Make him a single dad al.., p.25
Make Him: A Single Dad/Alpha Dom Romance, page 25
Minutes later, Zar returns to the bedroom with a tray loaded with snacks: more crackers, Gatorade, banana slices for Gia, popcorn for us, and whisky, too.
But what amuses me is the Harvard joggers Zar sports like PJs. They match Luca’s. Both wear thin, V-neck white T-shirts, too.
“What did y’all do?” I tuck the covers around my legs. “Raid the Harvard gift shop when you went there?”
“Yep.” Zar flops down on the foot of the bed. “Euro snob here didn’t own sweats until I made him buy some.”
Luca grins while I watch in awe at how Zar comfortably props up on his elbow, resting by our feet. Pulling the blanket at the foot of the bed over him, he forms a cozy nest of our bodies, surrounding Gia with the headboard at the top.
Gia alternates between snuggling with me and Luca and crawling down to snack off the tray Zar brought us, letting him feed her tablespoons to stay hydrated. After her full day, she’s subdued tonight, seeming as content as I feel.
Though I keep catching Luca watching me with a look so intense, it sets butterflies alight in my chest, fluttering through my body.
HIF #14: I’m almost afraid to believe this bliss. This future. No way can my life be this perfect.
I have fleeting childhood memories of a warm family feeling. I was very young. My mom was happy, my dad was there, and my sisters and I were safe.
But that feeling faded in my heart like an old photo.
Now, this rush of love with the four of us together is technicolor, and I pray it will last.
We sip whisky, watching Moana as Gia’s eyelids droop until they finally close. She’s nestled beside Luca. We’re all tired, so Zar sets the tray on the floor before resting his head by Luca’s feet and draping his feet over mine. Like he’s perfectly happy, Zar closes his eyes while Luca tells Alexa to turn off the lights.
Darkness gently falls over his bedroom, but I can still see Luca with the dim city lights streaming through the white sheers.
Gia’s fallen asleep between us, but Luca’s awake. Silently, he reaches over, his fingertips gently brushing a lock of my hair off my cheek.
Surrendering on my side, I let him do it. I let Luca make me fall helplessly in love with him. With us. There’s no turning back. I don’t want any other life.
I let him caress my cheek until I have to close my eyes at the tender flutter in my heart, making happy tears well in my eyes.
I love Saturday nights like this, too.
Sleep must’ve claimed me. I awake a couple of hours later, I guess, with my bladder talking to me.
Carefully, I climb out of Luca’s bed and quietly pad into his ensuite. I don’t turn on the lights. There’s a window in here, too; I can see well enough to find the water closet with his porcelain throne. Then I grin because I find it so cute that Luca has kids’ flushable wipes in here. After I’m done, I use one, afraid to flush, but I do, hoping I don’t wake up…my family?
Is that this perfect feeling that has me smiling in the dark?
Yes.
As quietly as possible, I wash my hands in Luca’s marble sink and dry them using his white hand towel with a gold M monogram.
Oh my god, I even love his bathroom.
If my MMA friends could see me now.
This bitch is getting soft over kids’ bath wipes.
But then I turn around, gasping, my fighter’s instinct tensing at the towering figure looming in the doorway.
“Shit,” I softly gasp. “You scared me.”
It’s Luca. I’d know his gargantuan silhouette anywhere.
Quietly, he closes the bathroom door behind him. When he locks it, too, I softly gasp again, seeing the shadow of his growing erection hanging heavy in his joggers.
I whisper, “What are you doing?”
Closing the distance between us, he doesn’t answer. Reaching over his back, he yanks his T-shirt off, tossing it on the floor before he presses against me, ripping the air from my lungs. I’m trapped between Luca’s cool marble vanity and his rock-hard heat.
“I need you.” His whisper is gruff. “I need everything about you.” Taking my hand, he guides it under the waistband of his joggers. “Do you feel this? How much I fucking need you, Scarlett?”
We’re not playing Dom and sub tonight. We’re playing desperate, aching need because that’s how I feel, too.
Gripping his swollen shaft, I moan at his heft. At how hard and thick Luca gets for me. This is more than sex or kink. It’s so powerful between us that it’s hard to breathe.
