Chapter Twenty-Two

Lore

I was surprised how willing Nico was to let me leave with Renzo after that epic weepathon I’d had all over him.

But as Renzo moved into the hall, Nico had sighed hard and turned to me.

“I wouldn’t let you leave with him if he didn’t look fucking wrecked when he showed up at the door,” he said. “But if that man makes you cry like that again, I’m putting a bullet in his head.”

“I don’t think he will,” I said.

“He better not. You deserve someone who knows what he’s got.”

The thing was, I felt like Renzo did.

If I didn’t, I wouldn’t have gone back with him, wouldn’t have welcomed heartbreak like that again.

I genuinely was starting to believe that Renzo just didn’t know how to show his feelings, not that he didn’t have them.

We’d driven home mostly in silence after Renzo stole sips off of my frozen coffee as he trailed those delicious little circles across my scalp.

It wasn’t until we were inside the apartment again, and we were sitting in the living room together waiting for delivery since we’d both missed meals with all the craziness, that he pulled my legs over his lap and admitted, “I gotta warn you ahead of time that you’re gonna wake up alone tomorrow,” he said, voice tense, like he was expecting me to explode, thinking he was already walking back all of his promises.

“Because of whatever that serious thing is going down inside of that building?” I asked.

“Yeah, exactly that,” he agreed, fingers sifting through my hair, then moving down to rub my neck. I wanted to unfurl like a cat under his touch. But I was trying to focus.

“I’m not expecting you to be home all of the time,” I said. “I grew up in a mafia family. I understand how things come up sometimes.”

“Hopefully, when this shit is cleared up, I won’t be as busy.”

“Famous last words of a boss,” I said, giving him a knowing smile.

“That’s the fucking truth,” he agreed, digging into a knot in my shoulder that had me tensing, then relaxing, as it eased. “But I’m gonna be around more.”

“I know,” I agreed, not needing him to keep insisting over and over. Time would prove his promises true.

“Why did Nico sound so surprised that you would be cooking when he comes over?” he asked.

“Oh, I don’t… I don’t really cook much,” I admitted. “But my brothers are always grumbly about it because they say I’m the best cook in the family.”

“In a family that big, that’s gotta be high praise. Why don’t you cook?”

“It usually makes me sad,” I admitted. “I used to cook with my mom all the time. So, it always brings back memories.”

“Don’t want you cooking for me if it makes you sad, mouse.”

“No,” I insisted. “No, I want to. The last time… when I cooked… that was the first time in a long time when I wasn’t sad, just… excited.”

“And I couldn’t even fucking come home to eat it.”

“You know better now,” I said, thinking of his words back at Nico’s place.

“Yeah,” he agreed, his hands starting to drift lower, making a low whimper escape me.

“Fucking missed that sound,” Renzo said, looking at me with fiery eyes.

And, no, we couldn’t fix our problems with sex.

But he was right, too, it was something that we had, something we shared, something we both loved.

So I leaned closer, tentatively sealing my lips to his, feeling those little cracks in my heart fuse back together as his lips responded, as he reached for me, pulling me to straddle him, as his hands started to drift over me like he couldn’t get enough.

“Renzo,” I said as I pulled back, feeling his hardness pressing against me, promising an end to the growing ache inside.

“Yeah?” he asked, voice thick with his own desire.

“I’m allergic to chrysanthemums,” I said, watching as his gorgeous face etched with confusion, then slow understanding, thinking of our wedding, of my lack of a bouquet.

“Noted,” he said, giving me a sweet smile.

“How’d you get this?” I asked, touching the scar that bisected his eyebrow, one of the two scars that took his face from male model handsome to intimidating mob boss.

“Running my mouth when I probably shouldn’t have,” he said, fingers sinking into my ass.

“And this one?” I asked, teasing the one on his lip, wondering if I would have a matching one forever as well.

“You want to talk?” he asked, using my ass to drag me against his hardness, making a low whimper escape me. “Or… not talk?” he asked, eyes blazing.

“Both,” I said, getting a dark chuckle out of him.

“That was my old man,” he told me.

“I’m sorry,” I said, heart aching for a younger version of him. My own father had never put his hands on me. I couldn’t even imagine that kind of cruelty from a person who was meant to love and take care of you.

To that, he shrugged.

“My kids will never know what that’s like,” he said, his words a solemn vow.

“So, you do want kids,” I said, heart leaping.

“Yeah. Like ‘em to have your eyes,” he said. “You want ‘em, right?”

“Yes.” With him? God, yes.

“But think we should just… practice for the time being,” he said as he dragged me against him again.

“Definitely,” I agreed, letting him lift my shirt off of me, leaning back to feel his lips and tongue on my breasts, taking the desire from a simmering want to a burning need.

He inched me out of my pants and panties, then pulled me over him again.

My hands were frantic on his buttons, reaching inside to free him, my mind and body all too aware of how long it had been since I’d felt him inside of me.

“Easy, mouse,” Renzo said as I stroked his thick length. “We don’t have to rush.”

I ignored him, sliding him against me, then down, holding him steady as I started to slide down his length.

“Oh, fuck,” Renzo groaned. “Forget what I said,” he added, a ghost of a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth as I gave into the need within, and started to ride him.

