by Leslie North
It was a double-edged sword. Melanie didn’t want Luciano to give up his life in Vegas and go jetting around the world again, but at the same time, she was proud that he was coming around to the idea of letting Cassandra’s influence on him wane.
She would never leave his heart—Melanie knew that much—but it was good to see that Luciano was slowly getting over his loss. It had been a long road, and he’d run from recovery the whole time. Whatever happened, whatever he chose to do once he did sell his house, she was glad that he’d made it.
A guilty part of her brain just didn’t want to let him go.
“You mean I have a say in what happens in my own house?” he asked, an eyebrow arched. The sarcasm bit and Melanie grinned. It wrenched her out of her head and back into the moment.
There was no use in worrying about the future. She was there with Luciano in the present, and she needed to enjoy it.
“Not really, but I like to give you the illusion of freedom,” she bit back. One corner of Luciano’s lips slid upward, and her heart throbbed at the cockiness and playfulness on his face. He really was one of the most stunning men she’d ever met.
His hand met hers and squeezed. Melanie smiled. Since they’d come back to Vegas, they hadn’t spent much time together outside of work. It had been strange to adjust to his absence, and it was good to be back together with him. Joking. Trading blows. Experiencing each other without a professional filter.
“Well. Then why don’t you keep showing me around this open aired prison and tell me all the things I’ll be forced to buy?” Luciano stood closer to her than she was used to, and Melanie found herself leaning toward him. Luciano’s lips were close, and she could smell the citrus and pine of his body wash.
Desire, blinding and red hot, shot through her like an arrow. Her eyelids drooped.
Then Luciano drew away.
He moved to the black and white abstract paintings and thumbed the price tag. “Write down HD0602,” he said. “Apparently, we order these like we do the furniture and have it delivered with the rest.”
“Right.” Melanie blinked. She shook her head and pulled herself together. “I’ll get that down. It was HD06…”
“02,” Luciano said. He grinned at her from where he stood. “You doing okay, Mel? You’re looking a little out of it.”
“Yeah.” She focused on recording the number, and then echoed something Luciano had said before. If he’d enchanted her on purpose, he’d notice the subtle flirtation. If not, he wouldn’t think anything of it. “I was thinking.”
There was no response. When she looked over again, Luciano was watching her, a curious expression on his face.
He’d understood.
The rush she felt was incredible. Melanie ducked her head and focused on the next thing on her list. There was still a ton of furniture to see.
And one of the most wonderful men in the world to see it with.
16
Luciano
There was no same-day delivery available by the time they checked out with their order, and Melanie organized to have the furniture delivered next week on their day off. Luciano didn’t mind. They hadn’t thought about moving out or selling all the old furniture, and it gave them time to organize before the upgrades arrived.
Melanie took care of all of that. Luciano wasn’t sure how she found the time to manage Thorn Tattoo and his private property, but she did. By the time the delivery was scheduled to arrive, Melanie had cleared the house out of most of its furniture, had the interior painted in a neutral color, and the carpets cleaned, not that it really needed either as he and Cassandra had barely lived in it before she died. What was left, he transported to his apartment—there wasn’t much to speak of, and he fit it easily into his living room. Half of it was already being courted by buyers, and Luciano didn’t think it would be in his hair much longer.
Piece by piece, Cassandra’s influence dispersed into the universe. There was strange peace in knowing that small parts of her would be scattered across the city—and maybe, some day, across the globe. She’d always wanted to travel. Parting ways with her furniture gave Luciano the closest he could come to fulfilling her lifelong wish.
The delivery was scheduled for three in the afternoon on Sunday, and Melanie asked Luciano to show up at least fifteen minutes early so they could take care of any last minute issues. The company would be providing ramps and pulleys and all the other necessities that moving heavy furniture necessitated, but if Luciano knew anything, it was that life loved to throw curve balls in his direction.
When he arrived at quarter to three and found Melanie relaxing beneath the shade of the house’s overhang, he was overjoyed to see that for once, he’d be catching a break.
He parked his bike in the garage next to Melanie’s car, wrested his helmet from his head, and left it by the tire. As he exited and closed the garage door behind him, Melanie got up from the stoop and headed over to see him. The day had been gorgeous and it was still warm enough that neither of them needed a jacket. She wore a casual T-shirt and a pair of yoga pants that fit her body in all the right ways. Melanie wasn’t naturally curvaceous, but he remembered how shapely she was when she wore clothes like that.
Luciano’s gaze flicked up from her hips to look into her eyes. Melanie narrowed an eye at him and shook her head, but said nothing about it. Instead, she brought up the work they were about to do. “You ready to get this house in shape?”
“To me, it was already in shape,” he shot back, but with nowhere as much insistence as the week before. “But I’m ready. We’ve got a lot to do.”
“Mmhm.” Melanie stretched her arms over her head and bent from side to side. The T-shirt she wore rode up, revealing a sliver of pale skin. Luciano’s gut twisted and excitement rushed through him. He bit down on the inside of his bottom lip. “I just received a call from the delivery men when you were pulling up. They said they were right around the corner. Shouldn’t be much longer.”