Guiding my hand to stroke him, his other hand wedges his joggers down until they hang from his hips. “Luca,” I sigh at his exposure, at his urgent need, at the rush of wet lust I feel for it.
“God, my belle.” With his cock, jutting high and demanding between our bodies, together our hands wrap around it, stroking him. He sinks his other hand in my hair, pressing his lips to my forehead. “God, Scarlett, how I fucking need you. All day. All night. I need this life with you. Promise me, my belle.”
I need it, too, so I free my hands, quickly yanking my T-shirt off. I stand before him in my black lace panties, and he groans when I lick my palm for him and spit in it, too. Grabbing his thick shaft, I start pumping my slick hand while he guides me again, growling with his swollen cock wedged between our almost naked bodies.
“Scarlett,” he grunts, his grip on my hair getting tighter, his breath thinning, rasping against my strands like he’s losing his mind. “Fuck, I can’t feel this way and be this close to you and not have you,” he confesses, gently thrusting his hips in my grasp. “I can’t watch you in my life, in my family, in my bed, and not have every inch of you. Always.”
It wets my pussy instantly. His passion. His hard cock and body. His ache, so vulnerable. His heart so soft. He desperately needs release, and it’s so damn hot to give it to him.
I press my breasts against him, letting him feel my hard nipples urging over his flexing abs. I try to rub every inch of me against him; I can’t get enough of him either. His satin skin. His concrete form. His tense need. His wild breath.
“I kept getting hard for you all day.” His lips confess, steaming over my scalp. His heat burns through me. “I can’t watch you be so goddamn beautiful and perfect for me and not have you. Please.” He’s dripping for me, so I smear my thumb through his precum, swirling it over his swollen velvet tip, and he shudders. “Fuckkkk, Scarlett, I need to be so deep inside you.”
“You are, Luca,” I sigh back. “You’re inside me. Feel this with me.”
We can do this. We can imagine everything we can’t have together, not yet, but we will one day.
I understand Luca’s pain. I’ll protect it. I live with that void of losing someone you love, too. You’re afraid to open your heart again, so I’ll wait for him. I’ll make him change. Fate cracks across our flesh whenever we’re near; we belong together. He can’t keep fighting me.
Pressing his huffing lips to my hair, he gazes down with me at the desperate fervor in our pumping hands, giving him what he’s shaking for.
I love it when I make his thighs shake, his lips, too, but I’ve never seen Luca like this.
He’s not a Dom tonight. He’s a lonely dad. He’s a man who’s denied himself for so long, and how it makes me ache because I’m the one he needs.
“I’m yours, Luca.” I give him everything. I grab him and our future, and I take it so hard I make him grunt, lurching forward about to release. “You have my body to torture. You have my pussy that’s so wet for you.” I’m watching. He’s watching. He’s panting, thrusting for it, and I give it to him. “You have my heart, Luca.”
“Scarlett,” he grunts before silence falls over him. His body locks while he growls back his roar, barely letting go with a deep, urging groan from his throat before he spurts, drops hitting my chin, my breasts too, but I keep giving. I squeeze, pumping more of his breath away, and he quakes, moaning and spilling over our fists, coating my hand with his cum.
He drags in three deep, ragged breaths before he grabs my drizzled hand and demands, “Take me, Belle.” Quickly, he shoves our cum-coated hands over my pussy. “Put my cum inside you,” he demands. “Now.”
With his sticky hand cupping mine, he guides my fingers to plunge inside my slick heat. Pressing his palm over my hand, his grinding force gives my clit the pleasure it’s aching for.
Urging his hard body against mine, splattered in his cum, this is so erotic and beautiful. I gaze up at him, the shadows falling over Luca’s exquisite face, his eyes searching mine, and his full lips still shaking with desire. His cock hasn’t fallen soft yet, but I’m going fast.
I want Luca too much.
I need Luca too much.
My clit is electric. My pussy starts clenching, but my fingers aren’t enough. I’m pumping two inside me and aching for more of him. So much more. So I hang on to the promise in his eyes, to the dream I want so badly with him, and that takes me over the edge.
