The wedding at moonglow.., p.10
The Wedding at Moonglow Bay, page 10
“Hi.”
“Hey.”
“Seems we’re spending more of the reception apart than together,” he said.
“Lots of people to talk to. Everyone wants to share in our happiness. That’s a good thing.”
“I miss you,” he said.
“I’m right here.” She held her arms wide, and he scooped her up and spun her around twice. When he finally let go, she staggered a little, dizzied from the whirl.
“I still can’t believe you’re finally mine,” Luca said, reverence shining in his eyes. “I feared this day might not come.”
“It’s here. It’s now. And I’m all yours.”
“How much longer until we can get out of here?” he whispered against her ear. “I can’t wait to get you alone.”
The deejay cued up “Save the Last Dance for Me.”
“Ask and you shall receive, Mr. Ginelli.” She held her hand out to him.
Luca interlaced his fingers with hers and led her to the dance floor. People were getting out of the way so they could have the spotlight.
“It’s been an amazing night,” he murmured.
“The best of my life,” she whispered.
“Oh, no, sweetheart,” he said. “We’re just getting started. The best is yet to come.”
The photographer’s video crew caught their last dance on film as Samantha gazed into her new husband’s eyes. It was true. The very best was yet to come.
After the last dance, they made the rounds, bidding everyone goodbye. Samantha gave Destiny a hug and told her to be a good girl for her grandparents. Her daughter was going home with Marcella and Tino tonight. Freida passed out sparklers, and the guests waved them goodbye with a shower of fireworks.
They paused for one last photograph before Luca escorted Samantha into the awaiting limo. Once the door shut behind them, they sank against the seat, holding hands and grinning moony-eyed at each other.
At her first wedding, they’d had an after party that lasted long into the wee hours of the night. This time, the after party was just the two of them.
Luca leaned over to cup her face between his palms and gaze deeply into her eyes. She felt cherished and seen. Then he kissed her, and it was the most perfect kiss in the entire world. Sweet and warm and firm. A kiss filled with so much hope and promise.
The driver let them off at Samantha’s door. Luca tipped him big, and he drove away with a grin and a jaunty toot of his horn.
“Well, wife,” Luca said as they stood on her front porch in their wedding attire. “May I have your housekey?”
Feeling giddy, Samantha dug in her clutch purse to produce the key. “Here you go, husband.”
Luca took the key, unlocked the door, pocketed it, and then peered down at her. The streetlamp cast shadows over his face, and for a second he looked like a stranger.
Who was he really? This man she’d just married? The man who’d learned to dance for her years ago, and she hadn’t known. What other secrets had he kept?
Her pulse leaped and her breath caught on the inhale.
Then he moved and she could see his familiar eyes, and when he smiled, the weird strangeness vanished.
This was Luca. Her husband. Her heart.
He bent to scoop her into his arms. The poofiness of her satin, tulle, and lace wedding dress billowed around her body. Eager anticipation spun her head, and her senses swirled as she wrapped her arms around his neck and felt the quickening beat of his heart that matched her own escalating tempo.
Luca stepped over the threshold and into the darkened hallway. The house was silent except for the hum of the fish tank apparatus from the aquarium in the living room and the sound of the air conditioner clicking off. The hallway’s electrical outlets had night-lights built in, and these tiny beacons guided his path to her bedroom.
The bedroom she’d once shared with Nick.
A sensation of wrongness washed over her. They shouldn’t have come here. They should have gone to Luca’s house instead. There were no memories in that home.
With the tip of his whole-cut oxfords, Luca bumped open the door and carried her inside. He stopped by the light switch so she could turn it on, and then he set Samantha on her feet beside the bed, his attentive gaze fixed on her.
To be fair, she couldn’t stop looking at him either.
They stood staring at each other for what seemed an inordinate amount of time, before Luca pulled in a shaky breath.
“Well,” he said. “Here we are.”
“Here we are,” she echoed.
