Hold On to Me Page 17

  ‘Luca,’ Stella gasped. ‘This is really beautiful.’

  ‘I noticed you didn’t have any photos around here. Though you might put a shot of someone special in there. Or maybe your cat.’

  ‘I … I absolutely love it.’

  He sighed with what she took to be relief. ‘Good.’

  ‘But why did you …?’

  ‘Because it’s Christmas. And because I was hoping you’d accept my apology.’

  Stella stood on her tiptoes and kissed him. In an instant, an arm was around her and his mouth had urged her lips open, but she pulled back. This was not going to be rushed.

  ‘So I guess you made your excuses with your family?’ Stella carefully positioned the frame on the kitchen bench where she could see it, and then moved through to the kitchen. Luca followed her. She took one of the bottles of pinot grigio from the fridge and poured two glasses.

  ‘Nonna gave me the death stare but Mum and Dad seemed to buy it when I told them I had to go and see friends at Victor Harbor. Funny thing is, Anna gave me one of those big-sister looks when I left. I bet she thinks this is all her idea.’ He studied Stella’s face. ‘Have you actually said anything to her?’

  Stella almost snorted her wine. ‘Me? No. God, no.’ The only person she’d vaguely revealed anything to was Summer and she knew her friend would keep it in the vault.

  Luca considered the wine in his glass for a moment while he swirled it around. And she began to think about Anna’s reaction, his whole family’s reaction, to the kiss earlier that afternoon. She knew they’d all been watching. But no one had said a word to her about it for the entire afternoon. Had there even been knowing smiles from Julia and Lizzie? Not that she’d noticed, and she’d been hyperaware and on edge after that blow-me-away kiss she and Luca had shared in the bright sunshine on the deck. Could their silence be read as acceptance?

  ‘What do you think she’d say about this?’ She hesitated. ‘About … us?’

  Luca came closer; his sexy grin was addictive. ‘Is there an us yet? I wasn’t so sure until today. Thought I’d blown it by being a total fuckwit. Until that kiss.’

  ‘You almost did,’ she said. ‘But what do you think Anna would say about you and me? She’s my friend. A loyal customer. You’re her brother. Her younger brother.’

  ‘Stella.’ Luca shook his head slowly.

  She watched him, his chest rising and falling on a sigh, and she liked how he was watching her. Warm heat pooled in her belly.

  ‘What makes you more nervous? The brother or the younger?’

  She didn’t want to give him an answer.

  ‘Are you really hung up about the fact that I’m younger than you?’

  ‘No, I’m not.’

  ‘For someone who’s not, you talk about it a lot.’

  ‘Well, it’s kind of the elephant in the room, isn’t it?’ Stella gulped some wine. The stomping Dumbo in the room wasn’t so much about the difference in their ages, but about why he seemed to want her in the first place. Didn’t he look at her and see someone, if not old, at least older? Compared with all the fresh-faced and sleek women he must have known, what did he think when he looked at her? Sure, she’d kept herself nice, and most of the time she believed she looked damn good, but she was a woman like every other woman, with insecurities about her body, with laugh lines you could still see when she stopped laughing.

  Luca shook his head. ‘I don’t even know what that means.’

  Stella took a deep breath. ‘It means … it’s this huge thing between us which neither of us wants to acknowledge.’

  ‘Listen to me, Stella. It’s not a huge thing. It’s not a thing at all. I don’t need to acknowledge it because I don’t give a flying fuck how old you are.’

  She met his eyes and couldn’t contain her own smile. ‘Oh, you are such a liar.’

  ‘Want me to prove it?’

  When she looked into his eyes, saw the desire there, she realised that what had been growing between them had nothing to do with a number on a birth certificate. It was about two people who didn’t want to fight the pull of desire any more. This wasn’t going to be a quick fuck: Stella knew that. She already knew Luca better than that too. He was generous and loyal, and she’d met his family, and he would never fuck and run with someone who’d met his mother.

  So what did that make what they were about to do?

  What where they becoming to each other?