They could take all the time they wanted if it meant that Melanie would keep stretching like that. Luciano wanted to pull her close, slip his hands under her shirt, and feel her all over again. He wanted to explore her breasts. Play with her. Hear her gasp in pleasure….
The sound of heavy, screeching brakes broke him from his thoughts. The delivery truck was parked at the end of the property, its back lined up with the front door. The front yard was mostly taken up by the doublewide driveway, and what property was left was covered with pale gravel. Cassandra had been the one who’d overseen the furniture delivery the first time around, and Luciano had no idea if the gravel would be a problem.
He hoped it wouldn’t be.
The delivery men unloaded from the truck, went around to unlock the sliding door to the trailer, then lowered down the truck’s ramp. Once the ramp was down, one of the men climbed inside to take inventory of what they were about to move, and the other approached Melanie and Luciano.
“Hey,” the mover lifted a hand in greeting. He was muscular, the kind of guy Luciano figured would go shirtless after moving in a couch or two. Luciano glanced in Melanie’s direction from the corner of his eye, but didn’t see her reacting strongly to him.
He was glad.
“Hey,” Luciano said back. “We’ve got a hell of a lot of furniture to move into this house.”
“Yeah. We saw the order. We’re ready.” The man stuck his hands into his back pockets and looked between the two of them. Luciano saw in his eyes that he was looking to see which of them was in charge. Luciano took a small step forward and claimed authority. The mover took the cue and looked in Luciano’s direction. “You got any set rooms you want us to move this stuff into? If you give us some guidance, we don’t mind helping out. It’ll make things easier for you in the end.”
“Thanks.” Luciano glanced toward the truck. “Melanie’s going to be the one who’ll know the most about where the furniture is supposed to go. I can help out with moving things and directing you once you’re inside.”
“It’ll be better if you stand in there and point us in the right direction. We’ve got a system going.”
“Fair enough.” Luciano shrugged. They’d be doing enough lifting later when he and Melanie rearranged furniture. “You good with that, Mel?”
“Mmhm.” Melanie nodded. “Sounds like a good system.”
With the details settled, they went to work. Inside the house, Luciano directed the movers to the right room while Melanie pointed out placement. The process was smooth and streamlined, and it wasn’t long before the house began to fill up with new furniture and other trappings. Thankfully, everything wasn’t in a state of disarray and Luciano began to see what Melanie was talking about—the house was changing before his eyes. When it was all put together, it was going to look fantastic.
She’d breathed new life into the place.
The afternoon passed. Hours bled away. They’d bought a lot of furniture, and it took some time to move into the correct rooms. By the time the sun was setting in full, there was just one couch left to be taken in. Luciano exited the house to see how Melanie was doing. He found her sprawled out on the couch in the truck. Both the movers were missing in action. Luciano made his way up the ramp, walked the length of the trailer and looked down at her where she lay. She looked up at him, and then stifled a yawn behind her hand.
“Long day?” he asked.
“Looong day,” she echoed. “But things are looking great, aren’t they?”
He shrugged, and she lifted her legs to offer him a seat. He flopped down, and she lowered her legs over his lap. “Where did the movers go?”
“They told me that they were going to pass out from hunger if they didn’t get something to eat. I told them the house had no food, but there was that fast food place just down the street they could refuel at. I’m not even angry that they left. There’s just one couch left, and I guess we could try to move it ourselves.” She paused. “Those guys have been lifting and pulling and shouldering all those heavy things all day. I can’t even imagine how tired they must be when I’m exhausted from directing them.”
She stretched out, her long legs across his thighs. Melanie reached out and brushed her fingers down his arm. The touch was gentle and sent sparks through him. The chemistry between them was undeniable. He’d repressed it for so long, fought his feelings, honored Cassandra in the only way he knew how….
And now all of it was falling by the wayside.
Denying it had delayed the inevitable, not made it go away. As Luciano looked across the couch at Melanie, he knew he’d made a mistake. He’d toured the country with a woman he wanted more than anyone else, and he hadn’t touched her once.
It was time to listen to Melanie—it was time he started living.
Luciano traced a hand up Melanie’s calf, then to her thigh. Melanie lifted her head, surprised, and he didn’t waste the chance. Luciano leaned down and kissed her. His heart hammered in his chest. Excitement pulsed low inside of him, and he pressed into the kiss and guided her through it before breaking away.
Melanie was speechless when he pulled back. Her eyes were startled. The last of the sun shone in through the opening of the truck and lit her eyes up, her brown irises enchanting. Luciano traced his fingers down her cheek and pulled back slowly, but Melanie wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him back. Luciano stumbled in an effort to correct his posture and ended up lying across her as he dove back into the kiss.
The years he’d spent spurning his feelings, resisting one of the best things to come into his life, and the way she made him feel, dissolved into nothing. The kiss was better than the first one. Intensely passionate, he kissed her as if he’d never have the chance again—like she too might leave and ruin him.
