“Roz, come help!”
“Nazio, get over here!”
Naz cursed under his breath as he had to go one way, and Roz was pulled in an entirely different direction in the back halls of the church. The last sight he caught of her was the apologetic smile and small shrug she gave him at the end of the hallway before she was pulled into a room, and gone from his view altogether.
Shit.
“Oh, stop looking so sour,” Catherine told her son, dragging Naz’s attention away from where Roz had disappeared to. “You’ve been with her all morning, Naz. I am sure you can go ten minutes without her.”
“Doubtful,” Naz muttered under his breath.
Oh, he certainly could be forced away from Roz. It was a whole other matter on whether or not he actually wanted to be taken away from her. Because he didn’t. At all. He wanted and needed to get as much fucking time with her as he could because all too soon, she was going to be half way across the goddamn world.
But today wasn’t the day for that. It wasn’t the day for him to get in to all of that shit because it was a happy day. Not his happy day even if he was happy. But a happy day nonetheless.
His sister’s wedding.
Cross shot his son a look from the side—a silent shut up, Nazio—as he worked on fixing a little boy’s tie—one of his man’s sons. “There you are, Junior. Go find your Papa, huh?”
“Thank you, sir.”
His father patted the boy on the top of the head before the kid darted off to find his father. Standing straight, Cross gave Nazio a one-over, and nodded.
“At least I no longer have to fix your ties,” his father said.
“That’s debatable,” his mother countered. “Naz, why is your knot—”
Naz rolled his eyes upward, and zoned his mother out as she started fussing over his fucking tie that was perfectly fine. There was nothing wrong with the knot, and by the time she was done with it, the damn thing would look exactly the same as it had before she got her hands on it. But that was his mother, and there wasn’t very much he could do about her need to fuss when she was stressed out. So, instead of telling her to leave him be, he let her fuck around with his tie for a good couple of minutes before his father decided to step in and save the day.
He heard his father’s chuckle. “Oh, leave him be, Catty.”
“But—”
“Let him go in and see Cece for a minute before we all have to get going and everyone starts rushing. She’s got five minutes, doesn’t she?”
Catherine passed her husband a look. “Fine. You’re not ready.”
His father was already heading down the hallway, ticking a finger over his shoulder as he went. “On my way there now.”
“Late.”
“The boss is never late, Catherine. Everyone else is always early.”
“He is when his wife says so!”
Naz couldn’t help but smirk at the way his mother fake-glared at her husband’s back. No doubt, his father knew it, too.
“Well,” Naz said, fixing the jacket of his tux, “if you’re just about done with your foreplay, I’d like to go talk to my sister before I walk Roz to her seat.”
His mother’s eyes widened, and her gaze turned on him. “That was not fore—”
“Mmhmm. Laundry room, Ma.”
Every single time his parents got in one of their moods, he was thrust back into the memory of coming home way too early and kind of finding his parents in a compromising position in the laundry room. He hadn’t gone far enough to actually see them, but with the way his fucking brain worked … he didn’t need to see to know. Or to create a goddamn image that was forever burned into his brain.
Stupid, genius brain.
Her cheeks pinked. “Nazio!”
“Never gonna forgive you for that,” he muttered. “Ever.”
“Oh, my God,” his mother huffed, “go see your sister.”
“That was the plan, yep.”
Naz barely dodged the playful slap his mother aimed at the back of his head before he slipped inside his sister’s dressing room. It seemed like, for the moment, it was only Cece and her makeup artist in the room. He doubted his sister was getting very much quiet time today. He’d already made the trip across the church to see—and possibly threaten—her husband-to-be, but this was the first time he actually got to see his sister today.
“Hey, you look great, Naz,” Cece said, finally noticing him. She gave him a smile, but quickly went back to doing what the makeup artist told her. “Where’s Ma?”
“Pestering Dad. And aren’t I supposed to be the one telling you how beautiful you look today? It’s your day, Cece.”
His sister—who looked entirely too much like their mother, but with a mind like their father—grinned over at him. “I know how I look, thank you.”
Yeah, just like their mom and dad.
For a moment, the two siblings stared at one another. Naz thought, in those seconds, their entire childhood passed before his eyes. Compliments of that brain of his, there wasn’t one moment of his life growing up with Cece as his big sister that he couldn’t remember.
She taught him how to walk.
He took his first steps for her.
It was going to be some kind of fucked up situation for him when he woke up next week, and realized his sister wasn’t in the same city as him. Sure, they didn’t hang out or talk as much as they used to … life kept them busy like that … but damn, she was always there. A drive or phone call away when he needed her.
