Chapter Twenty-One

Renzo

“You want me to come up?” Elian asked as we stood there looking up at Nico’s apartment building. All gleaming glass and steel.

Elian’s head was on a swivel, likely feeling as uncomfortable as I was being on the Costa’s turf uninvited. Especially after one of their own ran from me upset.

“No.” I had to do this alone.

“Sure? Lore likes me,” he said, a little smile tugging at his lips at the small taunt.

“Fucked this up by myself. Gotta fix it myself too.”

I’d had a long-ass drive to think, thanks to a shitton of traffic on an already long trip.

I ran through what Cinna said, and circled back, and remembering each time I’d been with my wife. Which, admittedly, was not very often. And mostly consisted of sex.

I mean, when I’d pulled her out of the guest bed and brought her downstairs, I’d told her that I was going to try.

And did I do that?

No.

No, I fucking didn’t.

And while a part of me wanted to make excuses, say I’d been stressed, been trying to figure out what was wrong with my family. The other part of me knew that I didn’t have to work as hard as I did. That I could have delegated more to my capos, to the soldiers, even to the associates.

I’d just… always been the hardest working motherfucker in any room. That was how I got, and kept, my power. How I built this family back up after the last boss tore it down.

It never occurred to me that being married meant I would need to cut back.

I guess I figured that Lore would be happier at home without me, not that she was sitting around waiting for me.

Because she’d had a thing for me since she was a kid.

I wouldn’t lie and say I remembered that exact interaction. I’d chased off street harassers more times than I could count. And I definitely wouldn’t have been checking out a fucking child, so she was just a face in a sea of others.

But, clearly, I’d had an impact on her.

And all I’d done was turn that dream of hers into a nightmare.

I should have done better.

Spent time with her.

Taken her out to show her off like I told her I would.

Made her not feel so used and neglected.

I just… I didn’t fucking know better.

Now I did.

And I was going to do better.

The problem was, though, getting her to believe me, to give me another chance.

And before that, even, was getting her overprotective, likely livid, older brother to let me in to see her.

“Well, if you’re carried out in a body bag,” Elian said, smirking at me.

“Then I probably had it coming?” I asked.

“Something like that,” he agreed. “I’ll keep an eye out here.”

I gave him a nod, then made my way up the steps just as an older woman was coming out, holding the door open for me.

Nico lived on the top level, and as I rode the elevator up, I was trying to think of what the fuck I was going to say.

To him.

To her.

Before I could come up with a single fucking thing, though, the doors were opening, and I was walking up to Nico’s door, and raising my hand to knock.

The door opened faster than I’d been anticipating.

And there was Nico Costa.

Tall, fit, and fuming.

“Absolutely fucking not,” he snapped, trying to shut the door, but I kicked out my leg to stick my foot in the way.

“That’s my wife,” I reminded him.

“Yeah? Maybe you should have thought about that before you crushed her.”

“I don’t disagree with you,” I admitted. “I have no excuses to give you. I’m taking full responsibility for this.”

“For her sobbing on my shoulder?” he asked. “Crying harder than she did at our Ma’s funeral. Asking me why you can’t just love her back? You’re taking responsibility for that?”

Another knife in the chest.

“I’m not trying to get you to believe that I’ve been a good husband to her, Nico,” I admitted. “I didn’t know she chose this. I thought she was forced into it. Honestly, I thought she’d want fucking nothing to do with me because of it. So I left her alone. I didn’t know…”

“She didn’t tell you she dug her heels in about this?” Nico asked.

“No. I had no fucking idea. Kinda hard to imagine her digging her heels in about anything, actually.”

“She doesn’t usually,” Nico agreed. “I couldn’t wrap my head around this. Until she told me today,” he admitted.

“Know you got no fucking reason to believe me on this, but I never wanted to hurt that girl, Nico. I just… I didn’t know what she needed from me.”

“And if you did know?” he asked, suspicious.

