“She thinks it’s all made up?”
“She did. Until she saw everyone at the hospital, and met you. I still denied it, but she won’t be completely surprised when you talk to her.”
“Good to know.”
“I wish I could go back to your office and ravish you, but I have a meeting. I’ll be by after and then we can go out.”
“Dinner?”
“Something else first, but dinner after. I think it’s exactly what you need.”
“That’s not cryptic at all.”
“I learned from the best,” he says, kissing me softly. “I love you.”
“I love you too. Now go to your meeting before I ravish you right here and now.”
He groans, but leaves. We both know we have to have these meeting, and calls. It’s important to show that we’re strong and united after all of the bad press. I think about what he might have planned for me tonight as I walk to my own office. I honestly have no idea what he might have come up with, but I can’t wait to find out.
Chapter 20
Matt
Tonight isn’t really a date, and I hope Reina’s okay with this. I hate sleeping in the guest room, but if what I have planned for her will help her even a little bit, I’ll gladly move in there for the night.
“How did it go with Nev?”
“Don’t pretend that she didn’t run to your office after she left mine.”
“She totally did. She’s so freaking excited.”
“She told me that if I hurt you, she’ll use whatever we teach her to torture me.”
“The fuck? I’ll talk to her.”
“Don’t. I like that she’s so fierce when it comes to you. I’m pretty fierce in that regard, too.”
“She still shouldn’t threaten you.”
“I’m fine. At least with Neveah. I’d love to know where we’re going right now, though.”
“I’d rather wait until we get there.”
“That sounds a little ominous.”
“It’s a good thing. I promise.” At least I hope it’s good. I think she needs it, but she may not.
“I trust you,” she says, squeezing my hand.
When I pull into the church, she lets go of my hand. “You said you trust me,” I remind her.
“I do,” she responds, but I see the fear on her face.
I get out and then walk around to open her door. She takes my hand again, this time in a death grip. I kiss her temple, and lead her to the office next to the church itself. The secretary is expecting us and ushers us into the conference room.
“Mother,” Reina exclaims, running over to hug the woman I flew in from Mexico. “What are you doing here?”
“Your Matteo called me, and I came.”
“The convent?”
“The novices will be fine for a day without me. You need me now. You need all of us.”
That’s when Reina notices the other people in the room. The men I called, because I believe she needs more than just one person’s perspective and guidance. There’s my friend, Josh’s rabbi, and Aqeelah put me in touch with the Allamah I flew in. He is one of the most respected scholars of Islam.
“Matt?” she asks.
“You have questions about your faith. These three people have agreed to talk to you about it, to see if they can help you find what you think is lost.”
Her eyes are shining as she looks at me. “Thank you.”
“I’ll be right outside.”
I answer emails and play games on my phone for over two hours. When the door opens again, I jump to my feet. Reina has been crying, and her cheeks are still stained with the tracks of those tears. She smiles at me, and I pull her into my arms. She starts to cry again, sobbing into my shirt, and I worry all over again. Did I do the right thing? If I didn’t, did this make things even worse for her? I know she feels lost without faith, and I’ll keep trying if this didn’t help her.
“Thank you,” Reina says to the three when they file out behind her.
“You can call anytime,” the rabbi tells her.
“You may contact me as well, Reina,” the Muslim scholar tells her.
Mother Superior is the last to leave. “Reina, I am so proud of you and everything you have done. Well, not the violence, but the help you give is awe inspiring. You may have once thought the convent was right for you, but you belong right where you are. With this man at your side.”
“I’m starting to believe that. Thank you so much for flying out here just to talk to me.”
“You needed me.”
“I did. I do. I’ll call you soon.”
We both walk her out and hug her goodbye as she gets into the car that will take her to one of my planes. She is flying right back, because as much as Reina needed her, the women in her convent need her too.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
“Yes. Can we eat while we talk?”
“Of course. Are we dining in, or taking it home?”
“Home. I want to cuddle on the couch.”
“So I’m not in the guest room tonight?”
“No. Definitely not.”
She calls in an order to one of our favorite restaurants, and I go in to grab it before driving us home. We actually sit on the floor and not the couch, because it’s more comfortable to have our food on the coffee table than our laps. We eat in silence at first, although she does kiss me several times, so I know things aren’t too bad.
“What would you have done if that didn’t work?”
“It worked?”
“Not completely. I’m a work in progress. Answer me, please.”
“I would’ve flown us to Rome.”
Her eyes go wide and her mouth drops open. “Rome?”
“Between my connections and yours, I’d have scored you an audience with the Pope. I’ll still do that if you need me to.”
“I-I really want to meet the Pope. I never thought about using my connections.”
“That’s what you have me around for. I’m the cut-throat businessman who is always looking for ways to get what he wants.”
“Bullshit. You’re the loving husband and friend who would do anything for the people you love.”
“That too. I’m both.”
“And I love that about you.”
“Thanks. Now, do I need to work on making that meeting happen?”