“Luca,” I moan, trying to be quiet while I fall into a million pieces, coming over our hands. My thighs shake. They get weak. But I’m pressed between the vanity and him so I don’t fall.
Well, my heart does. She falls to the bottom of his ocean.
Because Luca gently lifts my glistening hand in his, pressing it over his pounding heart. Mine is, too, while he whispers in my hair, “You know the word for this, Scarlett. The word I feel for you. The one word I wish I could say.”
Then he lets go of my hair with his other hand, wrapping his arm around me and holding me tight, cleaving my body to his, my head on his hard chest while I fight back my soft tears.
I feel every word between us.
Ache. Passion. Pain. Happiness. Hurt. Peace. Fate. Family. Lust.
Love.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
SCARLETT
How can someone smirk and eat shrimp ’n grits at the same time? I don’t know, but my sister, Ruby, sure has mastered the skill.
She blew up my phone this morning with texts. It’s like she could sense my life was in danger of love.
Luca couldn’t ignore the buzzing of my phone, charging on his nightstand, so when I assured him it was just my sister, he insisted, “Invite her to brunch with us. I’d love to meet her.”
I warned him that’s like inviting a lit red flare into a fireworks store, but he didn’t listen.
“So tell us some stories.” Zar sounds too thrilled, bantering with my sister across from him. Our family brunch is different today. Celine’s not here, and Abbey and Harper aren’t here either. Harper’s tummy is still sour from yesterday’s party. “Tell us how many boys in the neighborhood Scarlett beat up.”
I shake my head while Ruby laughs. “She’s not always like that. Sometimes she’d do the craziest things to make us laugh like—”
“Please don’t.” I’m afraid of what’s about to fly out of Ruby’s unfiltered mouth.
“Please do,” Luca gently commands, smiling with his arm draped over Gia’s chair on my left.
The way he gently caresses his fingertips over my shoulder, too, keeps our connection from last night.
I’ve never seen Luca this happy for so many hours. He’s been smiling all morning, so forget kinky toys and collars. Happy family Luca dominates me the most.
“Well,” Ruby looks like a shaken soda bottle about to burst, “she liked to do this thing with tissues and the fan by our bed.”
“Oh shit,” I quietly groan, then wince, remembering Gia’s beside me.
“She’d shred tissues into strips, shove them up her nose, and let them flutter in the breeze.” Ruby chuckles. “She called it the ‘booger dance’ just to make me and my sisters laugh.”
Gia giggles, Luca laughs, and Zar drawls, intrigued, “There’s more of y’all?”
I elbow him. “Don’t even. Or you’ll find your neck in a ninja choke.”
“Yeah,” Ruby replies, “there are four of us, and Scarlett was the ring leader. She’d do anything to make us laugh. She can do the best armpit farts in the world.”
HIF #15: Kill me now. I’m trying to be all elegant and shit while my little sister slays with stories of my Body Part Art.
“I want to hear that.” Luca shocks me. He’s too relaxed around my sister and amused by what I’ll do for him when hell freezes over.
“What’s an armpit fart?” Gia’s curious, too.
“Scarlett will show us,” Luca taunts.
I’m about to flatly refuse at the risk of death by embarrassment, but a new plan forms—one I’d never imagine—one that would be the most hilarious and dangerously tender moment ever.
“Alright.” I confront Luca with a grin. “I’ll show Gia an armpit fart if you do it, too.”
Peels of laughter bubble up Gia’s throat. “Yeah, Baba!” She’s too excited. “Fart with Scarlett!”
I double over, laughing so hard I’m crying. We all are because this is too ridiculous. This is too much fun and like family, and I love it.
Ruby shares more mortifying stories at my expense while Luca caresses the strands falling over my shoulder. He lets anyone witness his quiet affection for me, including Ruby, who turns her focus on Zar. It’s like she wants to solve the whole puzzle of our arrangement.
“So, Zar,” she probes, “where do you live?”
“I have a suite on the fifth floor,” he beams. “I have a paltry view of the harbor and a place on the Isle of Palms, too. Just a little fishin’ shack.”
He teases Ruby because we all know there are no shacks on the Isle of Palms. Every square foot on that coastal island is worth thousands.
