Real Fake Love (Copper Valley Fireballs #2)(79)

My breath catches.

Does he—does he actually like me?

Or does he have a fetish about women with whole-body rashes?

“In the shower, Henri. You’ll feel better.” He closes the distance between us and tugs at the waistband of my jeans.

Not pulling them down, but giving me a nudge. The I want this, but not if you don’t nudge.

I want.

I very much want.

I unbutton my pants and nod, and when he slowly lowers my jeans over my hips, I catch his face in my hands and kiss him.

It’s a cautious kiss. An I want to thank you but I don’t know if you want to be thanked kiss.

A please don’t hurt me kiss.

Because I don’t think Luca’s been cranky tonight because I’m annoying him.

I don’t think I annoy him at all.

And that’s by far the most terrifying thought I could have.

Every last one of my fiancés was looking for love.

Luca, though?

He doesn’t want it.

He’s not looking for an easy path to love. He’s not looking to make his family happy or to get a good job at my dad’s bank, nor is he having a professional crisis, and he doesn’t have any hang-ups about only sleeping with women he intends to marry.

He doesn’t want to get married at all.

But tonight, he wants me, in all of my messy glory.

I kick off my shoes and tug my pants the rest of the way down when it becomes clear that he’ll have to stop kissing me if he’s going to finish the job. There’s no stumbling to get into the shower—it’s all easy, smooth movements, like we’re a professional dance pair who’s been together for years.

The spray is borderline cool and gentle on my sensitive skin, and I sag into the relief that comes with being exactly where I’m supposed to be.

This isn’t forever, Henri, I remind myself, and then Luca’s pulling back, gazing down on me not like I hung the stars, but like I’m the one star he’s been searching for his entire life, and now that he’s finally found me, he can’t look away.

“I’m not trying to seduce you tonight, Henri,” he whispers thickly. “That wasn’t the plan. I just want to take care of you.”

“What if I seduce you?”

He visibly swallows. His pupils are so big I could count the galaxies inside them. “I’m here for whatever you need.”

I need you to love me.

Yep.

I’ve done it again.

Of course I have.

But right now, I don’t care.

Because when I’m eighty-five, rocking in my chair on my porch at my farmhouse, watching all the neighbors’ grandkids that I’ve adopted as my own, I’m going to tell them all about the time that I fell in love with a baseball player who was hiding his massive heart behind walls that other people built for him, and about how he loved me the only way he knew how, for one night, when I was at my worst.

“I need you, Luca. I need you.”

“I don’t want to hurt you.”

“I’ll tell you if you get too close.”

His eyes call me a liar.

As they should.

He’s already too close.

I tell myself we’re both talking about physically hurting as I wrap a hand around the back of his neck and pull him closer for another kiss.

He doesn’t resist, and I swear his body melts into mine in relief.

Like he wanted me to want him.

While he devours my mouth, I reach between us to stroke his hard-on against my belly. His silky skin is wet and slick, and touching him makes my clit ache with need, especially as his breath comes faster and he pumps into my touch as though he’s trying to stop himself, but he can’t.

I want to taste him. I want to lick every inch of his body and memorize his scent and permanently imprint the feel of his skin on my fingertips.

I want to make him lose control.

He soaps up his hands and starts rubbing slow circles over my back, and my nerves light up like they’re fresh sprouts reaching out of the ground to be kissed by their first ray of sunshine.

I arch into him, and he stills. “Too much?” he pants against my lips.

“Don’t stop.”

He doesn’t.

He circles my rib cage until he’s cradling my breasts with his soapy hands, his thumbs brushing the tips of my pebbled nipples and making me moan and squeeze his cock harder, because I need something to hold on to.

He groans too and drops his head to my shoulder. “Fuck, Henri.”

“Yes, please.”

He lifts his head and smiles at me, and I have no idea how any woman, ever, could resist that full-on Luca Rossi smile. His fading unicorn hair is wet and tumbling in his eyes, his green eyes are crinkling at the edges, and his entire body is vibrating with an energy that screams you are the only woman in the world to me, and if that’s not a turn-on, then I don’t know what is.

“I missed you,” he whispers before he leans in for another kiss, his palms and fingers and thumbs still teasing my breasts and sending thunderbolts of extra-strength lust straight through my heart and to the pit of my belly, where my clit isn’t the only thing aching now.

I need him inside me.

I need him inside me now.

As if he’s reading my mind, he draws one hand down my belly, cups my mound, and strokes me between the legs.