Veiled Amor by V. Theia

EIGHTEEN

“I don’t belong to you. I belong to him now.” – Lucia

 

 

The man was driving her cray-cray!

Some of it was Lucia’s fault.

No one dragged her by the eyelashes to watch him going a few rounds in the boxing ring with one of the other bikers. It gathered quite the crowd.

For every drop of his sweat, for each time his arm muscles flexed tight and sexy, she lost a little more of her sanity until she was panting like a Great Dane, watching him laughing and moving on the tips of his toes.

However much the crowd bayed, it wasn’t a proper fight, so she wasn’t worried about him getting hurt. She laughed when Vampire nudged her shoulder, so much taller than she was, and smirked. “Your boy isn’t bad.”

“He’s the best.” She answered before she could rein her tongue in.

The other man laughed. “Bet I could take him.”

She scoffed, dragging her gaze away from bulging arm muscles. “No way. You might be good, Vampire, but Capone is better.” Yeesh, listen to her crush in full bloom. Thank god Capone wasn’t close enough to hear. But when he jumped down from the ring minutes later, raking a towel over his face, he eyed them both as he sauntered over.

Vampire had damn loose lips. “Your girl thinks I couldn’t take you.”

Capone’s eyebrow arched at her. Lucia felt her face redden. If she knew Vampire a little better, she would have elbowed him. “I bet your bike on it…” She chewed on her lip, trying not to laugh.

“I hope you’re fine with never sitting down again if you dare bet my Harley.”

The way he growled it with his half-smirk made her eyes open wide.

She’d been joking, but as the swirl of lust tangled up in her stomach, she was tempted to bet his bike for real if it meant he’d spank her.

Grinning up at him, Lucia almost forgot Vampire was there as Capone growled and then threw her a grin. “Brat.”

“Fine, not your precious bike. Guess the fight is off, Vampire.”

Without conscious thought, she moved closer to Capone and put her arm around his waist. As far as anyone in the club needed to know, he’d done his manly claiming of her, which meant she could touch him. He smelled earthy and gorgeous. It was bad enough spending the last two nights smashed up against him in bed, usually waking up on top of him. Now she was torturing herself with his pheromones, inhaling like a crack-whore.

“You get sick of this one, babe, come find me.” Vampire joked, winking at her. He wasn’t even a step away from them when she felt a hand bunch into the back of her blonde hair, tipping her head back, and Capone’s face came into line as he dipped in.

Lucia sucked a breath deep into her lungs. Partly from shock, but all from lust battering her body. His hold wasn’t hurting her. It added to the desire swirling around them. “Are you going to kiss-claim me again?” She whispered.

Hoping. Wishing. Begging.

She was so lousily in love with him. A pigeon begging for scraps of bread. Ugh.

She didn’t care, because Lucia only wanted him.

Maybe she’d have to bring out the feminine wiles to drag Capone into the light, to make him see what she’d always known. They’d be fantastic together.

She squeezed his waist and angled her neck back, gazing at him. He had dark-dark eyes. The color of burnt chocolate, but she still saw his pupils growing until they masked all the color.

“You should.” She stage-whispered, shuffling her body closer, holding in a moan when his fingers started massaging her scalp. “what if they don’t believe I belong to you and one of them hits on me, Gi?” His ragged breath brushed against her face, and she smelled the espresso he drank recently.

“You’re playing with fire, nena.”

“What happened to amor? I like that better.” Breathless, probably looking like a starry-eyed idiot, she grinned and pushed up on her tiptoes, not even close to being near the same height, but she bussed her lips to his rough-stubble chin. “You like me, Giancarlo. You like me being bratty because it means you can put me in my place. And when you put me in my place, you touch me. And you like touching me, kissing me. Don’t you? I found your secret.”

She was teasing him, but there was a hint of the truth too. Hopeful truth.

“I wouldn’t do half the things I do if I didn’t like you, Lucia.” His arm was heavy and heaven when he slung it across her shoulders, walking them off toward their room. For two days, Lucia dined on every slight touch offered by Capone.