  Luca drained his wine glass and put it on the counter behind him. His hands were behind him, his palms resting on the counter. The move pushed his shoulders forward and bunched his shirt. She looked down at the sliver of dark skin exposed where it was loose.

  Her heart pounded behind her eyes and she felt slightly breathless. She knew they were close. And all it would take was a look, a word from her and she could have him.

  ‘Hey, Morelli Constructions.’

  He smiled again. ‘Yeah, Style by Stella?’

  ‘I have a confession to make.’

  His eyes shone with interest. ‘What’s that?’

  ‘I only got you a very small Christmas present.’ Stella dropped her chin and looked at him through her fringe. She slipped two fingers inside her bra and pulled out the foil package.

  He sucked in a breath. ‘Did you say “small”? That won’t cut it.’

  ‘I noticed,’ she said with a glance at the hard cock bulging in his trousers. ‘So I was thinking I need to make it up to you.’

  Luca stared at her mouth.

  She slowly narrowed the space between them, in the full realisation that she wasn’t just crossing the kitchen to him: she was crossing so many lines she couldn’t count them. She slowly unbuttoned his shirt, softly creased under her fingers. The top button popped open. Then the second and the third. The fourth and fifth. She gently tugged it open an inch or two. Inside, his dark chest hair and tanned skin; she swept her palms up over his pecs, up his chest and over his shoulders. She pushed his shirt away and it fell down his back, holding on like a tourniquet at his wrists where the cuffs were still buttoned. She let the feel of him, so smooth, seep into her for a moment as she listened while his breathing deepened. She met his eyes and lowered her mouth to his chest, kissed him with wet lips. When she found a flat nipple she licked it.

  Without breaking the look, Stella caressed her hands up the sides of his chest, savouring the ridges of muscles under her touch. His naked chest was all hers now. His beautiful, naked chest. That tattoo.

  She’d never been with a man who had a tattoo and she was curious. Stella caressed the decorated skin, expecting it to be raised, like a scar or a ridge on his skin. But it was smooth. She ran her fingertips down the vine. If she were to close her eyes, she wouldn’t know where skin and ink ended and began. So she did. Fluttered her eyelids closed and let her fingers read his skin, like Braille.

  She lowered her head, opened her mouth, darted her tongue out oh so slowly, and ran it along his skin, from the low curling vine tendril to the top where it met his nipple. He tasted so good and his hands found her hair, twisted it in his fingers.

  Luca moved closer, the line of his hard cock in his trousers pushing into her, pulsing and throbbing, and sending her body into waves of desire. He groaned. She felt his heart pound under her palm.

  ‘Stella,’ he groaned. He brought his hands to her face, one palm on each cheek. He reached around to her back, found the zip of her vintage dress and dragged it down. She shrugged out of it and he bent to suck at her nipple through the lace of her red bra. Then he unclipped it and tugged it away, taking each breast in his palm, fondling, feeling, until Stella was moaning from the pleasure of the tightness and the ache. When he let go and gripped her waist, effortlessly lifting her onto the kitchen bench, she gasped. Inside the ruffle of her dress, he found her red knickers; slipped his fingers inside the fabric and found her clit so quickly she threw her head back and called his name on a moan.

  He tugged at her knickers, inched them down her legs, and then she spr
ead wide for him, her hands pressed on the bench behind her, giving him the access he needed to make her come with his fingers and his thumb. She wrapped her legs around his hips and she moaned and squeezed her eyes shut and saw stars.

  ‘You are so fucking hot,’ he murmured into her neck.

  ‘Get your trousers off,’ she demanded and fought with his button and zip. He got there first, and when she tugged at the waistband and freed him from the bondage of his jocks, his cock sprang free.

  It had been so long, so long since she’d felt like that, been held like that, wanted that, that it exploded in her chest with a pounding heart and a clenching down lower, deep inside and so tight that she gripped around him, held his shoulders and panted in the agony of wanting him and the ecstasy of having him.

  Stella reached for him, pulled him close and moved her arse to the edge of the bench, opening up for him, and, when he was protected, he plunged inside her, over and over, and she hung on with everything she had, finding her bliss again when he came on a groan.

