“I think I fell in love with Lara before I’d known her a week. I think I know the exact moment.”
“Me too. We were sitting on a log just off the boardwalk, eating hot wieners. First date.” Luca hooked his beefy arm over Trey’s shoulders. “Here’s the thing, Trey. Here’s what’s hard. When a woman like Manny, and I guess Lara, too, loves you, when she gives you a gift like that, to trust you not to hurt her after she’s been hurt so much in her life, then you cannot hurt her. You can’t fuck up. I’m not talking about having a bad day or being moody. I’m talking about fucking up. Breaking her trust. You can do real damage.”
Knowing in his soul that Luca would never physically hurt Manny, Trey understood what he meant—he couldn’t cheat. But he couldn’t imagine cheating on Lara, ever. Then again, he’d never been in a relationship this serious before. Would he feel the same way in five years? In one year? Another cramp of worry went through him. “Have you ever?”
“Fuck no. Was almost tempted once. A few years back, when Manny’s dad died. She had a lot of trouble with that, a lot of her old stuff came back up, and there was a long stretch of time, too long, that I couldn’t get close to her. One night, I was at Quinn’s, drowning my sorrows, feeling lonely, and an old friend came up on me. Somebody I used to get with, back in the day. But like I said, loving Manny is easy, even when she’s hard. I could never do anything to hurt her. I went straight home and made her remember what we have. That we make each other stronger.” Luca gave his head a brisk shake. “Fuck, I’ve never told anybody that. You keep it to yourself. My point is: if you love Lara, then you’ll find what you need to be what she needs. Now shut up.”
Manny and Joey were coming out of The Ground Floor now. Manny carried a few bags from the market, and Joey had a tray of cups from the coffee shop. Luca jumped off the back of the truck, favoring his bum knee slightly.
When Manny got close, he took the bags from her. “C’mere, bit,” Trey heard him say, and then he picked his wife up in one arm and kissed the shit out of her. Manny immediately coiled her arms and legs around her man and kissed the shit out of him right back.
“Fuck, man,” Joey chuckled. “Get … a room.”
Trey sat on the back of the truck and watched, unabashed.
That was what he wanted.
That was what he had.
~oOo~
Trey woke lying on his belly, the pillow over his head. He peeped out from his shelter and saw the bright light of a morning far older than one he normally woke to. He’d slept in.
Entirely reasonable, considering how late they’d stayed out. For a quiet family rehearsal dinner, the Paganos had partied hard. As per usual.
Lara wanted a small wedding. Actually, she hadn’t wanted a wedding at all—she’d wanted to get married at the courthouse. Trey tried to give her everything he could, but he could not get married in a courthouse. He simply could not. They had to be married by a priest.
By Pagano standards, however, all the parts of the celebration were tiny: The rehearsal dinner last night at Dominic’s. A family-only wedding Mass this evening, the Saturday after Thanksgiving, when all the family was in the Cove. And a barely-more-than-family-only cocktail party at the house on Caravel Road for a reception immediately after. A family brunch at Carmen and Theo’s tomorrow, for the opening of the gifts.
Poor Lara. Small and controlled as the planning was by his family’s standard, for her, it was an explosion of activity and social interaction. Her tiny world of a few blocks in Providence had been blown up, and her world now encompassed the entire town of Quiet Cove and his humungous family. A new home, a new town, a new family, a new life.
Her apartment was on the market, too. Deciding that she couldn’t contend with the thought of somebody else living there while it was still hers, she’d given it up. Trey’s dad, who had connections in Providence real estate, had taken over that task for her, and she’d readily given it up to him.
Overall, she was coping pretty well. Early on, when the planning for all these changes was first underway, she’d asserted a need for two hours a day entirely to herself. During those two hours, everything around her stopped, and she worked on a puzzle. That focused quiet and concentration seemed to give her the wherewithal to deal with the chaos everywhere else. She’d even managed to shop for a wedding dress with Misby, Bev, and Carmen, and come unscathed through an afternoon alone with three women.
