Keep Me (Shelter Me #3) (24 page)

“You’re fidgeting, and it’s making me worry. Is it about the restaurant? Did the insurance adjuster say something you’re not telling me?”

“No, not at all. I told you everything. I just had to gather up the total cost of everything, which I have all the receipts and everything he needs in that file I gave him from my office. Thank God that’s one thing those assholes didn’t destroy.”

Although it did take the four of us an hour or so earlier today to sort through all the papers all over the floor with the detective hovering over the top of us.

“It’s just that, last night when Erin and I were talking, I was telling her how happy I am and how I couldn’t believe that you just packed up and came down here with me and how when I tried to push you away, you stayed.”

I glance down at my plate and pick at my pizza, embarrassment setting in. Antonio sits quietly next to me, waiting for me to continue.

“I told her...”

I pause, realizing I need to look at him when I say this. I look up into his beautiful eyes.

“I told her I wanted to sell the restaurant and move to Michigan,” I blurt out.

He’s silent, stopping mid bite and holding my stare.

“Wow. I really don’t know what to say except, are you sure? I mean this is your life down here, your dream, and you just want to give it all up and move. Just like that?”

I study him for a minute, listening to the exact words that my sister said to me last night and again this morning.

“I wouldn’t say I’m giving up my dream. I know there is a lot to be done, but the truth is, Antonio, I don’t want a long distance relationship where we are flying back and forth every other weekend or month or whenever we have time. And before you even say the same thing Erin did, I’m not being irrational. I’m not wanting to do this because of what happened. I’m doing this because for the first time in my life I’m in love, and the thought of being away from you even if it’s so soon would destroy me. And besides, my dream can continue on in Michigan, right? I mean, with the sale of my house and the restaurant, I would definitely have more than enough to buy a building and…”

He stops me from grabbing our plates and sets them on the coffee table in front of us. Clutching my face in his hands, he crushes his lips against mine and drags me onto his lap. He tilts my head to the angle he wants me to be, his kiss hungry and deep, shocking me when he kisses me so I can’t even think.

He pulls away from my mouth just as quickly, his forehead resting up against mine and his eyes closed. And when he opens them, his smile is sincere as it reaches the small wrinkle lines beside his eyes.

“You amaze me. The thought of you giving up your life down here and moving to Michigan just to be with me... I’m at a loss for words. The only thing I can think of saying is, where in the hell have you been, Shelby? No, wait. It doesn’t matter where you’ve been, what matters is you’re here, with me, right now. I’m not going to tell you what to do. I’m going to stand by your side and let you make this decision on your own, but what I will tell you is I fucking love you so much. All I want is for you to be happy.”

I know this man is telling me the truth by the way he is looking deep into my eyes, piercing my soul with his words.

“I want you to be sure, though. Make this decision for yourself and not for me, or for anyone else,” he says quietly.

“It’s not just about me anymore, Antonio. It’s about us. I know how crazy this is going to sound to people, and I don’t care. I only have one life to live and I’m not wasting it any longer.”

I change from being sprawled across his lap to straddling him. I grasp his face in my hands just like he did mine a few minutes ago.

“I’m doing this for me and for you. I have no doubts, no regrets, and I there is only one other thing I have been more sure of than this, and that’s the fact that I am truly in love with you.”

I place a gentle kiss on his lips. He smirks and squeezes my ass.

“Well, then. I have just one question for you, Firecracker.”

He gives me a kiss on the tip of my nose.

“Well, it’s more like a demand, really,” he says, his voice turning husky.

“What?”

“You’re moving in with me. Because there is no fucking way you’re getting your own place.”

Chapter Twenty-Four

Shelby

“You want me to move in with you?”

I am completely shocked.

“Hell, yes, I do. And not just because I can stare at this incredible body of yours all day either, although I have this deep, dark fantasy of coming home from work every day to find you standing in the kitchen naked and cooking. I also need someone to clean.”

That smug smile returns.

“I see. Well, you’d better call Molly the maid, then. I can cook, but cleaning? Not going to happen, buddy.”

His face turns into a frown.

“Sex slave it is, then.” he says.

“Well, that I can definitely do.”

“Good. Let’s start now.”

Swooping me up in his arms, he grabs the pizza box and carries me down the hall and to my bed.

“What are you doing?” I ask after we’ve finished off the pizza and he stands and drops his shorts to the floor, his mighty fine dick pointing right at me.

“The question isn’t what am I doing. It’s, what are
you
doing. You’re my sex slave, so you do what I say.”

Crawling up the bed, he laces his hands around my ankles and spreads my legs wide.

“Um, I really think you have this all backwards, Mr. Schavone. Equal rights and all states that a woman is to be treated the same.”