At dinner last night, sitting around a raucous table full of bikers and their old ladies at Shark and Spencer’s house, he pulled her down into his lap and let her eat from his plate. He even touched his lips behind her ear soft enough she shuddered.

Then this morning, he’d gone running with her around the compound. Big mistake to have all those muscles glistening so close to her. Lucia almost face-planted the asphalt too many times.

The hand touches, the brush of arms, the lingering looks.

Every touch and kiss had its own story, and each one came naturally to them.

She didn’t get why, when he’d shown all the signs of wanting her, that he still held back. Didn’t he know she was a sure thing? Lucia would die from cringing with mortification if she had to do the chasing. She was traditional enough, she liked the idea of being pursued, but it was looking more and more like she’d have to pull on her big girl, modern-day panties and chase him down like a very grumpy gazelle.

The idea of not being near him was unthinkable.

Going back to how they used to be. Distant calls, generic words spoken when all she longed to say was how much she missed him. Her heart would fragment if they had to go backward and become strangers again.

She waited while he showered and watched while he dressed in a pair of ripped jeans and biker boots. Lucia sighed when he pulled on a long-sleeved shirt, such a shame to cover up perfect manly moobs, but it clung to every ridge of hard muscle.

Somewhere out in the universe, fate was laughing his ass off at Lucia.

She spoke vows with one brother and in love with the other brother.

Yeah, she could hear the laughter from here.

“You’re quiet. What’s up?”

She met his gaze as he sat on the side of the bed to tie his bootlaces.

“Maybe a little nervous about tomorrow.”

“You’ll like Colorado. There’s a lot of shops and malls.”

“Believe it or not, I’m not much for shopping.”

“There’s activity stuff you can do too, museums and art exhibitions. There’s a ski lodge that’s open most of the year.”

She’d loved that, but she was biting her lip, watching him for any signs he was regretting taking her home with him. “I can always stay in Louisiana. I don’t want you to feel obligated to take me with you, Gi.”

His head snapped up, and she watched his brows falling deeper over his moody eyes.

“You think I don’t want you there?”

She nodded, still chewing on her lip, unable to wrench her eyes away from Capone. It was then a smirk appeared on his face, and he stood to his staggering height, making it feel as though he filled the entire room with his shoulder span alone.

“Brat.” Reaching down, he took her hand and hauled her to her feet. Their bodies intimately close, and she stood like a docile doll, soaking up the attention as his head dropped, his eyes never wavered.

He blew hot and cold so much he could almost give her whiplash, but oh, she loved their game, even if she didn’t know the rules.

Tension snapped like an electrical cable on the loose.

Why wouldn’t he act on it?

It was driving her crazy.

“I want you to come to Colorado, Lucia. It’ll be good for you to meet some new people.”

“What about you?”

He hadn’t freed her hand, and she was low level obsessed with him and took whatever she could get like a crazy woman in love.

“Will it be good for you to have me around? Or will I cramp your style with women chasing you?”

Another smirk, a little dirtier to stir her hormones and make her jealousy roar. “Women don’t chase me.”

“I’d chase you.”

His eyes fired. “Lucia.” He dropped her hand and backed up.

Though it was scary as hell, being vulnerable, she forced her thoughts into the open. “I’m not afraid to let you know what I want, Gi. What’s the worst that can happen, you reject me? I can handle that.”

She was a woman with ovaries gonging like a town hall clock every time she looked at his bronzed face. It sucked she was only in love with one man and couldn’t scrape together even half that amount of attraction for another man. Not that she got much chance to get over Capone. If given an opportunity, she pondered if she could move on from him.

“Lucia,” he groaned again.

Her name sounded tortured in his throat, and it gave her some hope. Sure, he’d rubbed her to an orgasm and kissed her a bunch of times already, but it didn’t mean he wanted more from her. She wasn’t stupid. She might not have a lot of relationship experience as any other woman her age, but she knew sexual chemistry didn’t mean a man wanted to wife her.