He’d made the little bedroom under the loft, which he’d used mainly as a closet, into her puzzle room. What the loft would become, they didn’t know. An office, maybe.
At his side, Lara moaned softly and changed positions. That meant she was starting to wake up. He must really have slept in—what time was it? Pushing the pillow off his head, he reached to the nightstand and grabbed his watch. Shit! Almost eleven o’clock. They had to get moving—they had a wedding Mass to be at in about seven hours.
With every intention of waking her and getting their big day started, Trey rolled to his side. She was curled beside him with her back to him, her long hair fanned over her pillow and down her back.
Damn, she was gorgeous. Since she’d found out about the baby, and maybe just because of the baby, she’d put on a little bit of weight—not much, not even enough, according to her doctor. Only a few pounds, and she was out of the first trimester. But on her frame, those few pounds were noticeable. The stark ridges of her ribs had softened, and the angles of her shoulders and elbows. And there was the slightest convexity to her belly. Instead of sinking inward, it sloped ever-so-slightly outward, and was beautiful. That convexity was his kid.
His kid. That thought still knocked his brain over. He’d tried to explain to Lara once how he felt about it all. Not just that he was happy to have her and this baby—he was that, too. But that it seemed significant, the bizarre way she’d gotten pregnant. She had such a small chance of conceiving, and they’d never slipped up even once. He’d never even been bare inside her without coming. Except for that one night. That single time, when, in a deep sleep, she’d straddled him while he slept. And that single time, despite her low fertility, she’d conceived.
To Trey, it seemed more than significant. It seemed meant to be.
Lara didn’t share his faith, or even understand it, so she’d been unmoved by his wholly irrational confidence that God’s hand was at work. And that was fine with Trey. His faith had settled all his worries and doubts about the sudden and dramatic shift in his life’s path. This was right. He and Lara were right together; he’d known that before the baby. But this baby might be the only one they had together. They might never have conceived except on that single night in their lives.
He slid his arm over her hip and spread his hand on her little belly, where she cradled their child. Fourteen weeks. They both had an app on their phones that tracked the pregnancy and gave them insights into the baby’s development. The size comparisons were all fruit. Currently, their little puma—his cousin Teresa had first used that term, combining Pagano and Dumas, and everybody had quickly caught on with it—was the size of a lemon. In a few weeks, they’d know if it was a pink lemon or a blue one.
Lara stirred again, snuggling back into his embrace. They were both naked, and her tiny bare ass rubbed over his cock, which shot instantly from semi-solid to tempered steel. Groaning, he flexed his hips and kissed her shoulder.
“Hi,” she murmured. “Is it late?”
“By your standards, no. About eleven. We should get up, though. We’re supposed to be at Aunt Carmen and Uncle Theo’s at noon.” They had a family lunch, and then the men were going to Uncle John and Aunt Katrynn’s to drink and dress while the women primped and preened at Carmen’s. It was a small wedding, but come on. They were Italian. If they didn’t do it up a little, the ground would shake from all their ancestors rolling in their graves simultaneously.
She sighed and turned her head into her pillow. “Do we have to get up right away?”
Lara had been doing really well in these tw
o months of change and upheaval, but that wasn’t to say she hadn’t struggled. The time alone she took every day, she’d figured that out because she was overwhelmed, and her anxiety had been hitting the red zone daily. Trey knew she fought with fear all the time.
He tightened his embrace and turned her head so she could see his eyes. “It’s going to be good. This is all exactly right. And I am going to take care of you. I promise.”
“I know. I’m not afraid of today. Of all the things happening, marrying you is not something I’m worried about.” Her hand came up and brushed his cheek. “I was wondering if we had time to make love.”
“We will make the time for that.” He pushed her leg forward and slid his fingers through her folds. She trembled and sighed as he brushed over her soft, slick flesh. “You’re already wet for me.”