“I’d have tried to give it to her. Can’t claim I’d be great at it, but I’d fucking try. She deserves that, at least.”

Nico sucked in a deep breath.

The muscle ticking in his jaw said he wanted to beat the shit out of me. But the look in his eyes suggested he was trying to see my side.

You had to respect that about men like Nico. Who were able to try to see all sides. Who were mature and experienced enough to set their feelings aside to see the situation for what it really was.

“If I let you in,” he said after a long moment, “understand that this is up to her. I don’t give a single fuck if our families go to war for the next three generations, I will not stand by and let you try to force her to leave with you.”

“I wouldn’t do that. She’s been through enough,” I added. “I just want to apologize. I won’t try to talk her into shit. She wants to stay here with you, so be it.”

“Even though it won’t look good to your family?”

“Even though,” I agreed.

Nico took a step back, pulling the door open. “She’s taking a nap,” he said, waving toward the hallway where a door was cracked ever so slightly. “I’m right out here,” he added, tone holding a hint of a threat.

“Got it,” I said, nodding. “Thanks for giving me a chance,” I added before moving to the bedroom door, and pushing it open.

I didn’t fully close it, knowing Nico would be hovering, and not wanting him to think I was doing or saying anything that I wasn’t willing for him to hear.

“Hey, mouse,” I said as I moved in, flicking on the light as I toed out of my shoes, then made my way to the bed where she instinctively curled herself into a tighter ball.

Didn’t think I could feel more like a shithead.

That just proved me wrong.

“Know you probably don’t want to hear it,” I said, making my way toward the side of the bed she was curled toward. “But I gotta apologize to you,” I told her, climbing up on the bed. “I didn’t know, Lore. I had no fucking idea.”

“That you yelled at me?” she snapped back, voice muffled by the pillow her face was stuffed in.

Despite everything, I was proud of her for speaking up.

“I don’t think I realized I was yelling,” I admitted. “There was… something serious going on in that building. And I needed you not to be there. I used a work voice on you. I didn’t mean to be that harsh. Didn’t realize how off my tone was until I watched the security camera video. I didn’t mean to yell at you. I’m sorry about that. I don’t yell at women.”

“I just wanted to talk to you about something,” she said, voice small.

“I realize that now,” I agreed, tentatively reaching out, touching her hair. She stiffened for a second, but relaxed as my fingers started to gently rub her scalp. “What did you want to talk to me about?”

“Doesn’t matter now,” she said, voice cracking.

“Matters to me.”

“Yeah right,” she grumbled.

“I’m here,” I said.

“What?”

“I’m here with you,” I said. “Which means I had a good enough argument to give that guard dog of a big brother you got to have him let me in. Think maybe if he thought it was good enough, you can too?” I asked.

She said nothing to that, but I was going to go ahead and take her silence as agreement.

“I didn’t think you’d want me around, mouse. Until Cinna told me, I didn’t know you chose to marry me. I thought you were forced. And I figured, because of that, you wouldn’t want shit to do with me. I thought I was giving you freedom to do whatever you wanted without me breathing down your neck. Never thought that you’d actually want me around.”

“I did,” she said, that voice sounding so small and sad again. “But all you ever wanted was to sleep with me,” she added, and I winced, hoping that part wasn’t loud enough for her brother to overhear.

I slid down the bed, turning onto my side to face her, so our faces were close, even though she still had hers stuffed in the pillow.

I pitched my voice lower, definitely not wanting Nico to hear this part. “I’m not going to try to say you’re wrong about that. I did want to sleep with you. I still want to sleep with you. But it was wrong of me to make you feel like that’s all you were good for. That’s… that’s not fucking true.”

To that, I got a snort.

“I see now how you were trying, mouse,” I said. “And I just kept fucking missing it. I’m not trying to make excuses, but I’m not good at this shit.”

“What shit?” she asked, and I couldn’t help but let my lips curve up at the sound of her cursing. Guess I was rubbing off on her in some ways, it seemed.

“Relationships.”

