Veiled Amor by V. Theia

FOUR

“The widow wore guilt.” - Lucia

 

 

On the day of the funeral

 

 

Lucia felt awful.

But not for the reasons the mourners thought.

Everyone kept patting her hand, telling her it was terrible. Giving her sympathetic head tilts and perfume filled hugs.

It was unkind, but she wanted to be anywhere but the Mercado house where she was surrounded in tears and despair.

She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think.

This was her fault.

Santiago was dead, and she couldn’t squeeze out one freaking tear.

The rest of his family was dead because of her father.

How could she look anyone in the eye knowing a secret was choking her?

And then he walked in, and her lungs loaded with air.

Giancarlo Mercado.

Better known as Capone.

Suddenly she felt life shunt into her body as he strode through the crowd, her eyes following like a loyal disciple.

Taller than God, more powerful than the Devil, accepting sympathy and pats on the shoulder.

Such an arresting man—a biker. But today, he wore a suit in a slate gray color, fitted perfectly to his overwhelming solid frame. His inky hair, only two inches all over. He towered over the mourning crowd, who looked to him for guidance.

The last remaining Mercado. And he was coming right to her.

She’d always felt weird around Giancarlo, like she suddenly didn’t know how her limbs and tongue worked.

The eldest son.

He’d always been civil with her. But there was something quietly unnerving about him.

No, that wasn’t quite right.

He made her stomach roll over and her pulse hammer in her throat until she became a stuttering wreck in front of him.

Nothing was calming about Giancarlo, who people called Capone, because of his love for the movie. He had a biker’s reputation that preceded him.

She shouldn’t think of him as a Latin beefcake, but that’s what he was.

Having been in his family for a year, she’d witnessed him dating countless women. It was his easy smirk and the way he carried himself, women flocked to the danger he presented and the sexiness he exuded.

Rich brown eyes suddenly lifted and caught her watching him. A hand stole to her throat as he held her gaze and kept on walking.

When he reached her, his dark head hung low as if to speak only to her. “Have you eaten, Lucia?”

It wasn’t what she expected. Get out. It wouldn’t have surprised her, at all.

An older woman came up, and he turned to hug her, to settle her weeping, but carried on watching Lucia.

“Well, have you?” He asked once they were alone again.

“No, I’m not hungry.” She replied. “Do you—do you want me to get you a plate?”

“Not hungry either. I’ll be better when I can get these people out of my house,” he half-smiled; her stomach bottomed as she tried to suppress a giggle. It wasn’t right to laugh, not today. Not when everyone thought she was the nineteen-year-old, heartbroken widow.

How polite was it to cut out early?

She felt like a fraud among the people who were genuinely grieving.

No one here knew her truth.

They thought she was a young widow burying her husband. Lucia had cried, of course. She wasn’t heartless. The entire neighborhood ricocheted with the loss. She would miss his parents and sister deeply.

If only Santiago had listened to her, gone to Giancarlo, and told his brother he was in way over his head. All he’d ever wanted was to be as successful as his siblings. He’d paid with his life and took the rest of the Mercado family with him.

Swallowing, she tore her gaze away from his face, sure he would see the festering guilt in her eyes. Why wouldn’t he? She was drowning in it.

Knowing she should have spoken up sooner made white noise rush through her ears. Despite the dire situation of her wedding all those months ago, she’d grown to love the Mercado family. Mama Mercado had been the mother she’d never had.

She cleared her throat and wondered again if she could somehow slip out.

There was nowhere else to go other than to her father’s compound.

He’d expect her to. He wouldn’t allow her to live alone.

It was a surprise he hadn’t sent one of his men to collect her. Only, she knew he’d left her here as a lesson. Do as you’re told, Lucia, or look what happens.

“Come with me,” she heard, and then her hand was swallowed in his bigger palm. He didn’t drag her through the house, but she had to trot to keep up with his long strides. His house was a two-story Spanish style, boasting five bedrooms, three baths, and a generously sized summerhouse on the grounds. Because of Santiago, she’d been here more times than she’d wanted to be. He threw the best parties, but she’d always felt out of place, though he’d never treated her that way.

For a second, she thought he was throwing her out when they ended up in the backyard, but he didn’t drop her hand until he unlocked the summerhouse door. He ushered her in and then flipped on the lights.

“What… what’s going on, Giancarlo?”

He rounded on her. Head dipped down in the way she always thought was sexy, giving a person his full attention. “You were holding your breath so fucking much; you were about to pass out. Relax in here, nena. No one will bother you. I’ll bring some food over. You will eat, sí.” It wasn’t a question. She nodded, though was sure she couldn’t stomach a morsel of food.

“They’ll think it’s weird. I should be over in the house.”

“Fuck what they think. They came for the free food and liquor, anyway.”

She chuckled, then felt bad for laughing in front of this man when he’d only laid rest to eight members of his family hours ago. Lucia sobered and found him watching her in a way she couldn’t translate, only that it made chills rush down her spine. They were in the midst of Florida summer, so she wasn’t cold.

“Sorry, Gi.”

