Hello LAlaland (Lost in LAlaland) (10 page)

We danced along with our guests to an array of music, from History of Painters to Audiafauna to Pandas & People—all the great lesser-known bands we’d been privy to discovering through friends. The hors d’oeuvres and food provided by
La Mia Farfalla
were delicious, and the assortment of Italian wines made everything perfect.

After sending the newlywed Mr. and Mrs. Yadin on a tour of Israel, Greece, and Italy for their honeymoon several months before, Marci and Astin returned the gift to us with a night at the Langham Place Hotel in the city and an extended trip to Morocco for our own honeymoon. When we arrived at the Mazagan Beach Resort in Casablanca, the first thing we did was chase each other to the huge, open shower, shedding our clothes as we went.

The crisp water sprayed over Tony and me, blessing us with relief from the hot North African summer. As our bodies cooled from the weather, we began to heat back up from a new source—each other. There was nothing like Tony’s kisses, and the way his lips moved over my skin was like stars dancing and champagne bubbles popping and feathers tickling.

He trailed a path down my body with his mouth until he could no longer reach, and he dropped to his knees on the shower floor, the water cascading over his tanned skin and muscled body. When his lips touched my pussy, I couldn’t contain the scream rising from my throat. As my husband French kissed my lower lips, I sunk my hands into his thick hair, securing him where I needed him most. I didn’t let go until I came, his tongue buried in my shaking body. When my legs could no longer be trusted to hold me up, Tony stood from the floor, turned off the water, and lifted me in his arms to carry me to the bed.

The room was beautiful, with walls painted a muted tan and the ceilings gold. The entire resort screamed of both its African and French influences. The large bed had gold sheets and fluffy pillows, and if I were to lay my head down then, I thought I might sink in and never resurface.

My attention was drawn from the room around me and back to my husband, who stood in the middle of the floor, staring at me with passion in his eyes. Though my wet hair dripped onto the expensive sheets, I beckoned him forward with my finger. We’d be mussing the sheets further still.

When Tony crawled onto the bed beside me, I licked my lips as he offered me his cock. God, how had I gone for so long without this perfection in my mouth or inside my body? I passed my tongue over the head of his erection, making him shiver in anticipation. The taste of him was unlike anything else I’d ever had. Maybe it was love that made me feel so sentimental over it, but I adored every bit of this man.

Finally surrendering to my need to taste him, I allowed him to sink as far as he could into my mouth. I licked, sucked, and bobbed over him before he began to thrust into my mouth. Then he quickly pulled away.

“I’m going to come,” he whispered hoarsely. His jaw muscles flexed as he strained to control his climax.

With a knowing smile, I looked up at him from beneath my eyelashes. “I think that’s the point, husband.” When I moved forward and attempted to take him back in my mouth, Tony pulled back again.

“I want to be inside of you when I come, baby.” Even the alpha female in me could not deny that kind of demand. Who would possibly want to? So, shifting to my back, I placed my elbows on the bed behind me and spread my legs wide, offering myself as an expiatory gift for his lust and love.

He wasted no time sinking into my body. Our love making was fast, hard, and vehement. There would be time later for the slow and sensual love making of a honeymoon. For now, we only needed one another and all that was promised in each other.

When Tony’s thumb found my clit as his hips hammered against my own, I came loudly, throbbing around his cock and milking his own orgasm from him. I felt each pulse as he spilled into my body.

With a final thrust of his hips, Tony dropped his head to my shoulder and pressed light kisses through the sheen of sweat onto my flushed skin. He groaned as he slipped out of me, but only slid down the bed a little, pausing when his head came to rest on my stomach. I played with his hair for a bit until I felt his deep breaths tickle against my skin—he’d fallen asleep on me. Knowing I wasn’t going to be moving anytime soon, I let myself drift off into a peaceful slumber beneath my husband’s body.

Allowing ourselves to acclimate to the change in time zones and settle in for the heat, we slept on and off for the next eighteen hours, waking to make love and fuck and whisper
I love you
into the night air. After all the wedding planning and making sure that our respective businesses were prepared for our absences, Tony and I were both more than ready for much deserved rest and relaxation.

