A furious scream emanates from downstairs and rocks the house to its foundation.
I turn over in bed, smiling to myself, because I know why my wife is doing a banshee impression this early in the morning.
Footsteps race up the stairs and the bedroom door flies open.
“The party is canceled.”
“Mmph,” I mumble sleepily.
She grabs my shoulder through the blankets and shakes me. “Did you hear me? I said the party’s canceled.”
“Why did you do that?”
“I didn’t!” she shrieks, the sound shredding my eardrums. “I just got a call from the caterers saying the venue refused to allow them to deliver the food and drinks, so I called the Regency Hotel. They said I canceled it myself weeks ago, but I did no such thing. What am I going to do without a venue?”
“What a shame. Close the door, will you? I’m still sleeping.” I pull the blanket over my head and close my eyes, a grin on my lips.
Giulia screams again and slams out of the room.
I keep out of the way for most of the day while my wife makes angry phone calls to everyone on the guest list, ranting about the terrible customer service at the Regency.
Around three, I walk into the kitchen, tossing my keys up and down in my hand. Mia’s risked coming downstairs for a muesli bar and a glass of juice. “Let’s go, Bambi.”
She crams the rest of the bar into her mouth just as Giulia stalks in and glares at us with puffy eyes.
“Where are you two going?”
I don’t bother to look at her as I head into the garage. “The cemetery.”
“You shouldn’t call me Bambi in front of Mom,” Mia tells me when we’re driving along the street.
“I shouldn’t do a lot of things.” After I change gears, I reach over and touch her cheek. “Like this. You look beautiful, baby. How are you feeling?”
Mia reaches up and takes my hand, squeezing my fingers. “Happy I’m not at the party. Guilty about the party. It’s complicated.”
It sure is, but my girl is doing what matters to her today, and that’s all that matters to me.
The cemetery is in the northeast of the city, a somber place with black wrought-iron gates, sweeping lawns, and hundreds of nodding roses in orderly rows.
We walk in silence up the long avenue, lined with gravestones and shaded by trees with thick green leaves.
Mia leads us right to her father’s plot. She kneels down and tenderly brushes grass clippings and dirt from the base of the gravestone. I hang back a little, my hands in my pockets, aware that I’m probably the sort of man Mia’s father would be warning her away from if he were still around. I peer at the name carved into the marble. Ennio Russo.
She grew up beautiful, Mr. Russo. You’d be proud of your daughter if you were alive. And, my God, you’d hate me.
Mia has a bouquet of flowers with her, and she takes her time arranging the blossoms in the holder at the base of the gravestone.
Finally, she touches the marble where his name is carved and stands up. “I’ve spent far more of my life without him in it by now. But I still miss him.”
“What do you remember about him?”
Her eyes are unfocused while she plays with the chain around her neck. “He used to come and pick me up every Saturday afternoon and we’d go to the park or to get an ice cream. It was always fun while I was with him, but Mom had a habit of spoiling my enjoyment by picking fights with him or telling me that Dad was uneducated and unconnected, and I was lucky she had custody of me. I don’t know why she had to do that.”
“I think I do,” I mutter.
“Yeah?”
“She’s a bitch.”
“She was jealous, I think. Weirdly possessive. She ignored me most of the time and then lavished me with all kinds of attention when Dad was due to come around. It was so confusing.”
I don’t have the expertise or energy to unpack a woman like Giulia Bianchi, but if I had to guess, I’d say she was a raving narcissist.
As we turn to go, some names on a group of gravestones catch my eye, and I feel the sad, bitter twist of my heart.
Rosetti.
Rosetti.
Rosetti.
Mia starts to turn around. “What are you looking at?”
Ennio is a lucky bastard in some ways. I wonder if a beautiful woman will lay flowers on my grave when I’m gone.
I put my hand on her shoulder and steer her toward the exit. “Nothing. Fancy a beer? I know a place.”
The place I know is on the other side of town, up a long and windy road. It’s one of my favorite drives in this city, up into the hills where it’s peaceful and you can leave everyone and everything behind.
We haven’t seen another car for twenty minutes when I park at a deserted lookout. The city is spread below us, and Mia’s face is lit with delight.
“I’ve never been up here before. I didn’t even know you could get such a good view from these hills.”
We sit on the hood of my car, watching the sun go down and swigging from bottles of beer we picked up along the way.
I peel the label from my beer bottle, roll it in my fingers and throw it out into the void. “I think I’ll be dead soon, Bambi.”
She stops with the bottle halfway to her lips. “What? Don’t say that.”
“That’s just how it is with Rosetti men.” I clench my jaw, glaring at the setting sun. “We passed all their graves today.”
It felt like they were lined up and waiting for me.
“I keep messing up. That’s never mattered to me before, but this time I might actually have something good on my hands. Something that makes me not want to go.”