And oh, god, she’d never wanted to be wifed as severely as she did by Capone.

Okay, fine. She’d live in delicious sin if he weren’t the marrying kind.

But first, she had to get him to leave the past where it needed to stay and take a chance on them.

Easier said than done when it was a mule-headed, honorable man like Capone. She knew his hesitancy had everything to do with Santiago.

Was she wrong by withholding the full story?

Was she crazy to have him choose her despite what he thought happened?

Eh. Maybe she was just as stubborn.

Her need was to be wanted because he couldn’t resist, and not because he knew the full picture. Capone’s tight expression revealed nothing.

Why couldn’t he be an open book?

It didn’t bother her how silent he was. She’d always done enough talking for them both. Why change it now?

The party noise outside of their room increased.

She had one last thing to say.

“I’m going to make you chase me so hard. You’ll have no clue whose idea it was, Gi.”

With a teasing smile, she watched his brows fold deeper, and a gorgeous tick worked through his firm jawline. She turned on her heel and headed out of the door.

Making it five steps before a hand latched onto the back of her nape, and Capone reeled her in until she was pressed up against a wall with him, stepping into the space to make their bodies align.

Oh, wow.

She started to sweat and shake with excitement.

Being manhandled by him was an experience. He didn’t do it to hurt her, that much was clear, but ohhh… it felt insanely good to be clasped in those powerful hands of his. He didn’t let her neck go, and she didn’t ask him to let her go. Instead, she tipped her head back to better see the raging darkness coming out of his eyes. He was breathing through his teeth, pushing the air over her face as he leaned in and gave her neck a tiny, lovely squeeze.

“You’ve fucking haunted me for years.” He moved in an inch closer, and her eyes automatically dropped to his mouth, surrounding in soft, dark hair. “You’re so extravagantly beautiful. You make me ache just putting my eyes on you.”

Lucia stopped breathing.

His hand tightened on her neck, and she sort of listed forward until both hands were braced on his solid chest. Her heart palpitated like a wild deer caught in a hunter's trap. Ugh, he was so big and steam-hot. A little frightening if you didn’t know him. Lucia was far from afraid of Capone. She was almost vibrating under her skin. He stared so long that a wave of heat rushed into her neck and face, it settled in the pulse on her throat, throbbing.

Time stood still.

The concentration on his face electrified her while he stared. A specific hungry wave crossed through his eyes. She wasn’t making shit up. It was there, clear as a Christmas tree in March would be. The way a starving man survived on a deserted island, dreaming of his favorite meal.

Capone dropped his gaze to her mouth, and she darted out her tongue unconsciously, running along the lower lip. It’s when he grunted that he broke the erotic spell, his voice husky and profound, “you don’t know how badly you tempt me, Lucia. How hard I’ve forced myself to keep a distance between us.”

She frowned, “but…”

“I fucked up, and I can’t get past what I did to Santiago. You’re his. You can’t be mine.”

Every inch of her heart, the valves, the veins, and everything else keeping her alive, hurt in her chest.

“No, you didn’t fuck up.”

“Dios. I’ve always wondered why you didn’t hate my fucking guts for what I did.”

“We did it together.”

He growled a bear sound, and his head lowered another inch, putting their foreheads together. “Interrupt me once more, and you really won’t sit down for a month.”

It was a threat. A dark one. And it turned her on.

Turned on by the man rejecting her.

Ugh.

She’d told him she could take it, so she had to. Nudging him gently for him to step back, he roped both hands around the back of his neck and blew out air.

God, her heart was a shipwreck, beating madly as she watched him berate himself.

He hated himself.

There was something she had to put right first. “Six years ago, we slept together, Giancarlo. I don’t consider it a mistake. If you do, I’m sorry.”

“I don’t.” He rumbled. “Doesn’t make that shit right. He was my brother. Your husband.”

Yeah, not really. But moving on.