  Luca’s breath was hard and he was holding her so tight that his heartbeat beat a rhythm in her chest too.

  Stella was breathless, boneless. Shaken to her core.

  Luca found her mouth again, plunged his tongue into her for another ferocious kiss. She threw herself into it, her primal need for this man as unstoppable as breathing. This man. This younger man. This beautiful man.

  When she could breathe, she panted, ‘Merry Christmas.’

  His smile was brighter than any star on a tree.

  CHAPTER

  24

  Stella slowly blinked her eyes open against the bright morning light. She was bone weary, aching in places she’d forgotten even had nerve endings, and there was a naked man next to her who looked like he’d dipped himself in chocolate. And if she remembered rightly, through the post-incredible-sex brain fuzz she had going on, he’d tasted like it too. Luca was still sound asleep, lying flat on his stomach, his head on the pillow next to her, turned in her direction. One arm was above his head, the other in the space between them. She didn’t want to rouse him. She wanted to watch him without him knowing. She wanted to take in every detail. His sleepy eyes, his long dark lashes. The little laugh lines already forming. That mouth and his full lips. The hint of growth on his jaw that had given her a rash on the inside of her thighs. Just thinking about how he’d made her come had heat rushing through her again.

  She’d forgotten how good it was to have sex.

  Under her fine cotton sheet, she rested an open palm on her stomach and closed her eyes, trying to imprint on her memory the way it had felt when he’d kissed a slow trail down her body, from her breasts to her pubic hair and then to her clit. She clenched her thighs together, trying to hold on to the tingling feeling, and her fists clenched. She itched to reach out and touch Luca’s cool cheek, to trace a finger across his jaw and down his neck, across those shoulders to his strong arms.

  But she didn’t. While he slept, she could look at him and think over her good fortune at having met Luca Morelli and her decision to invite him into her bed. If she believed in god and all his angels, she would have thanked them for the gift of him. The merry Christmas gift of his fingers and his mouth and his amazing cock, and the three orgasms they’d given her.

  Luca roused. He didn’t open his eyes but he reached for her. His fingers moved smoothly across her belly, exploring, teasing with his fingertips, until he found her left breast and cupped it in his palm, gently fondling her until her nipple tightened. Then he nestled close, his mouth on her neck, and he kissed her by her right ear.

  ‘Morning,’ he said, his voice husky in her ear. Just the sound of it was enough to set her on fire all over again.

  ‘Good morning.’

  He moved, draped a leg across hers, his hard thigh on her knee.

  ‘You good?’

  ‘Uh huh,’ Stella murmured. Good was not quite the right word for how she was feeling. She covered his forearm with her hand. He was warm, and the hairs there tickled her palm. ‘You?’

  He chuckled. ‘Like I just won the World Cup.’

  ‘Is that some sports thing?’

  ‘It’s the beautiful game, bella.’

  ‘I’m an Aussie Rules girl, myself.’

  He lifted his head slightly from the pillow and narrowed his eyes at her. ‘You’re kidding.’

  ‘Not kidding. What kind of a game is soccer anyway? All that waiting around—there are so few goals, it’s boring.’

  Luca buried his head in the pillow.

  She poked him in the ribs, on one of the vine leaves. ‘Soccer is … soccer is like hours of foreplay with no orgasm.’

  That got his attention. He pushed himself up and moved over her, his chest brushing against her breasts, his lips on her throat. ‘I like waking up in your bed, Stella. Especially with you in it.’

  ‘Morning-after manners. Nice,’ she said with a sigh. Then he moved lower, his lips on her breast, kissing and licking her there. Her body acted of its own free will. Her back arched, she closed her eyes and tilted her head back. There was a direct line from her nipple to her clit and both were burning for him. Oh god, she wanted him again. She reached an arm around him to push him away but only made it halfway, and splayed her fingers on his back instead, pulling him closer.

