Chapter 227: Something to Lose
- RORY -
"What did I say about people seeing you in my shirts, fiore?" Luciano asks from the door, his voice a deep silk. Then he stalks over to me while I watch the big mysterious Italian-looking guy leave after Dex.
"Is that one of your men?" I ask, ignoring the question. Because he knows what I said about being controlling over clothes. Not that these are my clothes, but still.
Luci walks up directly behind me, arms caging me in against the island, and leans close to my ear. "Yes, and I don’t appreciate him seeing you like this."
I scoff and look down at the generous-sized dress shirt, but just as I do Luci presses himself into me and nibbles at my ear. He’s firm and warm, and having him surround me like this is the perfect feeling. He molds around me just right, clicking into place against my shape like a puzzle piece that’s been missing.
It’s comforting and sexy, but it’s terrifying, too. Because it gives me something important to lose. I’ve let him all the way in. There’s nothing guarding my heart against him, and that’s entirely new. It feels bare and raw and dangerous in a way that I’m unfamiliar with.
"I see you went through my clothes," Luciano rumbles and kisses my neck. It’s all I can do to trap a whimper that wants to make its way up my throat.
"I didn’t think you’d mind," I whisper, pushing back against him and getting him to growl.
His palm snakes its way under the shirt and flattens against my stomach, keeping me right where I am, before rising to tease the underside of my breast, making me shiver and flood with warmth.
"I don’t mind. I love you in my clothes." Another kiss on my neck before his teeth tease the skin, gripping some of it before letting it go and moving lower. "Why don’t you come back to bed?"
"I just got up," I say on a laugh, and I’m punished by his hand firmly cupping my breast and squeezing, eliciting a soft moan from my lips.
"You expect to come walking out here like that and not be taken right back to bed?"
"I don’t know what to expect," I say honestly and turn to face him, confronted with the look in his dark eyes that’s both deep and soft, desiring and adoring.
If I had worries about this morning being different and him suddenly acting distant, those worries have vanished. Because Luciano is looking at me like he’s in love with me. And even that is an understatement.
What I have known of love doesn’t look like this. It doesn’t feel like this. Maybe what I’ve thought was love was really a distant cousin, many times removed.
"You can expect," he says, leaning to kiss me before whispering against my lips, "to be treated like a queen."
He stops just like that, a breath away. And I’m holding my breath, surprised and not knowing what to say. How do I respond to that?
Luci reaches up, threading his fingers through my hair and kisses me until my toes curl against the floor and I’m clinging to him, pulling him, urging him closer. He does his best to obey, invading my mouth with a pressing desire that dances on his tongue, curving and rolling into me, mimicking what I know his body longs to do.
It doesn’t matter that there are windows. None of that could possibly matter when there is only his body so frustratingly separate from mine.
That’s how we stumble into the bedroom—kissing and clinging—him making quick work of the buttons on the shirt I’m wearing and me reaching to slide his pants off. He kicks the door shut and we make it to the bed, laughing when we’re finally on it, sprawled against messed up covers.
"I’m not sure there are enough minutes in the day for all I want to do to you," he says, and my eyes flare just as pure liquid warmth courses through me again.
"I have an iud," I say quickly when he reaches for the drawer where the condom was retrieved last night. "You don’t need to. I mean... unless you need to. Unless there are other reasons."
My cheeks blaze with heat, because I’m not even sure what I’m saying except that I really don’t want that between us. It makes this feel less than what it is, which is something I can’t explain. Maybe it’s stupid and irrational, but I need to know that I’m not just another woman that he’s sleeping with. Using a condom feels like that.
"Are you asking me something, dolcezza?" Luci says with a slow, lopsided grin that makes me ache. But his brows are threaded together slightly, questioning me.
"There’s no little Lucianos running around out there?" I try to joke.
His forehead pinches toward something verging on sadness and confusion. "No, sweetheart."
"And you don’t, you know..." I gesture toward what’s been left unsaid. "You haven’t like, contracted anything? There’s nothing we need to worry about?"