“Uh-huh.” Ruby smirks. “That’s a shack of B.S.”
I can tell Zar’s admiring Ruby. She sits across from him, wearing a burgundy wrap dress, with her auburn hair piled high on her head with tendrils falling. She licks her glossed lips because Zar has that effect, Luca even more so. And I don’t blame my sister. Window shopping is allowed.
“Baba,” Gia asks, “what’s B.S.?”
“B.S. is…” Luca searches for an appropriate answer.
So Ruby jumps in. “B.S. is beach sand.”
Zar snorts, setting his linen napkin on the table. “Yes, my girl.” He leans over me, pulling Gia’s attention to his smiling face. “I’m full of beach sand.”
His answer knits Gia’s brows. The adult banter confuses her, so I quickly suggest, “How about after brunch I’ll take you to meet Crimson, my puppy?”
Then I flinch, realizing I should’ve asked Luca first. I’m not her parent. I can’t take her for the day. I’m her protection officer, and her…what?
I don’t know because that fell from my lips too easily. I just want to take care of Gia.
“Is that okay?” I ask Luca. “Would you like to come with us?” I glance around the table. “Everyone? We can go to the aquarium, too.”
“Yay!” Gia bounces in her seat. She’s feeling much better today.
“I’d love it.” The heat in Luca’s eyes answering me makes global warming even worse.
“I can’t,” Ruby sighs. “I promised Rose that me and Cherry would help paint her new condo. The shi—” She catches her curse. “The stuff I do for my sisters.”
“I can’t wait to meet them.” Zar sounds flirty, playful…and kidding.
Though I’m not. I’ll kill Zar if he fucks with my sister’s, too. But he’d never cross that line. He wouldn’t hurt me that way. My sisters are off-limits, he knows.
But other women? I’m not sure.
I know Luca’s committed to me. I know he means it; I’m the only woman he wants. Even if he won’t share everything with me, I’ll be here when he finally breaks.
But with Zar?
Untethered is the feeling I get with him. Like no matter how Zar submits when he chooses to, you can’t tie him down. Not forever. He won’t allow it.
Proving my point, Zar leans back in his chair. “I can’t go. I have work. We have a private event. A VIP has rented out the King’s Club for the game tonight.”
“Game?” I scoff. Since when does Zar’s job as the CFO have him managing special events? “What game?”
“Sunday night football,” he huffs like I should know. “Atlanta versus Arizona.”
Still, I’m confused, so I glance at Luca, reading his expression. He’s searching Zar’s eyes for an answer, too, but Luca’s not scowling about it. The silent words they exchange are intense but calm like they’re confident in what they share.
“Football?” Ruby perks up. “Do you need a cocktail waitress to help?”
“Maybe,” Zar drawls. “The VIP is a Carolina Panther out on injury. He’s home this weekend, watching a game with his boys.”
“Since when are you into football?” I pry.
Mischief lights up Zar’s deep brown eyes. “I’m not,” he goads. “I’m just curious about our VIP guest.”
What is he up to?
It sounds like Zar’s serious. Like he’s trying to make Luca… jealous? And with another man? An NFL player? And since when are NFL players out as anything but straight? And if one isn’t, how would Zar know?
I swear, the mysteries surrounding Zar and Luca keep haunting me. Yes, we’re getting close. Yes, we snuggle like a family, watching movies in bed. But yes, when Zar is free, he’s up to something. And yes, Luca can share so much with me, but it’s not everything.
I want more.
Including answers.
Two hours later, Luca’s propped beside me on the grass, his legs stretched before him, while we watch Gia play “dog trainer” to Crimson.
Families spill out of the aquarium. Tourists too. It’s a bright, crisp late November afternoon with the sun warming us in the park.
Gia commands, “Sit!” and Crimson patiently plays along. I hold the handle of his long leash securely in my left hand, propped behind me. Then my heart flutters when I feel Luca’s fingertips gently caress my right hand beside his in the grass, hidden so Gia can’t see our intimate exchange.
“I love this,” he mutters. “Thank you for inviting us.”
Gia looks happy with Crimson. She’s so enthralled she can’t hear me ask him, “Will you get her a puppy now? You know she’s going to wear you down.”