I look at Mia, her face burnished with golden sunlight. She’s the only thing that makes me want to be a better man, and the harder I pursue her, the more likely I am to wind up six feet under.
“I shouldn’t be here with you. I should be trying my best to make things work with your mom. It’s the fastest route to the things I thought I wanted.”
“But . . .?” she asks.
“But I can’t stop thinking about you.” What a terrible seduction technique. Honesty isn’t sexy.
Or maybe it is, because Mia leans over, tilts her face up to mine, and kisses me. A slow kiss, filled with the passion of unspoken words.
I think I need you.
What if you’re my person?
I’m half in love with you already.
The beer bottle slips from my fingers and clatters onto the gravel. Still kissing her, I stand up and swing around to face her, both of my hands cupping her jaw.
I kiss her like I’m about to be ripped away from her forever.
There’s no one around. It’s just me and her up here, and I pull her top up over her head. She’s not wearing a bra and her nipples tighten in the cool air. With an arm around her waist, I lower my mouth and suck one of her nipples into my mouth. She cries out and threads her fingers through my hair, holding on to me.
I need her. I need her so much.
Mia helps me get her pants off her. Her body is delicious in the light of the setting sun, and I drink my fill of the sight of her. Her warm skin painted golden. The way her long, curly hair is rippling in the breeze. The whole city is spread below us. They can’t see us, but it feels good not to hide away for once.
I pull my T-shirt off and she rests her palms against my chest while I undo my jeans and push them down. I get my mouth on her. I get my tongue inside her.
Bambi on the hood of my car, gazing up at me with her legs spread and giving me those fuck-me eyes.
“I want you so much. Can I have you, Bambi?”
Mia nods. “Please. Laz—”
My name sounds so good in her mouth. I want her saying it as she comes. I’m so needy to be inside her and she’s just so wet spread open before me. The sweetest invitation I ever saw. I take my cock in my hand and guide it down to her entrance, coating myself with her slippery wetness.
“Laz, remember I told you—”
She speaks at the same time as I thrust into her. Fucking finally. My cock is buried inside her cute little snatch, and I get to pound the living daylights out of her, like I’ve imagined hundreds of times by now.
It takes me a moment to realize that Mia yelped in pain and her face is screwed up.
Oh, shit. That was too much all at once. I’m being rough with her.
“I’m so sorry, Bambi. I got carried away. I’ll warm you up with my fingers, I just—” As I draw out of her, I freeze. “What the hell?”
There’s blood on my cock.
Maybe she’s on her period and she didn’t realize?
An ominous feeling growing stronger and stronger inside me tells me she’s not on her period.
“I’m a virgin.”
“You’re a what?” Horror plunges over me. But she can’t be a virgin when she sucked me like that and danced in my lap. “Mia, what the fuck. Why didn’t you tell me?”
She gapes at me. “I did tell you. The day you beat up Kaleb and his brother.”
I mentally riffle through the conversations we’ve had that even allude to sex, and I come up blank. The day I beat up those idiots I propositioned her in the bathroom, and she turned me down flat. She never said, I’m a virgin, Laz.
She slides off the hood of my car and drags her underwear up her legs. “I can’t believe you don’t remember.”
I pull my jeans up and button them. “The word virgin never passed your lips. What did you even say to me?”
Mia collects her clothes, humiliation and anger etched on her face. Or is it pain? Jesus fucking Christ, I just impaled a virgin like she was an experienced sex kitten. I barely warmed her up first.
“You wanted to screw in the bathroom, and I replied, What an enticing first time.”
First time.
First time ever.
I shove my hands through my hair, groaning and wishing I could rewind the last five minutes. “Fuck. I thought you meant first time with me.”
Nothing about Mia has ever screamed virgin to me. I’ve never been with one, but aren’t virgins supposed to be trembling violets? Every time she’s kissed me, I’ve felt her desire. She danced in my lap like a woman who knows her way around a man. Her blow jobs are supreme.
Or was this my own assumption because pinning her down and messing with her was too much fun? Being an asshole to her was delicious revenge against the wife I didn’t want.
She pulls her clothes on, and when I try to touch her, she shoves me away angrily. “Even if you didn’t realize, I tried to tell you just now, but you wouldn’t listen to me.”
Her voice sounded like she was turned on, not begging me to stop. Or was that what I wanted to hear?
“I’m so sorry, Bambi,” I say in a hollow voice. “If I’d realized you were a virgin then I never would have done it like that.”
She slumps on the hood of my car, and her misery is so painful to witness that I wish she’d stay angry with me. The light has faded from the sky, and we’re left in chilly darkness.
“Maybe this was so terrible because it’s a sign that we shouldn’t do this,” she whispers. “Us. It’s wrong. It’s twisted.”