“For?”

“This. Everything. For your loss.”

“You already told me, Lucia. You lost Santiago too.”

Yeah, but not in the way he thought, and nothing like his loss.

The elephant in the room continued to grow larger.

Turning, she chose the nearest soft white couch to sit, taking a minute to relax in the quiet room before she got back to the wake.

She was a nineteen-year-old widow with the weight of a secret on her shoulders. And now, at thirty, Giancarlo was the head of his family, what was left of them. No parents, sister, brothers, or their wives.

She had to say something before he left.

“What are you going to do?”

He seemed to understand she didn’t mean the mourners across in the house.

“I’m going to even the score.”

Oh.

A tight fist clamped around her whole chest, and she inhaled hard, letting it out slowly. She knew she should feel something hearing how he was going to exact revenge on her father. All she felt was emptiness.

She’d once loved the man who raised her more than life itself. They’d been alone most of her life, but for the last decade, he’d changed. Becoming an unfeeling, dangerous man.

“I don’t want something bad to happen to you.”

“Don’t worry, it won’t.”

He didn’t know her father as she did.

He left her then, coming back in five minutes with a plate ladened with finger foods.

Sometimes a girl didn’t know what she’d been missing until she’d married into an entire family, and she became theirs. She’d loved and mourned their loss so hard her heart was going to break open.

“I know what he did was unforgivable, Gi. He went too far to prove a point, to make Santiago step into line.”

“My brother was in over his fucking head, and he should have come to me.”

Yeah, it was what she’d told him too, but Santiago had too much pride to confide in his older brother how he’d crossed Nicholas. She hadn’t known eating dinner at home was her father’s way of keeping her out of the way while his men crept into the Mercado house to kill everyone. Staying silent made her as guilty. “I should have done something, should have told you myself what was happening. He tried to make you proud.”

“There was no need for any of it, Lucia. He had a wife to take care of, not trying to stand shoulder to shoulder with a Kingpin. Santiago was always a fool, and now he’s gone, so I can’t kill him for his stupidity.” She heard Giancarlo’s anger and pain.

“Please, think about what you’re going to do. My father won’t take a move on him lying down. You have a good life with the Renegade Souls MC, don’t you? Why ruin that by getting revenge?”

What happened when you watched a person as closely as Lucia had always watched Giancarlo was she knew he weighed his words as his face darkened.

Hands in his slacks pockets, he seemed taller somehow as he looked on with his dark-magic eyes framed by lashes that were too long for a man. Every woman in the neighborhood had always played hard games to win Giancarlo. His bad-boy appeal was dazzling to many. Women loved him because he was irresistible as much as he was caring.

That man disappeared days ago. Leaving behind someone she didn’t recognize.

“You don’t know how this works, Lucia. You’re still a child. Your father took from me. If you think I can roll over and do nothing, then you don’t know me.” The bitter tone made her shiver under his scrutiny, “eat the food and rest,” he turned and left her alone.

She hadn’t cried since that first night when the house swarmed with emergency services and Giancarlo was standing in the yard like a broken man. But as she listened to the click of the summerhouse door, she curled her knees up to her chest, and she cried. She cried until she had nothing left inside.

It was undecided who she was crying for.

Losing all the Mercado’s.

The certainty of her father forcing her to return under his roof.

Or the possibility that Giancarlo would lose his life too if he tried for payback.

Intent on playing her part, if only for a few hours more, she cleaned her face and then laid on the couch for a minute.

She knew no more until a hand was shaking her awake.

Lucia would never have a reason for what she did next because when her eyes flickered open to see enigmatic eyes looking down at her, her arms lifted of their own accord. Looping around Giancarlo’s shoulders, she lifted her head from the couch cushion, murmuring his name, “Giancarlo.”

Through her sleep-heavy brain, she watched a darkness cast through his eyes.

“Everyone has finally left. Time to get you to bed.”

A physical shudder went through her at the way he said it. Probably not meant in the way she translated it. He’d never looked at her inappropriately, not like some of Santiago’s friends. She was a petite blonde with tits and hips. She got stares and come-ons all the time, but never from this man.

A thumb tracked over her cheek, and that’s when she realized where her arms were. She gasped and dropped them, “I-I’m sorry, I was asleep.” Weak excuse, Luce.

“You’ve been crying.” He growled like he was angry at her tears.

It was as though her tear ducts answered only to him now when a lone tear leaked from the corner of her eye, and he brushed it away, looking like thunder. “Don’t,” he warned. Did he think she could control her body? If only. And then, “goddamn it.” He swore again in Spanish, and then his black head descended, blocking out the light from the chandelier above.

He swallowed her gasp with his two hard lips crushed to hers.

Lucia’s kiss scorecard wasn’t vast by any stretch of the imagination, not with her father guarding her every minute, but she knew sinful when she tasted it in her mouth.

It was her last coherent thought as she opened without hesitation and kissed him back with a need she didn’t know lived inside her.

Maybe she was still sleeping.

