by Lucy Score
They stared into each other’s souls, hearts slamming together, bodies trembling, pleasure so bright it burned fire through their veins.
54
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
Gloria couldn’t quite hear him over the persistent buzzing in her ears. Was that a normal side effect of a mega orgasm? She had nothing to compare it to but was willing to throw herself into extensive research of the effect. Her body was molten liquid held together by nothing but Aldo’s arms of steel.
“Wow. Wow.”
“What?” Aldo was peering into her face. “Glo? Are you okay?”
She laughed, a breathy, desperate sound. “Okay? Okay is not the word I would use. Miraculous. Mind-exploding. Life-changing. Stunning. Holy. Fucking. Amazing.” She could feel herself glowing, lit from the pleasure that Aldo Moretta had delivered. “This is the best night of my life.”
“Are you insane? Have you completely lost your mind? You almost died!”
“I’ve come closer to dying crossing the parking lot on Dollar Taco night at Uncle Tito’s,” she scoffed. But Aldo wasn’t in a joking mood. He was hanging on by one tenuous thread. Grasping the situation, Gloria changed tacks. She took his shaking hands in hers, put them on her.
“Aldo, tonight I vanquished my own personal demon. He’s not getting back out. The detective told me the charges. Attempted murder, assault, breaking and entering, stalking, harassment. Unless he breaks out of jail—and let’s face it, he’s not smart enough for that—that chapter of my life is officially over.”
“Gloria, he broke into a house with a hunting knife to get to you.”
“He never got past Harper. He never got near me.”
“She was between you and him. He had to get through her to—”
“Stop. Stop it.” Gloria stroked her palms over Aldo’s chest. “It didn’t happen. He didn’t get to me. Now, he’ll never get to me. Harper’s okay. I’m okay. Everything is good.”
He was shaking.
“I didn’t want him to have any part in…this,” Aldo said, his voice mechanical as he looked down at their bodies.
“Don’t you shut down on me, Aldo. Don’t make what we just did something ugly. It was incredible. Beautiful. It was just you and me.” Gloria pulled one of his big hands to her mouth and rained kisses down over his knuckles.
“You and me,” he repeated. “You and me.”
“Please don’t regret this. I don’t think my heart could take it.”
“I wanted it to be special.”
“Aldo. You made me feel like you were wild with desire for me. There is nothing more special than that. It was like…hell, I don’t know. Like I was finally realizing my potential. Aldo, it was beautiful. I’d also like to point out that there’s plenty left that we didn’t do. That was no home run.”
“Fuck. Okay. Okay.”
He rested his forehead against hers, squeezed his eyes shut tight. “I want to make everything perfect for you. Everything. Every day. Forever.”
If she hadn’t been in love with Aldo Moretta before that sentence, she was totally, irrevocably, “little hearts orbiting her head” in love with him now.
“Would it be wrong to point out that you, ah…performed admirably just now?”
He snorted, but she could sense a lightening in him. Aldo nuzzled into her neck.
“I’d also like to point out that we were very physical, and I didn’t shatter into tiny pieces.”
She felt his lips on the juncture of her neck and shoulder.
“I’m glad you’re safe,” he whispered against her skin.
“I’m glad you’re here. Now, what are we going to do with the…um…evidence?”
“There’s a garden hose back here somewhere—”
“Aldo! You are not hosing me off!”
Ty called an emergency vet to check on Lola, who was given a clean bill of health and a prescription for as much steak as her heroic wiggle butt wanted. The Dawsons’ delivery driver returned with a dozen pizzas at about the same time that Luke’s foreman, Angry Frank, showed up with a three-man crew to board up the window and door. An hour later, Hannah’s husband, Finn, burst into the house dressed like a mountain man. Luke’s younger brother, James, arrived shortly after that.
Harper declared it to be a sleepover since no one was keen on anyone being left alone. Aldo didn’t leave Gloria’s side. Sometime around 4 a.m., they all collapsed in the living room. She was curled up on the couch, Aldo at her back, his arms wrapped around her as if he couldn’t bear to let her go.
