CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
TARA
“Make a wish.”
I peer at my mom from over the candles on the cake. We all know what I’m wishing for this year, and collectively, we’re all praying it comes true as I blow out the candles.
Dad flicks the lights on, and I turn to Capone. After my live video which received the most engagement ever, I got off line. My parents had returned from getting my cake, and Uncle Shady, Bianca, and Leftie all dropped by to sample Capone’s pizza. We’ve barely had any time alone, and there is something I’ve been meaning to ask him since I woke up this morning.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” he asks, plucking a chocolate covered strawberry from the birthday cake. He holds the strawberry to my lips, encouraging me to take a bite.
“You promised if I was feeling better we’d go for a ride on your bike.” I inch forward, biting into the strawberry. “I’m holding you to it.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” my mom interrupts. “Your surgery is in a few days, and you really can’t risk getting sick.”
I get the concern but what she doesn’t understand is my side of things. The last round of chemo destroyed me. I could barely move from the bathroom floor, much less the house. I’ve been cooped up here ever since, and with my surgery approaching, I’m going stir crazy. The doctors have already warned me that I’m going to be out of commission after surgery, and that it could be weeks before I’m even discharged. Never mind I’m still having severe anxiety about going under the knife, but we won’t go there.
The point is, I don’t have too many days where I feel like a human, and I don’t think it’s that irresponsible of me to want to make the most of them.
I just want to feel normal.
I just want to live.
“I’m not going to get sick.” I glance at Capone, noting the conflicted expression on his face. “Please? We won’t even go far. I just need a change of scenery, and time to feel like me again.” I pull my lower lip between my teeth. “We don’t have to go for a long ride. Maybe we can just go to your apartment. I want to take pictures of the living room anyway.”
We’ve been trying to make plans for when I’m bedbound and have nothing to do. There are only so many TikTok’s one can make, and I’m not even sure I’ll be up to that. One of the things Capone suggested I do to keep busy is decorate his apartment. What started out as a quest for a couch has become a full-blown operation, and by the time I’m done, his apartment will be ready to host his entire family for Sunday dinner.
Francesca Cappizzone is going to love me forever.
However, decorating his apartment has nothing to do with him and I getting out of this house for a while.
“I think it’s a good idea,” Dad says, surprising both Capone, and I. My mom, not so much. “Nothing better than a little wind therapy.” He winds his arms around mom’s waist and whispers something in her ear. Whatever he says seems to work in my favor because she turns to Capone and tells him to be careful with me.
A grin stretches across my face, and I throw my arms around Capone’s neck. “Best birthday ever.”
He kisses the top of my head before inching back.
“Well, if we’re going for a ride, I should probably give you your birthday present now.”
He disappears into the living room, only to return a moment later carrying a big pink box, perfectly wrapped—giant bow and all.
“You said the best part of receiving a present, is tearing the paper.” He sets the gift on the counter in front of me. “Have at it, princess. I even splurged for the card.”
I smile at him. “Who helped you?”
“Lucia.”
I meant it when I said the best part of opening a present is unwrapping it, but that was before I received a card from Capone. His handwriting isn’t the best, but the words above his name were legible.
I love you.
It’s not something we’ve said to one another, which is crazy when you think about it. I don’t think either one of us question how the other feels for them. It’s obvious in every action. It’s the way we look at one another. It’s him holding my hair when I’m hunched over the bowl. It’s me creeping out of my bed every night to sleep with him on the couch. It’s all the little things, and the big things too.
Winking at me, he tips his chin toward the present.
“Open it, princess.”
His command acts as a reminder that we’re surrounded by my family, and as much as I want to tell him I love him too, those words are better spoken without an audience. I carefully place the card back inside the envelope and focus my attention on the present, enthusiastically ripping the pretty pink paper.
“You got me my own helmet?” I boast, removing it from the box. I’m about to fit it to my head, when I spot a photograph peeking through the tissue paper. Setting the helmet on the counter, I examine the photo, trying to guess what it is. But the only thing I can make out is the word throne.
“It’s a custom seat for the back of my bike. When we get back from New York, I’m having it installed,” he explains.
I grin so hard as I slide off the stool and rush for him, throwing my arms around his neck. I don’t care who is in the room, I can’t hold back another second.
“You love me big,” I whisper against his ear.
His arms wrap around me, squeezing me as he presses a kiss to the top of my head. “So fucking big, Princess.”
My dad was right, there is nothing quite like a little wind therapy. Capone pulls his bike in front of his apartment complex and kills the engine. Dropping down the kickstand, he removes the helmet from his head and turns his gaze to the sideview mirror, waiting expectantly for me to the same.
I stall for a beat, not quite ready for our ride to be over. Then I remind myself, I’ve got big plans for when we go inside his apartment, and I make quick work of unfastening the chin strap. But as soon as I remove the helmet, and my eyes catch sight of the clump of hair inside of it, my heart drops.
Instinctively, I lift my hand to my hair, horror streaked across my face, as my gaze flits to Capone. I knew this would happen, and mentally I tried to prepare. But when it didn’t happen during the chemo treatment, I thought I was in the clear until after surgery. I even canceled the appointment mom made for me to get a custom wig.
