Chapter Twelve
He who is loved by a woman is fortunate and rich.
—Italian proverb
Tad DeLuca is in my bed.
She mouthed it again in the dark like a demented mime.
Tad DeLuca is in my bed.
Sleeping soundly, after she had worn the poor guy out ordering him about. So it had been a while for her—a long, lonely while—and she had a guy revered by women throughout the Chicagoland metro area for his beautiful jaw and his well-shaped glutes. She had the guy in her bed for one night only and she planned to get her value.
Boy, did she.
Jules’s gaze took in the finest streak of male she had ever seen, illuminated by soft light from the street. The sheet, wrinkled and mussed from their exertions, did a poor job of covering him. The smooth curve of his tight arse peeked above the hem, his strong arms embraced the pillow, and the muscles of his back stretched taut, revealing long striations shading the ladder of his spine. He looked peaceful and pliable, though she knew neither was true.
An hour ago, she had watched as his body twitched through a turbulent dream. After a minute of tossing, she had tried to wake him with no luck. Finally, he rolled over to his front with a murmur of “I’m sorry” and went back to the Land of Nod.
Now she wanted him again. It was four a.m. and her one-night stand was snoring softly, and she wanted to feel him inside her. She wanted to grip his cock with her now-sore muscles and imprint him on her body. She wanted his thick hair rubbing against her skin, inducing a delicious state of shiverhood.
How was she ever going to get past this? All those years she had given herself to any guy who smiled at her, who showed her the slightest interest. The brief attention had been reward enough. Even with Simon, her pleasure had been an afterthought. Not so with Tad. He had worshipped her with his body. Every brush of his mouth against her skin felt like an offering. Every thrust of his hips against hers felt like a gift.
And now she was supposed to go back to the murky-as-crap dating pool after that?
“You’re thinking,” she heard from the pillow beside her.
She was glad the dark masked her smile. “Of course I’m thinking. Sentient being and all that.”
“You’re thinking really loudly. Loud enough to wake me up.” His sleep-softened voice sent another wave of lust crashing over her. Mr. Intuitive must have felt that because he turned over and pulled her into the long, lean heat of his body.
“You okay, bella?”
No, she was not. She was teetering on the edge of something, maybe on the edge of telling him something. About Simon. About her lies. About what she needed more than anything. Dangerous thoughts that would acquire a raw power if she spoke them aloud.
Keeping her composure here seemed like the best play. She nuzzled his jaw, that rough swatch of stubble.
Because that helps.
“Tell me we’ll be fine,” she whispered against the beat at the base of his throat.
The words sat between them, solid as heavy objects.
“Do you want us to be?”
She thought about what he meant. Of course she did, didn’t she? But maybe she wanted to blow them up. Take what was happening here and throw all her chips on red seven.
“Yes,” she whispered because she was a coward.
“Then we will be,” he said with all the confidence of a man who had just taken a woman to places previously unknown and knew it. “I need you again. I feel like I’ve run a marathon but I can’t stop myself.” His mouth found hers and worked her lips slowly, torturously.
“I know,” she said. “My muscles are screaming at me but I’m shutting the little buggers down.”
“Stupid muscles.”
He leaned his body over hers and slipped his hand between her legs to dispense paradise from his fingers. His face was a canvas of smooth planes and astonishing angles, his dark beauty focused on her for this one moment. On this one perfect night, she was the center of his world and tomorrow could go to hell.
“Any chance you might have some condoms lying around, you hussy? I used up the three I brought.”
“Sorry. Despite what my brother thinks, I wasn’t planning to open a brothel as soon as I got the new drapes up.” She arched into his hand, ensuring more friction. “We’ll have to improvise.”
“Shower caps? Sandwich bags? Ziplocs? They’d have to be the gallon size.”
“I’m sure snack size would fit just fine.” She took him in her hand, palming the impressive measurements that didn’t need her verbal approval. Both heads—big and little—were already far too large.
“You sure know how to wound a guy.” He pulled her astride him as if she were a rag doll. “I’m going to have to punish you.”
