His heart still pounds, unsure what to make of her presence here.
He opens his mouth to speak. But in an instant, it all changes because Lindsay is suddenly running toward him, running in her flapper dress and high heels. Before he knows it, she’s thrown herself into his arms.
Relief floods his veins, so powerful it makes his head swim, rocks him to his core because he finally understands.
She’s come back to me.
He can barely believe it.
Their mouths are on each other, kissing crazily. It feels like a million years, and it feels like one long day. The longest day of his life.
He picks her up and carries her back to the house, holding her tight, not wanting to let go.
“I thought I knew what I was doing . . .” The words tumble out of her mouth. “But I was wrong . . . I was wrong about so many things.”
“You’re here now. That’s all that matters.”
Inside the house, the music still plays. Their song. He takes her to their bedroom downstairs, the one he still sleeps in. Her fox still on his nightstand.
He lays her on the bed and she pulls him down on top of her.
“Touch me,” she pleads. “I want to feel your hands on me everywhere.”
He slips his fingers beneath her flapper dress to her soft skin and discovers stockings with garters. “Damn,” he groans with approval. “You’re keeping these on.”
She smiles up at him. “I knew you’d like them, Olaf.”
“Don’t ever leave me again,” he says, his voice hoarse with honesty. “I don’t know if I could survive it.”
Her eyes go soft as she reaches up and strokes his jaw. “I won’t, I promise. This time, it’s forever.”
“I lost the final round in a big way tonight,” Lindsay admits. She’s lying naked beside Giovanni, her head on his chest, enjoying the solid beat of his heart. She tells him how the final card played was the Queen of Hearts. “The perfect symbol of my downfall.”
He lightly strokes her back, trailing his fingers over her tattoo. “You can’t be the Queen of Hearts forever.”
“I know.” She sits up partway and meets his eyes “For years, I thought it was a strength to own my own heart, to keep it locked away and separate.”
“And now?”
“Now I realize I was wrong because I’ve given my heart to you and it’s only made me stronger.”
“We’ve made each other stronger.”
She nods, knowing it’s true. “I do feel bad for losing that game, especially since you staked me.”
“It all goes to charity so there’s nothing to feel bad about. I’m surprised you lost though.”
She tells him how she was playing on tilt after their conversation. “Now that I think about it, it’s your fault I lost.”
He chuckles. “I guess I’ll have to make it up to you.”
“You better.” She slides her fingers lightly across his chest, enjoying the familiar feel of his skin. “In fact, I hope you don’t have to be at work soon because I expect you to make it up to me all night long.”
“Christ, I’d forgotten how insatiable you are.” He tucks his arm under his head and lets out a satisfied grunt. “Lucky for you, I’m man enough to handle it. Despite my being a delicate flower.”
Lindsay gives him a wicked grin. “Don’t worry.” She leans in close, her mouth at his ear. “I’ll be gentle.”
She can feel him smiling, and when she pulls back, discovers his gaze is full of affection. “Baby,” he says softly. “I missed you.”
“Me too.” She blinks back tears, before leaning in to kiss him again. Long and luscious. She takes her time, licking the sensual dip in each corner of his mouth. His eyes drift shut, a whisper of a smile on his face.
She reflects back to that game tonight and has never been so glad to lose a hand of poker in her life. Although, she’s already thinking about doing something crazy next year, something her dad would even approve of. Playing at the World Series in Las Vegas. It turns out her dad was right. In some ways they are made of the same stuff, but Lindsay's decided that’s okay. The truth is she likes some of that stuff.
She never would have considered it before she met Giovanni, but he's helped her heal and move past what happened to her.
I’m ready for anything now.
His eyes open and he sees the way she’s watching him. “What are you thinking about?” he asks.
“I’m thinking about how much I love you. And how I’m sorry for everything I put you through recently.”
He doesn’t reply, his gaze intense on hers.
“You didn’t deserve it.”
He takes a deep breath. “You want to know what I've learned from all this, and from Paul’s death?”
She shakes her head. “What?”
“People are always saying life is short, so you need to live for today, but I did that for years. I don’t want to live for today anymore.” He laces his fingers through hers. “I want to live for tomorrow.”
She absorbs his words.
“I want to build a life,” he says. “With you.”
