupping her face to lift her jaw so I can devour her mouth. It’s been days, which might as well be an eternity for how much I’ve missed her. I steal her breath, replacing it with my own. “Mia rosa,” I murmur against her lips.
“I didn’t know if you wanted . . .” she tries to say, but I cannot stop tasting her.
“I did. I do. Always.” I finish her thought with my own as I lay tiny, sweet kisses along her jaw toward the shell of her ear. “Do you?” I whisper.
“Yes,” she moans. An answer, an urging for more, or both? I don’t know, but I take it as agreement and kiss her again.
From behind me, I hear a voice say, “Bravo! Keep going, keep it going, puh-leese.”
“Archie!” That was Violet for sure. “Hush, and maybe
they’ll forget we’re here,” she whispers.
I press my forehead to Abigail’s, certainly not able to forget our audience now, though I fall into her smile once more and lay another soft peck to the edge of her lips to nudge it higher. Her smile blooms in response, and I feel like a god for being the cause of her returning joy.
“It seems Violet was right this time. I’m an asshole,” I tell Abigail as an apology. “I’ve been dying without you, mia rosa.” I have no shame and will admit to being weak for this woman and utterly destroyed without her.
She shakes her head. “I should’ve called or said something. This is on both of us.”
My sweet Abigail, so responsible and reasonable when she’s not driving me crazy.
“Great! Now that you admitted I was right—which we got on video, by the way,” Violet informs us, “let’s sit down to dinner. I made lasagna. And you two can take it easy, not just inhale each other’s soul through mouth-to-mouth. Maybe, I don’t know, do something unheard of like date and get to know each other for more than a week while you’re faking some stupid honeymoon scheme?” Violet sounds quite proud of herself for getting us back in the same room.
I hear the tiniest hitch in Abigail’s breath and meet her eyes. Knowledge shines brightly there, sure certainty that’s reflected in mine.
We could do what Violet suggests, sit down to dinner and chat about the mundane whatever they discuss over pasta. Or . . .
I shake my head. “You said not half-ass, Vi, so that’s not how this goes.”
“What do you mean?” Ross demands.
“We have to go,” Abigail blurts out. “Now.”
She takes my hand and drags me toward the door despite everyone’s argument that we’re supposed to have dinner so they can interrogate me to see if I’m worthy of Abi.
“I was told to write my top three questions for these two and assured that I’d have the floor, only to be dismissed this easily?” Archie protests snarkily. I’m sure it was Violet who told him he’d get the chance to play twenty-questions, firing squad style.
“Oh, let them go. I don’t want the chef judging my lasagna, anyway. It’s too much pressure,” Violet tells everyone. “No telling what he’ll tell the people back in Italy about my American bastardization of the family recipes.”
“Are they leaving to have sex?” Ross makes a gagging sound as if he can’t fathom his sister having sex, much less fucking me in the elevator, which feels like a very real possibility.
I wonder if there are security cameras there too?
“More likely to find the closest Justice of the Peace,” Courtney answers. I recognize her and her husband, Kaede, from the wedding when I first met Abigail. And I like the way she thinks.
If I put a ring on Abigail’s finger and my cock inside her, I could stop her from ever leaving me again. The idea has merit.
“Absolutely not! I forbid it!” Ross shouts after us, but we’re already in the hallway with the elevator button lit up.
“Of course it’s not forbidden,” Violet encourages. To Ross, I think, she says, “It’s Abi, and she always does whatever the hell she wants. Why would finding a man be any different?”
I have no idea where Abi’s taking me, but wherever it is . . . I’m in. Even if it’s a JP to put a ring on her finger.
For some reason, that actually doesn’t sound like a terrifying, ridiculous idea. It sounds . . . beautiful.
The elevator doors open, and I have her pressed against the back wall in a blink, sipping at her lips once more. “Fuck, I missed you. It felt like half of my soul was gone,” I murmur between kisses.
Chapter 25
Abi
We run out of the elevator and into the parking garage with smiles and laughs that we can only control long enough to kiss each other again. I need to feel him, firm and hard where my hands grip his chest, to trust that this is real and not a crazy figment of my imagination.
He stops at a gorgeous black motorcycle that looks like it could eat the road. As he grabs the helmet on the handlebars, I stupidly ask, “Is this yours?”
He pushes the helmet onto my head and begins fidgeting beneath my chin with deft fingers. “Yes, and I can’t wait to have you on it with your thighs locked around my hips as we race off to . . .” He pauses, his focus on the buckle I can’t see. “Wherever you want to go, mia rosa,” he finishes.
It is, I know it. I remember from that first night, feeling the anticipation that he’d stop and we’d ride off into the night together, and then the let down when he’d kept going without me. But that’s not going to happen tonight. I’m getting on this beast . . . the bike. Not Lorenzo. Although, I’m probably going to get on him as soon as possible too.