“No. Yes. Maybe. I really want to meet him, but I don’t need to.”
“So no rush? I’ll be nice about the ask then.”
“You’re really going to do this?”
“Yes. I can’t believe you’re doubting me.”
“I’m not doubting that you can do it. I just can’t believe you want to do it for me. It’s still hard to have you willingly do anything for me without thinking that you want something.”
“I do want something. I want you to be happy, and feel cherished and loved.”
“Cherished?”
“I cherish you, and your love. I need you to know that.”
“I told Jane that I deserved to be cherished. Did she tell you?”
“No. She didn’t tell me,” I tell her honestly. She searches my eyes, and I know she sees the truth in them.
“Good. It wouldn’t mean as much to me if she had.”
“This is all me.”
“I love all of you, Matteo.”
“Reina, we need to talk before I make you scream, so you’ll have to stop calling me that,” I warn her.
“So let’s talk. I want to scream soon.”
“Noted. How did everything go tonight? You were crying.”
“It went really well. I was crying because talking to them made me realize that my faith isn’t gone. It’s there with me, even when I don’t acknowledge it. God is with me always. They all told me in different ways that pertained to their beliefs, and none of them pressured me to accept what they were telling me. It came down to the same thing with all of them. My faith may not be as strong as it was, and I can’t just snap my fingers t
o make it come back, but it’s not gone.”
“I wanted you to see that, because I didn’t believe that you’d lost it. You can’t help the people you do, and not have faith. It was shaken, and I shook it even more, but it was never truly gone.”
“We have an atheist or two among us at the Society, you know.”
“Yes, I know. There’s nothing wrong with that. They are compassionate and amazing, but you’re not one of them. God was once the biggest part of your life, and while you left your religion, you never left God.”
“And he never left me. Have you ever seen the ‘Footprints in the Sand’ poem? I believe that. I believe God has carried me. And because I believe that, I now realize that my faith is there, ready for me to embrace it once again when I’m ready.”
“I have no doubt you’ll be ready before you know it.”
“I want to one day get married in a church. Can we do that?”
“We can absolutely do that.”
“You’ll marry me again that easily.”
“I’ll marry you every day of every year if you want me to.”
“Right now, I just want you to make love to me.”
“I can do that, too.”
I stand up and hold my hand out to her. She takes it and I pull her up into my arms. When I lift her, she wraps her long legs around me like they belong there. Because they do. I walk us down the hall and up the stairs to our private outside oasis.
“The pool?” she asks, her eyes sparkling.
“I told you once that we’d have our own pool to go skinny dipping in. I was too chicken to have you in here when I couldn’t be the man you needed. Now that I’ve given in, I want you in the water.”
“If you keep making all my dreams come true, I might just have to keep you.”
“That’s my dream.”
She kisses me, and then the clothes start coming off. I lose a few shirt buttons, and her top has a big tear in it. We won’t be able to wear these clothes again, but neither of us care. Once we’re both naked, I walk us into the shallow end of the pool. Ryan designed it to look like it’s in the mountains, with boulders, a waterfall slide, and a little bit of rapids we can turn on in a little side pool that feeds into the main one. I pull us over and flip the switch. There’s not a lot of things sexier than watching water flow all over a woman’s breasts and pussy. Especially if that woman is Reina.
She lets me stretch her out, and then grabs onto the hidden handles underneath the ledge as I spread her legs and stand between them. I could honestly just stare at her in the water like this for hours and never get bored. My mouth is greedy for her, though, and I don’t blame it one damn bit. I lean down and lick her, slowly at first. She arches, and I move her feet up to my shoulders. She uses the leverage to fuck my face, and I move faster. I bite and lick, lick and suck, as she moves erratically under my mouth. I could do this all night, and I have to fight the urge to stop her from going over. In the end, I can’t do it. She needs her release, and I need to give it to her. I suck her clit into my mouth, and graze my teeth over it.
“Matteo,” she screams as she releases.
I lick her down, absorbing all of her aftershocks into my mouth as she opens her eyes. They’re glazed, and if anyone saw her right now, they’d know she just orgasmed. I’m not done yet. I’ll never be done with her, and for once in my life, that doesn’t scare me.
I drop her legs to my waist and kiss my way up her stomach to her tits as I thrust into her. I’m balls deep when I suck one nipple into my mouth as I pinch the other one. I fuck her hard, holding onto her hip with one hand as I alternate my mouth and hands over her breasts. Sucking those beauties into my mouth along the water is more erotic than anything my imagination could conjure up. We’ve had lots of shower sex over the years, so I know that water does it for both of us, but this is different. This is a promise I’m finally keeping. That knowledge makes it better, and hotter.
She’s getting close again, arching into my mouth, and my cock. I love it when she’s like this, so lost in what I’m doing to her that she loses all control. When she lets go of the handles to hold onto my shoulders, I sit back onto the seat behind me. Despite the shower in London. I’m not sure I’m strong enough yet for stand up sex on a regular basis, and no way am I going to make this anything less than spectacular for either of us.