“Are you as nervous as I am?”
“Yes,” she admitted.
Everything between them was about to change. She wanted it to change, ached for it. But still, change was change, and she was the type to hesitate before leaping into anything, just as Luca was. Hesitation wasn’t a sign she had regrets.
On her wedding night to Nick, he’d carried her into that hotel room, tossed her onto the mattress, and fell on top of her.
Not fair to compare, she reminded herself. She’d barely been twenty when she’d married Nick. So young and naïve. The things she hadn’t known!
“May I undress you?” Luca asked.
Nodding, Samantha turned her back to him and lifted her hair off the nape of her neck so he could get to the zipper.
His fingers were cool against her skin as he eased down the zipper, but his breath was warm on her neck. A dual sensation of heat and chill had her shivering again.
Behind her, she felt him dip his head and press his lips to her spine, blazing a trail of hot kisses that followed the zipper’s descending path.
Goose bumps dotted her exposed skin. They’d been holding back for so long that she wasn’t fully prepared for the onslaught of feelings pouring over her like a thunderstorm. It had been over seven years since she’d had sex with anyone, and her body ached raw with need for him.
When he reached the end of the zipper, Luca slipped his hands around the parted material to cup a palm over each of her hip bones covered by lacy lingerie. He inhaled audibly and rested his forehead against her back.
In a low murmur, he whispered, “My God, but you are beautiful, Samantha. Let me just absorb this minute.”
She got it. She had dreamed of being with him like this for ten months. Her senses were heightened, her body sensitive with building need.
Lowering the dress from her shoulders, Samantha turned in the white lace bustier to face Luca.
His eyes widened and his lips parted, his gaze tracking from her eyes to her lips to her heaving chest. “I want you.”
“I want you too.” Her knees quivered, and she thought she might just sit right down on the floor. It was that hard to hold herself up.
“I can’t promise I won’t be too quick,” he said. “It’s been so long for me.”
“Luca, my love, we have the rest of our lives. Don’t worry. If we don’t get it right the first time, that’s just more reason to practice, practice, practice.”
He stroked his knuckles over her cheek. “I want to please you.”
“You already have, in so many ways.”
The urgency growing inside Samantha spread low and hot down her belly, a heavy liquid flame, dense and incendiary. She wanted to feel this man inside her. Wanted her body to awake from hibernation. She’d spent too much time in grief.
They both had.
She couldn’t wait to fly into a million pieces, shattered by his lovemaking and lying breathless beneath him. Her need was feral, clawing at her insides.
“Please,” she said, letting her dress fall to her knees and stepping out of it so she could stand before him in nothing but the bustier, thong panties, and white stockings. “I need you. I need you now.”
“Sammie, Sammie.” Luca pulled her to him, kissing her long and hard, telegraphing his own fiery desire.
His touch was magic, carrying her to a place she’d only found in fantasy. She didn’t know if it was just the waiting and the yearning, but her hunger for Luca was so desperate, she could taste the umami richness at the back of her tongue. If her desire had a flavor, it was earthiness.
Her frantic hands flew to the buttons of his shirt, fumbling as she tried to flick them open, but the shirt was new, the buttons stiff.
“Argh!” She gave a cry of frustrated desperation and, with uncharacteristic impatience, grasped the shirt’s material in each fist and yanked.
Buttons popped, flying across the room. One jumped up to smack her cheek.
Luca gave a low chuckle. “I would give anything to see how you ripped open your presents on Christmas morning when you were a kid.”
“Oh,” she said, flattening her palms along his bare torso and spreading her fingers wide. “I took great care with my presents because I wasn’t sure I’d ever get another.”
“I forget sometimes,” he murmured, “what a rough childhood you had before you ended up with the Dellaneys. You’re so well-adjusted, it’s easy to forget.”
“Believe me, that wasn’t always the case,” Samantha confessed. “I was a train wreck in middle school, picking fights, getting detention, sneaking out of my bedroom at night to run around the neighborhood.”