She closed her eyes and checked in. She didn’t feel like a victim of violence tonight. No. She felt a little tiny bit like a hero. Her very own hero. She’d vanquished her own demon. And yeah, it had been terrifying. But she did it anyway.
She snuggled back against Aldo reminding herself that he was there, so solidly there. This was what it felt like to win. She was going to hang on to this feeling for a very long time.
“Psst. Gloria?”
Gloria lifted her head to look at Harper who was sprawled out on the floor with the dogs in the dark.
“Yeah?”
“You were awesome tonight.”
Gloria grinned. “You, too. Thanks for fighting a psychopath for me.”
“Thanks for braining him with a frying pan and saving my life. You’re my hero.”
Aldo squeezed her once around the waist, echoing Harper’s sentiment.
55
“Little Gloria Parker beaned that asshole with a fry pan.” That’s what they’re saying around town. They’re still talking about it, but no one’s calling me poor anymore. There’s no pity there. And you know what? As long as I’m not pitying myself, then no one else has any room to do it either. Lesson learned. So many lessons learned.
I know I should be curled into a ball sobbing somewhere having flashbacks, but I have never felt stronger. Or more sure of myself. I did it. I saved myself. I am my own hero.
And I was from the minute I walked away from him. I just didn’t know it.
But I do now.
I know Aldo wishes it could have been him. He hasn’t said it. But he’s got his own baggage when it comes to Glenn. He’s got this real-life action hero thing going. So having to take a step back and let someone he cares about take care of themselves is hard for him. But he’s doing it.
He didn’t get the closure I did that night. But he’s so proud of me, and that feels incredible.
I think I might love him.
I haven’t told him yet. I want to hang on to it a little longer, figure out if it’s the truth. But I know whatever I’m feeling for him is real.
I’m doing this. I’m living. I’m normal. And I’m going to take advantage of every second I get.
Thank you. For listening. For guiding. For everything.
56
Gloria woke in a rush, her heart beating against her ribs. But it wasn’t because of her nightmares anymore. Those had stopped the minute Glenn Diller had been hauled away in the back seat of a cop car, feeling the effects of the concussion she’d dealt him.
These nightmares were Aldo’s.
She’d had her suspicions. Post-traumatic stress. Panic attacks. He covered them well. But he couldn’t hide it from her in his sleep.
Aldo was wrapped around her, tensed as if to strike, his body trembling. She thought he’d sleep better in his own bed, had insisted they move their sleepovers to his house for the weekend. But the nightmares still found him.
Gloria rolled over and wrapped her arms around him, pulling him close. In his sleep, Aldo buried his face in her tank-top-covered breasts.
They hadn’t spent a night apart since the incident with Glenn. They also still hadn’t had sex.
Two weeks had passed since the trauma that had unlocked Gloria from her prison. But it had had the opposite effect on Aldo.
After their moment—their mind-blowing, life-altering moment—in Harper’s backyard, Gloria thought that a physical relationship would bloom natura
lly between them. However, it seemed that the sexiest moment of her life had only encouraged Aldo to put sex on the back burner…in someone else’s kitchen…in a town across the country.
She got it. She did. To a man like Aldo, pride was wired into his DNA. If he tried and failed at something like the sex that they’d both built up to be the be-all, end-all of orgasmic experiences? Well, the progress he’d made since coming home could come to a screeching halt.
Not knowing was better than knowing.
Unfortunately, now that she knew what an orgasm was, waking up to Aldo’s raging morning wood was a special kind of torture. But he’d been patient with her. She could return the favor. But if he made her wait ten years, she’d have to get creative with her seduction techniques.
“Aldo,” she whispered.
His body stiffened against her, but she held on tighter.
“Wake up, mi león.”
Aldo woke instantly with an uncanny perception of his surroundings. Without even opening his eyes, the man forced himself to relax, to pretend he hadn’t been in the throes of a nightmare.
