The next second he was catching Luci on attack, arm around her belly, and hauling her back.
“Babe,” he said in her ear, plastering her to his front.
“Get the fuck out of here!” she screamed at his mother.
“Honey,” he whispered.
“You have no business here. You have no business even looking at this magnificent man! Go! Leave! And don’t ever come back!”
This magnificent man.
Nice.
“George?”
His mother’s call was tremulous.
He forced Luci behind him and shut the door enough his body was fully blocking the opening. He felt Luce at his back, and he looked into his mother’s eyes.
“Two choices,” he stated. “Leave. Or cops.”
Then he stepped back, pushing Luci with him, and shut the door.
He locked it.
He turned, hands clamped on Luci’s waist, and shuffled her backwards.
“She dares!” she shouted, heated gaze laser-aimed at the door.
“Cool it, Luce.”
“She saw us in the papers. We were in the papers. Massimo told me. So, she dares.”
He pressed her against the back of the couch. “Luciana. Look at me.”
She turned blazing eyes to him. “She’s ugly! Hideous! That woman is not your mother.”
His mom was actually a good-looking woman.
He didn’t debate that.
“Baby.” He got in her face. “Calm down.”
She hissed in a breath.
Hap took her in.
“Christ, serious as fuck, I pretty much need to fuck you really motherfucking hard right now. Prepare, Luci, you’re not gonna be able to move for a week,” he announced.
Luci blinked.
“Get upstairs. Get naked. I’ll put away the food and be up ASAP,” Hap ordered.
“But, she’s—”
“She doesn’t exist, Luce. She is not of our world. This,” he squeezed her waist, “and this,” he took her hand and pressed it flat to his chest, “is our world. Now are you gonna get naked, or what?”
“You . . . you’re not angry,” she observed.
“What do I have to be angry about?”
She stared at him.
“And anyway,” he continued, “you flying at her like an Italian she-devil is anger enough for the both of us.”
Her lips twitched.
He fought a grin.
He stopped fighting his grin when he realized she wasn’t doing as she’d been told.
“Baby, a man’s woman moves to take down his estranged, middle-aged mother on his doorstep, he gets in a certain mood,” he educated her. “You gonna help me out with that?”
She sounded a lot calmer when she offered, “I can help you put away the food first.”
“And take away me knowing you’re waiting for me naked in my bed? I don’t think so.”
She added her other hand to his chest, leaned in and whispered, “I love you, Happy.”
“Not as much as I love you.”
“I have a feeling I love you more.”
Hap looked deep into her eyes and stated, “Luciana, that would be impossible.”
Her eyes got wet and she sniffed.
“Go upstairs,” he ordered quietly.
“Okay, bello.”
He touched his lips to hers.
She slid her hands up to either side of his neck and gave him a squeeze.
Then she let him go, sidled out from in front of him, and he turned to watch her strut like she was on a catwalk (her normal gait) to his stairs.
When he lost sight of her, he put away the food. Made sure the back door and door to the garage were locked. He turned out the lights. Went to the front door and opened it.
No mom.
No car.
His mom or dad, you mention cops, they didn’t fuck around.
They vaporized.
He didn’t give it a thought.
He closed and locked the door.
Then he walked up the stairs to his woman.
His girl.
Luci.
Life Was Beautiful
Luci
SHE HAD HIM in her mouth, her hand wrapped around him working him too, her other hand cupping his sac, gently squeezing.
She lifted her eyes and felt a spasm all over, but stronger in one particular place, as she saw him on his ass with his broad back to the headboard, his legs spread, knees cocked, feet to the bed, his powerful arms lifted over his head, holding on, his eyes dark and hungry and locked on her.
He wasn’t holding on to the headboard as one of their games.
He was holding on to have an unobstructed view of her work.
“Come ’ere,” he growled.
Gaze still to his, sucking hard, Luci pulled up, following the movement with a tight stroke of her hand, giving his balls a firm squeeze, and she watched the muscles strain in his pecs, his neck, one jumping in his hard jaw, those in his biceps bunching.
“Luciana, come here,” he ordered thickly.
She licked the tip, showing him her taking in his pre-climax pearl of offering.
His expression intensified, his gaze burning.
“Luce,” he warned.
She let him go and climbed up.
Or more aptly, climbed on.
Except to wrap his arms around her, Hap didn’t change his position at all.
As she knew he would do, he let her fuck him for a time, taking it, enjoying it, watching her do it.
Then he took her to her back and made her orgasm there before he let her watch him do the same.
For her part, Luci hastened this by digging her nails in his ass and dragging them up his back, forcing him to arch into her, fill her completely, and explode inside her with a rough, muted roar.
After, she held him close.
He nuzzled one side of her neck with his mouth as he stroked the other side with his thumb.
Eventually, he moved his lips to the hinge of her jaw. “I’m gonna go check.”
Of course he was.
“All right, amore.”
He lifted his head and looked into her eyes.
But his eyes.
Dio mio, he was handsome.
“You gonna snooze?” he asked.
Of course she was.
She smiled at him.
He grinned, kissed her nose, then took her mouth and kissed her there, long, wet and sweet.
He pulled out and away, tossing the soft sheet over her as he left their bed.
Hap walked naked to the bathroom.
She rolled to watch and only when he disappeared did she stretch languidly and turn to her other side.
He came back, and she felt the bed depress with his weight at her back, felt his arm move under the sheet and heard his quiet, “Tip, baby, yeah?”
She did and closed her eyes, her lips curling when she felt the warm cloth move between her legs as he washed her.
“All good?” he asked when the cloth went away.
“Yes.”
She felt his lips skim the point of her shoulder. “Love you, Luce.”
“Love you too, Happy.”
He moved away.
Luci’s eyes opened, drifted closed, opened again, and then closed as she fell back to sleep.
She opened her eyes and the first thing she saw was her left hand laying on the butter-yellow sheet.
On it was a band of diamonds, three tiered, the two outer layers, the stones were small, the inner layer, they were much larger, all of this set in yellow gold.
No engagement ring.
She didn’t want one.
Hap had not been happy.
It took some time to explain she wasn’t making a point, it was that she wanted their marriage rings to symbolize the exquisite simplicity of their lives.
They’d chosen lovely, matching narrow bands.
But on the day, when Kia had handed her the band she was to put on Hap in that precious moment, it had been far wider, bolder.