“Oh, really now? Are you into all that equal rights shit?”

His hands skim up my legs.

“Maybe.”

God, his hands feel so good, especially the closer he gets to my…

“Oh!”

I squirm when his hand dips underneath my shorts and cups my naked flesh.

“You want me don’t you?” he smirks, running one long finger down my slit.

“All the time.”

I writhe as he stops and plunges that finger inside me.

“The feeling is mutual, Shelby. I’ve wanted you since I first laid my eyes on you.”

“Then have me,” I say breathlessly.

“Oh, baby. I’m going to.”

His fingers start working their magic. Sinking in hard, dragging his long middle finger out slowly and twisting it as he plunges it back in again. When he touches me like this I lose all sense of everything. All I can think about is him. How he has accepted my inability to have a child. How he has made me see I can be happy. I can have it all.

My dreams aren’t in Texas anymore, my dreams are anywhere Antonio is. Love is crazy. It can drive you to the brink of madness. The one thing it will never do is let you know when it hits you. It could be at first sight. It could be a year from when you first meet or it could be tomorrow. All I know is that I am hopelessly in love.

“Now, my
bella petardo
.”

Antonio snakes his body up mine. His fingers skim up my ribcage until his hands rest under my breasts. His head dips, kissing the indentation between them.

“I’m going to fuck you senseless. Then we are going to sleep. Then meet with Markus and pack you up so we can get home.”

His mouth hovers over the top of mine.

“Hmm. Home. I love the sound of that.”

************

Markus just stands there with his mouth gaping wide open after I tell him I am selling the restaurant to my assistant manager and moving. He’s just staring. Motionless. All of a sudden I am second guessing myself, staring at my best friend who for once in all the years I have known him, is not saying a word.

“Markus,” I say, placing my hand on his shoulder. “You think I’m making a big mistake, don’t you?”

He shakes his head.

“No I don’t, Swanky. I’m just feeling a little staggered here, wondering where in the hell my best friend disappeared to in a matter of a few weeks.”

A lopsided grin forms across his face.

“She disappeared inside of a man’s heart,” I whisper.

“And that’s my girl. I couldn’t be happier for you.”

Our arms encircle one another and he draws me closer to him.

“Is this where I get to tell you I told you so?” he laughs lightly.

“Yeah,” I concede, laying my head on his shoulder.

“Nah. I didn’t tell you. You figured it all out by yourself.”

And I did. I figured out the meaning of love.

Love is simple, really. Once you find it.

Epilogue: Six months later

“Give him to me now, Antonio.”

I snap my fingers at him.

“No way. I just got him. Go make yourself useful in the kitchen or something. We have a baseball game to watch, don’t we big boy?”

My darling fiancé places his six month old nephew Justin Lucas Schavone on his lap, both of them decked out in matching Detroit Tigers outfits. His gaze goes right back to the game on the television.

Sometimes this crazy ass man who I truly love forgets who he’s about to marry.

I snatch the remote off of the table beside him. His instant reaction is to try to grab it back with his free hand, all the while keeping his eyes glued to the game.

“Don’t even think about it, Shelby, or I’ll spank your sexy little ass.”

“Really now?” I say mockingly.

Me, my sexy ass, and the remote back away out of his reach. I point the remote toward the television.

“Shelby,” he warns, his voice turning stern.

“Don’t ‘Shelby’ me, you butt muncher. If you want me to make myself useful in the kitchen, I need to watch the food channel. Maybe I can find a new recipe for asshole casserole,” I smirk,

He lifts his eyes from the game and we both burst out laughing.

“I love that mouth of yours. I swear to God if we weren’t babysitting I would make you put it to good use.”

“Yeah, well, if you don’t quit bossing me around and give me that baby you’ll be putting your right hand to good use,” I tease.

He cocks an eyebrow.

“Whatever. You know you can’t go a day without it.”

“You think so, huh?”

I shrug as if I could go without it, but we both know I can’t. He’s turned me into his own personal slut, I swear. Every single time he touches me, my body lights up. How could it not? He’s mine and every day I fall more in love with him. Especially today when he has given me the one thing I have wanted for such a long time and he doesn’t even know it yet.

The doorbell rings, which causes him to smirk again and I toss the remote on the couch, sashaying past him.

“Hey you guys.”

My eyes go to my very pregnant sister, Adam and Sierra. Luke and Shayne and Lucy follow closely behind them.

“Bubba, Jen, Markus and your Mom and Dad are outside. Your brother has his eyes glued to the game,” I tell Luke.

They all file in just in time to hear Antonio whoop it up, which indicates to me that the Tigers won.

I follow everyone inside where the two brothers high five each other and Shayne takes Justin in her arms. I smile brightly at the sight of her holding him.