“Wow.” Luca looked impressed. “My unexpected hooligan. That doesn’t sound like you at all.”
“Remember, I have a secret wild side,” she said, wrapping her arms around his neck and tugging his head down so she could kiss him thoroughly.
Luca made a pleasant noise of encouragement low in his throat and kissed her so fiercely that her toes curled in the beach flip-flops she still wore. Suddenly aware of her footwear, she pulled back from his lips just long enough to kick the shoes off.
He gathered her close and kissed her again, this time her toes digging into the plush carpet, her mind fully wedged in the moment. She wanted to savor every second of her first time with Luca, but her need overpowered her again.
Her hand dropped to his waistband. The closure of his trousers. The zipper.
Luca was practically panting as she rubbed her palm against his hard erection. “Babe, babe, slow down, slow down. We’ve got all night.”
“We’ve waited so long,” she whispered. “I can’t wait anymore.”
“Sammie—”
She didn’t give him any more time to protest. She captured his bottom lip between her teeth and sucked.
Luca groaned.
Laughing, she sank to her knees and pulled his pants down in the process. When she had his trousers around his ankles, she moved to untie his shoes, but he’d double-knotted them, and it took her a moment to get them undone.
“We should have gotten you slip-ons!”
“Wow, Sammie, you’re blowing me away. Who knew you were this fiery in the bedroom?”
“You ain’t seen nothing yet, Ginelli.” She got his laces undone and his shoes off.
He stepped from his pants, and she shoved them aside. He stripped off his dress shirt, twirled it on the end of his finger, and let go, sending it flying across the room to land squarely in the doorway.
Samantha laughed, giddy and gleeful.
“C’mere,” Luca said, reaching down to draw her to her feet.
She looked up at him.
He cupped her cheeks with his palms and peered into her eyes. “I am the luckiest man on the planet.”
“We’re going to have the best life together.”
“Yes, we are.”
“What we’ve been through has only made us stronger.”
“Our bond gets tighter every day.”
“And we’re about to take a huge step forward.” She crooked a finger at him and reached her hand back to pat the mattress.
“You ready for bed?” he murmured.
“I’ve been ready for ten months.”
Samantha thought of what Luca had revealed to her at the reception. That he’d wanted her for a lot longer than the ten months they’d been dating, and she hadn’t even known he’d been carrying a torch for her. At the time, she’d been so wrapped up in Nick and the legend of their Lightning Strike that she hadn’t even considered anyone else.
Nick was her first love and the only man she’d ever been with. The weight of that hit her like an avalanche. She was thirty years old and had had sex with only one man, and now she’d just married that man’s brother.
It felt Shakespearean.
Had she fallen for Luca simply because he was Nick’s brother and the closest she could ever get to having her first love back?
A sobering thought. One that had been hovering at the back of her mind for some time. In marrying Luca, had she been trying to recapture the magic of what she’d had with Nick?
Luca was gazing at her with such happiness on his beautiful, dear face, she jammed those disloyal thoughts to the laundry hamper of her mind.
Did it matter what her secret motivations might have been in choosing Luca? Nick was gone for good, and she and Luca had something solid, unshakable. She felt that truth in the very center of her chest.
“I’m glad we released a sky lantern for Nick tonight,” she said.
“Me too.” The light in his eyes shifted and a somber expression tugged at his mouth.
Damn it, why had she brought up Nick?
Luca reached out and tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear. “This is me and you now, Samantha.”
“Yes.” She nodded, agreeing wholeheartedly.
“Just the two of us are climbing into that bed together. Let’s leave old history at the door.”
“I like that idea.”
“I like you.” His smile was a warm bath, heating her in all the right places. He picked her up again, and she loved how supported and cared for she felt in the circle of his strong arms.
She nuzzled his neck and ran her tongue along his jawline, took satisfaction with the moan she pulled from his throat.
