Page 41 of This Thing of Ours

She followed the direction of Marco’s eyes and saw the wet spot on her t-shirt just above her navel. She plucked at the cotton, detaching it from her skin, and looked back up at him. His cheeks were red. “Are you blushing?”

Her question made the blush spread and darken. “It was a juvenile move. My only excuse is that it was you, and it’s been a really long time.”

“How long is really long?” She had a feeling guys equated a long time without sex the same as in dog years. One month felt like seven.

“Since your eighteenth birthday.”

“What?” She barely got the word out, and even then, it came out as a croak. He hadn’t had sex in four years? “Wh… why?”

He gave her awhy do you thinklook before saying, “Because contrary to what you women cackle about when us men aren’t around, wecankeep it in our pants when motivated to do so.”

“And you were motivated?”

This time the look he gave her had her heart racing and goose bumps sprouting on her arms. “Very.”

“And I was your motivation?” She wanted to be one-hundred percent sure. No assuming for this girl.

“Yes, streghetta.” He traced a thumb over her bottom lip. “That day, when you walked in and saw me with that other—”

Her hand shot up and covered his lips. “I don’t want to talk about that.”

He wrapped a hand around her wrist, pulling her hand down. “Cara mia, the hurt I saw in your eyes, I never wanted to see it again, and I definitely didn’t want to be the cause of it. So, I swore to myself, I would never give you reason to hurt like that again.”

“But if I wasn’t around, I wouldn’t have known.”

“I would have known. I saw you as a woman for the first time that day, and you did something to my heart.”

Her own heart beating fast, she asked, “What did I do to it?”

“You stole it.” At her indrawn breath, he continued, “And you’ve had it ever since.”

Was he saying he loved her?

It took a few moments for the distant sound of her ringing phone to penetrate her ears. “I better get that. It could be news about Dad.” She opened the bathroom door to grab it from her bag. “But we’re not done with this conversation.”

“Of course, we’re not,” he said with a smirk.

She grinned at his tone as she answered the phone. “Hey, Mom.”

“Your father’s going in for surgery.”

Thoughts of possible love declarations flew from her head, and she turned startled eyes to Marco before saying, “Is he okay?”

“The x-ray showed his femur was fractured. They need to go in and fix it.”

“We’ll be there as soon as we can.”

“We?”

Gabby looked sheepishly at Marco before saying into the phone, “Marco and I.”

Her mom was silent a moment before she said, “Guess a lot has happened since the last time we chatted.”

“I’ll fill you in when we get to the hospital.”

“We’re at Southside. I’ll meet you in the third-floor surgical waiting room.”

“Okay. See you soon. Tell Dad I love him and give him a kiss for me.” Gabby hung up and slid the phone back into her purse.

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