Her heart fills with joy. “I want that too.”
He caresses her neck as his eyes roam her face. “So beautiful,” he murmurs. “Fragolina mia.”
She sighs and lies down with her head on his chest again, hugging him tight. “You know, your mom called me a couple weeks ago.”
“She did?”
She lifts up to look at him. “She tried to talk me out of divorcing you, said we should stay married.”
He goes silent, clearly stunned. “You’re kidding. What did you tell her?”
“I told her I’d do it on one condition.”
“And what was that?”
Lindsay grins. “She’d have to agree to change your name to Olaf.”
Giovanni nearly chokes before he bursts out laughing. He’s laughing so hard his whole body shakes, and it’s making her laugh too.
She loves to see him this way, all the normal tension on his face relaxed.
Finally, he manages to calm down. “You didn’t really say that, did you?” But then his brows go up when he sees her expression. “Holy shit, you did?”
“I only meant it as a joke!”
“What was her response?”
“She laughed mostly, but I couldn’t understand the rest of it.” Lindsay looks at him. “I think I need to learn some Italian curse words.”
He shakes his head and grins. “Don’t worry, you will.”
“Yeah, baby, take it off,” Lindsay says with a grin. “Take it all off.”
Giovanni grumbles as he strips his jeans down and kicks them aside, his hard chest and those muscular thighs on full display for her.
Nice.
“I’ve only got one piece of clothing left,” he complains, looking down at his blue boxer briefs. “What the hell.”
She chuckles. “Hey, you’re the one who wanted to play strip poker.”
“This isn’t exactly what I had in mind.” He points to her sitting across from him at the dining room table with all her clothes still on. “You fully dressed while I’m over here buck naked.”
“I’m not fully dressed. I did lose my socks, after all.” She sticks her foot out and wiggles her toes around provocatively. “And my earrings.” She motions toward the center of the table.
Giovanni rolls his eyes and laughs. “Give me a break.”
They’ve been playing cards for the last hour or so, and she’s won nearly every hand.
“Those books are all worthless,” he growls, motioning to the stack of poker books he was studying earlier. “They’re not helping me at all.”
She tilts her head and smiles at him with affection. It’s become clear he hates to lose. “I think it’s really cute you were reading poker books.”
“I don’t know why I bothered.”
The books are hers and she’s read them many times. “They’re helpful, but you have to already know what you’re doing. You jus
t learned how to play.”
His only response is a grumble.
In truth, she’s impressed with how much information he managed to retain. He learned the rankings quickly and memorized a number of the statistical odds. What Giovanni doesn’t realize though is he has a massive tell. Every time he gets a good hand, he bounces his left leg. He’ll stare at her with his best poker face while that left leg is going crazy.
She figures she’ll point it out to him later. After she gets to see him naked, of course.
She leans back in her chair, glancing around the house at the way things are shaping up. They bought some new furniture recently and have hung the tribal art Giovanni picked up during his travels. His parents were storing it for him. In fact, they flew up for Christmas recently and announced they’re planning to sell their home in LA and move to Seattle.
God help us.
Lindsay worried she’d clash with Francesca when they visited, but it was better than she expected. Yes, her new mother-in-law is a force to be reckoned with, but it turns out she does have a sense of humor. In the same way Lindsay can surprise a laugh out of Giovanni, she discovered she could do it with Francesca too.
They decided to renew their vows again and have another wedding this summer. It seemed silly to Lindsay at first since they’re already married, but Giovanni changed her mind.
“That crazy Las Vegas wedding will always be ours, and I’m glad we did it, but I want to claim you in front of everybody. All our family and friends. Maybe it’s just an Italian thing, but it matters to me.”
How could she not agree with that? They decided to make it a big party and invite everyone. In fact, Phillip and his wife have already said they’re looking forward to flying up with Joseph and Sara, who are both adjusting well to their new life in the States.
“And I’m buying you a new ring,” Giovanni told her.
She looked down at the cheap gold wedding band, which she’d grown oddly fond of. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I kind of like this one.”
“You don’t want a diamond? The only reason I haven’t bought you a new ring yet is I figured you’d prefer to design your own.”
“You’re right, I would. I guess I’d like to keep this one too.”
“Wear them both. I just want to spoil you.” He leaned down to kiss her playfully. “I can’t help myself.”