“I was dreaming of you.”
Well, that was hot as fuck. He pushed his cock into her heat, and her body closed around him. Letting his eyes roll back, he drove his hips forward, deep as he could get, and slid his hand up from her belly to cup a breast—a bit rounder there, too, and an order of magnitude more sensitive, since the baby.
She gasped and arched as he tweaked her nipple. “Go slow, go slow. I want it to last forever.”
He nosed her hair from her cheek and brushed his lips over her skin, whispering, “If it lasts forever, we’ll miss our own wedding.”
“Okay, I want it to last until then.”
He felt her hand between her legs, her fingers brushing his cock as he slid slowly, deeply, in and out of her. God, he loved that she did that. Her fingers caressing him, holding him, as her pussy did the same—it was like getting two kinds of sex at once. He wasn’t going to last forever this way. Or even four minutes.
“My God, you feel good,” he breathed against her ear.
“So do you. You make me feel good everywhere, Trey. Body and mind and heart. You changed everything about me.”
He went still and let go of her breast so he could take her chin and turn her face to his again. “Don’t say that. I don’t want to change you.”
She rocked her hips, a slow drag over his cock, and need made his sight dim at the edges.
“I don’t mean it like that.” Her voice was strained, her breaths quick and shallow. “I mean having you in my life changed the shape of it. I am different in every way because I love you.”
Staring down into her cloudy-sky blue eyes, Trey began to move again—gently, slowly. “So am I.”
“Loving you makes the world make more sense to me. It makes me stronger.”
“That, you can say. That, I love.”
“So I’m not anxious about today. I want to be your wife.” He pushed in more firmly, and she closed her eyes and writhed in his arms. With her eyes closed and her fingers tight around his cock, she went on, “I want to have your child. We’re good together, I know we are. Maybe all this is meant to be.” She smiled brightly up at him. “I think I just wrote my vows.”
“I think you just said them.” Trey covered her mouth with his and clasped her close, cupping his arm around their child inside her. He couldn’t wait, couldn’t make it last, needed her too much.
She came right before he did, dragging her nails along his neck. So he wouldn’t bite down on her shoulder as he came, Trey ducked his head and shoved his forehead against her back, feeling the sharp edge of her shoulder blade. The orgasm rammed through him, again and again, sending new punches each time Lara flexed on him, until he caught her hip to stop her.
They lay quietly for a minute. Lara’s hand was still between her legs, and he was still inside her, but now she simply stroked his balls. Trey thought he could stay just like this for the rest of his life.
“Fuck, I love fucking you.”
Her back shook against his head as she laughed. “Being pregnant makes sex feel ten times better. And it felt pretty great before.”
“Only pretty great?” He heaved himself up onto his elbow and grinned down at her.
“Pretty amazing.”
“Okay. I can live with that.” He kissed her, lingering to savor the flushed heat of her beautiful mouth. “You ready to get this day started?”
She pulled her hips back, and he slid out, making them both shudder and moan. Then she rolled over in his arms and faced him. “Can we just stay like this a little longer? I’m not ready not to be right here.”
Trey pulled the covers up and tucked her under his chin. “They can’t have this party without us, so we’ll stay like this as long as you want.”
~ 22 ~
Lara had been content in the life she’d had. From her earliest memories, there were things she’d known would be impossible for her, even after she’d come to live with her uncle and he’d become her father, and he’d helped her heal and grow. She would never be physically strong. The muscles in her legs, left to languish for so long, would never power her enough to run or jump or dance. She would never have children. Her mind would never work the way most minds worked. She would never be normal, and so, she would never marry or even be in love. All of those things, she’d accepted, understood the way they’d shaped her life, and she’d found a life she liked within her boundaries.
She could have lived out her days within the safe borders of College Hill and never known she was missing anything.
But then, she’d been snatched off the sidewalk a few feet from her own front door. The worst thing in her life, because its memory was full and vivid, and all the pain and horror was real and clear in a way that what her mother had done never would be. And because it had destroyed the safety of the world she’d made.