Always.
Cece smiled a bit, as though she could read his mind. “California isn’t that far away, Naz.”
“Yeah, I keep trying to tell myself that about Australia, too … but fuck it if I don’t still feel like shit over it, huh? Except I know I shouldn’t feel like that about it at all. Same with this. It’s good—you going to Cali with Juan, that’s good. And I still feel like … well, fuck what I feel. It’s about you, right? You’re happy.”
His sister didn’t need for him to explain. She already knew.
He told Cece everything.
“You’ll figure out a way to make it work, Naz,” Cece said. “You’re too brilliant not to.”
Naz slipped down another back hallway in the church in search of Roz. Someone had said they thought they had seen her come this way, and he felt like he was on a wild fucking goose chase because—
“Jesus Christ!”
He almost fell face first into the floor of an unknown room when Roz suddenly appeared in the doorway, and yanked him inside. It took him far too long to realize it wasn’t just any unknown room.
No, it was the goddamn confessional.
But it was way too late to think about that because she had shut the door, and backed him up against it with a kiss that silenced his chaotic mind. He couldn’t even ask what in the hell she was doing because her hands were already undoing his pants, and slipping beneath his boxer-briefs. Add the tightening of her palm around his hard dick, and the fast strokes of her hand that woke him up in an instant, and Naz was a goner.
He was already trying to get his hands under the many layers of chiffon keeping her hidden from him.
“Why do these dresses have so many fucking layers?” he growled against her mouth.
“Because I don’t think this is what you’re supposed to be doing when you wear them, Naz.”
Her laughter quickly melted into the sweetest moan when he yanked her across the room, and she fell into his lap as he found a chair that was not meant for this. He knew the chair wasn’t meant for fucking because he’d sat on it at least once a year from the time he turned thirteen to confess his sins to his priest.
Yeah.
“This is not going in my next confession,” he said in a long groan as Roz fit him between her thighs, and then lowered down fast. Too fast, maybe. It took the fucking air right out of his lungs, and all he could do was grab onto her hips for some kind of stability. “No damn way.”
Her laughter was there again. Filling up the room, and his mind, and his soul. He was probably going to miss hearing that the most when she was gone.
Breathless. So sweet.
It only lasted long enough for him to pull her in for another kiss, and then she was riding him the way he liked. Fast, and wild. Fingernails digging into his shoulders, and her tongue warring with his. He got to swallow every one of her pretty little sounds while she took what she wanted, and fucked them both to oblivion.
What a fucking way to spend a wedding.
Naz didn’t linger on those thoughts for long because something else was taking up space in his mind. Like the way Roz was shaking, how her hands tightened on him, and how her sounds came out a little higher.
His balls tightened, and heat shot up his spine.
Fuck.
The second she came, he was right there, too.
“Holy Christ,” he mumbled into Roz’s neck.
Yeah, there was definitely a special place in hell with his name stamped on the door for this. Naz was going there with a smile on his face. He didn’t even care.
Then, he had another thought.
“No fucking condom, Roz,” he muttered.
He felt her small shrug. “It’s okay. I have the shot done.”
“Still.”
Mistakes happened.
He didn’t think a baby would be good for either of them right now, but especially not her. It wasn’t like having a little one would do anything but hold her back when she was trying to rise higher. He never wanted to hold her back. Not in that way, or any other way.
Roz straightened on his lap, and her fingertips ghosted over his face with a soft touch. “Sometimes, I want to stay right here with you.”
Naz smiled. “And sometimes you wanna go, right?”
“Yeah.”
“You’re going to go,” he told her, “and you’re going to be amazing. You’re going to do the thing you want to do more than anything because I don’t ever want you to wonder what might have been if you didn’t take the chance.”
“But what about—”
“We’ll figure it out. Because it’s just a moment in time. That’s all it’s going to be. And then there’ll be another moment. A different one. There’ll be a moment just like this one today, except you’ll be wearing a white dress, and I’ll be at the other end waiting for you. But in between, we’ll just have to figure it out, okay?”
Roz nodded. “Yeah, okay.”
“I love you, Roz.”
“With my whole heart, Naz.”
He was about to drag her in for another kiss, but a knock on the door stopped him. And a voice …
“If you two are just about fucking done in there,” Luca grumbled, “people are waiting.”
Well, shit.
Naz figured … story of his life. He just had a whole new chapter now with Roz. And they were just getting started.