“You have plenty of relationships,” she shot back. And, hey, that was a good argument. She’d been around the apartment during many parties. She’d seen me interacting with a ton of fucking people.

Of course she wanted to know why I couldn’t do the same with her.

“We had some good moments, right?” I asked. “There were times when we were getting along. Figure maybe that’s the only reason you stayed as long as you did.”

“I stayed because I…” she trailed off, catching herself. I couldn’t blame her for not wanting to be even more vulnerable with me.

“Wish you’d told me,” I said, my fingers moving from her scalp, down her jaw.

The barely-there touch had her face moving out from the pillow, wanting more.

I was good at that, at least.

My fingers moved over her jaw, across her lips, down her nose.

It wasn’t until I stopped touching her that her eyes fluttered open.

“Fuck, mouse,” I said, wincing at the evidence of all that crying Nico had told me about. “I don’t deserve tears like that,” I said, running a finger over her swollen eyelid, then down her splotchy cheek. “Never wanted you to cry over me.”

“I’ve cried over you a lot,” she admitted, her lower lip trembling like she might just do so again.

“I didn’t know,” I told her.

“You were never there to,” she shot back.

“You’re right,” I agreed. “There’s a lot going on with work right now. But that’s not an excuse not to come home to you and give you what you need. I just… I had no fucking idea what you needed. Figured I had… two things to offer you.”

“Two things?” she asked.

“Money,” I admitted, shrugging that off. “And making you come for me.”

“Stop,” she said, blinking suddenly glistening eyes.

“Stop what?” I asked, heartbeat tripping faster, not sure what I’d done wrong already.

“Stop trying to use sex to fix our problems.”

“I didn’t think that was what I was doing. It’s just… it’s something we have. That we both enjoy. Or am I wrong about that?” I asked. “Do you not like when I’m inside of you? When I have my face between your thighs? When you have my cock in your mouth?”

Her eyes blazed for a second, but she managed to bank it back down.

“It’s not enough.”

“No,” I agreed. “No, it’s not. I should have been taking you out. Should have been coming home to have dinner with you. Taking you to that bookstore or coffee place you seem to like so much. There’s a lot of shit I should have been doing. But I can’t go back and change how I acted. All I can do is try to get you to believe that I will do better moving forward.”

She said nothing to that, and I couldn’t blame her for not trusting me. What the fuck had I done to warrant that at this point?

“I never meant to hurt you,” I told her, meaning it down to my fucking marrow.

“I want to believe you,” she said, voice small.

“But?” I prompted, getting nothing but silence in response. “Mouse, if we want to fix this, we gotta be able to talk about shit. Least, that’s what I think I heard on a therapy commercial or some shit,” I added, getting a little smile out of her. “How about this,” I started, changing course. “You tell me what you want from me moving forward. I’ll rearrange shit to make it happen. Anything,” I added when she didn’t immediately start listing shit.

Her gaze lowered, but she took a deep breath. “I want you home for dinner sometimes.”

“Done.”

To that, she made a snorting sound.

“What?”

“If it’s that easy, why haven’t you been before?”

“Because I’m a selfish fuck, I guess,” I admitted. “I’m used to my life how it is. Long work days. Having my crew over to hang out. That’s been my life for years. And I had my head too far up my own ass to see that maybe it should be different with you around.”

“I wanted to have them over,” she said, making my brows draw down.

“Who over?”

“Your family,” she said, looking up at me, pain still piercing her pretty blue eyes. “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about. I wanted to have them over for Thanksgiving. I was going to decorate. And cook.”

That’s what she’d been so excited to ask me?

Fuck, I felt like even more of a dick now.

“I’d like it if you did,” I said. “A lot of us… we don’t have families of our own. Don’t think Cinna, Dav, Rico, and a few other of my guys and I have had Thanksgiving dinner in years. If ever.”

“Ever?” she asked, lower lip poking out at the thought.

“My family… hasn’t been like yours, mouse.”

