On the third night the woman sat me down. She held a ring between her fingers and looked at me in earnest while I shoveled minestrone into my mouth.
“My name is Lucia Pavoni. Sixty years ago my brothers left to America. They left me with nothing, but they couldn’t take this ring. It’s priceless. The stone unique. You could ask any gem master.” I wiped soup from my mouth, looking from Lucia to the ring. I wasn’t sure there was such a thing as a gem master, but that really wasn’t the point. I leaned back into the wood chair as Lucia told me her story.
It was a sad story, but it was complete shit. From the moment Lucia told me her name, I knew she was after something. Forget the fact that her English was flawless, the Pavoni crime syndicate was the biggest crime family in the world. Maybe she was a sick old lady abandoned by her brothers, but more likely, she was some kind of Pavoni Matriarch holding down the fort in Venice.
The ring gleamed under the low light, the colors shifting from teal to midnight to Egyptian and finally to Atlantic blue, but never staying the same. I’d never seen anything like it, but it was just like looking into Lenny’s eyes. Later I’d come to know the stone was one of the rarest sapphires in the world.
“All right, how much?” I asked.
The old woman looked shocked, pulling it against her breast. “This ring is not for sale.”
“Of course not,” I remarked. “But I leave tomorrow.”
“Get a message to my great niece Isabelle and keep the ring. Keep the ring and don’t give the message…” Her sweet demeanor vanished, and I saw the cool, cruel face of a Pavoni Matriarch. I left the next morning with the rest of my crew, ring in tow, but took a detour to New York.
I delivered the message the old Pavoni woman asked. It ended up being a bit more complicated than giving someone a piece of paper, but that’s a story for another time. In the end, I kept the ring.
Then, well, you know what happened.
Shit got complicated with Lenny and me, even more complicated than before.
I was never happy with our arrangement. In the beginning, we weren’t exclusive. I used to come back to her every few months knowing she’d been fucking some dude while I was away. Sure, I’d been doing the same—well, not with a dude, but yeah. Even after we stopped all that and moved in together, I wasn’t happy. It wasn’t enough.
I wanted to make an honest woman out of her or some shit.
So driving back from the store with Seven’s niggling little words in my ear, I was pissed.
Before, I’d been waiting for the right time. I wanted it to be perfect; Lenny deserved that much. I wanted roses, candles, a fucking meteor shower, the aurora borealis, and the second coming when I got down on my knee and promised the world to her.
If the past had taught me anything, though, it was if I kept waiting, I would die. I took a harsh turn just before our street, honks ringing in my ear. Lenny could wait another thirty minutes, there was something I needed to grab from my PO box.
I quickly handed her the box of chocolate and sausage. She thanked me, a big grin on her face. Crumbs fell over her chest as she dug into the sweets. If I hadn’t been certain before, when we were going through all the shit, I knew right then. With a bit of chocolate smudged across her chin, sitting cross-legged, watching some shit musical…I would never, ever let that woman go.
Just as she was about to tear into the sausage, I got down on my knee.
“What are you doing?” She looked at me, taking a bite of the sausage. “Did you drop something?”
I pulled out the ring and thrust it forward. About a moment later I realized I hadn’t prepared anything to say. Maybe I wasn’t going to wait for the second coming, but shit, I could have at least prepared a fucking speech.
“What the hell is this?” she exclaimed, standing off the bed. Sausage and chocolate flew everywhere.
“I thought it was pretty obvious.” I shrugged, gesturing at the ring. The colors caught the light, like the ancient ring knew more than us.
“You want to marry me? Why?” She hurriedly brushed crumbs off her pajamas. The top was a long sleeved button up with side pocket, the bottoms were tied with a thick bow. Either silk or cotton, I wouldn’t be able to tell until she was in my arms. When she’d stood, the fact that she hadn’t buttoned her shirt entirely was made obvious. Her left breast was partially exposed, the nipple peeking out.
“Lennox Moore.” I laughed, shaking my head. “I’ve loved you since the day you crashed into me in the hall. Are you seriously asking me that?”
