I chuckle, then tighten my arms around her soft body, pulling her soft curves into my hardness, burying my face in the crook of her neck, inhaling her scent. Sensual feminine perfume and an undertone that’s only her. “I missed you.” My voice is muffled against her skin or she would hear a trace of the excruciating pain I’ve been carrying for so long it’s become a part of me.
Although her gestures are at first cautious, even hesitant, Alima wraps her arms around me and holds me close. I feel Alima rest the side of her face over my short-buzzed hair. Her breathing is ragged, as if she were crying again.
“Hey, hey, hey no more tears,” I whisper softly, pulling her down for another kiss. I take her mouth long, wet and deep, the salty taste of her sorrow mixing in. It doesn’t take long before her moans of pleasure and my hungry grunts feel the space once more.
But then she abruptly pushes me away. “No, Luca. Fuck you! You can’t come back after five fucking years and expect to just pick up where we left off. I have a life, and I’ve been doing just fine without you.”
She sits back against the door, wiping at her face. Still the most beautiful thing I’ve ever laid eyes on.
“Where were you? Why haven’t I heard from you? What have you been up to?” Each question is paired with an angry poke to my chest.
I inhale deeply, wrapping my hand around her finger and pulling her back into my chest. She fights me at first then comes into my arms, her fisted hands still weakly hitting my chest.
“I hate you,” she says in a broken voice.
“No you don’t,” I answer, laying a kiss at her temple and filling my lungs with her soothing scent.
“You ruined me, Luca. You took everything, all my love, all I had to offer and skipped town with it.”
“I didn’t, sweetheart. I told you I’d come back.”
“Five years, Luca? Five fucking years? What do you take me for? A nun? A doormat?” Alima demands to know. The fire is back in her eyes.
“I needed this, baby. I needed to prove myself, to build something for us.”
“Fuck you, Luca! I needed you here, by my side. Not God knows where, doing whatever the fuck, with whomever…” her voice cracks again.
“No, Allie…”
She interrupts me. “Do you know there was never anyone else? That’s how stupid I am. I never fell in love again. Never slept with another man… so fucking stupid.”
I frame her face between my hands and coo softly: “I haven’t been with anyone else.”
The curtain of her hair parts when she raises her gaze back to meet mine. “Is that true?”
I nod. “I could never do that to us.”
She pulls a tissue out of her small purse, cleans her face, then lays her head in the crook of my shoulder. “I think I’m tired of being in a moving vehicle. Did you ask your driver to just go around?”
I let out a small laugh. “Yeah, it sounded safer than going to the restaurant.” I press the side of my bearded jaw against her hair.
“Uh… did we even have a reservation?”
“Of course we did. What do you take me for?”
She throws me a sassy grin, telling me she knows exactly what type of crook I am.
“Wanna come to my place?” Alima asks almost shyly.
“Thought you’d never offer,” I reply with a mixture of hope and nervousness.
Alima
We’re sitting on my living room couch. Luca dropped the tux jacket and rolled up the sleeves of his crisp white button-down. His muscular forearms, covered in a thin layer of fair hair, deserve a prime spot in an arm porn ranking. I love the short fuzz of hair he’s sporting, and the luscious, neatly trimmed beard. He looks totally badass and absolutely delicious. I made us coffee, but our mugs sit on the coffee table untouched. All we care about is being in the presence of each other. Our hands can’t seem to believe we’re in each other’s reach. A graze of a finger away. A brush of lips. A deep inhale to feel our nostrils with the other’s scent. The lick of a tongue to get drunk on their amazing taste.
I’m sitting in Luca’s lap, in his arms, my legs dangling over his powerful thighs. I feel the press of his erection against my ass, but first we have to talk.
“How do you have the money to buy Mama’s house?”