“I didn’t know that,” she said. And it was hanging there in the air between us. Because you didn’t tell me.

“Realize now I got a lot of shit I should have been explaining all along. Got no excuse other than being a fucking idiot.”

“You’re not an idiot.”

“Lost someone like you, Lore. Pretty sure that’s the fucking textbook definition of an idiot.”

When she didn’t immediately say that I hadn’t lost her, I felt a desperate twist in my gut.

“What else do you want from me? Dinners, I’ll do that. What else?”

“I want to go out with you.”

“Been meaning to do that anyway.”

“And not just so the neighborhood knows I’m your wife,” she clarified.

“Not just,” I agreed.

“I want to know more about your family. And you. What your childhood was like, that kind of thing.”

“I can do that.” It would be like picking off barely-healed scabs. Letting that shit bleed out all over again. But I could do it for her. “What else?”

There was a long pause, like she was struggling to make herself say the next part, letting me know just how important it must have been.

“I want you to kiss me.”

“What?” I asked, jerking back, sure I misunderstood.

“You never have,” she said, looking me square in the eye. “Not at the altar… and not since. No matter… anything else that has happened. You’ve never kissed me.”

“Oh, mouse,” I said, my hand resting on the side of her neck as I leaned in, my nose brushing the side of hers.

What a simple fucking thing to want.

But she was right.

I’d never done it.

I rarely ever did with anyone in the past, honestly.

Dunno, I guess it always seemed somehow more intimate than anything else.

But if there was anyone I could let myself be intimate with, it was my own fucking wife, right?

Lore’s pulse was a frantic beat against my hand, her breathing quick and shallow as I leaned downward slightly, and sealed my lips to hers.

She gasped at the barely-there contact.

Then, fuck, she completely melted.

Into it.

Into me.

Shifting closer, sliding her leg over my hip, her arm moving under mine and up to rest on my back between my shoulder blades.

Why the fuck again had I been avoiding this?

Her lips were soft under mine as that little kitten noise she made that I loved so much escaped her.

My teeth gently nipped her lower lip until it parted, allowing my tongue to move inside and claim hers.

A shiver moved through her, making me want to press deeper, to roll her under me.

But I was far too aware of where we were. Of her brother, if not outright listening at the door, then at least aware enough to know if I started to fuck his baby sister in his own damn guest room.

Besides, this wasn’t supposed to be about sex.

Just… intimacy.

Something I, admittedly, wasn’t good at. But I was willing to learn. For her. To make her happy.

So I kept myself under control as my lips slanted over hers again and again, reveling in the feel of her, the taste of her, the sweet little noises she made and how she clung to me like a lifeboat in a restless sea.

I couldn’t tell you how long we stayed like that, just close, just kissing, but when I finally pulled back, my lips felt swollen and fuzzy.

When Lore’s eyes fluttered open, the look in them stole my fucking breath.

I didn’t know shit about it.

But I could swear it was love I was looking at.

I felt that tugging sensation again in my chest, and found myself wondering if that was what that was too.

“Like that?” I asked, voice low, not wanting to disrupt the dreamy look she had on her face.

She shot me a little smile and nodded.

“I can get behind doing that,” I said, tucking her hair behind her ear. “As often as you want,” I added. “Anything else?” I asked.

“I just…” she started, then squeezed her eyes closed, her forehead pressing to mine before she could continue. “I just want you to care about me,” she said, voice small and raw.

“Hey,” I said, voice a little firmer as I pulled back, snagging her chin in my fingers, and forcing her face back up. “Look at me,” I demanded when she kept her gaze lowered. “I do care about you. I might not have been any good at showing it, but I always have. Okay?”

“Okay,” she agreed.

“I’ll get better at showing it. What?” I asked when she looked unconvinced.

“You can’t… change people,” she said.

“You can’t change me,” I agreed. “But I can change me. Think this is one of those when you know better, you do better type of situations, right? Now I know. And I’ll do better. I fucking promise, Lore. If you come back with me, I’ll do better.”