His thumbs parted her like he was breaking apart orange segments. Soft strokes pulled on every sensitive nerve, holding off on touching her core.
“What does this punishment involve?”
“Taking you slow. Doing you right. Pushing you to the edge and pulling you back until you’re begging me to finish you. I’m going to ruin you for your vibrator, Jules Kilroy.”
“I’d like to see you try,” she moaned, already gone.
The shadows couldn’t hide the light in his eyes. Challenge taken.
“Take a swivel, honey. Let’s be efficient and take care of each other.”
And they did. For the next hour, he continued in his mission to furrow soul-deep ruts in her body and mind. Every motion, murmur, suck, and kiss spiraled her desire higher until she broke open over and over again.
Ruined, just as he promised.
* * *
The buzz created its own world. Men in uniforms, hands resting casually on the guns at their hips, caressing them like lovers. The buzz up ahead in the corridor, like a fly in a trap. Buzz to let him pass from the bowels of the dank, institutional building into the gray hallway with peeling paint. Buzz again as he climbed higher to the interview rooms of the CPD Seventh District. The door opened and—
He jerked awake.
Full consciousness crept up on him slowly. The dream was always more vivid at this time of year, as if his Circadian rhythms could tell cherry blossoms were on the branches and the girls would start wearing short skirts any day now. More likely, his conscience was on a timer and the ticking to zero hour was running the show. He had thought that after what happened last night, the dream might stay hidden in a dark corner of his mind. A mind-blowing lay can do a lot of things but apparently it can’t perform miracles.
He flicked a glance to his left at the clock that read 6:15 a.m. Flicked another glance to the right and frowned. He added a testing hand to find warm, sex-ruffled bed sheets, but no warm, sex-ruffled woman.
Damn.
Off in the direction of the kitchen, the soft clinks of crockery meshed with a bass line beat from the radio, announcing the start of the day in Chicago. Before he’d moved to Hyde Park during his freshman year, those domestic sounds had eased him into the morning. Vivi liked to make her presence known downstairs, creating as much noise as possible because she knew it annoyed the f*ck out of him.
Oh, did I wake you, Taddeo? Well, you’re up now. Come make the coffee.
For the first time in forever, that memory didn’t split his heart into icy shards. He stretched and crossed his arms behind his neck, thinking about the new memories he had created a few hours ago. God, he felt good. His body was sore, understandable given how long it had been since he’d had sex, or sex that strenuous. Hot, dirty, no-holds-barred sex. The complete opposite to how a casual friends-with-benefits scenario was supposed to play out. No, this wasn’t how he had imagined sex with his sweet, girl-next-door friend.
It was a million times better.
With Jules.
He whispered the secret words, barely loud enough to take up a puff of air in the room. “With Jules.” Sounded good. Sounded better than good.
They had fit so well together, not that he’d had any real doubts, but sometimes you build something up in your head and the reality cheats the fantasy. Not here, though. The reality was infinity times better.
She wasn’t afraid to ask for what she wanted, either, and he liked to think she had built up a few ideas in her head as well. A highlight reel of what they had done last night re-played in his head. When she came back in here, he was going to get her to do that thing with her—
Later. He needed to take a leak and not be such a horn dog first thing in the morning. From the sounds of it, Jules was making breakfast, though he doubted any food or beverage could possibly match the burst of energy he’d get just by seeing her sunshine grin. After taking care of business, he sauntered toward the kitchen, ready to start a little somethin’-somethin’. His dick was wide awake and zeroing like a homing pigeon in on its destination.
“Mornin’, bella, you ready for me?”
“Taddeo Gianni DeLuca, where did you spring from?”
Aw, shit.
His aunt Sylvia filled a seat at the kitchen table, her eyes bugging out over her coffee cup. Thank Christ he had put on his briefs but still, this was his aunt they were talking about.
Buon giorno, de-rection.
Jules had frozen with a spoonful of what looked like mashed-up banana and Nutella halfway to Evan’s mouth. Her mouth dropped open, but it didn’t stop her perusal of his barely clad body. Some things just can’t be ignored. However, she beat him silly in the hot-morning-after stakes with a scrap of fabric that barely passed for shorts and gorgeous braless breasts that strained at a gossamer-thin tank.