I want to reach for her, desperate to touch her but unable to bear it if she slaps me away. “No. It’s a sign that I need to do better. I’ve messed up. I’m always messing up, but this time I care. I’m really sorry, Bambi. Please let me make it up to you.”
She puts her hands over her face and my stomach seems to vanish from my abdomen. Oh, God. Is she crying? Please don’t let her be crying. If she is, I’ll fling myself from this lookout and smash myself to pieces on the rocks below.
I took her virginity and she’s crying.
She raises her head, and there are no tears on her face, but her expression is hollow. She gets into the passenger seat without looking at me. “I’m fine. Let’s just go home.”
With a sick feeling in my guts, I slide into the driver’s seat.
I don’t know what to say the whole way down through the hills and back through the city.
Why do I always ruin everything?
I’m so fucking cursed.
Before I can pull into our street, I stop the car. Mia reaches for the doorhandle, thinking I’m dropping her off out of sight of the house, but I reach out and grab her wrist.
“No, wait. Please.”
“Laz, I want to go home.”
There’s so much pain on her face, and I hate it. This day isn’t going to turn into a double shitburger for her on the anniversary of her dad’s death, losing her virginity in one of the worst ways possible.
“No. Not happening.” I turn the car around so fast and speed back down the street.
“Laz! What are you doing?” she asks, her brow wrinkled with confusion.
I don’t reply because I have no words. I have to show her what I mean.
Ten minutes later, we pull up outside one of the swankiest hotels in the city. Not the Regency. This one is better, in my opinion. More modern. Less stuffy.
“I’m not very good at saying sorry. I haven’t had much practice, though with all the things I’ve done, I should be an expert.” I nod at the hotel. “This is how I would have done it if I’d opened my ears and listened to the things you were trying to tell me. Brought you to this hotel. Booked the best room for the night. Made you come. A lot. Fucked you slow and hard on the sheets of an enormous bed until I broke you into the shape of my cock, and only my cock.”
A pink flush creeps into her pale cheeks.
“Will you let me make it up to you? Not sex,” I say quickly. “Not if you don’t want to. I’ll wash your hair. Feed you strawberries. Paint your toenails. Whatever you want. The night is yours and I’m your footman. Your servant. Whatever you want me to be.”
Mia chews her lip, looking from me to the hotel and back again. “You want to make it up to me?”
“You have no idea how much. I’ll just book you the room and leave if that’s what you prefer, and I’ll go sit in the cold and think about what I did, praying that you’ll forgive me.”
Mia stares at me with a wrinkled brow. She seems confused. Doesn’t she want me to try and—
But then I realize. I don’t think anyone has ever apologized to Mia for treating her badly or cared enough to do anything to win back her favor.
“I mean it, Bambi,” I say softly. “It matters to me that I hurt you. If you don’t want to go inside, we can go somewhere else. Wherever you like. It’s your call.”
“No one’s tried this hard to make me happy before. It’s weird.”
I take her face between my hands. “Please let me try.”
Her eyes grow even bigger and more liquid than usual. “Are you sure you want a virgin who can’t even tell you properly that she’s a virgin?”
Please. Like any of this is her fault.
“You think I’ll let this be over before I’ve given you the first time you deserve?”
A hopeful smile touches her lips. “Can we pretend something when we go in? The staff are going to wonder why we turned up without any bags. Can we tell them . . .”
I hold my breath.
Her courage fails her, and she shakes her head. “Never mind.”
“Tell me. Anything.”
She peeps at me through her lashes. “Can we tell them we just got married? It was spur of the moment. We got carried away and now we’re celebrating.”
A smile spreads over my face. There’s a ring on her right hand. I pull it off and slide it down the ring finger of her left hand, and then admire it in the streetlight that’s falling through the window.
Well, fuck. That looks so perfect that if I wasn’t married already, I’d wife this girl immediately.
“Come on, Mrs. Rosetti. Let’s go get you that bridal suite.”
We’re holding hands and grinning like idiots in love when we walk into the hotel. I don’t know which room we get in the end. I can barely listen to the staff because Mia has her arms clasped tight around my waist.
We don’t look like newlyweds in our street clothes, but Mia feels like my bride. The room is huge with acres of bed and a separate lounge, and a view of the city that’s almost as good as the lookout.
“Can I run you a bath, or—”
Mia grabs my face, comes up on her toes and kisses me. Our tongues are soft, and they melt together.
“I’m so sorry,” I murmur urgently between kisses.
She puts a finger over my lips. “Let’s start over. You’re my husband. This is our wedding night. How do you want to spend our wedding night?”
I want to spend it with my tongue on her clit, making her come until her legs are shaking.
I pick Mia up and carry her through the suite to the bedroom. There’s no champagne, there are no rose petals strewn around. It’s disappointing because I want those corny things for us.
