Love Over Lattes

by Diana A. Hicks

  The matter-of-fact tone in his voice made me happy. Bridget, the divorce—none of it hurt him anymore. He was truly over her and everything that had happened between them.

  “And how would you introduce me?” I tried to keep my tone light, even though I was dying to know if he considered me his girlfriend now.

  “How would you like to be introduced?”

  I looked down at my hands. “Do they know about your other girlfriends?”

  “No.” He cupped my face. “You’re the only woman I want in my life. If that’s what you’re asking.”

  “Yes. That’s what I’m asking.” I met his gaze.

  I needed to get this off my chest and make it clear to him where we stood. It would hurt. But if he couldn’t give me this, I was ready to walk away. He loved me. He’d proven that. But what he felt for me and what he could offer me in a relationship were two different things.

  “Cole, if you still want to do your Monday-through-Friday-girlfriend thing, I can’t be part of it. I won’t.”

  “You’re the only one for me. I promise. I want no one else.” He caressed my cheek.

  I kissed him. “I believe you.” For now, girlfriend status was enough. “So how normal are we talking about?”

  “My parents?”

  “Yeah. What do they do?” I sat on my heels next to him, and my thigh rubbed the length of his torso.

  “Mom was a financial advisor but retired a few years back. Dad’s a pediatrician. Like I said, normal.”

  “Your normal and my normal aren’t exactly the same.”

  “Okay. Fair enough. But you have nothing to worry about. I know they’ll love you.” He pulled gently on my hair and pushed it away from my face.

  “You’re right. I should woman up.”

  “Yes. You should.” He gave me one of his smiles.

  I leaned forward and nibbled on his lower lip before I planted a wet kiss on him. “Let’s go get Max.”

  “His stuff’s already in his room down the hall.” He laughed for a moment as if remembering a private joke. “Em said your mom was okay releasing all your belongings. But she put her foot down when it came to her grandson.”

  “That’s Abuela. She’d been worried about me not being able to love again.” I ducked my gaze, tracing my fingers on his freakishly hot abs. Focus. Cole needed to know how deep my insecurities went. I wanted him to know.

  “I think her and Em had a good chat yesterday.” He grabbed a strand of my hair and let it curl around his fingers. “She’s thrilled for you. You deserve to be happy, Valentina. Never forget that.”

  “I know.” I couldn’t stop smiling. This beautiful man wanted me. It was going to be so easy to share my life with him. “Are you ready to go meet them?”

  He nodded, placing a hand at the nape of his neck, biceps bulging.

  He was doing it on purpose. Shaking my head, I threw a leg over the side of the bed and got up. If I didn’t get away from Cole, he’d convince me to stay in bed all day. The idea sounded amazing, but we had things to take care of first. When I looked back at him, he watched me with smoldering eyes. I’d forgotten I was naked under the covers. He crawled on the bed toward me. How long would it be before this urgent desire we felt for each other went away? If the wolfish grin on his lips was any indication, I’d say probably never.

  “You certainly know how to get my attention.” His erection made my mouth water. The man was hot as all hell. “You are so incredibly gorgeous.” He palmed my breast.

  My nipples had already gone hard under his gaze. My resolve was crumbling, but I pushed him back. “I need a shower.”

  “Me too.” He stepped off the bed to join me, standing almost a foot taller.

  I ran my hands over every groove and soft hair on his flat stomach. He was real and he was mine.

  “You have five seconds to get in the shower, or I’m taking you back to bed.” His breathing was uneven, and his voice hoarse.

  I liked having this much control over him, to know I wasn’t the only one affected physically. He inched toward me, and I wiggled out of his reach. His laughter followed me into the bathroom, where I stood in awe, using the doorframe for support.

  “What is it? Did you see a spider?” He nuzzled my neck.

  “I’ve never seen your shower before. It’s humongous.”

  “Well, let me give you the tour.” His teeth grazed my shoulder, and a warm tingling feeling rushed down to my toes.