“Is it because I’m pregnant? You don’t want a bastard or something?” Lenny tugged on the bottom of her shirt fretfully and her entire breast became exposed. I shifted on the floor uncomfortably, my cock hardening. Shaking my head, I tried to clear my thoughts. Now was not the time.
I had the rest of my life for that. Hopefully.
Slowly, I stood up off my knee and brought Lennox in by the arms. “I’m a bastard, you know.”
“I don’t mean your attitude, Vic. I mean in the eighteen hundreds Victorian English way.”
“Yeah, me too.” I pulled her in close by the fabric of her open shirt. I carefully undid the rest of the buttons until the flaps hung open on either side. I slid my hands in, cupping her, then I brought her naked chest close to me.
“Oh…” Chin on my chest, she looked up at me. Her big eyes gleamed like the stone. “I guess it never came up. Well, I don’t care either way, Vic. I love you and I don’t need a ring or a piece of paper to prove that.”
I laughed. “After everything we’ve gone through, I think I know that.”
“So what is this?” She took the ring out of my hand. “Why?”
“Is it so hard to believe that I love you?” I kissed her neck. “I want to marry you, Lennox Moore. I want to make you mine in every way possible. If branding was a thing, I might consider it.”
She furrowed her brow and looked into the face of the stone. “You’re an ass, but I trust you.”
I lowered my hand and slid it between her pajama pants. No underwear. Her tummy was slightly rounding, her skin was hot, her pussy was wet. I groaned. “God, I want you Lenny. Forever. Always.”
Lenny fell into me and I caught her. I would always catch her. I drummed my fingers against her clit. She tried to snake her fingers around my neck but I caught them.
“Not yet, put the ring on.”
She slid the ring on her finger. “It’s beautiful.” A second later she added, “I’m not letting you brand me.”
“We’ll revisit the idea later.”
Later we sat in bed, discussing how to tell our friends and family. Lenny wanted to tell everyone at the same time, to avoid hurt feelings. I really didn’t think anyone would give a fuck when they found out, but she was adamant.
With the conversation at a lull, I reached on the nightstand and grabbed the remote. Time to watch Aliens. Payback for all those goddamn musicals.
“Some couples get engagement photos done,” I remarked.
“Oh! Oh!” She turned to me, excited.
“You actually want to do that?” I raised a brow. “I was joking.”
“No.” Lenny shook her head. “You know how you had to get senior photos done back in high school?”
“I left school to join the marines and become a super spy,” I reminded her, pressing power to the TV. The screen stayed blank, so I pressed it again. Still nothing.
“Oh, of course, how could I forget?” Lenny rolled her eyes. “Well, you do. They’re these cheesy photos that parents have as a memento or some shit. You know, knuckle under chin, weird grin, that shit. Anyway, I had a different idea.”
“Of course you did.” I banged the remote; no batteries. “What did you do with the batteries?” I asked, turning to her.
“They died for a good cause…” At my inquisitive look, she clarified: “My vagina.” I couldn’t argue with that. “Anyway,” Lenny continued, “I wanted to reenact famous suicides in history.” I turned my assault to t
he clock, other remotes, basically anything that might have a battery. Every single thing was empty.
“Should I look downstairs or did your vagina eat those batteries too?” I asked.
“I’m really horny now that I’m pregnant.” She shrugged. I set the remote down and crawled over to her on the bed.
“Well I’m here…” I kissed her belly and started pulling down her pants.
Lenny shucked me off. “I already burned through a few batteries today.” I had given her many orgasms just hours before, to celebrate the engagement. And, you know, because orgasms. When I’d tried to climb on top of her, she’d push me away then as well. When I’d tried to pin her to the wall, she’d wrestled away.
It was odd, but I wasn’t going to rock the boat. Lenny was pregnant. Non-fetus carrying Lenny was enough to handle, I was sure fetus loading Lenny was going to come with a few quirks. Giving up, I hopped off the bed and manually turned on the TV. While I was finagling to find the right app, I asked Lenny, “How did your father react?”