That’s when the realization hits me.
I’m going to marry this girl one day. For real. I’m going to see her in the white dress clutching a bouquet of flowers. I want us to eat cake off each other’s fingers. Then I want to take her to a room like this and fuck my wife senseless on a pile of rose petals, and place champagne kisses on her mouth and pussy.
“Laz? What are you thinking about?”
I realize I’ve been staring at her, and I smile. “You.”
I rip the bedclothes back and lay Mia down on the sheets.
“We can just kiss,” I remind her. “We can sleep together without having sex.”
She blinks her beautiful lashes up at me. “Why wouldn’t I want to have sex with my husband?”
And just like that, I’m instantly hard. I try to ignore what’s going on with my dick, though, as that’s what got me into trouble up at the lookout.
Don’t fuck this up, Laz.
You’ve got one chance left with this girl.
Don’t fuck it up.
Mia’s touches are tentative, exploring my body slowly between kisses. Her slender fingers slide beneath my T-shirt sleeves and along my throat.
“I never really get to touch you. Can I touch you?” she whispers.
“Bambi, you can do whatever you want with me.”
She strokes her fingertips over my chest and down my stomach. Carefully, slowly, she pushes my T-shirt up to my ribs. “I spend every minute I’m near you looking at you as much as I dare. Secretly drinking you in. Praying that no one realizes I’m hungering for you.”
“Me?” I ask, stupidly. I had no idea.
“Of course you, Laz. Even when I hated you. On your wedding day, I couldn’t stop staring at you in that gray suit. I told myself that it was because I hated you so much and I kept reciting, What a dumb shirt he’s wearing. What a stupid pair of pants that hugs his ass. I hate the way the flowers in his boutonniere bring out his eyes.”
I noticed Mia looking at me, but I thought it was only because I was staring at her.
She pushes her hands all the way beneath my T-shirt, and I sit up a little so she can pull it off over my head. Then she sits astride me, brushing back my hair and circling my nipples with her fingertips.
I feel like her plaything. I love being her plaything.
“I was so scared to touch you at first,” she confesses. “I worried that once I had a taste for you, I wouldn’t be able to stop wanting you.”
“And?”
She lifts her beautiful brown eyes to mine. “Now I’m obsessed with you.”
I groan and pull her mouth down to mine.
Mia undoes her shorts and wriggles out of them, but I stop her when she reaches for her tee.
“Can we leave your T-shirt on?” I pull it up to expose her tits like I did just a few short weeks ago in my car. Not only is it cute, but it’s also really fucking hot. “Now come up here and sit on my face.”
I capture her thighs with my hands as she walks them up my body, a little bit shy but willing to go with it because she’s turned on. I lick her eagerly, and she gasps and settles over my face.
“What a good girl,” I murmur between licks, loving how she’s responding.
Mia clings to the headboard, half moaning, half laughing. “I feel like a princess.”
“You taste like one, too.” Soft, sweet, and delicious. I can’t get enough of licking her, and I love the little noises she makes as my tongue brushes over her clit. She makes them again and again, until I realize she’s moaning and writhing so hard that she’s going to come.
And then she does, squeezing my head with her thighs as she rocks back and forth on my face.
I sit up, taking her with me and dropping her gently onto her back. “We can stop here. I don’t care.”
“No, please,” she cries, gripping my shoulders and digging her nails in. “I need you.”
Mia reaches for my jeans and undoes them, pushing them down and off me, and we see something that surprises us both.
Her blood, smeared on my cock.
She runs her fingers down my shaft, as transfixed by the sight as I am. The evidence that I’m the only man who’s ever been inside her.
“Shit, Mia, that must have hurt. I’m sorry.”
She shakes her head, still gazing at me. “I don’t care anymore.”
I sink my teeth into my lip for a moment. “Maybe it’s messed up, but your blood on my dick is so sexy.”
I wish I could keep this little smear of red that proclaims she is mine, now and forever, but if I have to lose it, the best place is in her pussy.
“Please, Laz,” she breathes.
Oh, Jesus Christ. I will go crazy just from the sound of her needy little voice. She wraps her hand around my shaft and so do I, and together we guide it into her tight, slippery channel. She moans as the head of me slips into her, and then inch after inch of my length. I move as slowly and as carefully as possible, holding back like I haven’t done in years.
“Am I hurting you?” I ask through gritted teeth.
Mia sits up on her elbows and stares at herself. Stares at me driving into her with careful thrusts, edging my way deeper. Her pretty pussy is getting my shaft so wet.
She looks up at me with flushed cheeks and dilated eyes. “I think you were made for me, Laz.”
I relax a little and thrust deeper, and she moans in pleasure. I’m lost in those big eyes, my cock buried inside of her.
I think she’s fucking right.