  The room was easily bigger than the cottage kitchen and living room put together. At the far right, floor-to-ceiling windows framed the mountains in the distance. To my left was a door I assumed was the water closet. Beyond that was the vanity and sink area.

  “Shower or bath?” he asked. “Either way, I plan to make love to you in this room right now.”

  “Okay.” I took a deep breath.

  I eyed the massive tub, which sat against the wall straight ahead and took up only a small portion of the room. We’d have to give that a try soon. The shower had no doors, just a rain shower over our heads, four feet in length.

  He turned on the water and the steamers. The warm water rushed through my hair and back. Even his shower was sexy. Pushing another button, he turned on the side jets. The spray tickled my backside and legs. On the tiki bench next to the standing towel rack, I found bottles of shampoo and body wash. I was right. The scent was lemon and verbena. I poured some of the soap on a puff and rubbed it against my belly to create a rich lather. When I turned, he was there, inches from me. His dark eyes said he’d waited long enough.

  He bent down to kiss me, one hand at the nape of my neck, the other all over me, spreading the soap across my chest and down to my sex. Just like that, my body ached for him. I didn’t have his self-control. I dropped the puff and buried my fingers in his hair. His hot mouth moved from my lips down to the peaks of my breasts while water dripped from his nose and onto my belly. Sharing the same water felt so intimate. I wanted this, every morning of every day.

  He found my mouth again, our tongues touching gently while he kneaded my backside. Sliding his hands down, he caught me by the back of my thighs and wrapped my legs around his waist. His erection rubbed against me, and the sensation almost sent me over the edge. Gripping his muscular shoulders for support, I adjusted my weight, and he entered me with a strength that I’d come to expect from him. Familiar and all consuming. He thrust into me with purpose, deepening our connection. His mouth never left mine.

  A billow of white heat rippled and spread from my core to my navel. In this position, he stimulated every inch of me. We stood under the rain shower, all hands and wet skin. I didn’t want the feeling to end, but this was more than I could bare. He had me at the very edge.

  “Now,” I whispered.

  His laugh rumbled between us as he carried me to the wall. Cold and slippery, the tile pressed against my skin, but I didn’t mind because my entire focus was on his erection and the way he filled me. I rubbed his chest, taking in the heat emanating from his body. I held on to his neck and relaxed my body, letting him support my legs while he worked to get me the relief I craved. He kept at it until the ache inside me turned to liquid fire and I yielded to him. My moan echoed all around us, followed by his own groan against my shoulder.

  “What have you done to me?” He released my legs. They felt like gelatin as they dropped to the floor, completely useless. But Cole had me pinned to the wall. I wasn’t going anywhere. “Marry me,” he whispered on my lips.

  “What?”

  The look in his eyes said it all. This wasn’t the intimidating, sure-of-himself Cole. He’d opened his heart and showed me what he kept inside. I found fear in his eyes. As if I had the power to break his heart into a million pieces. He was mine.

  “Marry me. Please.”

  Chapter Thirty

  Are You Ready?

  Cole

  “Are you sure?” she asked, brows furrowed, still trying to catch her breath.

  “You’re impossible.” I bent
down to kiss her, pulse racing. “Please don’t fight me on this.”

  “I’m not. It’s just hard to think when you’re all wet and naked in front of me.”

  I laughed. “Okay, fair point. Get dressed. We have a conversation pending.” I kept my eyes on her face while I washed up quickly. She was right—thinking while we were both naked was impossible. “I’ll wait for you in the bedroom.” I kissed her forehead and left.

  My initial intent had been to propose to her last night. But as soon as we walked through the door, I just couldn’t keep my hands off her. And before I knew it, the night had turned into morning. I’d started to feel that if I didn’t pop the question soon, I’d never get the chance. We’d just had sex without a condom. There was a high probability we were running against the clock here. The thought made me smile.

  She strolled out of the bathroom thirty minutes later, wearing nothing but a towel. Her perfect breasts were barely contained. I swallowed. She just had no clue what she did to me.

  “Any idea where we left my bra last night?”