He’s intoxicating. I don’t know how he makes me feel both entirely under his spell and simultaneously in control. He doesn’t try to wrangle me or make me anything other than what I am. If I said I wanted to go back upstairs, he’d shove me back in the elevator to make that wish come true. If I demanded that he take us on a cross-country trip, I’d be over the state line in minutes at the speed he’d drive us there.
Controlled chaos that feels so familiar, but also exciting and fresh because it’s not me against the tide, fighting alone while everyone else judges me as weird. Rather, it’s me and him, going wherever our whims take us and doing whatever we desire, and all the while, flipping our middle fingers to the world that doesn’t understand.
I literally jump around, dancing awkwardly with excitement, and Lorenzo laughs and pats the top of my helmet. Yeah, it’s mine now. I’ve claimed it and am never giving it back. Certainly not to let anyone else ride with him. He’s mine too.
Sorry, ladies, claiming him, I think, not caring in the slightest that I’m smiling goofily and can feel my face smooshing up against the hard plastic of the helmet. I probably look like I’m squirreling away nuts in my puffed-up cheeks, but it seems like Lorenzo likes my chipmunk cheeks.
“Have you ever ridden before?” he asks seriously, though he’s smiling back at me with a dark gleam in his eye.
I shake my head and the helmet surprisingly stays put.
“Legs go around my hips, arms go around my waist. Squeeze me tight enough that I know you’re with me. Lean with me. It’s like dancing. I’m in charge and you follow. If I lean, you lean, no matter what. If you need anything, pat my stomach and I’ll check on you. Understood?”
He’s in full boss mode, telling me what to do. Usually, I’d balk at anyone doing that, but in this case, he’s the expert and I will happily take his instruction to keep us safe. I hold up my index finger. “One thing . . . just so you remember, I’m a really bad dancer, so take it easy on me. But I’ll do my best.”
He smirks that grin that tells me he did not expect me to say that after his safety lesson. “Mia rosa,” he says on a huff of laughter, “if you don’t wish to dance, then imagine it’s yoga.” His smile melts and his expression goes lustful. “No, think of it as sex. I set the pace and you flow with me, trusting that I will get you where you need to go.”
We are so not talking about motorcycle riding anymore. Or if he is, I want to get on . . . now.
“Let’s go!” I nearly shout, laughing as my own echo in the garage cheers me on. In seconds, I’m sitting astride the sleek machine as it roars beneath us. I scoot as close to Lorenzo as I can, damn close to being a spider monkey on his back like Bella on Edward in Twilight—don’t judge. Everyone watched that and imagined themselves on that particular piggyback ride through the forest.
Lorenzo looks back at me, his eyes assessing and his hair curling from his fingers running through it. He squeezes my thigh once, twice, three times before putting his hand on the handlebars.
“Another of many firsts . . . and of lasts,” I think I hear him say, but maybe it’s my imagination. Either way, it’s the truth. Tonight is the first night of many I want to spend with Lorenzo, not as co-conspirators in a scheme or as heated lovers on a vacation without rules but as something more.
I don’t have all the answers. Hell, I have more questions now than I did when Violet told me to come over because she’d done as she promised and handled things. She’d even jokingly told me that the head-ass-ectomy had been surprisingly easy, given what a mess Lorenzo was. I’d secretly been glad he was as big a disaster as me.
We ride.
For minutes or hours, I don’t know, around town in some path only he understands.
At first, I’m terrified and hang on for dear life like he’s my sole lifeline to gravity and the only thing stopping me from floating away from Earth. Eventually, I trust more, incrementally relaxing into his back to simply let the night cocoon us. I lean with him as he instructed, and as I do better, he goes faster and faster.
I could do this forever.
I feel free. I feel rooted. I feel wild. I feel chaos both raging and quieting inside me at the same time, which makes no sense but is the only way to explain what I feel. By letting him take me wherever he wants to, the wind whipping through my bones, I let go of everything and just . . . exist. It’s peaceful in a wholly unexpected and beautiful way.
We drive back into the city, lights making my eyes squint at the abrupt brightness. Until I see one that sparks a light inside my soul that I can’t ignore.
I pat Lorenzo’s stomach, and he slows instantly, looking over his shoulder quickly to check on me. I point to the yellow sign, and his dark brow lifts in surprise. But he pulls over without question.
Right up until I’m inside the yellow-signed building and sitting in the chair with a tattooed, bearded guy the size of a refrigerator leaning over me. Then the question comes.
“Are you sure about this?” Lorenzo asks. He doesn’t try to talk me out of it, though, and I appreciate that more than he’ll ever know.
“Never been surer,” I reply with a nod. “I’m ready,” I tell Reno, the guy with the tattoo gun.
Reno looks to Lorenzo for confirmation, but Lorenzo’s eyes are locked on mine in awe. “Fuck, mia rosa. You amaze me with the passion for life you have. I want to experience it all through your eyes. See your smile as you greet each day. Feel the depth of your strength. Know the power of your love.”
My Big Fat Fake Honeymoon Page 29