But then, Trey had taken her away and given her a place to be safe. He had become her place to be safe. And she’d known love.
Now everything was different. The world was bigger, and louder, and far less orderly. But she was okay. Because she was different, too. She was stretching to fit all these new things. Sometimes the stretch was painful, and sometimes she had to shrink back, but only to regroup and try again.
And now she was standing in the front hall of a Catholic church, wearing a beautiful, winter white lace dress with an empire waist that somehow both hid her belly and made it known. She’d bought that dress in a bridal store while surrounded by three Pagano women—and she’d almost enjoyed doing it. She certainly loved the dress.
She was going to be a wife. And a mother. Impossibilities, and yet real.
Maybe Trey was right, and this was all meant to be.
Despite her happiness with the new direction of her life, the thought of being a mother carried a constant weight of worry. It was all she talked about with Dr. Rosen. For the move, she had her father going through it with her. For the marriage, she had Trey. For the baby, she had Trey, too, and yet, she did not. What was happening inside her, in her body and in her head, he couldn’t share. Other things were happening for him. And he couldn’t really know her deep fear that the dark thing inside her mother’s brain lurked in her as well. She could tell him of the fear, but he couldn’t feel it.
She already loved this baby, who was no bigger than a lemon. Had her mother loved her, too? Lara remembered believing in her mother’s love, believing that her mother was on her side. She had few vivid memories from her first years, but she remembered that. And yet, those memories were lies. If they weren’t, if her mother had truly loved her and still hurt her—that was more horrible.
No, her mother had not loved her.
But Lara loved this baby, so she was already different from her mother. For weeks, she’d felt the love creeping into her heart, choking the fear and ambivalence about the pregnancy, cleaving itself to her love for Trey. This baby. Her baby. Their baby. Nothing so far but a slight puffing of her belly and a fast, staticky heartbeat in a doctor’s office. The size of a lemon. An impossibility, and yet real.
She loved their baby, and so she would keep him or her safe. She would be a good mother. Trey would be with her, and her father would be, and all the cl
amorous, overwhelming people in his family, too.
Carmen stopped fussing with the short train on Lara’s gown and stood up. Lara had needed a woman to stand with her, and she had no women friends, or even women she liked much. She liked Trey’s mother, Sabina, but she was the mother of the groom. So she’d asked his Aunt Carmen, whom she thought she could grow to like. Carmen was a little standoffish, and Lara appreciated that. Carmen had never tried to hug her. A lot of the women in Trey’s family were huggers—a lot of the men, too—and that was a bit much to take. So far, Carmen and Manny were the women Lara felt most comfortable with. They gave her space without making it seem like they were trying to. Like they preferred the space, too.
“Okay, I think it’s go time. You want me to put the veil over your face?”
Lara didn’t know what rules the Church had for all this. “Do I have to?”
“It’s traditional, but you don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do, Lara.”
“Then, no. I want to see him clearly.”
Carmen smiled and handed Lara her bouquet—a small spray of dark-hued autumn flowers, and some mulberry leaves, too, because Trey said he’d fallen in love with her when she’d had a mulberry leaf in her hand.
“You ready?”
Lara nodded. “All set.”
“I’ll meet you on the other side.”
Carmen opened the doors and headed down the aisle. In her late fifties, her thick, dark hair upswept, she was tall and confident and gorgeous, and she walked like a woman who expected the world to make way. Lara wondered what it was like to be comfortable being noticed.
But she didn’t think about Carmen for long, because she could see Trey now, standing at the altar with his brother, Ben. He wore a charcoal grey, pinstripe suit. Three pieces, with a crisp white shirt and a dark red tie the same color as Carmen’s dress and most of the flowers in Lara’s bouquet—and the rose on his own lapel.
Simple Faith (The Pagano Brothers Book 1) Page 29