A Little Too Much

Chapter Thirty-One

I WAKE HOURS later, still on the floor, deliciously sore. But it takes me only a second to realize I’m alone. I pull myself up to a sitting position and look around for Alessandro. I find him on the balcony. He’s in only his jeans, leaning his elbows on the rail, the city lights laid out in front of him.

I slip my dress on, and when I slide the glass door open, the cool air sends a shiver over me. “Hey. What are you doing out here?”

He turns to face me. “Thinking.”

“About?”

He draws me into his arms and kisses me. “The past, the future, and everything in between.” He takes my hand, leading me through the living room to a bedroom . . . in which I find a queen-sized bed with four pillows under a white duvet—the only furniture in the place. Above it, framed on the wall, is his print of Salomé.

“There’s a bed?” I mutter.

“You distracted me before I could get you this far.” He nuzzles into my neck from behind, his fingers brushing up my back to the tie of my dress, which he undoes. It drops to the floor at my feet. He kisses the sensitive spot below my ear, then steps back and slides off his jeans. He flicks off the light, then guides me to the bed, where we climb between cool sheets that are so soft they must have some insane thread count. I curl into Alessandro and realize it’s been over a month since we’ve talked about Lorenzo, or the group home or anything else from back then. I can’t even remember the last time I saw that tortured look in his eye. The guilt is gone and he finally seems free.

I smile against his chest.

He must feel it, because he kisses the crown of my hair. “What has you so happy?”

“Would you ever have imagined back then that we’d end up like this?”

He cups my cheek and lifts my face so those beautiful eyes are gazing down into mine. “I imagined it every day.”

I kiss him with everything that I have, because I don’t know how else to show him how deep his words touch me, and when he rolls on top of me, I give him every part of me: my body, my heart, and my soul.

“I love you,” I whisper, low in his ear.

He buries his face into my neck, and I feel his shaky breath against my skin. He makes love to me so slowly and thoroughly that it breaks me open and I spill right into him.

I DON’T REMEMBER falling asleep, but I wake in Alessandro’s bed. When I open my eyes, the room is bright, and so are Alessandro’s eyes as he gazes down at me. He’s sitting up, leaning against the headboard in a pool of sheets. He’s got the real-estate magazine that I saw on the kitchen counter when we came in propped on one bent knee and he’s writing something in it.

“Hey,” I croak. “Happy birthday.”

“Good morning,” he says, gliding a fingertip down the length of my nose.

I shift up and kiss him. I mean for it to be a quick peck, seeing as I have morning breath and all, but he glides his hand around the nape of my neck and holds my lips to his, deepening our kiss.

Finally, he pulls away, his gaze locking with mine. “I want to wake up to this face every morning,” he purrs.

I brush my lips over his jawline and look down at the magazine on his knee. “Oh my God,” I say when I see that he’s not writing something. On the back of a real estate flyer, he’s sketching something.

Me.

I’m sleeping, an arm flung over my head, my fingers curled into my wild afro and the sheets tangled over my breasts, one dark nipple just peaking out. And I’m beautiful in a way I never could be in real life. I look almost angelic.

He turns the sketch for me to see. “I was inspired.”

“It’s beautiful,” I say gliding a finger over the lines of my naked shoulder and the tiny butterflies there.

“Not nearly as beautiful as the real thing.”

My eyes flick to him. “I don’t look like this.”

He shakes his head. “No, you don’t. I’m not nearly talented enough to capture your true beauty.”

I feel myself cringe. I have an unusual face, but I’ve never been beautiful.

His fingers caress my cheek and I lift my eyes to his. “You are beautiful, Hilary,” he says as if he read my mind. “One of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen. And I’ve seen a lot of beautiful things.” He leans in and kisses the cringe off my mouth. His mouth leaves mine and his lips brush over my cheek to my ear. “Live here with me.”

My brain short-circuits. I can’t have heard what I think I heard.