“What?” She looked up from her baby book.
“When you asked to kill yourself for your senior photo.”
“Okay I didn’t ask to ‘kill myself’ for my senior photo, but he reacted with as much emotion as is possible for an emotionally dead person. He said no.”
“I imagine for a person who lost a wife to suicide and nearly a daughter, it didn’t seem like a great idea.”
“The kids at school called me suicide girl; it was a tongue and cheek reaction to that.”
“You never told me that,” I said lightly, sitting back down on the bed.
Lenny shrugged, eyes in her book. “High school is dead and buried. I don’t like to live among corpses.”
“You’re marrying one,” I pointed out.
She stuck out her tongue. “Anyway…what if we did that?”
“You’re serious?”
“Please?”
I could deny her nothing.
“What is this one supposed to be?” Eli asked, a grimace on his face.
“Oh!” Lenny pointed excitedly at the proof. “That’s Hemingway, see the shotgun?”
“I guess I don’t really see how this is romantic,” Zoe said, pushing away the laptop as much as she could. We were crammed around the table outside, and only the laptop and the phone had the proofs from the photoshoot. Remarkably, no one was cramming around those.
“Well those are the solo ones,” Lenny said exasperated, as if that explained everything. “The couple ones are on this USB.” Her elbows knocked into me and Grace as she rooted around her bag, looking for the other stick.
“We did Antony and Cleopatra and Romeo and Juliet,” I added, trying to give more context. Truth was, there really wasn’t much. We’d dressed up in crazy outfits, used a lot of fake blood, and had to hire a very open-minded photographer. Lenny had been over the moon; with every photo she looked at she was one step away from clutching to her heart.
Lenny loved it, and I loved Lenny, so I guess that’s romance.
“I like them!” Lissie smiled, clicking through the pictures before reaching over the table to hand the phone to Grace.
“Well…” Grace slowly set the phone back on the table. “It’s very…you.”
“I agree with Grace, at least,” Zoe said, scooting in her chair to try and make more space. Lenny handed her the other USB but she waved her away. “I think I’m good. Can we talk about the wedding?”
“We’re thinking New Zealand,” Lenny said. “There’s a beautiful glowworm cave there.”
“See, that sounds romantic,” Grace said.
“Oh!” Lissie clapped her hands, causing everyone at the table to shake. “Moore Events will go global!”
“I don’t think planning one wedding—especially an employee’s wedding—counts as going global. But that reminds me.” Lenny leaned toward Grace. “We could use a girl like you at Moore Events.”
Grace raised a brow. “A barista?”
“Well, I do drink a lot of coffee,” Zoe mused, sipping her coffee for effect. Lissie slapped her on the arm, causing the coffee to splash over.
“If we go global we will definitely need Grace!” Lissie added, ignoring the looks Zoe gave her as she patted the coffee on her shirt dry. Lenny shook her head and the conversation devolved into what constituted going global, and what would happen at the wedding.
“Will it just be you two?” Eli leaned into me while the women discussed the wedding. “I mean, not that I don’t wanna come, but if it’s gonna be like these pictures…” Earlier that week, before dropping the engagement bomb on everyone, Lenny and I had had a nearly identical conversation.
“Should we invite everyone?” I’d asked, then I’d remembered what “everyone” meant. Lenny still had living family members—although, Lenny had once said her dad was simply “taking up space in the world until his heart stopped beating the way it stopped working years ago.” Still, I asked if she wanted to invite him.
Lenny grimaced. “I know it probably sounds terrible, but no.” It didn’t sound terrible to me, but I asked her why she thought so. “I don’t know, because he’s my dad? He’s never done me any harm outright—not like yours, at least. I want our day to be about love,” she continued. “I want us to be surrounded by it, suffocated in it. When he’s around, all I remember is how bereft we were.”
“Sounds reasonable.” It had never seemed more reasonable than that day. While we talked, we folded clothes, tiny little baby clothes that would one day fit our child. We still didn’t know the sex, but it didn’t matter. We bought all kinds of colors and prints. Earlier that morning we’d gone for a walk and stumbled into a baby store, and by stumbled I mean I had walked right inside.
