Girl Code (31 page)

Chapter Twenty-Two

Leo’s hand traveled down my side and over the curve of my hip before slipping under my shirt and resting on my waist. His hand was warm and still made my skin tingle.

We were lying in bed in Miami. The sun was going down, making most of the room fall into shadows. We were supposed to be getting ready to go to Gil’s and Leah’s to have dinner with the newlyweds, Christina, Gale, and a couple of other people I had yet to meet. Rohanna wasn’t one of the guests, thank goodness, because the Jersey girl in me wanted to claw her face off.

“You’re not going to leave me for some French speaking asshole, are you?” Leo asked me.

I giggled. “No, of course not. But I may leave you for a hot, tanned Aussie that calls me
Sheila
,” I said with my best Australian accent. “He can put his joey in my pouch, you know what I mean?”

Leo groaned at my idiocy as I laughed.

“You know what, baby?” he said, rubbing his nose against mine. “Keep talking like that and I won’t have to worry about anyone trying to put their little shrimp on your barbie.”

“Ohhh!” I cried out. “That was worse than mine!”

“Well, it’s a good thing that my good looks and charm would still reel in the women.”

My eyebrows rose. “So, you’re saying I don’t have good looks and charm to reel in the blokes?”

“No, dolcezza. You are a goddess,” Leo said before lightly kissing my lips. “I’m just hoping every other guy in the world is blind and deaf to your beauty.”

I laced my fingers through his hair and kissed him slowly and teasingly. I’d pull back a little, make his lips chase mine, stroke his tongue with mine, and then retreat. Leo groaned and pulled me closer to his body, pressing his growing erection against my thigh.

“As much as I’d love to stay in this bed with you and kiss you and do naughty things to you, we have to get up,” I said, even as his hand cupped my breast.

“We don’t have to do a damn thing we don’t want to do,” Leo growled before engulfing me in another kiss that singed my lips. I moaned and kissed him back, pulling on his dark hair and arching my back to push my breast harder into his hand. When his thumb swiped over the nipple and made me groan into his mouth, I knew if we didn’t stop, we would never make the dinner.

“Okay, that’s enough,” I said, pushing at his chest.

“Mmm mmm,” Leo disagreed as he moved forward and kissed the skin above my cleavage. “I’ll never get enough of you.”

I moaned softly as his tongue swept between my boobs, but then I pushed him away again.

“Get up!”

Leo made a sound of exasperation before grabbing his hardness and saying “I
am
up!”

I laughed as I smacked his arm. “Don’t be so juvenile.”

I scooted out of bed before he could grab me and pin me down and do dirty things to me.

“You’re such a tease,” he complained as I walked over to the walk-in closet. I only had a few things in there, and lucky for Leo, I wasn’t a huge shopper, so my things would never encroach onto his side of the closet.

“I forget, is this semi-formal? Casual? Flip flops and shorts or what?”

“They want to use their new china, so I guess it’s semi-casual.”

“Damn, I need a chart,” I muttered. “Or to call Donya.”

Leo moved in behind me, reached around me and pulled down a long white maxi dress. “Wear this.”

I held the dress and looked at Leo, who had moved to his side to pick out a shirt.

“You’re not going to start dressing me, are you?” I asked, eyeing him with suspicion. “I’ve read a lot of books about dominant men that give their women no choice in anything, not even when and what to eat. You’re not some secret dom, are you?”

He chuckled. “No. You can wear whatever you want. I just like the way you look in that dress. You look like Venus, curvy, dazzling, and awe-inspiring.”

I would have laughed, except he was serious. I was still getting used to the way he looked at me as a woman.

“The white dress it is then,” I said, smiling.

“Oh, and can you wear those silver strappy sandals with it, too?” he asked, looking hopeful. “I like it when they’re the last thing I take off of your body.” He bit his bottom lip as he looked me up and down.

If I didn’t get the hell out of that closet, we’d be screwing on the floor.

We made it to Gil’s and Leah’s only a few minutes late, and that was after I had to convince Leo to let me out of the bedroom after I was dressed. Besides the wedding, it was my first at spending time with his friends. I didn’t know what to expect, or how they would view me after having spent time with Leslie, but no one treated me any differently than how they were treating each other. They were funny and boisterous at times, especially when Leo or Gil were the center of attention, which was often, but they were fully capable of having adult conversation, too. They were also a diverse group with different ethnic backgrounds, various levels of education and employment. Gale worked overnights in a grocery store, but Judy, one of the other guests, was a doctor at one of Miami’s private hospitals that catered to the rich. Everyone was laid back and kind, and they made me feel like I already belonged. I knew I was going to like spending time with them in the future.

When Leo and I returned to the house later, I started to head toward the bedroom, but he gently grasped my hand to stop me. He nodded toward the back of the house.

“It’s a beautiful night. Let’s take a walk on the beach.”

I smiled. It
was
a beautiful night. The moon was high and bright and despite the city lights, stars were visible, twinkling in the dark sky. I let him guide me outside, but I had to pause.

“As much as you would love to take these shoes off of me later, I can’t walk through sand in three inch heels,” I told him.

He smiled. “I’m not disappointed,” he said, kissing the little dip just under my bottom lip. “I still get to unwrap the rest of the package.”

After all of the sweet things Leo always said to me, you would think that I would have stopped blushing and smiling like a shy little girl, but he had that effect on me, more so then than before. Despite the fact that we hadn’t seen each other much since Chicago, our relationship had bloomed into something new and wonderful, but remaining familiar at the same time. Once I made up my mind, really made up my mind about Leo, something inside of me shifted and burst open. I was overflowing with emotions for him. I couldn’t go more than a few hours without texting him or talking to him on the phone. Every night I fell asleep only seconds after hearing his voice in my ear on the phone, and a few times we fell asleep together while Skyping. When we were together, I couldn’t stay away from him, couldn’t stop touching him and holding him and kissing him. If he had to go take care of any business, I almost always stayed behind to get my own work finished, but the moment he walked through the door, I would stop typing, mid-sentence sometimes, before saving my work and hurrying to be in his arms.