Once she’s straddling me, she goes even crazier. She bites me neck and fucks me like she can’t get enough of my cock. “You want my cock all night, Reina?”
“Yes. Fuck me harder. I need you deeper.”
Oh hell yeah. I hold her hips in a punishing grip, and thrust into her hard. Over and over again until she’s screaming my name and then biting my shoulder hard enough to break my skin. I come right after her, still taking her like a madman as I thrust over and over again. When I’ve finally given her everything I’ve got, I drop my head back onto the concrete and try to breathe again without shaking.
“That was perfect. So fucking perfect.”
“Oh yeah, it was. Damn, Rei. I didn’t think it would ever get any better with you. But that, what we just did? I think I died for a minute.”
“We need to use this pool more often.”
“Not too often, though. I need to be able to function at least a few days a week.”
“You can’t function right now? That’s not what I’m feeling,” she tells me, stroking me back from semi hard to filled to bursting in less than a minute.
“My brain. My brain can’t function. My cock will never have that problem when your pussy’s nearby.”
“Thank God for that, because my pussy’s open for business whenever your cock’s around. We don’t need your brain tonight anyway. Unless you’re using it to come up with new ways to make me come.”
“That, I can do,” I tell her before pulling us out to the main pool for round two. I can’t believe we had this for a year and never put it to use. At least we’ve finally come to our senses just in time.
* * *
Reina
Today’s my birthday, and I wake up feeling different. Not because I’m a year older, but because my left hand feels heavier than it was last night, or earlier this morning. Matt helped me usher in my birthday in a very decadent way at midnight, but then we both fell asleep. As I lift my hand, I see the ring on my ring finger. It is a thick band with good sized diamonds and sapphires shaped like circles all around it, and a thin band of diamonds above and below it. It’s exactly what I would’ve picked for myself.
“Did I do good?” Matt asks, walking into the room with a tray full of my favorite breakfast foods, along with a small wrapped present, and flowers.
For the past two weeks, I’ve gotten flowers every day. Not at the same time, or the same place, but they always appear for me somewhere. Here in the bedroom, on my desk, at “our table” in the cafeteria, on waiting on my car seat, and even tucked into the book I was reading last week. I’d set it down to grab a water, and when I came back, a single lily was lying between the pages.
I’ve also had sweet dates, including a chance to see and meet Shania Twain while she was in town. Matt remembered that I loved her from when we first met, and he made that happen for me. Our other dates have been no less wonderful, even when we’re just eating together at work. When Matt does something, he always goes big, and romancing me is no exception.
“It’s perfect.”
“You’re perfect.”
“Hardly. But we are perfect for each other.”
“We are,” He says kissing me as he sets my tray in front of me. “I love having a ring back on that finger.”
“I’m sorry I couldn’t put the old one back on.”
“Don’t be. It’s very happy to be sitting in the vault along with its yellow friends.”
“Maybe our daughter will like yellow. Or the girl our son falls in love with will.”
“Daughter? Son? Are you? Are we?”
“No,” I tell him with a laugh. “I’d have to stop my birth control b
efore that could happen.”
“Will you? I mean, do you want to?”
“I want to have your baby more than I want to do most anything else.”
“I can’t even tell you what the thought of having my baby growing inside of you does to me.”
“I’ll tell Audrey I want to stop my medication today when I got to the office.”
“You’re not going to the office. It’s your birthday.”
“I work on birthday almost every year, Matt.”
“Not anymore. You need to be pampered and spoiled on your birthday.”
“What if I just want to be fucked by my husband while he feeds me cake.”
“Oh, that will happen. That will definitely happen. Later. The girls will be by soon, and I’ll see you later.”
“You can’t take the day off?” I ask. I’m totally pouting, and I don’t even care.
“No. I have a lot to do today. And you need a girls’ day. Have fun, and I’ll rock your world later. I promise.”
“I’m going to hold you to that.”
“I certainly hope so.”
He kisses me long enough for us both to be breathless, and then leaves me to my breakfast, and my little gift. I eat all of the food, and then pull a silver frame out of the bag. It’s empty, but there’s a post-it note on it.
This is for our real wedding picture. I can’t wait to marry you again.
Your Matteo
After I finish swooning, I jump in the shower. I hate showering alone now that I have Matt with me every morning, but I can deal for one day. Maybe. I’ve just thrown on a pair of jeans and a t-shirt when I hear my front door open.
“We’re here,” Stella yells.
“Be right down,” I yell back.
I slide my feet into a pair of Toms and bound down the stairs to find my living room filled with stars hanging from the ceiling. There are hundreds of them in all shapes and sizes, all of them sparkling. I look around at them in wonder.
“How?”
“I needed to kiss you under the light of a thousand stars,” Matt says, rephrasing one of my favorite lines from my favorite Ed Sheeran song. He pulls me into his arms and kisses me as my friends cheer.
Loving My SECRET (Corrigan & Co. Book 10) Page 21