Chapter Thirteen
Naomi
What in the actual bloody hell was going on? I’d been asking myself the same question for the entire day and I still had no answer, no logical one anyway. Joe- my Joe was real! No matter how many times I told myself it was a physical impossibility, there was no denying a sexy silver-haired Italian man, named Joseph Ferrantino, lay fast asleep in my bed. I had lain next to him for quite some time and listened to him fall asleep but there was no way in a million years I could sleep.
For the last few hours I had convinced myself I’d finally flipped and was having full blown hallucinations. Then I remembered some quote about ‘if you thought you were crazy, you definitely weren’t’ or something like that. I’d thought maybe it was some kind of chemical imbalance in my brain that was causing it. But then dismissed that theory on the basis that I’d had sex with him today, twice! As much as I had given in to those fantasies previously, they’d never left my lips raw from kissing or made my lady parts throb from the blissfully heavy pounding it had gotten. Ohhhh no, that was most definitely real, so it stood to reason that Joe was too. I just couldn’t for the life of me work out how? Google had been utterly useless, every hit that came back implied I was undeniably bonkers and should probably be wearing a straitjacket as part of my daily attire. As illogical as it sounded, the only possible thing left to do was read my manuscript.
I held the folder, containing the ninety-eight pages of A4 that I had written and printed off so far, on my lap. The story was nowhere near finished and I had read over it many times but now, I sat on my sofa daring myself to open it. I argued with myself that I didn’t need to read it because I already knew what it said, I’d written it after all. But I knew I had to see it for myself, I had to confirm it. Tentatively I opened the file and began reading the first page. My heart did a little skip when I got to the part about how Joe and I had met, the part I had stolen from Laney Marsh’s original manuscript. It was all there in black and white, the scene in Joe’s book bar, The Magnificent Medici and how he came over to talk to me at my table. Every little detail was there right down to the title of the book I had been reading. It was exactly the same as he’d described it to me this morning. Moreover, Joe looked exactly how Laney had described him and just how I had always imagined him. I skipped forward a few pages to the part where we had fallen in love and Joe had moved to England to open our own book bar- The Imp. We’d decided to name it that because of the infamous Lincoln Imp associated with the city. I skipped forward again and read a sex scene, I couldn’t fathom how accurate the intimate details were. I had described exactly how Joe liked to make love, the names he liked to call me and how he loved to hear me ask him for what I wanted. I closed the folder and hugged it to my chest. I don’t know why I was in shock because I knew that reading it would only confirm what I had already knew. Granted, the concept of what had happened remained within the boundaries of the impossible but it was here, right in front of me in print and it was happening to me in real life. The laws of science should render this an inconceivable possibility, but the blatant reality of it was undeniable- I had woken up this morning smack bang in the middle of my own novel!
“What have you got there?” Came a sultry, sleepy voice behind me. Startled, I jumped up from my seat, the folder falling to the floor.
“Shit! Joe! You scared me. Don’t go sneaking up on me like that!” I scolded and bent to retrieve the folder. I had no intention of telling him what it was. Not yet anyway, not until I’d worked out how to handle it. He chuckled,
“Aww I’m sorry bella, I didn’t mean to frighten you and I didn’t sneak, you were just a million miles away. Why are you awake?”
“Well you made me jump!” I said and then immediately melted because he gave me puppy eyes and stuck out his bottom lip in an exaggerated pout. I giggled, “That is very unfair, Joseph.”
“Hmmm Joseph? I like it when you use my full name, it makes me feel like I’ve been naughty.” He grinned at me and wiggled his brows suggestively.
“Well maybe you have. It’s not nice to scare a lady you know.” I put the folder back in my drawer and made my way around the sofa towards him. He looked stunningly dishevelled in his boxers, hair all mussed up and a wicked little glint in his eyes.
“A lady? Are you sure bella? Because what you did in our bed earlier was not very ladylike.” He teased. I reached the welcome of his open arms and stepped eagerly into his warm embrace. He smelled deliciously of sex and of me and in that moment, I went past caring about the how’s or the why’s of Joe sudden manifestation and just embraced it. He was real and he was mine. I had a million questions rattling around in my head but they could wait. I had no idea how long this…thing would last, for all I knew I could wake up tomorrow and find him gone. But, for the rest of the night, it was just me and him so when he murmured in my ear that he’d missed me and to come back to bed, that’s exactly what I did.
His arm was heavy around my waist as we spooned under the covers together but I liked it, it was comforting and a solid reminder that he was there. His breath on my shoulder made my entire body tingle and I felt the stirrings of desire again. Good grief! I’m turning into a nymphomaniac! I turned my head towards him. Who could blame me if I was? Look at him, he’s beautiful. I felt like a doe-eyed teenager, in the first weeks of a new love. Except I knew this was different, I had loved him before I ever really knew him, before when he was just someone’s idea of a great book boyfriend. Now that he was here, I knew that even if this were to be my one and only night with him, that if I should wake tomorrow and find him gone, I’d never love like this again. I didn’t want to sleep, I wanted to make the most of him and of the time we had been granted by whatever force had brought him to me. I didn’t want to waste time sleeping.
“Joe? Are you awake?” I whispered.
“Yes bella.” He replied softly. I turned around to face him and kissed him slowly, my hand pushed down between us and I cupped him. I felt him stiffen immediately and he inhaled sharply
“Again?” He chuckled.
“Again.” I said.
“Woman you are insatiable!”
“You don’t seem to mind.” I said and gave him another squeeze. He growled and his hazel eyes pinned me with a wicked look.
“You, mia cara, are in big trouble.”
“I was hoping you’d say that.” I grinned.
“Diavolo.” was the last thing he said before he grabbed me pulled me underneath him, taking me to the exact place I wanted to be.