“What does that mean?” he asked, pulling Gloria tight to him.
She could feel his heart still pounding against her cheek. “My lion.”
He grunted, approving the nickname.
“Was it the explosion or Harper’s house?” Gloria asked.
Of course, it was neither and both. Dreams, especially ones that were shaded by post-traumatic stress, weren’t usually an exact replay of real life. Gloria knew this from experience. But the feelings they left in their wake were.
“I was lost in the woods, looking for you,” he murmured against her hair. “Couldn’t find you. Then someone started shooting.”
She was so grateful that he talked to her. That he didn’t go full-blown testosterone-fueled ‘don’t worry your pretty little head about it.’ He was trying. But maybe it was time they looked for some answers outside themselves. She had a few ideas.
Relaxing back against him, she reached up and threaded her fingers through his unruly hair. “You okay to meet up with Harper and the gang for breakfast?”
“Yeah,” Aldo said gruffly, cuddling her closer.
She was already regretting her decision. The box bounced and scrabbled in her grip as tiny claws tried to shred the cardboard like a Tasmanian devil.
“Hang on. One more minute. Please, please, please, be cute and sweet and not horrible,” Gloria whispered to the box. “Oh my God. This was the worst idea I’ve ever had.”
But it was too late, the bell was rung, and Aldo was opening his front door.
Thank God there was also pie. Or, there would be.
His face lit up when he saw her on his doorstep, and Gloria clung to the hope that he wouldn’t think this was the stupidest thing she’d ever done. His hair was ruffled like he’d just woken up, and she could hear the TV inside. They’d parted ways after breakfast with the Garrisons, Harper, and Luke’s ex-mother-in-law, Joni, to handle Sunday errands.
Gloria’s errand-running had slipped into the overstepping boundaries zone.
“Hey, Glo. Whatcha got there?”
The box trembled in her grasp, and an impressive yowl sounded from inside.
“Oh, shit,” Aldo said, staring at the box.
“I got you something,” she said, shoving it into his hands and picking up the grocery bag at her feet. “And no matter how dumb or awful it is, focus on the fact that I’m going to bake you a pie.”
The box shuddered and screeched. “Apple pie?” he asked.
She nodded and stepped inside, shutting the door behind her.
Aldo pried the lid off the ventilated box, and all hell broke loose.
The kitten, all one pound of him, exploded out of the box and launched himself at Aldo, hooking those claws into his shirt.
“What the—Ow!”
Terrified or incensed by Aldo’s yelp, the cat dislodged himself, landing on the floor before Aldo or Gloria could catch him, and took off for the couch.
“I think he ripped my nipple off,” Aldo said, peeking under his shirt.
“I don’t know what I was thinking,” Gloria began. She was cut off when the ball of gray tabby hurtled across the living room floor and wrapped itself in the drapes on the front window. “He’s a boy. Nine weeks old and blind in his left eye.”
The curtain rod came tumbling down, drapes landing in a heap, startling the cat.
They danced out of the way as the one-eyed fur monster sprinted back and jumped onto the coffee table, sending magazines and mail in all directions.
He was meowing and growling and hissing and making other odd grunting noises. “I went with Harper to get Lola’s eye drops at the shelter, and there was a litter of kittens, and you live alone, and I thought having a sweet little kitten to cuddle with would be—”
The kitten wiggled its chubby butt and tried to make the jump from coffee table to recliner, falling short by about a foot. To exact his revenge, he sunk his front claws into the recliner’s footstool.
“No! Bad!” Gloria chased after the deceiving fluff ball, but he avoided her with freakish, ninja-like skills.
Aldo dodged left and dove right, capturing a handful of fur. He plucked the kitten from the floor and held it aloft.
Wrapped in his big hands, the kitten paused his war of destruction. The big man and the little cat blinked at each other.
“Mew!”
“Shit. He’s kinda cute.”