Not that she’d ever had these kinds of dreams about him. She might think Giancarlo was the most handsome man she’d ever seen, but she’d never allowed her brain to go there for too long.

His rough handling of her face as he tipped her head back to deepen the kiss told her she was far from asleep. She could never have imagined him tasting this good.

A red-hot man with savage kisses.

His lips locked over hers, and her hands tangled around his neck.

If his mouth was asking a question, then her moan answered because he reared up, standing to his full height, panting air from his wet lips. Lucia was so sure he was going to reject the last few minutes when he leaned down and scooped her into his arms, striding through the house.

“Gi…”

“No talking, nena.”

His kiss silenced her.

There was no way Lucia could have predicted what happened next. Having sex with Giancarlo ‘Capone’ Mercado would not have even been a consideration.

Torn clothes.

A bed they crashed on.

Hot, animalistic kisses with tongues fighting for dominance.

“Open up,” he growled into her lips. He didn’t mean her mouth because his tongue was already inside, snaking around hers. She let her thighs open instinctively, and he moved into the space her legs made.

Once he had her panties discarded, she didn’t have any further thoughts other than how much she wanted it. To feel his weight, to taste his need with every hard strike of his tongue. Lucia was as much of a participant in that bed when she clawed off his clothes, grabbed at his neck when Giancarlo sucked her breast into his mouth, finger fucking her into an orgasm as high as she’d ever had before.

It wasn’t over.

Far from it.

Those same fingers shot her into another climax and another until she was crying into his mouth, begging with incoherent sounds, churning her legs against his hips.

His mouth was everywhere. Her neck and mouth, between her legs, sucking marks on her breasts. His hands squeezed and yanked, moved her, and rolled her into positions. He held her down and made her moan when his fingers dug into her skin.

The hard press of his erection into her stomach shocked her and sent shards of lust all over, making her pant when he rushed her to another climax, this time with his full palm grinding down on her clit.

He was rough.

Controlling.

Hot and sexy.

What happened might not be destiny, but it was two bodies waging war through the power of sex. It might take months for her to feel the shame for what they did, how many times his hard cock speared inside Lucia, cries, and groans bouncing from the walls, holding their secrets tight as he fucked her. Capone rolled onto his back, lifting her over him, and told her to fuck him.

They hardly shared any words that weren’t dirty and shocking.

Lucia didn’t want words. Only this feeling as a hard man pressed her into the soft sheets and churned between her legs while he ate the kisses out of her very sore mouth.

Hours and hours went by.

They didn’t let up.

She was sore, used and tender in places, swollen in others. Even her hair was aching by the end, having done things with him in that bed, never even thought about before. She tasted it, in her mouth, in the back of her throat. Feeling his pleasure drying on her skin, in the same way hers was on his stomach and other places.

“My sweet little fuck.” He rasped, collapsing on her for the last time. Right then, as his length went deep and stayed there as they panted together, her skin so sensitive even the trail of his fingertips on her hips made her tremble, moaning his name.

His declaration sizzled the back of her throat, and thank God he didn’t appear to want to talk because she couldn’t speak even if her life depended on it.

She’d spent hours having animalistic sex with her brother-in-law.

What could be said other than regret?

Only, she didn’t feel regret as her eyes grew heavier. Nor when she felt him slip from her body and leave an arm around her waist.

Sleep claimed her like it conked her on the head.

All she heard in her mind were his groans of completion over and over.

Regret might come.

But she’d sleep first.

 

 

Now

 

No glass of wine or sleeping pill had ever relaxed her the way Giancarlo did that night. She could go for his brand of relaxation now because the bathtub soak was doing nothing to dampen her thoughts or her worry. The worry over being followed forced her into calling Giancarlo’s motorcycle club earlier that day.

It was difficult not to go back to that night. To remember how it felt to have his hands locked around her hips while she rose and fell on his cock, experiencing how he slammed up into her and his grunts of release. For many reasons, it was a night she should have chalked up to emotional madness, two sad people reaching for comfort.

But it was so much more than that, or so she thought.

Lucia expected nothing from Giancarlo. She might have been nineteen then, but she’d learned early on never to expect from people because it ended with disappointment. At twenty-six, it should have been a faded memory. Yet it hadn’t faded at all.

The memories comforted her, turned her on, made her feel womanly.

God, how hot she became when she thought of how masculine he’d tasted when he’d pushed gag-deep into the back of her throat with no slow introduction.

Lucia sighed, sipped from the half-empty glass of wine, and laid her head back on the rolled-up towel, not ready to get out of the bathtub yet.

She let her eyes flicker closed, and she indulged in something she rarely allowed herself to.

For the next little while, she wasn’t a woman with a back full of problems when deep-diving her imagination, feeling hard, dominating lips, and tasting a memory she couldn’t forget. Ripples rushed across the water as she shuddered, her legs agitated beneath the dwindling bubbles, remembering how he’d held her down, wrenched her legs apart, and ate the climaxes out of her.

In her mind, she conjured up the man with the moody eyes and scratchy voice, and she moaned from low in her throat when he called her, “my sweet little fuck.”