  I wet my lips. “Let’s see. I remember taking your pants off in my office. Then we did that thing.” She blushed. We would have to plan another tour of the house soon. “You only had your bra and underwear on when we went into the kitchen.” I pretended I didn’t recall the details of last night. I did. Vividly. But I was enjoying her blushing too much. I could do this all day.

  She slapped my chest. “I’m serious. Wait. Was there an indoor soccer field?”

  “Yeah. And I’m serious too. I’m thinking. Okay, maybe the living room? You definitely did not have your bra on then.”

  “I need my clothes.” She laughed, and the towel inched down her front.

  My cock reacted in anticipation. I raked both hands through my hair and blew out air. If we were going to get out of here, she really did need her clothes.

  “I asked Em to bring your things here. Figured the cottage was paid off until the end of the month. If you were going to stay there, you might as well stay here with me.”

  “Interesting logic.” She did her one-brow thing.

  “Just trying to make things easy for you.” I put on my innocent face.

  “That’s so sweet and high handed of you.” She smiled and stepped into the closet.

  It was high handed, but she’d left me no choice with her tendency to run away from me at every turn. Shaking her head, she picked up the clothes she’d worn yesterday off the sitting bench.

  “I’m not even going to think about how these clothes got here.” She covered her face with both hands.

  “My guess?” I grinned. “Em brought them up while we were in the guest room. Don’t be embarrassed.”

  She hit my chest, and a piece of paper fell out of one of the pockets of the pants she was holding. It caught my attention because I saw my name scribbled on it. I picked it up.

  “Don’t read that.” She made a grab for it, but I held her hand until I was done reading.

  1. Convince my parents to let us stay with them for a few weeks. At least two.

  2. Find a new place.

  3. Get my cousins to move my stuff, again.

  4. Schedule pickup with Em.

  5. Get over Derek Cole.

  “You had a plan to get over me?” My heart squeezed tight. I’d come so close to losing her.

  “That’s one of three.” She glanced at her hands, biting her lip. When she looked at me, she had creases on her forehead. “I had to move on. You were so mad at me Friday night. I thought I’d lost you.”

  I winced, thinking of how much I’d hurt her over the past few days. I crumpled the paper in my hand. “I’m so sorry.” Sorry didn’t begin to cover it.

  “It’s done.” She eyed her clothes in the closet, which took up an entire section. She had a lot of clothes. “What if I had said no yesterday?”

  I leaned on the doorframe. “My plan was to bring you here and make love to you until you said yes.”

  “That’s exactly what you did.” She suppressed a smile and ran her hands over the red dress I’d bought for her at the benefit.

  “It’s yours.”

  “Thank you. But you didn’t have to buy it for me.” She dropped her towel and let me watch her get her clothes on, while her breasts teased me with a back and forth sway. Now I had to spend the rest of the day knowing she was wearing lacy panties and nothing else under that form-fitting white dress.

  “I wanted you to have it. And…I just didn’t like the idea of you taking it off for someone else.” I felt like an idiot saying it out loud. But all I could think of that night was that she was mine. I didn’t want anyone else to have the dress she’d worn, the fabric that touched every part of her.

  She shook her head, grinning. “I wasn’t going to take it off in front of anyone. You know that, right? I was going to meet Annie in the dressing room and give it to her.”

  “Obviously, I wasn’t thinking straight that night.”

  “Neither was I.” She placed her hand on my chest, and my heartbeat picked up the pace.

  “Have you decided?” I asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Yes, you’ve decided, or yes, you’ll marry me.”

  “I’ll marry you.” She stood on her tippy-toes and kissed me.

  I cupped her face and got lost in her mouth, her skin, the smell of her. The scent of my body wash on her body made my cock stand at attention. Valentina was a part of my life.

  I dug in the pocket of my jeans and pulled out a ring. A two-carat canary diamond that’d belonged to my grandmother. I never understood why I couldn’t give it to Bridget when we decided to get married. This family heirloom was always meant for Valentina.

  “I love you.” I slipped the ring on her finger and kissed her hand.

  “Cole, this is too much.”