“Sit down, dolcezza.” He led me to a chair.

I sat down and Leo dropped to one knee in front of me and began to carefully remove my shoes. He was enjoying it so much that I wondered aloud if he had some kind of foot fetish.

He smiled. “No, not really, but I like your feet. Especially in a pair of heels. The first time I saw you in a pair of heels was in tenth grade for the homecoming dance.”

I laughed. “Tack had a fit! It was one of the last times he paid enough attention to care, but he said no sister of his was going to homecoming in fuck-me heels.”

Leo laughed, shaking his head. “Yeah, they were hot. Fire engine red with a strap around your ankle. What were they, like three inches?”

“Three and a half. I couldn’t walk all the next day.”

“I remember, but what I remember most is dancing with you that night.”

My shy smile returned. “Really?”

That night my date got kicked out of homecoming for trying to spike the punch, which was so in itself cliché that I refused to even speak to him for weeks after that. Leslie was busy with her cheerleading friends pretending to admire each other’s dresses, hair, and makeup. Leo tugged on my hand until I got out of my seat and danced with him. The songs were fast at first, and Leo was being ridiculous and grandiose in his dance moves, but grudgingly, I was having a good time. When “Always and Forever” by Heatwave came on, Leo and I wordlessly and easily shifted into slow dancing mode. I put one of my hands into his and the other on his shoulder while his other hand gently grasped my waist. We kept a respectable distance apart; he was my best friend’s boyfriend after all. Leo sang the entire song, spinning me around and guiding me across the floor more than necessary. I giggled and smiled, and when he urged me to sing with him, I did. He couldn’t hit the high notes at the end very well, but that didn’t stop him from belting the song out, drawing attention from half of the room. The whole thing had been so fun, and silly…and sweet and romantic. I was too young and I didn’t see it then, but had my life been a movie, it would have been one of those defining moments that made the audience sigh.

I blinked out of the memory when I heard Leo absently singing the song under his breath as he removed my second shoe. He carefully put my shoes on a table and pulled off his own shoes before he extended his hand to me. I stood up and laced my fingers with his and we walked out onto the sand.

There was a breeze coming off of the ocean, blowing the skirt of my dress about my ankles. It was…perfect. The moonlit beach was relatively private, so we saw no one else as we strolled along the water’s edge, getting our feet wet in the surf.

Spontaneously, I walked a little deeper into the water, soaking the hem of my dress. My arm was extended backward, holding onto Leo’s fingers. I took another step and his hold on me slipped until only our first two fingers were linked. One more step and his hand fell away. I walked into the water until small waves were crashing over my knees. My dress billowed out around me, appearing to be some kind of floatation device. I turned around and looked at Leo, standing on the beach watching me with his hands in his pockets. My Roman god, with the moon shining in his hair and on his strong body.

There were only a few feet of water between us and as sappy as it sounds, I already missed him, already regretted the space between us. What was I going to do with a whole sea between us for six weeks? I had lost so much time with Leo over the years, and I was going to lose more time. I wouldn’t shirk my commitments, but for a moment, I wished that I had a normal job and was home with my guy at the end of every night.

“I don’t want to go,” I called out to him. “Can’t you come with me?”

“You have your commitments and I have mine, dolcezza,” Leo said with a sad smile. “Come on out of there. I want to talk to you.”

“We are talking,” I said, being cheeky.

“Don’t make me come in there and get you,” he said with an air of danger that made my toes curl into the floor of the Atlantic. “Come on. I want to talk.”

I frowned. The last time he wanted to talk, he never got around to it and I had found out about Leslie. Was what he had to talk about going to be another blow to our relationship? Despite my reservations, I made my way out of the water. As soon as I was within arm’s reach of Leo, he held out his hand to me. I took it and he pulled me to him.

“Why do you look so worried?” he asked softly, pressing away a worried crease between my eyebrows with his thumb.

“The last time you wanted to have a conversation, Rohanna beat you to it,” I said warily.

He looked apologetic and regretful. “I’m sorry,” he said. “But I promise you that it’s nothing like that.”

I let out a small sigh of relief. “Then talk, Pesciano.”

He smiled and nodded his head obligingly. “Of course, Miss Tackard. You sure like saying my last name.”

I shrugged. “It rolls off the tongue.”

“Really,” he arched an eyebrow.

“Really. Kiss me and I’ll prove it.”

I didn’t have to tell him twice. He cupped my cheek in his hand and brought his lips to mine. My lips moved slowly against his for several moments before his tongue sought entry. I opened for him, gladly accepting him. After a couple of minutes, Leo pulled back and looked into my eyes.

“You’re right, it does roll right off of your tongue.”

“If you ever doubt it again, I will gladly demonstrate it some more,” I said.

“I’m glad that you like saying my surname,” he said in a panty-burning voice as he held onto the fingers of my left hand. “Because you’re going to be using it a lot when you marry me.”

Something cool and round slipped over the tip of my ring finger. I froze, staring up at him with wide eyes as the metal eased over my first and then second knuckle. Slowly, he raised my hand to his lips. I stared at my hand in stunned silence. At some point, probably while we were kissing, he had taken the ring out of his pocket unnoticed. Dumbly, I wondered how I didn’t realize that there had been something in his pocket, or how he didn’t lose it in the endless grains of sand.

Even though it was night, the moon was substantially bright and I had no problems seeing the large oval cut center diamond with several smaller diamonds to each side, or the gleaming platinum band they sat on.