Stirring, I lay on the oversized bed, staring at my handsome husband’s striking features and counting all the ways I’d lucked out in this life. Tony’s hair was the perfect length to curl out a little bit around the edges, and as he slept, his lips formed a little bow. Unable to resist the perfect moment, I leaned in close and pressed my mouth to his.

 
He was quick. I barely registered his movement until I suddenly found myself on top of him, resting perfectly over his morning erection.

“Well, hello to you, too, Mrs. Ricci,” Tony growled in a sleepy, husky voice.

As anyone should on their honeymoon, we’d slept naked the previous night. So I raised my eyebrow at my husband, turned around in his lap so that my ass was facing him, and lowered my already wet and ready flesh around his length, whispering my own salutations over my shoulder. Tony reached up and gripped my mid-back length hair in one fist and tugged my head back. With his other hand, he guided the movement of my hips against him.

“God, Wini,” he groaned as I began to gyrate against him more urgently. “I’ll never get enough of you, baby. You’re everything. Come for me, wife.” Hearing him call me by my newly acquired title, and the way he reached around my waist to rub over my clit with his long fingers, sent me soaring high. I came around his cock, and he began to jerk up into me, following me in climax only a moment later.

I lowered my body back over him, resting the back of my head on his shoulder with our lower bodies still connected. Trailing his finger up my flat stomach and between my breasts, Tony moved some of my hair out of his face and planted a sweet kiss to my earlobe. “You sure are flexible, huh, love?” he asked, referring to our position.

“Yoga and Pilates,” I reminded him with a laugh, and lifted myself up to slip his softened cock out of me.

After we showered, only slightly distracted this time, and had a light breakfast of tea and
harcha
—Moroccan bread stuffed with eggs and vegetables—we decided to slip out into the Casablanca sun. At the
Quartier des Habous
market, Tony spoiled me with several handmade kaftans in a range of colors, from deep magenta to royal blues and greens. They were the typical attire for the country, and I would be wearing them for the remainder of our stay. I also picked out several new pair of traditional hand-beaded shoes. It was the perfect way to spoil a fashionista.

We spent the remainder of the afternoon browsing through the marketplace, nibbling on olives and breads, and everything in between that the vendors were selling, before finally deciding to eat a dinner of lamb, chicken, and couscous at a local restaurant. If it hadn’t been as hot as it was, or if we hadn’t been walking as much as we had, I was certain that I’d return to New York weighing at least twenty pounds more. Tony had been talking about sending his head chef out for a few months to see if he could incorporate some kind of Italian/Moroccan fusion into the
La Mia Farfalla
menu.

When we got back to the hotel, Tony and I slipped again into the shower, washing the desert sand and dirt out of each other’s hair, before stepping outside to watch the sun dip below the beautiful skyline of Casablanca.

“I need to talk to you about something, Wini,” Tony said into my hair as we wrapped around each other on a large ottoman on the patio of our hotel suite and watched the blackening sky.

“What?” I mumbled around a succulent green grape. “Don’t sound so foreboding, husband.”

He chuckled and nibbled at my neck to quiet my sassy mouth, though he knew that would never happen. “I’m serious, babe. This is important.”

“Okay, shoot,” I said, plopping another delicious piece of fruit into my mouth.

I felt him tense beside me before he said the words I never thought I’d hear. “I think we should move back to Los Angeles.” I paused mid-chew as the words sank in. I sat up with a start and the thin sheet I’d pulled from the bed dropped to my waist, exposing my breasts. Tony groaned and turned his head toward the stars. “Babe, as much as I love your gorgeous tits, they’re very distracting, and we really need to talk about this.”

I considered being nice . . . for a moment, but it was fleeting. “Sorry,
babe
, but you don’t get to drop an atom bomb like that and expect me to come to the battle unarmed.” He groaned again and scrubbed his hands over his face. “What do you mean we should move back to LA? You know that California and I aren’t exactly friendly with one another.”