“Mew!”
The longer the man and cat stared at each other, the wider the bounds of Gloria’s heart stretched. Her big, burly boyfriend, with his ruffled hair and Sunday stubble, peering into the fluffy face of a terrified, horribly behaved kitten.
Gloria was a goner.
The cat—dubbed Ivan the Terrible—ate too much cat food, threw up on the kitchen floor, showered kitty litter all over the laundry room, and was now curled up, sound asleep in the crook of his new owner’s muscled arm.
Aldo was perched on a stool, resting his good leg, and watching Gloria commandeer his kitchen. She peeled and sliced and measured while he cuddled the cat.
“You don’t have to keep him,” she reminded him, fishing a bowl out of a cabinet and moving on to level off a cup of flour.
In his kitty coma, Ivan snored against Aldo’s forearm.
Aldo chuckled softly.
“I thought that it might be nice for you to have someone—” Her gaze slid to the cat, adorably snuggled into him. “Something to talk to around the house. So you aren’t alone.”
He was watching her softly. “You talk to yourself,” Aldo observed.
She gave him a shy smile over the pie crust. “I do. I was my only company for a long time.”
He rose and crossed to her.
Aldo wrapped his free arm around her waist from behind. She leaned back into his chest and felt as content as the napping kitten.
For Gloria’s next intervention, she enlisted Mrs. Moretta’s help. Procuring the information she needed only cost her two-dozen peanut butter chip brownies and a car wash. It was worth it to get the necessary intel.
She carefully put the next steps of Operation Help Aldo Heal into motion via email and phone call.
57
“Aldo? Can you answer that for me?” Gloria called out from the kitchen. She was in the midst of a baking frenzy that smelled amazing and had banned him from the room unless he wanted to be enlisted. He only ventured in to make her a fresh cup of tea or to drag Ivan out of the bag of flour. Twice.
Her laptop had signaled an incoming video call. He didn’t feel right answering for her. “What if it’s your mother and I’m not wearing a shirt?” he yelled back.
“It’s not my mother, and you are wearing a shirt,” she reminded him. Reluctantly he clicked to answer.
“Doc Dreamy?” His flight trauma surgeon’s face filled the screen.
“How’s it going, lieutenant?” Her smile was warmer than it had been when he’d been a world away and
on the brink. She’d come to visit him after surgery, and they’d talked on the phone when he’d been shipped off to Germany.
She’d saved his life. Kept him from bleeding out.
Seeing her now, grinning at him from a background with palm trees and turquoise water, gave him a new appreciation of where he was.
Gloria poked her head out of the kitchen with a sweet smile. The sneaky little woman had set him up.
“It’s going well,” he said, pulling up his pant leg to knock on his prosthesis.
“Very nice,” she commented.
“That doesn’t look like Bagram,” he said as a man jogged past her and dove into the surf.
“Still sandy,” she quipped. “I came home three weeks ago, cleaned off the inch of dust in my apartment, and then hopped on a plane here.”
He thought of all she’d seen as part of a forward surgical team. All the blood and loss. The trauma and the fear. “You deserve it.”
“I like to think so,” she said brushing off the compliment. “So how’s the healing going?”
“All healed up,” he insisted.
“You know, not all wounds are on the outside.”
Aldo’s gaze slid up to meet Gloria’s. His girlfriend was suddenly needed on urgent kitchen business and ducked away. He didn’t know how to feel about Gloria going behind his back to dig up the doc. Not trusting him to work through it on his own.
“Very subtle, doc.”
She shrugged nonchalantly and looked over her shoulder at the bluest swath of ocean Aldo had ever seen. “Look, just make sure you’re doing as much work for your mental state as you are your physical state, and you’ll be fine. That’s all I’m saying.”
“Who says I’m not fine?” he challenged.
“Those big-ass circles under your eyes,” she noted.
Where everyone else cautiously tip-toed, Doc Dreamy stomped in and pointed right at the damn elephant in the room.