Teeth clacked. Tongues met. At long last, he saw her pretty lipstick smeared for him. Luciano grinned into the kiss and did his best to steal her breath away. Her fingers curled in his hair, and her body pressed up against him, begging for more.
It was everything the night at the house should have been. It was everything the last two years should have been.
It was release.
Luciano loved the way she tasted—mild, minty, and sweet with a hint of lavender. He adored her soft skin, the feel of her lips, and the way her body fit beneath his. He was enamored with her sense of humor, and her awkwardness, and all the ways she challenged him when no one else would.
One of his hands ran down her hip, then to her thigh. He let his hand trail inward to tease the heat between her legs, shocked at how warm she was already. Melanie gasped and lifted her hips slightly as she parted her thighs. There wasn’t much room on the couch for her to move—especially with his body pinning her—but it was enough. His fingers ran against her mound through the fabric of her yoga pants, and he knew she was already wet for him. The way she moaned and pushed against him as he teased her spelled it plainly.
There was no guilt, no fear, and no hesitation. His fingers dipped inward as Melanie squirmed and panted, stealing desperate kisses. Had she been waiting for this moment as long as he had been? How much time they’d wasted. If only he’d been braver.
Before they could get any further, a knock on the trailer wall disrupted them. Melanie squeaked out a gasp and pushed away from him, and Luciano drew back from her out of respect. He didn’t give a shit about who saw him making claims on the woman he wanted, but he understood that Melanie needed more privacy.
The taste of her lips lingered on his skin. Luciano sat up and turned toward the open back of the trailer to find the movers looking in. The one Luciano had talked to before was smirking. “You want us to move that inside for you?”
“Yeah.” Luciano got up. “Living room, right, Melanie?”
Melanie didn’t say anything. She nodded quickly and hurried down the ramp. Luciano had to hold back a laugh. Seeing her so flustered was satisfying. She was impossibly cute. Especially with her lipstick smeared.
He followed her as the movers made their way in and grabbed the couch. Soon enough, the last piece of furniture was in place, and the house was complete. They’d still need to move the furniture around, but Luciano saw it coming together already.
Melanie had done a fantastic job.
Melanie signed the delivery papers and saw the movers out the door as Luciano settled on the couch. He draped his arms along the back and stared out across the chaos of the room. His pulse still hammered in his ears, and his heart throbbed against his ribcage. The adrenaline from kissing her rushed through his veins.
When was the last time he’d felt so good?
Melanie closed and locked the front door, then settled beside him on the couch. Luciano let his arm drape over her shoulders, and she leaned slightly against his chest as though she were nervous his affection was fleeting.
“You really hit it out of the park choosing all of this furniture,” Luciano told her. He hated to admit that he was wrong, but Melanie deserved his praise. She needed to know how good a job she’d done. He wouldn’t deny that from her. “I’m really impressed.”
“Thanks,” Melanie said softly. She leaned against him a little more, and Luciano tucked his arm around her shoulders with added firmness. She sighed in relief and set her head to rest on his shoulder. “It’s been a long day.”
“I had fun though,” he said. “I don’t think I’ve ever done anything quite like this before.”
“Me either. But I liked it… I like spending time with you.”
A small smile crossed Luciano’s lips, and he turned his head to press a tender kiss against her forehead. There was no need to talk about what they meant to each other right now. Luciano still wasn’t sure he could commit his heart like she deserved but he wanted to take things as they came and see what would happen. “Maybe we can spend some more time together again soon. Outside of work.”
Melanie’s hand traced along his thigh, and Luciano’s cock pulsed in response. Her fingers didn’t dip inward, though. Her hand settled innocently. “I’d like that.
”
In the most unexpected way, life was starting to turn around for him—and instead of running from it like he always had, Luciano was ready to greet the change with open arms.
17
Melanie
“No, really, I want to know.” Melanie looked at him over her towering cup of soda. Hudson’s Burgers had large portions. “I’m curious.”
“It’s not something you need to worry about,” Luciano replied. He munched on a fry pensively. “Dunno why you’re asking.”
“Because it’s important for me to know.”
“Why?”
“Because…” Melanie puckered her lips, searching for an excuse. “Because I want to get to know more about you. I know about who you’ve been for the past two years—an artist, a traveler, and an all-around good guy—but there’s got to be more. Who were you before that? What were your younger years like?”
“Says the woman who’s been dodging mention of her childhood at every chance she gets.” Luciano twisted around on his stool to look at her directly. They were stopping for lunch. It was another day as usual at Thorn Tattoo. The anniversary of Cassandra’s death was in just a few days, but as far as Melanie could see, Luciano was pleasantly distracted.
That he was distracted with her only made her feel more pleased.
“So what? You want me to spill about who I was?” Melanie asked. “This isn’t a trade.”
Luciano sat up straighter, seeming to like that idea. “I want to make it a trade,” he insisted. “I’ve been asking about you way longer than you’ve been asking about me.”
Melanie’s face soured playfully. She crossed her arms over her chest. Since they’d kissed, Luciano had been happier and eager to spend time with her. Melanie enjoyed the attention. “I’ll tell you, but you have to promise that you’ll return the favor.”