“Please,” he says when I don’t answer, pulling back and tracing my eyebrow with his fingertip. “I think about you all day and I dream about you all night. I want your days and I want your nights. I want all of you.”

“But this . . .” I wave a hand at the window. “I can’t afford this.”

He sets his sketch aside and slides lower in the bed, bringing me with him. He props himself on an elbow above me. “I can, and I want to live with you and love you right here. And when Henri is ready for the truth, I want to be able to tell him that we love him and each other. I want him to feel like we’re all part of the same big family, and that he never has to choose between us and Mallory . . . or between you and me. And when you’re ready, I want him to have more sisters and brothers.”

My heart pounds in my throat. He’s not just talking about moving in together. He’s talking about much, much more.

“You know I come with a butt-ugly coffee table, right?” It’s all I can think to say.

He laughs, then leans down and presses a kiss to the corner of my mouth. “I take your coffee table to have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, forsaking all others, until death do us part.”

Oh my God. I prop myself on an elbow and scowl down at him. “Did you just marry my coffee table?”

His eyes burn into mine as he bites a corner of his lower lip. “What would your coffee table say if I asked it?”

It takes me a second to catch what he’s saying, and my heart shoots into overdrive. “Asked it to marry you?”

He nods slowly, but now his expression is dead serious.

“It would have to think about it,” I answer warily.

He tucks an arm behind his head and leans back into the pillows. “It probably thinks it’s too soon.”

I roll onto my stomach and lay my head on his chest. His heartbeat is slow and sure and I feel mine begin to slow, synching with his. He’s always been able to do this for me. When we were kids. Now. It’s like he’s the key to my soul. “There are some things you need to understand about my coffee table if this is going to work.”

“Such as?” he asks, combing his fingers through my crazy kinks.

“My coffee table has been scared for a long time. It’s put up a lot of walls to protect itself from getting hurt.”

His hand continues through my hair at a slow, soothing rhythm. “I can understand why.”

“So, if you’re going to be with my coffee table, you’re going to have to understand that, even though its walls are coming down, there’s probably still some debris, and it might take a while to clean it all up.”

He slides down and rolls on his side, so we’re face to face. “I promise to be very patient with your coffee table.”

“And you have to always be up front with it, because my coffee table has a built-in bullshit detector.”

He kisses my cheek, soft like butterfly wings. “From here on out, I will endeavor to always be totally honest with your coffee table.”

“My coffee table isn’t great at being told what to do, so don’t think you get to be the boss of it or anything.”

He kisses my nose and my heart flutters out of rhythm. “I would never dream of trying to tell your coffee table what to do.”

I trail a finger from the dimple at the tip of his chin, over his Adam’s apple, down his chest, and hesitate at his belly button. I’ve always been comfortable physically with guys, but I’ve never been able to open up emotionally. I thought showing emotion made me weak. And as I think about it, I realize that’s my whole commitment issue. I was terrified to let anyone close enough to find out who I really was. I was sure once they knew how scared and insecure and broken I was deep inside, they’d think I was pathetic. But Alessandro knows me, maybe better than I know myself, and he doesn’t think I’m pathetic. He sees me as strong, which makes me feel strong. “So, my coffee table’s thought about it.”

He arches an eyebrow. “And?”

I glide my finger down his happy trail to the prize. “It thinks it might be able to be happy here.”

The slow smile that curves his perfect lips is so goddamn sexy as he lays me back and rolls on top of me. “I will do everything in my power to make your coffee table happy for the rest of its days.”

I wrap my legs around him and run my fingertips over his back, feeling goose bumps pebble his flawless skin. “I know how you can make it happy right now.”

His kiss is slow and sure—a true soul kiss—and in it, I know I’ve finally found home.

He moans low in his chest and I pull him closer. My body sings when he sinks himself deep inside me.

“So I guess you get me for your birthday,” I say as I start to move under him.

He smiles and kisses me again, and as we begin our climb toward the stars, I picture butterflies spiraling up, up, up the three tiers of a white wedding cake, to where a pair of cockroaches sits on top.