“Now, who is interrupting who,” she grinned and touched his stomach to connect them. She’d always find ways to connect them because she knew in her soul they were made for each other. In a fucked up world, they always gravitated together. That had to mean something.

“We’ve kissed since then.” She pointed out and watched his nostrils flare. Yeah, you remember those hotter than hot make-out kisses, buddy. “You’ve had your hands in my underwear.” Her face flamed saying the words. “Mistakes too?”

“No. I’m fucking weak.” He said in Spanish, and her red face split with a smile.

“Poor weak, Giancarlo.” Lucia teased, poking his ribs. “It’s going to be okay.”

“Sí?”

“Sí.” She replied. “Because you’re going to get over it so you can have me. So you can call me yours.”

If she’d ever seen a man as big as him staggering, she wasn’t aware of it until now. And it was glorious to bear witness to him losing his cool. To see his nostrils flaring and his teeth bare as his whole chest inflated like a massive balloon.

“Playing. With. Fucking. Fire.” Again she was glad she understood Spanish as he grated the sexy threat.

Lucia, unfazed, knees practically coming unhinged, patted his chest and stepped around his bulk. “We’re missing the party, Giancarlo, keep up.”

She walked off with Capone behind her. Hearing clearly when he declared, “pain in my ass,” but when she cut a glance behind her, he was smiling, his eyes hotter than a volcano in mid-spew.

Yeah, she was going to win that man.

Risking tossing all her eggs into his basket.

She didn’t know how much she meant it until hours later.

Having spent a while sitting on Capone’s lap while she talked to Spencer, half-listening to Capone and Shark talk shop. She’d put herself there, and he hadn’t stopped her.

Touching her mouth to his ear, she told him she was running to the bathroom.

Sure enough, when she turned around a few steps away, Capone’s eyes stroked her. She grinned at him. He could lie to himself and say it’s protection he has in mind. It might be, but it wasn’t only. He wanted her in the same gut-clenching way she wanted him.

On the way back from the bathroom, she slipped into their temporary room, they were already packed, but she wanted to freshen her lip gloss.

There was hope that Colorado was her forever home. If not with Capone, then she’d like to settle somewhere, and she wanted to do it not looking over her shoulder. For weeks, she’d avoided calling home because there was no point. Her father had no room for compromise.

She didn’t miss home or him, but she missed Pilar. The housekeeper was probably the only person in their household who would miss her.

It was a spur of the moment, a mad whim, brought on by tipsiness and a need to set the past where it belonged.

The call rang as she paced a little.

It wasn’t Pilar who answered, and the gruff voice stole Lucia’s confidence. “Yes, who is it?” Nicholas Cole barked. It was proof of how prevalent he’d been making her choices for her when she froze, unable to hang up. “Listen here, you punk, these calls are monitored, if I get my hands on you…”

“It’s me,” she spoke, and almost withered under his forceful tone until she remembered she was no longer the doormat daughter. “I was calling to talk to Pilar. She usually answers.” 

“The stupid woman was getting under my feet, I told her to get out for the weekend. Where are you, Lucia?”

“I’m sure your spies have told you where I am.”

“You’re with that man.”

“He has a name, and yes, I am. I didn’t want to do it the way I did; I’m an adult and should be allowed to go where I please. You didn’t leave me much choice.”

Whoa. Where was this bold confidence coming from? It could be she’d siphoned it from Capone because she’d never spoken to her father like that before. Hanging around tough, coarse bikers for a few days had put some pep in her step because she went on. “I know what you were trying to do with that Texan. I’m not something you can give away in a business deal, father. I stupidly thought you cared about me. But then, after Santiago, I should have known better.”

“You’ll mind how you talk to me, Lucia.” He growled. She could imagine him in his office, irritated with a red face. Her father was handsome, or so the many women on his arm would attest. But he had a foul, irrational temper and hated being disobeyed.

“Why? You don’t care how you talk to me. My life is mine. I was too stupid to let it go on this long. And if you keep sending your soldiers after me, you won’t see me ever again.”

