Casanova(77)

“It’s for the women’s shelter. I want to come.”

I smiled and cupped her chin. “Then come, but stop worrying about what you look like. You’re gonna have the prettiest smile there and that’s all I care about you wearing.”

She raised her eyebrows.

“Okay, I care about your underwear too.” I sighed and dropped my hand. “Nothing gets past you, does it?”

“Yeah...I don’t know if I can wear underwear.”

“I’m sorry, what?” I swallowed, putting my laptop on the desk. Why the fuck was my cock twitching at that? “You can’t wear underwear?”

“Maybe,” she hedged. “But it’s kind of...tight. I might have to find those seamless underwear thingies that are like giant sanitary pads but stick to your skin.”

“That went from sexy to gross real quick.”

Lani laughed and leaned back into the sofa cushions. “Sorry, it’s the truth. Also, your own fault. You picked the dress, not me.”

“Can we get another one?” I pushed to the edge of the sofa cushion to stand up.

“No!” She launched herself at me, tackling me down against the back cushions before I was fully on my feet. She practically threw herself onto my lap. “I want that one!”

I laughed, wrapping my arms around her. “Yeah? Why so bad?”

She rolled over, propping herself up with her hand on the cushion, and gave me a sly smile. “Because it’s going to be really fun to watch you navigate a fancy event in a suit with a huge hard-on.”

My eyebrows shot right up. “Is that a promise? Because you’ll be responsible for it...and getting rid of it.”

Lani tried to move off of me, but I held her tighter until she stopped wriggling. “Fine,” she said, shuffling so she was sitting on me properly.

I opened my legs so her ass dropped down to the cushion between them and grinned. “That sounds like a double promise to me.”

“Don’t push your luck, Casanova.”

“I always push my luck, kitten. It’s why I’m so lucky.”

“Lucky, annoying, insistent... who’s keeping track?”

“You, evidently.” My lips quirked up.

She lightly slapped my chest. “Someone has to. Otherwise your ego might get out of control again.”

“Lani, you’re sitting between my legs and want me to make you fall in love with me. Trust me, my ego is fucking crazy right now.”

“Is it too late to take back that request?

“No.” I ran my hand through the loose locks of her dark hair. “If you don’t want me to...”

She dropped her head back, the tiniest of smiles playing on her full lips. They parted for a moment before she closed them again. Then, with a soft look on her face, she leaned up to me and kissed me.

It was brief. Mere seconds. Mere jolting, heart-stopping seconds.

“I don’t want you to do anything you don’t want to do,” she said quietly, sweeping her hair over her shoulder.

“I don’t want to make you fall in love with me,” I admitted, the truth of the words hitting home. “I want you to fall in love with me because you can’t stop yourself.”

A slow smile spread over her face, lighting her eyes up.

Oh yeah. I totally got that right.

“Well played, Casanova.” She kissed my cheek and finally extracted herself from my hold. “Okay, I have to go. I need to finish this ‘stunning character reference’ for you to send to your dad.” She shot me a sassy smirk as she stood up.

I rested one arm across the back of the sofa. “Do I get to read it all first?”

“Ask your dad,” was all she said before she left the room with a bounce in her step and the flash of a smile.

I raised my eyebrows, looking back over at the TV. I’d already read some of it and knew roughly what she was going to write for what I hadn’t read. She was just being damn awkward on purpose. Mostly because she knew that now, I would ask my father.

That woman...

The sound of a throat clearing by the doorway made me look up. Aunt Bel was leaning against the dark frame, her freckled arms folded across the top of her stomach. She had on obnoxious coral lipstick, and she bared her teeth at me in a grin that made her look a little too much like an escaped mental patient from the eighteen hundreds.

“Yes?” I said after a moment of her unnerving grinning and staring.

“Mhmmm,” she hummed, pursing her lips but still smiling.

This was a little uncomfortable. “What?”

That grin reappeared.

“Aunt Bel.”

“Yes?”

“Is there any reason you’re standing in the doorway and grinning at me like you’re contemplating my murder?”

She laughed loudly, but it came out more of a cackle than anything. It didn’t exactly reassure me that she wasn’t planning to kill me, if I was honest.

“I don’t want to kill you, boy. I just think it’s funny.”

“Think what’s funny?”

She cocked her head and a bit of hair fell loose from her scrappy bun. “Of all the women...you pick that one. The one whose heart you broke.”

“Camille told you?”

“No. Don’t be stupid. I knew years ago.”