You want me. I’m right here.
What did that mean?
“I just want you to know that the Hap you had before we started banging didn’t go anywhere,” he went on, a teasing tone now in his deep voice. “I’m there for you, babe. To eat your breakfasts and put up with you tellin’ me I was hot even when I was sixteen and had shit for brains and a farmer’s tan,” he gave her hand a squeeze, “or however you need me to be there for you.”
“You were a very handsome young man, caro,” she retorted.
“I was full of piss and bullshit and didn’t learn a woman could have an orgasm until I was nineteen and the woman I’d just banged laid into me for being a selfish fuck and kicked my ass out of her bed. So thanks, but you don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Luci was now staring at his profile with a different reaction.
“You didn’t know a woman could have an orgasm until you were nineteen years old?”
He shook his head. “Nope.”
“Incredibile,” she whispered.
“Nothin’ incredible about it.”
“That means more ‘unbelievable,’” she shared.
“Ah,” he murmured, now grinning.
“I’m very glad this woman kicked you out of her bed, Hap.”
That made him roar with laughter.
She enjoyed watching him do that, and further enjoyed him doing it holding her hand, his fingers tensing around hers with his humor, but the minute his laughter turned to chuckles, she asked, “Did your grandfather not teach you these things?”
“Babe, I grew up on a farm. We had a couple of cows when I was younger, always had dogs. When I was maybe nine, one of our dogs went into heat, the other one was rutting with her and Gramps said, ‘That’s the way a baby’s made, boy.’ He didn’t sound comfortable, even with just that. For me, I had no clue what he was talking about, but I knew I didn’t want anything to do with the whole business. That was the beginning and end of my sex education until the not very comprehensive shit they shared in sex ed at school. That is, outside me hitting thirteen and finding a titty magazine under my pillow. I don’t know who was behind that, Gramps or Gram. Whatever, it opened a whole world for me because I didn’t even know I could have an orgasm until I jacked off to that magazine. I had no idea what to do with the hard-ons I’d been getting. One look at a pair of tits, it hit me. Thank fuck jacking off came naturally.”
Luci laughed softly but she did it feeling something good and right fill her belly that had nothing to do with Hap being funny.
It was because Hap was being just that.
Hap.
Open and frank and amusing and self-deprecating in a way that was uniquely his and singularly charming.
“You?” Hap asked.
She faced forward saying, “Oh, I’m Italian. We’re far more candid about many things, including sexuality. When I was young, maybe eleven, I walked in on an older cousin having sex with a waiter at one of my other cousin’s weddings. I told my father about it and he said, ‘Bellisima, that is making love and it’s not for you for now, but when it’s your time, it’s the most beautiful thing in the world.’”
“Definitely better than Intro to Sex: Two Dogs Fucking,” Hap drawled, making Luci giggle.
“Yes. Definitely,” she agreed. “Though I often looked back at that and realized my father was right. They were standing up and many would think it was sordid, but my cousin, Giorgia, had this expression on her face that was most attractive, and the man she was with was very handsome. They had no idea I was there, the moment was intense, there was only the other for them in it. She likely never saw him again, but she undoubtedly thought of him . . . fondly.” She turned again to face Hap. “But because of that, and what my father said, when my time came, I didn’t fear it. This is how I’d like to teach my children about making love. Obviously, I’d prefer they not see the act prior to me explaining its importance. But I would not ever want to make them feel it was base or shameful.”
“You’re talking to a dude who grew up in the Bible belt, Luce.”
Oh dear.
“And?” she prompted.
His glance her way was longer this time before he looked back to the road. “It’s not shameful, and I wouldn’t want any of my kids to feel it was. Though there’s a right time to talk about that, and I wouldn’t want them to be anything but kids until that time was right. But if my baby girl got an eyeful before she was ready to process that in an adult way, I’d lose my goddamn mind.”
That did not make her feel good and right in her belly.
That made her feel fiery and greedy and fiercely possessive. It made her want to crawl to him and take his mouth in a kiss that he’d remember the rest of his days.
Obviously, she could not do that as he was driving.
“Do you want children, bello?” she whispered.
“Yeah, baby,” he whispered back.
Luci licked her lips and rubbed them together while she turned her gaze again to look out the windshield.
His hand squeezing hers did not make her look back because it felt like the warning it would turn out to be when he spoke.
“We feel different because we’ve known each other awhile, Luce, and because from when this started to where we are now took some time. But we’re new, honey. Don’t lose sight of that. You with me?”
She was not.
They were not new.
She knew new.
Hap had practically crusted her red sauce with freshly grated parmesan before handing her the bowl of pasta he’d made for her the night before. He did this without asking. And he did this because he knew she liked it like that.
That was not new.
The discovery he was exceptionally talented at cunnilingus was new.
They were not.
She understood the nuance he wanted her to understand.
She simply refused to allow it to hold her back.
No.
Them back.
“Babe, you with me?” he pushed.
She turned again to look at him and took a risk she knew was grave.
But he was open and frank and this was too important.
He deserved that in return.
“I will not hide the fact I’m falling in love with you, George Cunningham.”
His fingers flexed hard around hers, nearly causing pain.
However, she was not finished.
“And you would not be with me if you didn’t feel the same. So yes, I do understand this new facet of us is very young. But the most important part of anything we will ever have is being friends, and that is not. I’ve loved you for a long time, Hap. That feeling is simply deepening to something fuller and richer, and I will not hide that I’m beside myself with happiness that it is.”
“You’re killin’ me, Luci,” he muttered, and she looked at him closely to see he did, even in profile, appear in pain.
“How?” she asked, not able to hide the alarm in her tone.
He did not speak immediately. It was as if he needed time to measure his words, make certain the right ones came out.
She had no idea if they were right or wrong in his mind when they did.
She just knew what they were in her mind.
“You make it sound like we can do this.”
And he was making it sound like they couldn’t.
“Well, we can,” she snapped.
Another glance and, “Babe—”
“Sam will get on board, Hap, and if he doesn’t—”