“Stupid girl.” She heard him hiss as if bored. “You don’t know what I do to keep you safe and unknown.”

“Negotiating me in a deal is keeping me safe? Keeping me locked up at home is protecting me?”

“You’re hardly locked up in a one-bedroom apartment, Lucia. Quit the fucking dramatics. You’ve had your fun. I’ll send the jet for you.”

“No.”

“Stop this now.” He said strongly. “I don’t have time for this shit.”

“Let me guess. Your Texan deal is going south without a stupid daughter to sweeten the pot? Such a shame mom died before you could have more daughters, they would have come in useful.” Emotion locked up in her throat. Despite her circumstances, she’d never been one of those woe-is-me people. She’d taken everything on the chin. But her mother’s death and a father who didn’t give a damn, maybe this was as good as her life got.

“I’m not coming back or marrying someone you throw me at.” She felt exasperated while listening to his tirade about how ungrateful of a daughter she was and how she would come back kicking and screaming. Lucia felt a renewed temper rise through her body, out through her mouth. “Shall I tell you why I won’t do any of those things, father? Because I’m already married!”

Oh, boy.

Why did she say that?

And why did the words fill her with champagne fizz and happiness?

She heard the silence, and then he erupted. Nicholas Cole could convey his displeasure very well without raising his voice. “To Mercado?”

“Yes. Giancarlo is my husband now. So, I’m useless to you. I hope when we next see each other—”

Two things happened at once.

Her father started lambasting on how he would drag her home.

And she heard a subtle noise behind her. When she turned, she caught Capone pushing a shoulder from the door as if he’d been there a while.

Eyes like gun lasers, he came for her in a hot stride. Every inch of air Lucia held in her lungs evacuated, as if running from a burning building.

Stunned, she let the phone get plucked out of her hand.

“Shut the fuck up, Cole. You heard right; Lucia is mine now. So back the fuck off, you’ve done her enough damage to last several lifetimes. It’ll be me, her husband, who unravels your shit.”

Because she felt unsteady on her Bambi-like legs, she reached out to grip the front of his shirt. Eyes like dark moons switched her way and held for what felt like decades.

She clung tight, making Capone her six-foot-four anchor.

Sure, she’d lied out of anger, but never in her wildest dreams would she expect Capone to back her up. Warmth spread through her limbs, making her lethargic and grateful.

If her father said anything back to him, she didn’t know because Capone cut off the call. “Cabrón.” He snarled, tossing her new phone on the bed.

The surprise of adrenaline rushed erratically through her nervous system.

Uh-oh. She’d fucked up telling her father that little white lie, and now she had to face the consequences with her grown-up girl panties on and everything.

“Well. Listen. I, uhm, so… you weren’t meant to hear that, okay? If you’re angry, then really when you think about it, it’s your fault, Gi.” She huffed.

Okay. So her taking the consequences went a whole other way then. She rolled with it by tipping up her chin in defiance.

Ready for his wrath.

She was ready for—

“Get your ass out there, wife. Vampire wants to win his pool money back.”

Okay, she was not ready for that.

The tension she’d held in her shoulders sagged out, and she smiled as she followed behind the sexiest ass she’d ever seen in her life. “Shut up,” she huffed again.

“Who am I to argue with my better half, sí?”

Damn, it sounded so good. Her stomach twisted into butterflies.

He was joking, but his smirk as he cut a glance back gave her a funny feeling inside.

She was going home with him tomorrow.

And tonight, they’d sleep curled up together.

They had a relationship.

A weird one.

One unexplained.

But it was there. Burning and sizzling.

Even if he didn’t want to acknowledge it and taint whatever self-imposed punishment he’d been living by.

She caught up to him and wound her arm through his.

“Good husbands should know their place.”

“Hmm. So should bueno wives.” He rebounded, smirking most hotly.

Lucia knew her place for the rest of the night.

It was being glued to Capone’s side, feeling his hand resting on her hip, pulling her closer.

And she loved it.