  “You deserve that and so much more.” I wrapped my arms around her and kissed her lips. “Now you have a new list to write. I want to be married to you as soon as possible.”

  Laughing, she shook her head. “Are you sure about this?”

  “I’ve never been this sure about anything in my life. I promise you. This is what I want. A life with you.”

  Tears brimmed her eyes, and she nodded, letting out a sigh. “I want this too. I want you.”

  Her lips found mine. And just like that, I wanted to be inside her. I pinned her against the closet wall, hands over her head, as I kissed her neck and the mounds peeking over her dress.

  Her hands kneaded the ridges on my stomach. “Let’s go before we get sidetracked again.”

  When she pushed me away, I groaned and pressed my forehead against hers. “Okay.”

  Hand in hand, we walked downstairs. “Is that Dom on the couch?” she asked.

  Now what? I raced down to the living room, picturing various scenarios in my head. He wasn’t bleeding, so now I was pissed.

  If he’d brought any women home, I swear…

  “It’s not what it looks like.” He peeked over the pillow, his eyes on Valentina. “Wait. What do you think this looks like?”

  I laughed at the worried expression that crossed his face. Good. I wasn’t the only one affected by that thing Valentina did with her eyebrows.

  “What’re you doing here? Dom, this is a no-women zone now.”

  Valentina joined me, trying to stifle a giggle. “Relax, Cole. You’re the one who’s not allowed to bring girls home. This is hilarious. What is he doing?”

  “I’ve no fucking clue.”

  “You won’t believe the night I had.” He stopped to take the orange juice Em offered him and drank it as if his life depended on it. “I actually don’t know how the hell I ended up here. She was at a bar. Emilia Prado’s here, or she was. I went back to find her, but she vanished. Like a ghost.” He buried his face in the pillows.

  “Are you hungry?” I turned to Valentina. “Let’s leave Dom to deal with his glorious hangover. I can’t say I envy the guy.”

  “You’re cute,” she said.


  “For freaking out over something I didn’t do?”

  “Hmm. I trust you, Cole. I know I have nothing to worry about. Do you trust me?”

  “Absolutely, sweetheart.”

  ****

  “You’re fidgeting.” I took Valentina’s hand in mine.

  She looked out the car window at the unchanging desert landscape. “I’m not.”

  I slanted a glance at her.

  “Okay, fine. I’m nervous. Just not sure we’re ready for this. I mean, I’m ready for us to be together. But maybe we should’ve waited a few months to do the whole parent thing.”

  I didn’t say it, but I felt the same way. All I knew at this point was that I didn’t want to wait. I’d waited long enough for Valentina. Not to mention we were a mile away from her house and there was no going back—not that I wanted to.

  Valentina’s dad was what I had expected an ex-cop to look like. Built like an ox, with a look about him that said he’d seen a lot in his life. The kind of stuff most people never have to see.

  “Nice to meet you, Mr. de Cordoba.” I shook his strong and calloused hand.

  “Please. Just Jav. Don’t let the gray hairs fool you. I’m not that old.”

  “Mom.” Max came out of nowhere and leapt into Valentina’s arms. “I missed school today.”

  “I know.” Valentina sounded relieved, probably because now she wouldn’t have to tell him he’d have to switch schools. I wanted to hold her, apologize again. “I talked to your teacher, and she’s okay with it. You’ll see her tomorrow, okay?”

  He nodded as he pulled on her shoulder to speak into her ear, his big brown eyes on me. “Is Derek Cole your boyfriend?”

  She cleared her throat, standing a little straighter, gripping her skirt. “Um, yes.”

  “I knew it.” He wrapped his arms around my leg. “Now Pirate can come to our house every day.”

  I hugged him back. “He’s all yours, kid.”

  What an odd feeling. A good kind of odd. Months ago, I’d hit rock bottom in the worst way possible. If someone had told me that by the end of the summer, I’d find the woman of my dreams, I would’ve said they were out of their goddamn minds. Because of Valentina, I went from having nothing to having a family. A wife, a son, and even a damn cat.