Clara showed no signs of going home. This was her third night here, and judging by how clear her eyes had been the last two mornings, she really was resting better in our guest room.
Neither Luca nor I could possibly begrudge her presence. Clementine had taken to her also, curling around her belly when Clara sat down, purring to her little heart’s content.
I slipped between the sheets wearing a black satin nightgown. It was my longest, least embellished gown. But Luca looked at me like I was armed to the teeth.
He was on his back, reading a novel. I’d learned Luca preferred science fiction. But he rested it on his chest to look at me.
“Hey, you,” I said softly.
With a sigh, he knocked his book to the floor and opened his arms. “Come here.”
Without a single beat of hesitation, I threw myself onto him. My leg draped over his, arm curled around his bare middle, my head snuggled on his shoulder. Locking his hand on my hip, he dragged me a little closer.
Neither of us said a word about what we were doing. It was like we both knew if we did, it would break the spell. We would have remembered why this was off-limits.
I wasn’t going to be the one to replace the space between us. Luca would have to kick me across the mattress to be rid of me.
“I’m worried about Clara.”
His sudden speech startled me. “About her pregnancy?”
“Not so much that. She’s handling the physical stuff pretty well. A while ago, she came to me and told me something was off with Miller. She’d asked him if he was cheating, which he denied.”
I shuddered. “I can’t picture Clara sleeping with Miller, let alone anyone else.”
His grip tightened. “Please don’t try. I’m already horrified when I think about how she got knocked up.”
That made me laugh a little. “Has she said anything else lately?”
“No, and that’s why I’m worried. Every time I’ve tried to broach the subject, she shuts me down. I was hoping things were better. Hell, I even hired a PI who’d found nothing on him. But she’s here.”
“And he’s not,” I filled in.
“Yeah.” His chest rose when he sucked in a deep breath. “I’m at a fucking loss. If she doesn’t open up to me, how do I help her?”
I raised my head, looking at his worried face. “Give her space and support. Let her stay here without questioning why. It’s not so bad having her here, is it?”
The anger in his gaze ebbed as his eyes flowed over me. He reached up and tucked a lock of my hair behind my ear, then dragged his knuckles along my jaw.
I didn’t breathe as he touched me with a gentleness that was foreign and reverent.
“It’s not so bad, right?” I whispered.
“No,” he agreed. “It isn’t bad at all.”
He cupped my crown, drawing me down to him. Our lips met in a tentative caress. Testing the waters. Taking a sip, then another.
But I was so thirsty for Luca that one sip or a hundred would never be enough.
At first, all we did was kiss and kiss and kiss. Slow and soft. Deep and searching. Fingers in hair. My hand over his heart. His holding me tight against him.
We were careful with one another in a way we had never been. I was achy, like I had the flu. My need for Luca’s touch had seeped into my bones. Each slide of his hand over my silky nightgown soothed.
But it was when he shifted us so his chest was on top of mine that I melted and tension flowed out of me in ragged rivers.
Words weren’t spoken. There was no discussion when he slipped my nightgown off and lowered his sleep pants. Our heated skin melded like it was always meant to be touching.
Luca didn’t command me. I didn’t sass him. This was different than all the other times, yet exactly the same. His body knew mine. We were drawn to each other in a way I’d never been drawn to anyone else. Even as we broke the rules in Luca’s quiet, dimly lit bedroom, that hadn’t changed. He held my strings, and I danced for him, though it was a languid, sultry pas de deux instead of the usual fiery tango.
Luca pressed my thighs apart as he buried his face between them. I covered my mouth with the back of my hand, muffling the moans he elicited from me with the flat of his tongue on my slick, swollen flesh. In the back of my mind, I still feared if I was too loud, the spell would break.
And I would die if the spell broke.
When I reached my peak, Luca’s palm traveled up my torso and rested over my thrashing heart. The heart he’d unknowingly unlocked and set free.
I crumbled then. Crumbled and fell even harder for this man.
When he climbed over me and stared down at my face, I thought there was no way he couldn’t read the magnitude of my feelings for him. But if he did, he showed no signs. He remained intense and focused on me, fitting himself inside me in one smooth stroke.
He moved above me, into me, advancing and retreating, but never for long. As soon as he slid out, he pushed back in, somehow deeper every time. When we weren’t kissing, we were caressing, stroking, touching. Eyes locked, panting breaths exchanging air that wasn’t mine or his but ours.
Luca wasn’t in love with me. He cared for me, though. Deeply, tenderly. And he was showing me without any restraint.
I wasn’t certain the unbound emotions running rampant within me could be called love either. But I suspected that was what this was, and I couldn’t keep them neatly tucked away.
I didn’t want to terrify him either.
So, I closed my eyes and kissed him hard, looping my arms around his neck, locking my legs around his middle.
I told him with my body that I wanted him, wanted him, wanted him.
He answered by giving me more and more and more.
We came together with a kiss that was more exaltation than a meeting of lips. I said Luca’s name with my tongue on his. He uttered mine in the fluttering pecks he placed on my lips. My neck arched, lifting my chin, my cries of pleasure ringing from me like bells in a tower. Luca’s head bowed next to mine, so we were cheek to cheek, and his groans became a chorus with my cries until there was nothing left but the echoes of us.
We stayed connected even as Luca rolled us to our sides. I scuttled closer, my leg over his hip, keeping him there.
“Don’t move,” I murmured, hiding my face in his chest.
“I don’t think I could if I wanted to.” His lips touched the top of my head, exactly as they did in my fantasies.
“Just a little while longer. Stay.”
“I’m not going anywhere, pretty girl.”
I fell asleep with Luca inside me, around me, over me.
I had never slept better in my life.
Chapter Thirtyfive
Saoirse
On the fourth morning of Clara’s stay, I found her in the kitchen making breakfast. Luca had already left for work, so I was surprised to see her there. She was normally at the office before him.
“Going in late?” I asked.
She groaned, her hand resting on her belly. “I was moving slowly this morning.”
“I think you have a perfectly reasonable excuse for slowing down in general.”
She waved me off. “Nonsense. I’ll have three months of maternity leave, and no doubt I’ll be climbing the walls by the end of it. I don’t want to begin that earlier than I have to. Besides, my job isn’t very physically taxing. It’s the whole heaving myself from bed and making myself presentable that takes twice as much energy as it used to.”