Capone quickly dismounts and turns to me, taking the helmet from my hands.
“It’s only hair, baby. It’ll grow back.”
Frantically, I pat my head, searching for bald spots. Tears fill my eyes, and it feels like I’ve been punched in the gut. Why me? Why now?
“It’s not only hair. It’s everything.”
The dam breaks and the tears fall freely. Capone speaks to me, but I don’t hear a word he says. I’m too lost in my grief in my grief to make sense of anything else. The next thing I know is that I’m being lifted off the bike and carried to his apartment. He sets me down on the counter, pushing my legs apart so he can step between them. I blink, bringing his handsome face into focus. He lifts his hands to my head, smoothing them down my hair. My first reaction is to swat his hands away, but his fingers wrap around my wrists, and he bends his head, sweeping his lips across mine.
“It’s only hair,” he repeats over and over in between kisses. The more he says it, the more I start to believe it, and when he wraps the fragile strands around his fingers, I don’t flinch.
It’s only hair.
His tongue sneaks out, tracing the seam of my mouth. My lips part and he slides in, his tongue lavishly sweeping through my mouth, tangling with mine. I get lost in his kiss… in his touch, and I wind my arms around his neck, scooting closer to the edge of the counter.
If we could just stay like this forever.
If I could just forget cancer ever darkened my doorstep.
If I could just feel anything but devastation.
He angles my head, deepening the kiss, and a moan escapes me. The sound only entices him more, and soon his teeth are scraping against my lips. He plucks and plunders, his mouth completely owning me, making me a breathless puddle of raw emotions.
His lips leave mine, and his mouth starts moving from my jaw to my neck. He sucks and licks, his coarse beard only adding more friction. I wind my legs around my waist and arch against him, the need to be close, to feel all his hardness against my softness is too much.
He pistons his hips, and I feel the hard ridge of his cock press against me.
Yes. I need more of that.
Frantically, I fist his t-shirt, sliding it up his abs. I want to feel his skin on me. He tears his mouth away from my neck and draws out a ragged breath.
“We have to stop.”
Panic surges deep inside of me.
“No, please…” I beg. “I don’t want to stop, Gianluca. I need this. I need this more than fucking air right now.”
I don’t think words can convey how badly I need him.
“Tara, you’re upset…and… well, I don’t want to hurt you.”
Still fisting his shirt, I yank him closer to me. He drops his forehead to mine.
“You’ll never hurt me,” I assure him. “Please don’t turn me down.” Then a thought crosses my mind, and I quickly release him, inching backward. All this time I’ve been thinking he’s holding back because of my age, but maybe it’s not that at all. “Unless…of course you don’t want to. I mean I get it, I’m sick. We spend more time on the bathroom floor and in hospitals than we do anywhere else. I can’t imagine you find that attractive, and now I’m losing hair, so there go my looks. You usually go for women like Wendy, and I’m the inexperienced virgin you’re afraid too touch.”
I unwind my legs from his waist and am about to push him out of my way when he takes my hand and lowers it to the bulge straining against his fly.
“Does that feel like I don’t find you attractive?”
I pull my lower lip between my teeth, my hand instinctively closing around his hardened cock.
“I’m going to let you feel sorry for yourself for a minute, then I’m going to rip your pants off, and bury my head between your legs. Your pussy is going to be mine, Tara, and I don’t think you realize how much of a privilege I consider that.”
He shrugs his kutte from his shoulders, and reaches behind him, pulling his t-shirt over his head in one fluid motion. My eyes rake over his chiseled chest, zeroing in on the dusting of dark hair that trails from his belly button. Then I take in the tattoos that decorate his skin, and I release my lip. My tongue sneaks out of my mouth, and I wet my lips as something foreign begins to flutter in the pit of my gut.
“Am I afraid to touch you? Yeah, sometimes, but that’s only because I don’t know how to fuck gentle, and like it or not, you are fucking fragile. So fucking fragile, and so goddamn precious. But I’ll do my best. Give you all I fucking got if that’s what you want.”
He pauses, brushing my hand away from his cock as he undoes his belt and pops the button on his jeans.
“I’ve been struggling with my fucking attraction to you since I saw you that night in the woods. And, yeah, you’re a virgin, but that only makes me more feral for you. There’s a sick fascination in knowing I’m going to be the guy that worships your body for the first time and introduces it to all the pleasure it can possibly receive.”
Lowering his zipper, he kicks off his boots and pushes his jeans down his legs. They drop to the floor, and he steps out of them, leaving him in nothing but a pair of black boxer briefs, his massive cock straining against them.
“I don’t deserve what I’m about to take, but I’m not going to deny you or I any longer, and when we’re done, they’ll never be a question of how much I want you. You can lose your hair. We can spend every fucking day in the hospital. None of that will ever change how I feel about you. Now, if you’re sure, I’d really like to get you naked. I’m fucking starving, and the only thing I want is your sweet little cunt on my tongue.”