She watched me for a long moment before her eyes went all watery, and a tear slipped down her cheek.

“What’s this?” I asked, reaching out to wipe it away with my thumb.

“I just really hope you mean that,” she said, blinking the other tears back.

“I do mean it,” I assured her. “Come home with me, mouse,” I said, finger tracing across her jaw.

“Okay,” she said, sucking in a deep breath.

“Okay?” I asked, scared of being too fucking hopeful.

“Yeah,” she said, giving me a small smile as she suddenly turned away from me and climbed off of the bed.

I did the same, meeting her near the door, and reaching to grab the lapels of the jacket she had on.

“I like how this looks on you,” I told her, using it to pull her closer until her body was against mine, and leaning down to claim her lips again. A little harder, hungrier. But I pulled away before either of us could get any ideas.

We moved out into the common area to find an anxious looking Nico stopping mid-pace to look at us.

“I’ll let you talk to your brother for a minute, mouse,” I said, giving her wrist a squeeze before moving across the room to take myself out into the hall.

Alone, I leaned against the wall, letting out a deep breath.

I got her back.

And, fuck, I would do everything in my power to make her never feel like leaving again.

The door opened a few minutes later, a resigned-looking Nico with his arm around his little sister.

“Oh, I forgot my shoes,” Lore said, rolling her eyes at herself, then turning to rush back to the bedroom.

Nico’s gaze was hard as he looked at me.

“I’ll do everything in my power to do right by her this time,” I told him.

He must have picked up on the sincerity in my voice, because he nodded.

But his hand raised, touching his lower lip.

“Don’t think I didn’t notice,” he said, glancing over at his sister as she came back.

“That’s already been handled,” I told him, watching as understanding sank in. “You got questions about it, we can talk,” I said.

“Maybe we can have Nico over for dinner,” Lore said, sensing a tension between us, and forcing a little more cheer into her voice.

“Of course we can,” I agreed.

“You’re cooking?” Nico asked, brows raised, like that was surprising.

“Yeah.”

“Then I’ll definitely be there,” he said, leaning down to press a kiss to her forehead. “Just tell me a date and time.”

“I will. And I’ll text you when I get home,” she said, the words easing the tension in her brother’s shoulders.

“Good. I’ll wait on that,” he said. “Love you, Lore.”

“Love you more,” she said, smiling at him.

“Not fucking possible,” he said, shaking his head. “And you…” he said, gaze shifting to me. “You take care of her.”

“I will,” I vowed, nodding, then turning with Lore toward the elevator.

“He’s a little… overprotective,” Lore said as we made our way into the elevator car.

“He should be over you,” I said, reaching out to drop my arm on her shoulders, feeling the way she immediately curled into me, like this was what she’d been aching for all along. “Thanks for giving me another chance, mouse.”

“You owe me and Elian frozen mocha coffees,” she said, snuggling in even closer.

“I’ll buy you the fucking coffee shop if you want it.”

“That’s not necessary,” she said, but a playful smile was tugging at her lips. “A bookstore, though…”

“What’s in those books you’re always reading?” I asked.

“Fantasy, court intrigue, princes, knights, fae, romance, and…” she trailed off, cheeks going pink.

Looking down, a smile spread across my face.

“And fucking?” I asked, watching her go even redder. “Oh, mouse, I think you might need to start reading these books to me.”

She shook her head at me, thinking I was playing. But I suddenly decided I needed to hear her read out a sex scene to me. While I tasted her sweet pussy. While I was buried deep inside of her.

“Hey,” she said, though, breaking the fantasy, as she spotted Elian waiting for us.

“Hey, Mrs. Lombardi, good to see you again,” he said, getting a big smile from her.

“Renzo is going to replace our coffees on the way home,” she told him.

“He’d better,” Elian agreed, giving her a big smile as he opened the door for her.

Just as she wanted, we stopped for her to grab the coffees, and then she snuggled up against me the whole way home.

And nothing had ever fucking felt more right.