About ten minutes later I felt some movement behind me as he stirred and then the delicate kisses on the back of my neck. He mustn’t have known I was already awake and he was giving me the gentlest wake-up call ever. I moved my hand down to where his rested over my tummy and laced my fingers with his.
“Morning.” I whispered and lifted his hand to kiss it.
He tried to roll me over but I protested about the lack of tooth brushing that had occurred so far that morning. To which he replied that he didn’t care he needed to see me and kiss me properly.
“I like seeing you in my bed…” he said in a sexy low voice, “…naked. I think you need to be here every morning.”
I smiled and lay my head on his chest. I could hear the strong steady beating of his heart in his chest. It had a calming effect on my soul and I decided if we never left this bed today I would be the happiest girl in the neighbourhood. I was right where I’d always wanted to be.
I ran my fingers gently up and down his chest and took the opportunity to admire his stunning body and the tattoos that adorned it.
“Do any of your tattoos have a special meaning?” I asked drawing my fingers around an angel on his arm.
“They all have special meanings.” He kissed the top of my head and then pulled his arm over to show me the angel I was tracing.
“You see this one here, if you look closely and I mean really closely you’ll find a very special something hidden in this tattoo.”
I leant up on my elbow to take a closer look still running my fingers over the tattoo. I don’t know why I’d been drawn to that particular image so much. The angel was kneeling down and what looked like a rosary was in-between her praying hands. Her wings were a myriad of swirls and patterns. I’d always hated those optical illusion pictures, the ones where people claimed to see lions and tigers or some other weird and wonderful image hidden within the patterns. I could never see them, much like Freddie’s constellations in the night sky.
“All I see is an angel with a rosary.” I huffed.
Luca picked up my finger and began to trace something. The curve of her knee.
“C,” he whispered.
Down her arm and a bump across where it was bent at the elbow.
“h.”
Where her wings were attached to her back.
“L.”
Then into the wings themselves the curls twisting into joined letters that were making my lower lip tremble and my eyes water.
“O and E.”
“You have my name tattooed
on your arm?”
“I have you tattooed on my arm. You’re my angel.” I gasped, for once totally lost for words.
“And it isn’t a rosary, it’s a St. Christopher on a chain that she’s holding.”
I couldn’t stop myself, I launched myself on top of him hugging him so tight I could have hurt him if he wasn’t so tough.
“You like it then?” He chuckled softly running his hands down my back and planting kisses along my shoulders.
“I love it. I love you.” I cried.
We held each other close for what felt like ages before I reluctantly pulled away and asked the question that had forever burned onto my lips.
“What happened that night? The night you left?”
He closed his eyes and sighed, then quietly recalled the whole sorry saga.
Chapter 20