Blue Roses(36)

I pull away from his kiss, slip out of his arms, and take three steps back. He reaches for the crutches leaning against the wall and comes after me.

He can’t move very fast, so I start walking. There’s nowhere to go inside the small cottage, so I circle the large L-shaped couch.

“Luca, don’t kiss me and don’t look at me with those eyes. You have a girlfriend. She seemed nice. She shook my hand.”

He keeps coming after me, patiently circling the sofa with the help of his crutches.

“The girl who was with me last night? She’s the one I sent the second apology flowers to. She’s my neighbor. She’s married.”

“Oh, yeah? You fool around with married ladies? Oh, gross. Double gross.”

“It’s not like that,” he growls, sounding annoyed. “She was mad at me because she sent me on a blind date with her friend, and I was a real jerk.”

I keep walking, speeding up my pace so he doesn’t catch up to me. “You were a jerk? Why am I not surprised?”

He’s puffing from the effort of chasing me on the crutches. “Wait a minute. When you came to my house for dinner, you met Chris, but you didn’t meet his wife, did you?”

I yell back, “No! Was that her? Gross! You sleep with everyone.”

“I told you, I didn’t sleep with her. She sent me on a blind date with her friend.”

I keep moving, and now I’m puffing from the effort as well. Luca can move, even on one foot.

“You slept with her friend and never called?”

“No, Tina. You are so exasperating.”

“At least I don’t sleep with everyone!”

“Slow down. I went on the blind date. We had dinner, and that was it. We didn’t even kiss. I found out later she was mad at me because I spent the whole night talking about another girl.”

I snort. “Shocker.”

“I wouldn’t stop talking about the pretty girl I met at the flower shop. I couldn’t get her out of my head.”

“Me?” I stop walking.

Luca is really motoring and doesn’t see I’ve stopped. He slams into me, and accidentally tackles me down onto the couch.

I’m face down and he’s on top of me.

My voice muffled, I ask if he really was talking about me on his date.

“Yes, you,” he says.

What he’s saying gradually sinks in. The woman I saw him with is his neighbor. She’s married to Chris, the nice guy I met from next door.

Last night, I cried out a bucket of tears, and it was all a misunderstanding?

Luca’s weight on me is comforting, like a hug.

I wriggle around so that I’m on my back, facing him. His face is red, his eyes bright blue. He’s still breathing heavily.

“Luca, are you okay? Did you bang your foot?”

“Shh.” He leans down and kisses me again.

This time I don’t push him away.

I reach up and stroke my fingers through his new beard.

We keep kissing. Time collapses, and I’m feeling our first kiss, our second kiss, our third kiss—an infinite number of kisses, from the past, present and future.

He murmurs, “I miss you.”

“I’m right here. Don’t miss me.”

“I won’t let you go.”

“Don’t let me kick you out.”

“I’ll try not to give you a reason to.”

He reaches down and lifts off the tank top I slept in.

He slides down along my body, then swirls his tongue around my nipples. He kisses every bit of bare skin.

His touch is familiar and surprising at once. I whisper that I need him. He drags his beard across my stomach, and then he’s pulling down my cotton pants and underwear.

Our bodies are a blur of tangled limbs.

While he works on my clothes, I drag his shirt off over his head. I rub my hands all over his beautiful skin, unable to satisfy my need to touch him.

Our breathing gets heavy, and I move down to battle his jeans. The bottom of one leg was cut away, but I can see that the jeans won’t come off over his new cast. I’ll have to get some scissors and cut him free.

I wriggle out from underneath him and jump off the couch.

He grumbles a warning that he’ll chase me down if I try to run.

“I’m naked, Luca. I’m not going to get far.”

“And I’m on crutches, so it’s a fair match.”

Giggling, I run to the bathroom, and return with a pair of scissors, plus some condoms I had ready for our last dinner.

He watches me as I gently cut away his jeans, moving up from his knee to his hip.

“There’s something in the pocket for you,” he says, nodding down at himself.

I reach over and grab his package. “I think I know what it is.”

He grins. “Close, but check the little square pocket.”