Page 18 of Moonlight & Matrimony
“No more thanking me.” I know she wants to protest, but she simply nods before disappearing into the bathroom.
After setting up the sofa, I lay awake for hours, the worries of the day refusing to subside from my unsettled mind. I’m finally drifting off to sleep when I hear a faint whimper. It’s so quiet I think I’ve imagined it until a shrill cry pierces the air. I rush down the hallway to Ivy’s room, where she’s pantingand writhing in the sheets. Her sweat-dampened skin glistens as moonlight streams in through the French doors. I make it to the side of the bed in three strides. Her legs are tangled up in the top sheet as her body thrashes. Up close, I can see the tears soaking her cheeks as she mutters something in her sleep. The sight before me cracks open my callous heart.
Ivy
“Ivy. Ivy… wake up.” I’m jolted awake and into the strong arms of my best friend’s brother. My entire body is shaking, wracked with uncontrollable sobs. I shiver under his touch as I replay the details of my nightmare.
“He took her. Austin. He took Rylin and he… he hurt her.”
“Shhhh… it was just a nightmare. You’re safe,” he murmurs, holding me steady against his chest as I tremble uncontrollably. “I’m here. I won’t let anything bad happen to either of you.”
“You can’t promise that.”
“I can and I am. Marry me, Ivy. Let’s put an end to this for good.”
All of the fight has left my body, the weight of the last 24 hours bearing down on me. I can no longer deny I need help. I nod, unable to muster the words, my throat raw from the emotions of the day.
“Is Mommy okay?” a little voice calls from the doorway. An overwhelming wave of guilt consumes me as I think back over everything my daughter has witnessed. I thought leaving would put an end to his torment, but I was so very wrong. I’ve done my best to shield her from the worst of it, but my failures are catching up with me if her earlier conversation with Luca is anything to go by.
“Come here, Bug,” Luca says, not letting go of me with his left arm as his right gestures for Rylin to join us on my bed. Never in my life did I imagine a scenario where I would have my best friend’s brother wrapped around me, but he’s the comfort I need right now and I can’t bring myself to push him away.
Rylin jumps up into the bed, all but throwing herself at us as Luca wraps us up in a group hug, a soft smile playing at my lips. “I’m okay, love. Do you want to stay here with me?” My little girl nods and squeezes herself between Luca and me. We shift to make extra room and he pulls the covers over both of us. When he moves to get out of bed, I snag him by the wrist and pull him back. “Please don’t go.”
He hesitates for one agonizing minute, but he must see something in my pleading eyes that softens him. “I’ll stay until you’re both asleep.” He climbs on top of the covers, placing both hands behind his head, crosses his feet at the ankles, and closes his eyes. A sliver of skin peeks out as his t-shirt creeps up his body, giving me a mouthwatering view of his happy trail and the indentations along his hips. I won’t lie and say that I didn’t look my fill. He’s thick in all the right places with muscles that weren’t created in a gym but honed by years of hard labor, and those gray sweatpants should be illegal. Realizing I’m staring, I turn onto my side, wrapping an arm around my daughter. It’s not long before I’m drifting off to sleep.
“Shhh. Mommy’s still sleeping.”
It takes me a minute to register what I’m hearing as I approach the kitchen at the end of the hallway. When the viewbefore me comes into focus, my heart melts into a puddle at my feet. Rylin is perched at the kitchen island with a pancake in the shape of a cat, and Luca is placing more conventionally shaped pancakes onto a stack about a mile high. The room smells like a deadly combination of fresh coffee, fluffy pancakes, and Luca.
“What’s all this?” I ask, approaching the pair as I wipe the sleep from my eyes.
“Luca made pancakes! They’re soooooo yummy.”
“You didn’t have to do that,” I say, taking in the sexy as sin man standing at my stove like he belongs here. He glances over his shoulder and I have to resist the urge to hug him from behind. The scene is so domestic it nearly steals my breath. There’s just something about a man standing barefoot in my kitchen wearing nothing but a pair of grey sweats and a t-shirt that really does it for me.
“It was no trouble. Rylin woke up hungry, and you needed the rest.” If I wasn’t a complete mess already, those words would do it. I was with Austin for six years and I don’t think he’s ever spared me even a fraction of the consideration that Luca has freely given me.
“Thank you,” I sigh.
“Sit,” he commands.
“Yes, sir.” I give him a mock salute, and I don’t miss the heated look he gives me.Oh shit.
“Brat,” he mutters under his breath, so low I might’ve missed it if I’d been just slightly further away. He piles several pancakes onto a plate, placing it on the island in front of me. I’m just about to get up for a drink when he slides a coffee mug beside my plate, pouring a generous amount of my caramel macchiato creamer on top.
“How do you know how I take my coffee?”
“I was behind you when you placed your order at Rosie’s yesterday. And I assumed this creamer wasn’t for Ry.”
I chuckle. “That’s fair. Thank you, Luca.”
“Stop thanking me,” he says, leaning back onto the counter, crossing his feet at the ankles. I watch as he brings his own cup of coffee to his lips, black by the looks of it, and takes a generous swallow. Why is everything he does so effortlessly sexy? Luca clears his throat, snapping me out of my daydreams.
“Mommy, I’m done.”
“Here, let me take that.” Luca rinses the sticky plate and cup and places them in the dishwasher. Fuck, even that was sexy as hell.
“Ry, can you go get dressed? You have a visit with daddy today.” Rylin’s body sags at my words and she nods before heading off to her room. She’ll no doubt come back in something completely mismatched as usual, but I’ve learned to let her have her little quirks. Last week she went to preschool in rain boots and a tutu, not a cloud in the sky or a single drop of rain in sight.