“Oh, you just wait, missy. You’re gonna get as good as you’re giving.”
“What a lovely promise.”
She giggled as he placed her on the bed. When he stood above her, looking down with such love in his eyes, she knew this was exactly where she belonged.
Outside, she heard a noise on the deck but ignored it. There was a family of raccoons who showed up every now and again to use the pool as their watering hole. Her focus was on one thing and one thing only.
Luca.
He sat down on the mattress beside her and slowly started undoing the lace bustier, his fingertips brushing her breast, sending magical tingles spreading through her nerve endings.
The giddy sensation reminded Samantha of her first summer with the Dellaneys when they took her and Piper to Disney World. This moment had that same heady feel. The incredible awestruck disbelief that such a place existed and the exalted realization that it was true. In a sea of worldly troubles, an oasis of pleasure beckoned.
Luca kissed the bare flesh he’d exposed as he parted the lace. Her nipples hardened, eager to experience his warm, wet tongue.
Intoxicated, she threaded her hands through his lush, thick hair, enjoying the silky feel as the strands slipped around her fingers. She clung to him like a lifeline. Thrilled to be here. Fully engaged. Understanding this sweet moment was as good as life got.
She had it all. A handsome, hardworking husband. A loving family. A precocious daughter who excelled in school. A loyal best friend. A job she loved, working alongside people she enjoyed. A lovely home in a fun beach town. The best in-laws ever. She was living a Hallmark card life, and she was so very grateful for her blessings.
Luca’s hands were all over her body, and she was kissing him as if tomorrow would never come. They were swept away, blinded by their escalating foreplay, racing toward the special moment when their bodies joined for the very first time.
Blood was pumping so hard through her ears, that her mind didn’t register the footfall in the hallway until it was too late.
And then a raspy tortured voice spoke into the darkness of the bedroom and shattered everything.
“What the hell are you doing in bed with my wife, brother?”
Part Two
The Homecoming
Chapter 12
What we have once enjoyed we can never lose. All that we love deeply becomes a part of us.
—Helen Keller
Samantha’s hysterical screams rolled long and loud throughout the night, arriving one on top of the other and ricocheting around the room.
That terrifying sound grabbed hold of Nick Ginelli’s soul and wouldn’t let go.
Nick watched as his shocked wife leaned over the side of the bed, snatched up a fancy white dress that was lying on the floor, and clutched it to her bare breasts as she sank back against the headboard.
It was a wedding dress, his stunned brain registered. The same wedding dress she’d worn when she’d married him.
It took Nick a hot second to calculate that his wife had just married his brother, as evidenced by the strewn tuxedo and the beach wedding he’d seen when the Coast Guard ship pulled up to Sandrin Pier.
What he’d witnessed must have been their wedding.
His wife and brother had gotten married in the exact same spot where he and Samantha had held their ceremony. The impact literally knocked Nick backward and had him shaking from head to toe.
Maybe he was hallucinating the whole thing. Maybe his entire rescue had been just another delusion his damaged brain cooked up.
A few weeks into his isolation on the island, Nick had started hallucinating. In his peripheral vision, he would see people or animals, and think they were real, but when he’d whip his head around, nothing was there.
At times he got a weird sensation as if he’d been shot in the chest by pellets. At other times, his fingertips felt electrified, and whenever he touched something, the jolt would blast through his nervous system, leaving him fried and too fearful to move. For several months, it was a horror show as his brain played tricks on him and reality was totally distorted. Eventually, he recognized that his mind had gone haywire with the seclusion, and he was the only one who could salvage his sanity.
To keep the madness at bay, he sang to himself. He made musical instruments from coconuts, sticks, and stones. He composed songs and played air guitar, putting on concerts for the rats, birds, and insects. He made pets of them, giving them names and making up origin stories. Physical activity also helped, and he performed calisthenics for hours a day once he regained his strength after finding a regular supply of food and water.