“That’s it, baby,” he groaned, his fingers sinking hard into my ass. “Show me how much you missed my cock,” he said, making my belly flip-flop at his words, as it always did. “I fucking missed your sweet, tight pussy,” he went on, making my walls tighten around him as I got closer. “That’s a good girl,” he murmured as my moans got higher, more frantic as I was pushed right toward that edge. “Let me feel you squeeze my cock.”

Then I did, crying out my release against his shoulder.

But he didn’t come with me.

“Not done yet,” he said when I pulled back, looking at him with scrunched brows.

Then he was hooking an arm around me, and rolling me under him on his giant couch, the weight of him familiar and so missed as my legs wrapped around his hips, and my arms slid up and down his strong back.

He watched me, unmoving, for a long moment, soaking me in. Then he lowered down, claiming my lips as he started to move inside of me.

Differently, though.

Slow.

Almost painfully so.

As his lips kept pressing into mine, his tongue teasing and retreating, the pressure increasing.

He drove me up more slowly than I knew was possible, but I was so lost in the intensity of it, in the intimacy, that my mind wasn’t even on the end, all of me just craving more.

“I’m never letting you go again,” he swore, his lips a whisper from mine. “You’re mine, Lore,” he added, pressing a little deeper, pushing me toward oblivion. “Mine,” he added as his hand reached for mine, pulling it up, and pressing it against the cushions, his fingers laced with mine as he pressed up to look down at me. “Say it, baby. I need to hear you say it.”

“I’m yours,” I said without hesitation. Because nothing had ever been more true.

I was his.

I was just waiting for him to realize.

The intensity of emotion in his gaze as I said it told me he finally understood.

“Yeah, you are. Now come for me, mouse,” he said, keeping the achingly slow pace as his lips claimed mine again.

I did come then, the pleasure a deep, slow wave that started where we were joined and spread outward, overtaking me completely.

He came with me, groaning out my name as he settled deep.

And I’d never, ever, been happier than I was right then.

Eventually, though, the knock at the door had Renzo sighing and pressing up.

“Food,” he said, lifting off of me. “Put this on,” he said, tossing his tee at me, and I was happy to slip into it, to smell his scent all over me. “I’ll be back,” he said, fastening his pants and walking shirtless to the door.

Maybe I should have felt embarrassed as I climbed off of the couch and rushed to the bathroom, knowing that his guard was out there, that he would know what we’d been up to.

I felt none of that, though.

If anything, I suddenly wanted the whole world to know.

That he’d claimed me.

That he was mine.

And I was his.

And that, this time, nothing could come between us.

“That’s a good fucking look,” Renzo rumbled at me, freezing mid-stride as I came back out of the bathroom. “Think you should just wear my clothes from now on,” he said, taking the bag to the island, and pulling out the contents. “All the options in the world,” he said, shaking his head at my container, “and you want chicken fingers and fries.”

“You forget that almost everything I eat on a normal basis is Italian,” I told him, bringing my container to the table, and popping the honey mustard container lid off. “Takeaway is for different stuff.”

He nodded at that as he opened his chicken parmesan.

“What’re you gonna cook for me?” he asked, making my belly flip-flop.

“What’s your favorite thing?”

“Anything you make with me in mind,” he said, and there was a raw kind of vulnerability in his voice that made my heart ache, knowing that this man, who showed so much potential for goodness and kindness, had likely known none of that in his own life.

Well, those days were done.

He would know all of that and more with me.

We talked then as we ate, a little clumsily at first—neither of us seemingly accustomed to this whole ‘getting to know you’ thing—but finding a rhythm eventually as we talked about my childhood. What it was like to have so many overprotective older brothers, how I lost my mom so young, how my father had gathered his grief and managed to be both parents to us afterward.

“Where did your name come from?” Renzo asked, watching me dip my fries with a shake of his head.

Ketchup is for fries,he’d insisted.

Ketchup is for grilled cheese,I’d countered.

“It’s not a traditional Italian name,” he added.

“No. My brothers all got the traditional names. But my mom insisted on naming me. Lore. Like… traditions or information held by a certain group of people. She told me that girls are the ‘family keepers,’ or the keepers of the family’s ‘lore.’”

“Like with the cooking,” he said.

“Yeah,” I agreed. “And a bunch of other little things I remind my brothers of or little traditions we had when she was alive that she learned from her family.”

“Shit you’ll teach our kids?” he asked.

“Yeah, definitely. This place is going to look great with Christmas lights,” I said, glancing around at all the potential. The balconies, especially, could be draped in greenery and lights. The whole place would sparkle.

“Don’t remember the last time I even had a Christmas tree,” he admitted.

“Well, you won’t have too long of a wait. But first, we have to plan Thanksgiving.”

“Yeah, we do,” he agreed, seeming to like that word as much as I did.

After dinner, we stripped out of our clothes, fell into bed, and into each other again, making up for lost time.

Before he pulled me onto his chest, holding me like he knew I liked.

It was the longest span of time I’d spent with Renzo since we’d married.

And it was even better than all the fantasies I’d dreamed up.

As I drifted to sleep in his arms, I was sure that nothing could ever ruin what was growing between us.

I would, of course, be proven painfully wrong.