“Sylvia dropped Evan over on her way to Mass,” she said with a deep breath that moved those breasts in a way that had to be illegal. And you’re standing there half-naked, she accused with those iridescent green eyes.
“You never said you had company,” Sylvia cut in, her gossipy glee impossible to disguise. “This is great news. I’ve had my eye on you two for a while.”
“No news, Syl.” Jules handed Tad a dishtowel, then changed her mind and switched it out for an apron. He gave her a look of, what the f*ck am I supposed to do with this? She gave him a look of infinite patience.
“Tad overindulged at the opening so he stayed over after he walked me home.”
Sylvia curved her gaze past him to the living room, her towering bouffant swaying precipitously. The kids liked to joke that it housed boozy Smurfs.
“I don’t see any bed linens on the sofa.”
Jules returned to feeding Evan, who was talking baby babble about bananas. “Funny story there. I know everyone has been expecting Tad and I to get together and last night…”
Sylvia leaned forward.
“I was all primed and ready…”
Sylvia nodded several times in encouragement.
“But he couldn’t, well, you know…” Jules shaded her mouth with one hand and said in a stage whisper, “Perform.”
He wrenched his head so quickly he winced.
“Excuse me?”
“You don’t remember, babe, but you were pretty bladdered. The spirit was willing but the flesh was oh so weak.” She made an up-down gesture with her hand that seemed to indicate… “Flaccid.”
That was not the word he was going for.
Sylvia’s eyes were on stalks.
“So he’s all talk and—?”
“Small, useless appendage.”
Sylvia tutted and walloped him in the side. He didn’t even flinch because that was her standard manner of showing affection.
“You have a beautiful woman, ready and willing, and what do you do? Let the DeLuca name down and can’t fulfill your end of the bargain.”
Oh, for f*ck’s sake. The bargain had been fulfilled, over and over again. All night, she had been right there with him, alternating between satisfying his starving cock and begging him to feast on her honeyed heat. No part of his anatomy had even flirted with “flaccid.”
“Now hold up a second. I am more than capable—”
Jules waved a hand, countermanding his defense.
“Tad, love, nobody thinks any less of you for it. I’m sure these things happen all the time. I mean, it’s the first time I’ve encountered it, but I’m sure once you sober up it’ll be fine.”
Sylvia’s face lit up. “Betsey Corrigan’s boy just got out of a messy divorce. No kids, grazie di Dio. Taddeo, you remember Johnny Corrigan from your days as an altar boy? Don’t you think he’d like to meet a bella donna like Julietta?”
Tad scoffed. “That guy was such a Goody Two-shoes. Little p-ssy was afraid to get toasted on the communion wine with the rest of the crew.”
A quirk of amusement crossed Jules’s lips. “Communion wine?”
“Had to start my love for the grape somewhere.”
Their gazes locked. Held. Turned to heat and smoke that curled through his blood.
Jules blinked owl-like and nodded to the kitchen clock hanging above the counter. “Bet Cassie Shaughnessy is going all out with her walker to get into the front pew, Syl.”
His aunt dropped her coffee cup as if it were coated in killer African bees and shot out of her seat. “I had no idea it was so late!”
Sylvia and the Widow Shaughnessy were engaged in what could best be described as a to-the-death battle for the soul of Father Phelan. The prime real estate of the front pew at St. Jude’s was Ground Zero.
Before his aunt left, she appraised him with a shake of her head. “You must do better, Taddeo. Someone will snap her up.”
“Yes, Aunt Sylvia,” he said, suitably admonished, and gave her a kiss on the cheek.
“Must. Do. Better,” Jules said, poking his chest for emphasis before walking his meddling aunt out.
Tad picked up the plate of banana-chocolate mush and helped himself. Not bad. Evan’s face lit up at the prospect of someone new to play with and Tad’s heart lifted right with it. The kid had a great personality. Playful, smart, and always reaching for the stars with his chubby fists. Not unlike his beautiful, bangin’ mom.
“Tad!” Evan shouted. “Banana banana.”
