Hap smiled at her while she did, loving the look, the feel, the knowledge it was him that gave her that, not wounding her, not pissing her off, not doing some shit thing that would lead to her having a bad day.
And again, you got something to give, something that means more than shoes and views to Luci, and you know it. And straight up look at her, she thinks this is gonna work because if you got your head out of your ass, you’d realize it might just work too.
“Are we having hamburgers again tomorrow night?” she asked into his thoughts.
“Hotdogs,” he lied.
“Fantastico!” she did not lie.
Christ.
Luci.
“Should we go downstairs and clean the kitchen?” she suggested.
“No,” he answered.
She smiled but through it asked another question. “Should we go downstairs and get ice cream?”
“Shit yes.”
Her smile got bigger.
He pulled her out of bed before he pulled on his sweats.
She pulled on his tee.
He’d seen her in some incredible clothes, but it was the God’s honest truth she looked best in that.
He was going to hold her hand (yeah, hold her fucking hand) to walk down the stairs.
In the end he didn’t because she jumped up on his back.
So he carried her down the stairs with his hands holding the backs of her thighs, her legs wrapped around his middle, her arms wrapped around his chest, her lips blathering nonsense in his ear, and her weight on his back.
And Hap knew he’d carry her like that across a desert to get ice cream. He’d carry her over a glacier.
He’d climb mountains with her on his back to take her to something she wanted.
He’d do anything to have her blathering nonsense in his ear, giving him her weight . . .
And getting her something she wanted.
The next morning Hap was not woken by the alarm.
He was woken with a hand wrapped around his cock that pulled him to his back.
Before he had his eyes open, he had Luci’s wet mouth around his rock-hard dick.
He then learned something phenomenal.
Luciana swallowed.
After she’d taken him there, she came up over him, gave him her weight and aimed a satisfied look in his probably a lot more satisfied face.
“Better?” she taunted.
Challenge declared.
Challenge accepted.
He rolled her to her back and returned the favor.
When he’d finished her off with his mouth, was on her and looking into her soft, hazy eyes, he finally answered.
“Yeah, babe. Better.”
Chicken and Biscuits
Luci
“BABE, I GOT something to go over with you.”
Luci—sitting beside Hap in his truck on Saturday morning, heading back to the beach and to their talk with Sam and Kia in the afternoon, after having such a delicious day yesterday starting with orgasms and her cooking him breakfast, and ending with Hap making them spaghetti, going through pictures of him growing up, telling stories that did not seem tortured as they had done, then making love before falling asleep—did not want to go over something with Hap.
Especially when whatever it was, he sounded serious about.
She’d gotten him to a good place. If he wasn’t exactly relaxed, he was no longer pushing her away.
She needed this easy, for now especially, as she was uneasy about what Sam’s response would be, but more, what Hap’s response would be to Sam’s response.
And she needed this easy for him so he’d be feeling the good of them together to its fullest before he faced whatever reaction Sam was going to have.
“What’s that?” she queried tentatively.
“Thursday.”
She turned her head to look at him. “Thursday?”
“What I pulled Thursday morning.”
Oh no.
They didn’t have to go back over that. That was good.
Wasn’t it?
She studied his profile seeing clearly it was not.
Merda.
“I’m not sure, caro, that we—” she began.
He interrupted her. “What I said, bringing Gordo into it, was uncool and we both know that. But what it did, making you go back there, talk about him and how you miss him and how you always will—”
“Hap—”
“I shouldn’t have done that to you.”
“It’s just fact,” she said softly. “And you would not feel the way you do about me if it wasn’t.”
“Yeah, I know,” he replied. “And you got a lifetime of that. A lifetime of that loss. I don’t need to be forcing it to the surface.”
“Bello—”
“I loved him too.”
She shut her mouth.
“You know that. I miss him too. Not like you, I get that. But I just want you to know I feel that, for me, for you, and I’m there even if we’re like we are right now. I’m there when that hits you, however you need me to be.”
Luci stared at Hap’s profile unable to speak.
She would not be able to do that. If the shoe was on the other foot, he had lost a wife he adored and was moving on with Luci, but he continued to mourn his wife’s passing in his way, she would need him to do that inside himself. To hide that from her. She was too possessive. Too selfish. She knew that about herself, even if she didn’t like it. She’d want to be a bigger person, a better person, and she might be able to hide her feelings from him to give him what he needed, but it would hurt.
She’d never offer it, as Hap would say, straight out.
But he meant it.
He meant every word.
“I would not be able to do that for you,” she blurted.
He glanced at her before looking back at the road. “Sorry?”
“I would want to, but I would find it difficult to support you in that way.”
“Seein’ as that’s not the way it is, you don’t have anything to worry about,” he replied.
That was not the point.
She didn’t belabor the point.
Dio, but she loved him.
“May I ask you something?” she requested.
“Shoot,” he invited.
“If it was the other way around, not you losing a woman you loved, but if I’d found you first, not Travis, and I had lost you, how would you feel if Travis and I found each other?”
“I’d want you to be happy.”
Not a moment’s hesitation.
Not one.
“Do you say that because you know how I was with Travis?” she pressed cautiously.
“I say that because I’d want you to be happy,” he repeated. Another glance to her before he looked back at the road. “Baby, why do you think I’m right here and you’re right there?”
Luci turned her eyes out the windshield but not her attention.
I’d want you to be happy.
Dear Lord, she was going to cry.
“Luce?” he called.
She swallowed and stated, “I would find it in me to support you through the loss of a woman you loved, however you needed me to support you.”
“Honey, look at me,” he urged, taking up her hand, pulling it to his thigh and holding it tight.
She looked to him and he must have felt it because he didn’t take his eyes off the road when he resumed speaking.
“That’s not where we are. As sweet as that is, we’ve got what we’ve got. That’s enough to deal with. There’s no point to this conversation because we are where we’re at and not anywhere else, and we got enough on our plates. It serves no purpose to take it anywhere else. You found Gordo. You lost Gordo. You want me. I’m right here. That’s where we are. Let’s just find our way through that minefield, yeah?”