“Buena Onda,” Dominic said involuntarily. Maybe he just wanted to be the first one. “Perfect, Rosie.”
They didn’t break eye contact until Bethany spoke. “I love it, too. It sounds comforting. Welcoming. Like a neighborhood family place, with flair.” She twirled a finger in the air, closed her eyes, and breathed deeply through her nose. “I’m envisioning a big scripty O on the awning . . .”
Eyes trained on the blonde, Wes cleared his throat into his Solo cup. “Sounds like you’re thinking of a totally different kind of big O.”
Bethany cooed at the man to her left. “Awww, poor thing. Need instructions on how to deliver one?”
“Like hell I do.”
They smiled at each other through gritted teeth and everyone tried not to laugh.
Everyone except Stephen, who appeared to have lost all interest in his pizza. “One day I woke up and everyone was talking about my sisters like sexual objects.”
“Eww, Stephen,” Georgie complained from her position in Travis’s lap. “Gross.”
“Oh, it’s only gross when I point it out?”
Travis’s hearty laugh echoed off the walls. “Come on, baby,” he said, standing and hoisting his fiancée up against his chest. “Let’s spare your poor brother his misery.”
“Thank you.” Stephen heaved himself forward, reaching for another piece of pizza.
“Yeah.” Travis strode for the door. “Let’s go home and get into our pajamas.” He winked at the group. “And straight back out of them.”
Stephen dropped the slice like it was on fire. “Okay. I’ve hit my limit.” The foreman stood and dusted off his jeans, turning to a chuckling Rosie. “I’m happy for you, Rosie. You’re going to add something really special to this town.” He leaned down and shook Dominic’s hand. “You’re fast becoming my favorite, Dom, since you’re the only man left not sleeping with one of my sisters.”
“Hey,” Bethany exclaimed, her spine snapping straight. “I’m not sleeping with Wes.”
“Give it time,” Stephen muttered on his way out the door.
And then there were four.
Wes looked like a pig in shit. “Give you a ride”—he paused to sip his drink—“home, Bethany?”
With a shriek contained in her throat—mostly—Bethany stood and marched out. Wes followed a moment later. Rosie and Dominic turned to each other and burst into laughter. He caught Rosie as she toppled sideways, her head landing against his chest, the musical sound of her amusement warming every corner of his insides. He couldn’t help it when the laughter died in his throat. Couldn’t stop himself from pulling her into his lap in one desperate move and burying his face in her neck.
“I’m proud of you, Rosie.”
He took a deep inhale of her and let it out, trusting the prodding in his gut. They were one entity. They shared a life. They either moved forward in the right direction or they would end up off course again. Dominic didn’t think he could survive losing her a second time.
“I’m proud as hell. I believe in you.” He swallowed. “I’m also selfish when it comes to my wife and I don’t like the idea of everyone else taking a piece of you.”
Rosie lifted her head, a line forming between her brows. “What do you mean, everyone taking a piece of me?”
“I mean . . .”
Dominic sounded as if he’d been running, his attention landing on different spots around the vacant restaurant. Hell, maybe therapy hadn’t been such a stupid idea, because when he normally would have balked at sharing his feelings, they lifted to the surface now without effort. Apparently his stiff upper lip was loosening up.
“All these people around you. Asking for things. Stressing you out. Even the good they get—the things you want to give them, like comfort and happiness? I’ve had them all to myself for a long time. I’m greedy with you. And I know, honey girl, I know that has to change so you can have your dream and be happy. I want that. I want your dream for you so fucking bad. But it means letting you fly without me. I’m scared of that.”
His wife took his face in her hands, her breath coming in short puffs. “Dominic—”
“Scared of you finding happiness in something that has nothing to do with me.” Unlike the house I bought for us. “That makes me a bastard, and I don’t know how to change it.”
She stopped his flow of words with her mouth, staying there until the rise and fall of his chest wasn’t so severe, then pulling back an inch. Searching his eyes.
“There are parts of me that I will never share with anyone else in this world. Not a single soul. Only you. And that is never, ever going to change,” she said.
She turned in his lap, straddling him, laying soft kisses on his mouth, his cheeks, ruining him. Winding him all over again.
“No one is ever going to see me cry or be at my weakest inside these four walls. That’s something I’ll always save for you, because you’re the only one who can make me stronger. No one is ever going to turn me on and piss me off at the same time or make me feel protected. Or alive. You’re the only one who’ll ever do that.”
Every word out of her mouth stitched shut the gaping wound inside him, tied knots, made sure it was securely closed. Maybe his wife wasn’t the only one who craved words. And Jesus, he hadn’t cried since he was a kid, but he was suspiciously close to it right now. Had to drop his head back and look up at the ceiling, so the suspicious moisture in his eyes wouldn’t escape.
“Dominic, do you honestly think I could ever love anyone the way I love you?”
That snapped his head and eyes forward, sent the organ in his chest into a frenzy. Had he heard her right? “You’re back to loving me?”
Rosie made a small sound, her expression a mixture of regret and love. “I’m sorry I said that. Maybe at the time I was angry enough to convince myself I meant it. But, Dominic, I couldn’t stop loving you if they cut the heart out of my chest.”
With a gruff exhale of her name, he shot forward and snared her mouth in a rough kiss. Oh Jesus Christ. His heart was going to beat hard enough to incite an earthquake. Rosie loved him. His wife loved him and nothing else on this fucking earth mattered but thanking her for it. If he took his mouth off hers, he was pretty sure poems were going to come tumbling out and he’d never written a damn poem in his life, so he pried her lips apart with his own instead, licking into her mouth and intercepting her unrestrained moan.
Dominic knew his wife’s signals better than the back of his hand, so when her thighs got restless around his hips, he wasted no time standing. It would be a cold day in hell before he fucked this incredible woman on a floor covered in sawdust and dirt.
When Dominic reached his full height, her thighs tightened around him like a wrench, her hands busy stroking his face, mewling coming from her throat. It was everything he could do to stumble toward the back of the empty room, toward the kitchen, when all he wanted to do was jerk down his zipper, impale Rosie, and bounce her to an orgasm. They’d ripped some of the paper coverings off the window throughout the evening, however, so anyone passing by would see them—and he wasn’t having that.