His head sags briefly before his eyes return to me, deep and genuine. "No, I haven’t, tesoro. I should have waited for you."
My eyes widen. "No, that’s not what I’m saying," I chuckle awkwardly. "Not at all. I just wanted to make sure..."
"It’s what I’m saying," he says, pinching my chin and staring at my lips before kissing me, short and sweet. "I promise you, Rory. I’ve never felt this way. It’s never been like this. You’re precious. I’m sorry you have to even ask me those questions. Hearing them and seeing the uncertainty in your eyes is making my fucking heart ache."
Now I’m positive that my cheeks are bright red. "I’m sorry. That’s not what I meant," I say, because it’s all I can think of. I shouldn’t have started this line of questioning.
"Don’t be sorry." He kisses me briefly again before he lingers, deepening it, sinking his desire back in. When he pulls away, his forehead rests against mine, and he sighs. "I love you, Lorelei."
My lips part on a surprised breath. But I don’t get a chance to answer, because his phone rings. He reaches for where it’s been discarded on the bedside table next to his gun.
"Hello?" Luci’s dark eyes flick down to mine and look back and forth between them. "Of course, Raya, she’s right here."
I chuckle and shake my head, taking the phone when he offers it.
"Good morning, sis," I say in greeting, sharing an amused smile with Luci, who collapses on his side next to me, propping himself up on one arm to play with my hair.
"I tried calling you. Are you okay?" Raya asks, voice reaching a pitch somewhere between panic and relief.
"Yeah, I’m okay. My phone is back in the cabina, and I haven’t retrieved it yet. Luci and I were just going to do that," I tell her and watch as his eyebrows lift like this is news to him. Then he kisses my arm, sending a shiver down my spine.
"Dex said you were fine, but I had to call and check. I thought it was better to call Luciano’s phone than just going over there."
I bite my lip, hiding a giggle at what she isn’t saying. She’s not saying that she knows Luci and I slept together because Dex saw me in his cousin’s shirt, and she wasn’t sure if I’d be naked in his bed right now like I am.
"Yeah," is all I say in response.
"So you’re really fine?" She asks after a pause.
"Yeah, I’m fine. Well, aside from the thirteen stitches in my hand."
"WHAT?" The volume makes me pull the phone away, and then the questions come like rapid fire. "Dex said you were fine! What happened? How were you hurt? What did the guy do to you? Where are the stitches?"
"It’s okay. I actually did it to myself. It was really stupid," I tell her, chuckling self-consciously while Luci shakes his head in disagreement.
"It wasn’t stupid," he whisper-growls.
"How?" Raya exclaims. "How did you do that to yourself? Do we need to take you to a doctor?"
"I accidentally cut myself with the knife Luciano gave me yesterday."
"He gave you a KNIFE?" She exclaims, and I can’t help but chuckle.
"Raya, calm down. I’m okay. I saw a doctor already. That’s how I got the stitches. It was really fortunate, actually. The doctor happened to be in the lobby when I went to go find Luci. They were even talking at the time. He had all of his medical things with him, and he took care of it right away..."
A little glimmer of realization alights in my mind, and I look at Luci suspiciously. He flew his guys down here yesterday. Was it really just a coincidence that Luciano was talking to a doctor as well?
My thoughts play back over the conversation I had with Burt and the interactions between him and Luciano. It’s like he can read my thoughts, because a slow, guilty grin spreads over his face, and he rolls off of the bed.
"Burt?" I ask on a harsh whisper, tucking the phone next to my neck. "You know him, don’t you?"
He shrugs, making me squint at him suspiciously.
"I said no lies, Luciano."
"What?" Raya asks in my ear.
"Nothing," I reply, lifting the phone back to where it was while I keep my teasing glare on the man in front of me. "I just thought of something. Thanks for calling to check on me, sis. I’ll see you at breakfast."
I hang up before she can object and lift my hand, staring at the stitches before shifting my attention back to Luci.
"So? Are you going to come clean?" I ask him. "You didn’t just happen to be talking to a doctor in the lobby, did you?"