Before I even know what hits me, I am being lifted up and slung over Antonio’s shoulder and being manhandled down the hallway.

“What the frick are you doing?” I scream and start slapping his ass.

He ignores me, opting instead to call out to everyone letting them know we will be right back. The sound of chuckling coming from everyone fades away the farther we make it down the hallway.

“You’ve been a very bad girl.”

He playfully tosses me onto the bed.

“Oh. Are you going to punish me?”

I lean back, placing my feet on the bed and spreading my legs wide. He wastes no time at all dropping his body gently down on top of me.

“I’ll punish you later. Right now I have a question to ask.”

His serious tone piques my curiosity.

“What?”

I swallow hard, remembering the last time he asked me a question. It was just a few short weeks ago when we were putting the finishing touches on Schavone’s. Four months ago after finalizing everything in Texas with the sale, and staying and helping with the majority of the clean up, I finally moved here permanently and bought a new building where next week we will hold the grand opening of my new Italian restaurant.

That night is one I will never forget. Both of us covered in paint, stinky and sweaty from working all day. When he got down on one knee and asked me to marry him, telling me I was the most beautiful woman he had ever met and how he wanted to spend the rest of his life with me, I knew I made the right decision moving here, taking the leap of faith with him.

Right now, though, as he stares into my eyes, I can’t read him, his expression has me a little on edge.

“Do you have something you want to tell me?” he prods, his voice a little husky.

I start to chew on my bottom lip. Nerves quiver in my stomach. There is no way he could know. I haven’t told a single person. I wanted to tell him first. So why do I get this funny feeling he found out somehow?

“Um,” I say.

“Um, what?” he mocks.

I grow serious.

“How did you find out?” I sigh.

He jumps up from the bed, his chest puffed out, out and walks into the bathroom.

“Shit. Shit. Shit.”

I sit up and slam my hands on the bed. I know exactly how he found out. Damn it.

He walks back out with all ten of my pregnancy test sticks in his hand and the biggest child-like smile on his face. He stops just shy of the bed and drops them all in my lap.

“Well?” He says.

“I’m pregnant.”

“I kind of figured that this morning when I found all of those shoved into my drawer when I went to get my toothbrush this morning.”

I scrunch my nose in disgust.

“Eww. I peed on all of those. Please tell me you didn’t use your toothbrush?”

“Hell, no. I used yours.”

He sits down next to me on the bed, tossing all of the tests on the bed after removing them from my lap. Strong hands go around my waist and I am hoisted onto his lap, face to face. Our eyes lock.

“I- I thought you said you couldn’t get pregnant. Are you sure? I mean, are those things accurate?” He turns serious on me.

“I just found out this morning. I was planning on telling you tonight after everyone left. I have no answers.”

We talk about going to see a doctor and having the test run again as we both have done so much research and things have changed so much since I was told I wouldn’t be able to conceive. We just put it all on hold until after the restaurant was done, Erin had her baby, and we could focus more on us.

“I’m thinking it’s my strong sperm. You know, an, ‘I spanked it so I banked it’ type of thing.”

I’m internally rolling my eyes now. This man cannot be serious for one damn minute.

Throwing my head back, I laugh, which he totally takes advantage of when his warm breath comes in contact with my bare neck. He kisses his way across to my shoulder, lifting my left arm, small intimate pecks all the way down until he lands on my ring finger where my diamond sparkles from the warm summer sun filtering in.

“Marry me this weekend. On the boat. In the middle of Lake Michigan,” he whispers, never taking his mouth away from my hand.

“Really?”

I would love nothing more than to marry him right now, tomorrow. It doesn’t matter. The sooner the better.

“Really. Markus is here now. The restaurant will open soon. I want you to be my wife more than anything. And one day when things calm down, we can take that trip you have always wanted to go on.”

“Yes. I will marry you this weekend.”

My smile spreads clear across my face. I never thought I would find a man who would love and accept me for who I am. Who would stand by my side no matter what life threw my way. Antonio asked me to marry him before he even knew I was pregnant with our child. I know with every fiber of my being he would have loved me even if I had never given him a child.

This is what love means to me, I think to myself as I place my hand over my necklace that I never take off. The message from my mother speaks loud and clear. When you love someone, you accept every part of them. Flaws included.

He’s unlocked my heart.

Our love for each other is just love. We may have fallen fast and hard, but to the two of us, that’s okay.

Thank you from the bottom of my heart for reading the Shelter Me series. Some of you may have wanted to hear more from the other characters from Shelter Me and Rescue Me, but this was Antonio and Shelby’s story. Everyone else had theirs to tell already. I will miss all of these people like crazy!