“That’s right, buddy. Time to eat it all up.”
Not for the first time, Tad considered Evan’s father. It was the one area of his relationship with Jules that was out of bounds. She never talked about him, and the fact she had concealed his identity from Jack pissed off her brother royally. Frankly, anything that pissed off Jack was A-okay with him, but her secrecy had Tad curious. The a*shole must have bailed when he found out about Evan. What a f*cking dick.
Tad knew in his heart that, despite having enough baggage to fill multiple 747 cargo holds, he would never abandon a woman who gave birth to his child. He’d want to be part of his kid’s life: the baseball games, the algebra, the awkward sex talk, the works. In a way, he was glad this duty-shirker was out of the picture because Tad didn’t like to share. He’d heard Evan’s first cry. He’d seen his girl’s face when she met her son for the first time. He’d felt the love of instant connection with a brand new human being.
Those memories belonged to him and him alone. He wanted to create more just like them with this woman and her beautiful kid, who more often than not felt like his beautiful kid.
With Tad off in la-la land, Evan grabbed at the spoon and got his hands filled with mush for his trouble. Soaking a washcloth under the faucet, Tad took a moment to appreciate how Jules had made the kitchen her own. Culinary-themed engravings and woodcuts dotted the walls above counters bordered with colorful cookie jars and kitchen utensils. A few well-worn cookbooks claimed space in the corner by the stove. This place had a good aura. Lili and Jack had fallen in love here, followed by Shane and Cara while they played kissing neighbors with each other across the hall. Now Jules was here, forging ahead with her life and taking charge of her destiny. The vision of her blazing expression last night as she announced her plan to take what she needed and fight for what was hers grabbed him by the throat. No one had ever telegraphed her passion quite like Jules.
This woman was the real deal.
The last thing he expected to see arrested his gaze and sent his pulse into a dangerous spike. Slotted among a block of books on the counter behind Evan’s high chair, it looked surprisingly at home.
Vivi’s recipe book.
He had assumed Gina had it, but he realized that Frankie or Lili must have been keeping it safe all these years. Now it was in this place with the one person who could appreciate it and fulfill all the promise within those precious pages. His chest felt too full, his blood surged with the rightness of it. His mom was here, mentoring another budding chef.
He swallowed away the rock of emotion and wiped Evan’s sticky pudding hands. Looking up, he found Jules in the doorway with a pensive expression on her face that morphed into a smart ass grin.
“Your mom thinks she’s hilarious, Evs. Did you enjoy raking my hard-won reputation over the coals, you minx?”
“Immensely. Serves you right for waltzing in here in all your glory and giving her an eyeful.”
All his glory. Hell, that made a man feel good.
“She’s seen it all before,” he said. “She used to give me baths when I was a kid. Very thorough.”
Her grin turned impossibly wider, chasing away the last shreds of any remaining reservation. He felt that smile down to his toes. Stepping in close, she took over cleaning duties for Evan. Tad absorbed the scent of their happy little triumvirate into his bloodstream, something unique that the three of them created together.
This was happening.
“And there I was thinking the morning after might be awkward,” he said, testing.
“You don’t think your aunt showing up is awkward enough?”
“Nah, we made her matchmaking dream come to life. If only for a few magical seconds.” Their gazes tangled for a moment until Evan squealed because the adults weren’t focused on him.
Jules sighed. “Time to get you cleaned up, monkey. And that goes for you as well, Taddeo Gianni DeLuca.”
He tried to steal a kiss but she ah-ah’ed him with a significant glance at Evan.
“Let’s keep it PG.”
“Impossible with you in the room. My head is filled with Triple X.”
“Boy, those lines don’t improve the next day.”
He nipped her shoulder. “You’re the mint in my mojito, the honey to my bee…”
“Oh, hush.” But she was smiling as she said it.
As he headed back to the bedroom to dress, he mused on how terribly that could have gone. It was a risk he had been willing to take because his reptile brain had taken over and he was a greedy motherf*cker. He wanted her and he had decided that the prospect of not having her body was worse than the prospect of not having her as a friend.
