His smile grew wider. He rolled the condom on and nudged a leg between hers, his heart hammering. He lowered himself, an arm braced on either side of her head, letting her feel his weight without crushing her. Her breath hitched. The sound sent his pulse thundering in his ears. She wrapped a leg around his waist and he bent his head to reclaim those lips.
A scream ripped through the night and Luca jerked up. He knew the sound hadn’t come from Constance but looked her over anxiously just in case. She was already pushing off the bed, grabbing her shirt and whipping it back over her head.
“Elena,” she said, running for the door.
Luca’s heart pounded again, for an entirely different reason. What was wrong?
He ripped the condom off, yanked on some sweatpants, and followed Constance at a dead run through the house. Mrs. Ballas met them in the great room, holding the little girl in her arms.
Elena let out another wail and Constance reached for her. She quieted down, her screams reduced to great hiccupping sobs.
“I’ve got her, Mrs. Ballas, thank you.”
The woman nodded, glanced briefly, eyes wide as sea urchins at Luca’s shirtless chest, and then turned to leave them.
Constance was crooning softly to Elena, swaying on her feet. He glanced at her, not sure what he could do to help. She motioned to the sofa and he nodded, following her as she sat with Elena on her lap.
“She has nightmares,” Constance quietly explained.
He sat beside them and looked down at the little girl again, his heart twisting. Poor little thing. He reached out a tentative hand, looking to Constance for permission. She nodded, a bit hesitantly. Maybe she wasn’t sure how the child would react. He took it slow, gently stroking Elena’s hair back. She didn’t protest, just looked up at him with large, dark eyes, her thumb in her mouth.
He continued to stroke her hair as she blinked sleepily against Constance’s shoulder. Memories of his mother doing the same thing for him flooded his mind, and he began to hum. The same tune his mother had sung to him whenever he’d been sad or afraid.
Constance glanced up, surprised, but a gentle smile touched her lips. He wrapped an arm around her shoulders and leaned down to kiss her forehead, keeping up his rhythm stroking of Elena’s hair. And then he began to sing low and soft over and over, while Constance slowly rocked.
Luca wasn’t sure what time it was when Elena finally released a deep, tremulous sigh and drifted off into sleep. All he knew was that his heart ached for the little girl, and the rest of him wanted to sleep.
He helped Constance up and walked with her to the room Elena shared with Lexi and Irene. She carefully laid the little girl back in bed and tiptoed out the door.
“Will she be okay?” Luca whispered. They stood at the door and watched a moment, but Elena seemed to have settled into a deep, contented sleep.
“I think she’ll sleep now.”
She headed back toward their room with him in tow, climbed onto the bed with a choked sigh and gathered a pillow to her chest.
“Hey,” he said, settling down beside her. “What’s wrong?”
She didn’t answer for a moment but her eyes grew shiny. Finally she shook her head. “I don’t know what to do for her. When her parents were killed in the car accident last year, she was with them—the only one to survive. She still dreams of it. There was no one else who could take her in. She lost everything, her parents, her home, everything. No child should have to go through that. I just wish…I wish I could take all that pain from her. I feel so helpless…”
The tears slipped down her cheeks unnoticed by her, though each one seared his heart like drops of acid.
“Shh, don’t cry. Come here,” he said, pulling her onto his lap. “It’s all right, Stanzia, I’ve got you.”
He held her and rocked her while sobs wracked her body. He knew exactly how she felt. He’d have given anything in that moment to take away her pain, to make it all better. The best he could do was hold her while she cried, stroke her hair from her face, and murmur soothing nonsense into her ear.
After a while, the sobs grew softer and then stopped altogether, her body lay limp and heavy in his arms. He sighed, resting his cheek on her hair. She’d cried herself to sleep. That was definitely a first for him. When they’d started the night he certainly hadn’t expected it to end up like this.
He settled her gently against her pillow, climbing in beside her before pulling the sheets up to cover them. She wiggled back against him and then fell back to sleep with a sigh. Luca’s body instantly reacted and he released a sigh of his own.
Well, it might not have been how he’d pictured their evening going, but there were worse ways to spend a night. He wrapped his arm tighter around her and closed his eyes, breathing in her sweet scent as he drifted off to sleep.