  Luca’s hand found her cheek and coaxed her face in his direction. His eyes searched hers, looking for an answer. He looked drowsy and hot. His hair was mussed, his eyes were only half open but that sliver of dark brown was focussed on her lips. She fumbled on her bedside table for another condom then opened her legs for him, welcomed him with her breath and her heat, so wet already she could smell it, and he stared right into her eyes as she arched against him and then he was inside her so hard and fast she gasped. He stopped at the sound, but she wasn’t hurting, just desperate for him, aching for him to fill her, so she dug her fingernails into his arse and urged him closer, closer, more, more, and he moved with a rhythm that made her giddy and desperate.

  Inside her head, she repeated his name over and over and over. She couldn’t say it out loud or admit anything or let him know how much she wanted him again because this was going to be fun, not forever.

  And she wanted to make the fun last for as long as possible.

  After, Luca moved beside her, draped a forearm over his eyes and didn’t move until his breathing settled into a calmer rhythm. She turned on her side, watched the rise and fall of his chest, the I’ve-just-got-laid smile on his face and the caramel tan all over his body. She was pretty sure she was wearing an I’ve-just-got-laid smile on her face too.

  ‘Damn,’ Luca said. He opened his eyes and looked at her. He laughed a laugh so natural, so uninhibited and so loud that it seemed to fill the room. He threw his hands behind his head and linked them together.

  ‘That is my favourite way to start the day,’ he said, and his eyebrows rose wickedly as he turned his face to her. ‘That and a double espresso.’

  ‘I can go make you a coffee if you want—’

  He shot a hand out from under his head and grabbed her wrist. ‘You’re not going anywhere.’

  Stella looked down where his fingers were wrapped around her. It was such a contrast. Younger, older. Olive, pale. Spontaneous, cautious. When he turned on his side and moved closer to her, she felt suddenly bare and naked under the intensity of his gaze and something tightened inside her chest. She willed it away. ‘You often wake up with women in your bed, Morelli Constructions?’

  He touched her shoulder, made circles with his fingers on her bare skin and met her eyes. There was a tease in his smile that obliterated his attempt at a poker face. ‘I’m twenty-nine, Stella. I’ve actually had sex with other women.’

  She let her eyes wander up and down his body before answering. ‘Oh, yes you have.’

  He looked smug. ‘I aim to please.’

  ‘Mission accomplished, then.’ Stella allowed him his smug smile as she gazed at his face. She was enjoying this la
nguid morning conversation almost as much as she’d enjoyed fucking him. Well, almost. She’d guarded her privacy, her life—and her heart—so fiercely in the years since she’d been back on the south coast that she’d never had a man in her bed in this cottage. Not once. She didn’t stop to analyse why the first one should be Luca.

  Stella moved her hand down his shoulder, to his ribs and the ridge of muscle on his side, tracing the vine on his skin. ‘Tell me about your tattoo.’

  ‘It’s a grape vine,’ he explained. ‘I’d always wanted one and when I went to Italy a couple of years ago I had it done in Rome. I wanted something I could hide, you know, for work. Older people get a bit freaked out about tats—think we’re all bikies or something.’

  ‘How long were you in Rome?’

  ‘A month.’

  Something about the way he said it made Stella ask. ‘You followed a girl, didn’t you?’

  ‘Yeah.’ He gave her a how-did-you-know? smile. ‘She broke up with me on the Spanish steps. So I got a tattoo.’

  What had Sully done when she’d tossed him out of her life? He’d got loaded and ended up in St Vincent’s Hospital. ‘I’ve never been to Rome. I’ve been to London and Paris, but nowhere in Italy.’

  ‘You should go.’

  ‘Yeah, I should have done a lot of things.’

  ‘So why didn’t you?’ he asked.

  The answer to that question was so complicated and personal and buried deep. ‘Because life got in the way, Luca. And sometimes … well, sometimes people don’t have choices.’

  Luca studied her face, questions in his eyes, and she changed the subject in case he voiced any of them.

  ‘There’s something I want to know.’ Stella shifted, propped her head in her hand and turned to him. ‘Why don’t you have a girlfriend?’

  He considered the question. ‘Hadn’t met the right woman.’

  Stella paused. ‘Do you want all that, what Anna and Joe have?’