They’ve started a new weekly ritual. Every Friday night, when Giovanni comes home from work, they push all the furniture out of the way, put on Elvis Presley, and the two of them dance their asses off, him stomping and swinging those arms around.
She doesn’t know how it’s possible, but she falls more in love with him every day.
He also took her to see her first opera last month, La Bohème. And he was right, she cried her eyes out. It was beautiful and sad and passionate. She held his hand tight the whole time as tears streamed down her face. They’ve already signed up for season tickets.
“It’s your turn to deal.” He pushes the cards her way.
She takes them and feels his eyes on her as she expertly shuffles the deck. She figures this will be their last hand of strip poker tonight. They’re playing the Texas Hold’em version. If they both make it to showdown, the loser sheds a piece of clothing.
She deals out the cards and they begin the game. She nearly folds after the flop but decides to stay in. Right after the turn, which is an ace of diamonds, his leg starts bouncing, so she figures he’s just made his pair. She nearly folds again but waits to see what the river brings. Happily, it’s a third seven.
“No way!” His mouth falls open when he sees her three sevens at showdown. “I had a pair of aces. I should have won!”
She leans back in her chair. “I’d like to claim my prize now.”
“This is unbelievable,” he mutters. “I don’t know what I was thinking playing poker with you.”
“Why don’t you come on over here, Olaf.” She gives him a lascivious smile. “And I’ll help you take off that pesky underwear.”
He shakes his head, laughing in disbelief. Finally, he gets up and moves to where she’s sitting. She runs her hands down the length of his muscular body, enjoying herself. When she slowly slides them over his thighs, he lets his breath out. There’s definitely something stirring beneath those boxers.
“You want to know what I think?” she asks, looking up at him.
“What?”
“I think we’re both winners.”
He grins at her with that beautiful smile. The one she gets to love forever. “I think you’re right.”
THE END
Thank you so much for reading Some Like It Hotter! I loved telling Lindsay and Giovanni’s story. I hope you enjoyed spending time with them too. If so, would you please consider the following:
1. Write a review on Amazon to help other readers find this book. Click to go to the Amazon review page.
2. Join my mailing list to get updates on all my new releases and hear about occasional giveaways.
If you haven’t read the other books in the series, but would like to, you can grab the first book, Year of Living Blonde (Natalie and Anthony’s story), here. All the books in this series are stand-alone titles and can be read in any order. The next book in the series will be Object of My Addiction (Tori’s story. You might remember her from Return of the Jerk. She’s Nathan’s sister and Blair’s best friend.)
Sweet Life in Seattle
Year of Living Blonde, Book 1
Return of the Jerk, Book 2
Some Like It Hotter, Book 3
Object of My Addiction, Book 4 (Coming Soon)
Other
Fire Down Below
There are so many people who have helped me on my journey to publishing each book in this series. As always my first reader and sister-friend Erika Preston read the first draft and had great ideas, especially about handling Giovanni’s story. Thank you, Erika! Hot Tree Editing has edited all three books, and I’m grateful for their wonderful editors and support. My friend Susan Gideon proofread the final manuscript and I’m always thankful for her incredible eye for detail. Christine Borgford at Perfectly Publishable has done the beautiful interior formatting & design for all three books in this series. Writing is fun, but can get lonely sometimes. I’m lucky to be part of a group of very talented writers. The awesome Plot Princesses—Amy Rench, Haley Burke, and Pattie Frampton—thank you ladies for all the laughter and encouragement. Lastly, I want to thank my amazing husband, John, and both our boys for always cheering me on. And, of course, for all the research hours where we played countless games of Texas Hold ’em!
Andrea Simonne grew up as an army brat and discovered she had a talent for creating personas at each new school. The most memorable was a surfer chick named “Ace” who never touched a surf board in her life, but had an impressive collection of puka shell necklaces. (I still have them!) Eventually she turned her imagination towards writing. Andrea still enjoys creating personas, though these days they occupy her books. She’s an Amazon bestseller in romantic comedy and the author of the series Sweet Life in Seattle. She currently makes her home in the Pacific Northwest with her husband and two sons.
Some of the places you can find her are:
www.andreasimonne.com
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Some Like It Hotter (Sweet Life in Seattle #3) Page 35