Page 60 of Lorenzo

Well, the reality is that after Gina gives birth, she likely won’t have the same time or energy.

She needs someone like Emily to bring it to fruition.

I hear Emily stirring in the bedroom. I get up and walk through the half-open doorway.

“Again?” I ask, seeing she’s constructing that ridiculous pillow wall.

She doesn’t answer.

“Do you want some help?”

“No, thank you,” she says in that prim New England speak of hers.

I watch her a minute. Then try for a joke. “If I wanted to take you, do you really think a pillow is gonna stop me?”

“No,” she says, turning to me with a smile. “But I’m curious. Why are you single in your early thirties?”

“Single? I’m married to you, right?” I say, keeping my tone light.

But Emily isn’t buying into the lightness.

“What are you afraid of, Lorenzo Ricci? Are you afraid of having a wife? Or a real life? You run a nightclub. Beautiful girls every night of the week. I saw one of them right there in your nightstand.”

“A girl on my nightstand?” I joke. “Are you sure you weren’t hallucinating?”

She purses her lips.

“Not the girl. Her purple signature on a cocktail napkin. With a little heart. You have very strange taste in women, Lorenzo.”

“What I do is no business of yours. You will show me respect.”

Her eyes flash at my tone.

When she tries to shove me away, I grab her hands.

The motion knocks out the gold pin holding her updo.

Emily’s beautiful auburn hair tumbles down.

I stand there, stunned by her beauty at that moment. Her burning cheeks, her flaming hair.

She takes advantage of my focus on this to slap me. Then she stops. We both look at one another, breathless.

Working on instinct, I kiss her.

Emily’s hand moves to my face as if to push me away. Her fingers splay against my jaw. But then her palm softens and her fingers curl into the collar of my shirt, pulling me toward her.

I open her robe. Run my hands over the curve of her breasts, the warmth of her skin against my palms.

Then lower, tracing the soft plane of her stomach, the jut of her hip bones.

“We, we can’t,” she says, breaking away from my lips, her breath unsteady.

“You’re my wife. Why can’t we?”

I press the firm hard length of me against her. I feel silk panties obstructing my cock and rip them off.

She gasps. “I want you.”