“You’re supposed to say I have to have him there,” Lenny said, holding up tiny socks to the light. “That I need to make up with him and be a family.” I watched her hold the tiny yellow socks, imagining tinier feet inside. The idea nearly made my throat constrict, but then I looked at the whole picture: Lenny, her tummy, our room, and our life.
“I like to think we choose our families.”
“It’s settled, then,” she said, folding the socks. “It will be me and you, Lissie and Zoe, Eli and Grace.”
“Just family,” I replied.
“He’d probably prefer a card, anyway,” she muttered.
“Probably.” I was pretty damn good at folding clothes—you get good when you join the military—but the smaller the clothes, the harder it is. Lenny was on her umpteenth pair and I was still folding the same goddamn shirt.
Lenny spun around, eyes wide with disbelief. “I can’t believe you just said that.”
“Why?” I gave up, throwing the shirt into my pile of unfolded clothes.
“It’s so rude.”
“I thought we weren’t lying to each other any more.”
Lenny’s eyes crinkled and she turned back to her pile of clothes. “I really don’t know what I’m going to do with you, Vic Wall.”
I tugged at her back and pulled her into my arms. “Marry me, hopefully.”
“It’s been way too long, babe.” I pulled Lenny against my chest so she could feel my hardening cock at her ass. Wrapping my arms around her, I slid my hands across her belly, her breasts. I kissed her throat, lifted her hair up, and continued down the base of her neck.
She sighed and pulled away.
That had to be the first time in…well…ever.
“I’m just not in the mood.” She said the words without meeting my eyes. I wasn’t about to force her on the goddamn kitchen counter, but something didn’t sit right. Without eating a single one, Lenny set down the jar of pickles she’d been craving and walked up the stairs, still without looking at me. I followed, watching her ass sway with her hips. With the pregnancy, everything had started to grow: her ass, her hips, her tits. It was pretty fucking fantastic.
“Lenny,” I murmured, leaning against the doorframe. “What aren’t you telling me?”
&nbs
p; “I’m just not in the mood,” she said, head down. I walked into the bedroom and encircled my arms around her once more.
“Tell me the truth.”
“That is the truth.” She tried to wiggle free from me, but I wouldn’t let her. “Look, I’m just not in the mood.” If Lenny really wasn’t in the mood, I wouldn’t have pressed. I would have let her go and jacked it in the bathroom. I had a thought that she was lying to me, though, and we weren’t doing that anymore. I was pretty sure of it too, because,
“I bought a twenty-four pack of batteries yesterday and they’re already dead.” That wasn’t an exaggeration. My remote still had no power.
Lenny stiffened, then relaxed against me. “What about the baby?” she whispered.
“What about it?” We’d come back from another doctor’s appointment just hours before and everything was fine. It was still too early to tell the sex, but in another month or so we’d know. Everything was going good—better than good, even. I had no clue what was bothering her. “The doctor said we could have sex.”
“Yeah, but Dr. Roth doesn’t know how we have sex.” Ah, bingo. Lenny was picturing whips and chains, leather and choking. She was picturing pounding, slapping, and screams.
All of that was pretty hot, but not necessarily conducive to growing a life.
“I’ll be gentle,” I said, pulling down the straps of her dress. Her breasts were heavier now; she couldn’t wear a bra due to the tenderness. They spilled out of the fabric that I continued to peel down her body. Her stomach was starting to round and I placed my palm on it. Inside was our baby; I still could hardly believe it.
“Do you know how to be gentle?” In lieu of responding, I gently kissed the side of Lenny’s neck. She sighed, melting into me. I loved to make Lenny scream. I loved to fuck her so hard she went insane and her mind melted, but maybe I could get used to this.
The way she crumbled into my touch had its own effect. Her little sighs and pants were a melody of their own. It wasn’t metal, but then this soft melody was starting to wear on me.
Come To Me (Owned Book 3) Page 21