But there was more to this than friendship-risking lust. Frankie’s words echoed in his Jules-addled brain: You have a right to be happy, Taddeo.
Jules made him happy and he suspected the feeling might be mutual. Stepping out of the shadows and choosing life had never felt so right. And with Vivi’s cookbook in the house, it felt like his mom was looking down, giving her blessing.
Five minutes later, he was following her hot little tail as it twitched in those skimpy shorts all the way to the front door. Last night, he’d grasped that curvaceous ass of hers, molded it, owned it. He wanted to do it again, but for now he settled for grasping with his eyes.
“Well…” she said, her hand on the doorknob.
“Well.”
“These situations can be tricky, so it’s great that we were able to handle it with such…” She waved her hand, seeking the right word.
“Maturity?” he offered.
“Yes, maturity.” She looked at his mouth, and her mouth twitched, and his mouth twitched right back.
He leaned in. She leaned back.
Okaaay.
A thoughtful look came over her. “Sex conjures up all sorts of feelings that sometimes we’re not ready to deal with, you know?”
He nodded, content to let her lead. They could take it slow, take it fast, take it up the middle. He didn’t care as long as he got the chance to bury his body between those beautiful thighs in the very near future. And he wanted to hang with her and Evan more, maybe share his favorite recipes from his mom’s cookbook. Connecting with Jules like they had last night was the perfect amulet against the dark cloud that threatened to engulf him.
“You’ve no idea how nice it was to get back on the horse in a safe environment. With a friend.”
He nodded again before realizing he had jumped the gun. He tried to parse that statement but the words “nice”, “horse,” “safe,” and “friend” jumbled in his brain and refused to compute. A niggle started up somewhere in the vicinity of his lungs.
“Get back on the horse?”
She smiled again, and the niggle turned into a full-scale body nag. “It’s been a while. Well, you know that.”
Right, because he was her friend. Her nice, safe, horse-providing friend.
“And getting into this dating business, I was seriously worried I’d make a shambles of it.”
The surprise on his face must have been obvious because she added, “Make a shambles of sex,” as if what they were talking about needed clarification.
“I don’t think it was a shambles,” he said quietly. Best sex of his life, nothing shambolic about it.
She laughed and it sort of grated. That was a first.
“Oh, no, I don’t think it was. In fact, it was a great way to dust off the cobwebs. The last person I was with was Evan’s father and since then I haven’t always felt at my most attractive. There’s always been a spark between us, so it’s good we’ve done it and got it out of our systems.”
“I suppose so,” he muttered, unbelievably pissed that she had mentioned Evan’s father in the same sentence as her brush off. Because that’s exactly what he was getting. The old heave-ho.
In his confused fog, it took him a moment to notice that she had opened the door and stuck her head out for reconnaissance. With her other hand, she pulled him toward the doorway. The electric tingle where she touched his forearm shot through him before short-circuiting in the acid bath of his stomach.
“You really did help, Tad. Now, I can get serious about dating and not worry that the first time in a while will be all fingers and thumbs.” She smiled beatifically and pulled the door open wider. “Well, we can hope, right? At least I won’t show myself up. Thanks for being a pal.”
“Sure,” he mumbled. There was a whole lot of mumbling going on. He had no choice but to step across the threshold, feeling a touch raw about the whole situation. Was it his imagination or was the hallway cooler? He turned back to find her closing the door.
“Oh,” she said, peeking her angelic head through the quickly evaporating gap.
“Yeah?” Shit, did his voice just break there?
Discomfort brushed across her face. “This isn’t going to be awkward, is it? I mean, if you’d rather I didn’t work at Vivi’s…”
“Of course not. I’ll be—we’re fine. Just fine.” It’s all good, honey. We’re just fine.
She gave a serene smile. “Oh, good. Because I’m enjoying it so much. You’ve no idea what a world it’s opened for me.”
“Glad to help.” With your all-round confidence and sexual tune-up. The bathroom stall doors were right. This was where his talents lay. Easy. Casual. Every muscle in his body strained over his efforts to keep it so damn casual.
“Catch you later, babe,” she said, still with the regal smile before shutting the door on his frozen grin.