She tried to say something, but whatever it was, I swallowed it up. Her soft wet lips yielded beneath mine. Even as she attempted to fight, her body gave itself over, her mouth surrendering. She made a small sound as I deepened the kiss, tasting her, pressing her harder into the earth, my cock like steel against her soft belly.
“I want this,” I said, claiming her mouth again while I reached with one hand to take my cock out of my pants. Her nightie had already ridden up to midbelly. “This.” I kissed her again, this time softer, on her lips, then her chin, her cheek. I wanted to see her face, her eyes. Slipping my fingers beneath her panties, I drew them aside. She bit her lips, watching me. “I want you.” I thrust into her, and she arched her back, closing her eyes momentarily. “You.” I drove in again, her tight pussy wet like a glove around my cock. “I want you, Lucia,” I said finally, taking her wrists in my hands and pinning them out to her sides, watching her face as I fucked her, just a few more short, hard thrusts before she clenched around me, coming, making that sound she made, crushing my cock until I stilled, squeezing her wrists harder, coming, heart racing, not breathing until I’d emptied.
The rain slowed, finally, as if it matched our moods. I kissed her and slowly slid out, kneeling to zip my jeans before lifting her up. She let me this time. Let me carry her into the house and up to the second floor and through my bedroom to the master bath, where I ran the shower and placed her inside. I followed, still fully clothed, stripping first her and then myself beneath the warm flow of water.
“I want you, Lucia,” I said yet again, pressing her back against the wall, kissing her. “As wrong as it is, I want you.”Lucia lay in my bed, the cuts on her knees and palms bandaged, warm beneath the covers. Safe in my arms.
“Natalie is my sister-in-law. Sergio’s wife.” She had her back to me, so I couldn’t see her face. “She has a son who was at daycare while she worked her usual hours. When she got there to pick him up, he was gone. The daycare provider had fucked up, releasing Jacob to someone who claimed to be his uncle.”
She turned her head to look at me, then shifted to lie on her back. I kept my arm over her belly, my hand closed possessively around her hip.
“She was frantic, as you can imagine.”
“Did they find him?”
I nodded. “It was Dominic, I’m certain. He’d dropped him off at her parent’s house but only after a couple of hours.”
“Is Jacob okay?”
“He’s fine now. He’s only a year and a half, so he couldn’t tell us much. Dropped off with an armful of toys and an ice-cream cone that had melted all over him. He apparently ran into his grandmother’s arms and sobbed, calling for his mom.”
“Why would Dominic do that?”
“To show he could.” That’s what pissed me off the most. This was the one thing that could terrorize Natalie.
“I can’t imagine what Natalie must have felt.”
I nodded. I’d never seen her like I did today, not even when she’d learned Sergio had been killed.
“I’m the only person she trusts, Lucia. I couldn’t abandon her or my nephew.”
“You should have told me.”
“I know.”
“I assumed… I thought she was your... That you were having an affair.” She lowered her lashes, her face growing pink with embarrassment.
“I told you I wouldn’t do that. The contract—”
“It doesn’t say anything about that.”
“I’m not interested in anyone or anything else at the moment, Lucia.” The words at the moment made me pause. I wondered if she noticed them. “Don’t worry. I will still release you from the contract when the time comes.”
She grew quieter. “I’m tired.”
I pulled her tight against my chest and rested my chin on top of her head. “Go to sleep.”Lucia still slept deeply when I woke early the next morning. Kissing her softly on her forehead, I climbed out of bed and tucked her back in, then left a note, and drove to Dominic’s house. He lived about forty-five minutes away. When I got there, I saw my father’s sedan in the circular driveway. I wondered what he was doing here. If he was meeting with Dominic about the Luke DeMarco situation.
Stop being so fucking paranoid.
If it wasn’t for Lucia, would I give a fuck if Dominic became the next boss? Would I care? Or would I take the opportunity and walk away? Although walking away wasn’t really an option. Nothing in this life came that easy.
I shook it off. I needed to focus. Parking my car behind my father’s, I walked to the front door, my anger from yesterday coming back white-hot as I approached. Lucia had tempered it. She’d cooled the anger, turned it into something else. She’d awakened a different side of me, one I’d tried to keep buried for a very long time. I’d always thought that part of me weak, but it was actually the opposite.