“See,” he said, sitting up and trying desperately to look in my eyes and not allow his vision to dip south of my neck. “That’s what I don’t get. You hate California for what reason?”

The confrontation took me off-guard. It wasn’t something I’d put much stock into; not something I’d ever been presented with. It had always been common knowledge that I’d leave Los Angeles and never look back. “I-I don’t know. It’s just . . . the people, the flaky, noncommittal types . . .” I trailed off, knowing that for once I had nothing solid to stand on.

“Exactly.” Tony cupped my cheek with his palm. “But LA has made you . . .
You
. These ‘flaky, noncommittal types’ are the same ones who snatch up your designs and salivate over what you’ll create next. You’re a goddess to the Westlake hags, babe, and a queen on Rodeo,” Tony reminded me with a throaty chuckle. “Besides, my dad asked if I’d be willing to bring the restaurant out west.
 
He’s already found a location to lease, and it’s a great opportunity.

“I know that LA has its flaws as much as you and I do, but it brought us together, didn’t it?”

I stared at my husband, partly horrified at his idea and partly intrigued by his logic. I watched as he stuffed a few pieces of dried apricots into his mouth, thinking long and hard before I answered. “We have to stop sleeping together,” I said, smirking at his horrified expression. “You’re stealing all my great debate skills.” His smile lit the night, and he dipped down to plant a wet, lingering kiss on my left breast.

“Thank God,” he mumbled against my skin. “I can finally pay these beauties the respect they deserve.”

My laughter floated up toward the heavens and across the expansive North African desert as he worshipped me properly.

Epilogue

“Mom!” Walt called through our expansive, seaside Malibu villa. His voice echoed off the walls and the marble floors as he made his way toward me in the kitchen. I don’t know how many times I’d told that boy to stop screaming in the house, but, like with most boys, it went in one ear and right out the other.

We moved back to Los Angeles—reluctantly on my part, I might add—two years ago, after Tony agreed to expand his restaurant out west. WinnLynn was doing magnificently on both coasts, in Europe, and everywhere in between. Sky, my former assistant, was running the New York studio wonderfully, and I’d hired several new interns to work in my LA studio. I was lucky that I had a very talented team of assistant designers and only needed to give them a rough idea or a sketch of what I had in mind, and they’d take it from there. I still worked a couple of times a week, scratching charcoal against paper in solitude up in the studio office of our sunroom overlooking the Pacific Ocean.

It was wonderful to be near Marci and Ashley, who’d been working part-time as a design assistant for me since we moved back. Ash had finally demanded that Matty get snipped after baby number four made a surprise appearance six months ago. Marci, on the other hand, insisted on waiting for Astin to finish filming his new blockbuster before even breathing the word baby. Now that her husband was a bigger celebrity than she, Marci often escaped the lights and cameras of Hollywood to come visit my peaceful beach haven.

Our home was beautiful. When we first purchased it from a washed-up former celebrity who’d gone into bankruptcy because of her lavish lifestyle, it had needed a lot of work. My dear husband channeled his inner city-boy and hired an entire team to be at my beck and call for the remodeling process. I’d put them through hell to get the estate exactly how I wanted it to be, and I mixed in some of the old world charm of Italy and Morocco with the modern, clean lines of California and New York.

Now, we were the proud owners of a gorgeous villa and, thanks to Tony’s newest hobby of wine making, our very own little vineyard up in the canyon above Malibu. His label, Ricci Winns (yes, he was proud of himself for “winning” me), had become a popular specialty wine among many of our Hollywood friends.

Walt interrupted my daydreaming when he reached me. I looked at my son with an eyebrow raised in threat. “I’ve told you not to yell in this house, Walter.” My mom voice tended to do the trick of frightening him enough that he’d stop whatever it was I’d taken issue with . . . for a little while, at least.

“Sorry, Mom,” he said with a roll of his eyes. I decided to let it slide this time because I didn’t have the energy to deal with disciplining him. “Dad’s taking me out for my surfing lesson with him and Alex. Is that okay with you and Tony?”