Owning Beauty (Taking Beauty Trilogy 3)

I wasn’t used to all this peace and quiet, and I wondered if I’d ever be able to live in a place like this. So secluded from everyone. So shut-off from the hustle and bustle of the street. I was used to the frantic pace of the city, the kids playing on the sidewalks, their moms sitting on the stoops of their brownstones watching them, gossiping with the other moms. I guess I’d always pictured my life to be like that. More of the same. Every day the same. The same people. The same places. The same conversations.

Dante lived a whole different life than I did. It seemed to suit him, though. I guess when you’ve been to war, your need for peace and quiet becomes greater when you return. I thought of Dante, and my heart softened. He’d been through a lot. Growing up in Queens was hard enough. But then he’d lost Maggie. He’d gone to war. I couldn’t even imagine the things he’d seen, and to be honest, I didn’t want to. It was too much to think about. Too painful to think about the man I cared about going through all of that.

But all of it made me wonder how much pain and grief he was holding in. Years had passed, but that kind of pain stays with you, that kind of experience lingers long after you’ve left it behind.

And yet, there was still something so gentle about him. He was full of pride. He was stubborn. He was fucking strong as a bull, and yet he touched me as if he thought I might break sometimes. And then there were those moments when he lost himself, and his touch became more forceful, more desperate, more like he was searching for something, for something that he couldn’t quite reach.

I shook my head, watching Bear pee against a tree, my head swimming with thoughts of Dante. I was falling for him, I knew it now. There was something about him that I was not going to be able to easily shake.

Once again, part of me wished like hell we’d met under different circumstances. Wishing was going to get me nowhere, though. I had to play the hand I was dealt, whether I liked it or not.

Bear spotted a squirrel and darted into the woods.

“Bear - no!” I whispered, not wanting to wake up Dante by yelling. We were right outside of his bedroom window. “Dammit!” I muttered, following him into the woods.

I couldn’t believe how fast he’d run away, considering he usually took at least three minutes to get to his feet.

He was deep in the woods before I could catch him, so I trailed after him, the leaves crunching under my feet with every step. He rounded a corner and disappeared and I sighed, following along as quickly as I could.

His barking became louder and frantic and I felt sorry for the squirrel that he’d most likely been chasing. I turned the corner and screamed when I saw the sight in front of me.

Bear was growling, low and deep, his teeth bared, his eyes wide and menacing. A very large man was standing in front of him, backed into a tree and holding his shaking hands up to hold him off.

My mouth dropped open, and I looked on in awe at the hair standing up on the back of Bear’s neck.

I looked back to the man and noticed his cut. The skull patch above his name was instantly recognizable.

The Iron Godz.

Lauren

“I need more time. I’ve got a lead,” I said into the phone. My boss was on my ass, hounding me for information before I was ready to give it to him. “It’s only been a day, give me a minute!”

I knew I shouldn’t snap at him, but I was beyond irritated. I was lying. I didn’t have a lead. I had absolutely nothing. I’d fucked Tony for nothing and had no luck at Norma’s either.

“You’ve got till tomorrow. The other networks are getting ahead of us on this story. I want to know everything you can find out about the Iron Godz and the Deadly Sinners.”

“Yeah, I know, okay. I’m working on it, I swear.”

“Work faster!” The line went dead in my ear and I threw my phone back in my purse.

Fuck! Now what? I’d spent the night trying to figure out what to do, simultaneously kicking myself for fucking Tony and then furiously masturbating to the memory of it over and over for the rest of the evening. I felt like a fool.

But if I was a fool, I was a determined fool. I wasn’t about to give up.

Today, I was sitting in my car across the street from Otto’s, watching the parking lot for some sign that might point me in the right direction. I’d already watched two of the Iron Godz walk in half an hour ago, followed by another guy on a bike that wasn’t wearing a cut. When I saw the girl walk in, I knew who she was right away.

I might not have gotten too far in my investigation, but I knew who the players were. I’d stalked Gabby’s facebook page, looking for any clues I could find. Bella Balducci was obviously her BFF and was in more than half of her pictures. By reading all the comments on their pages, I had figured out that they lived together, too. I’d have stalked the facebook photos of every single biker, too, but I guess they aren’t too keen on social media. The only info I could find came in the form of either arrest records or articles written about their legal troubles. And that was just the Iron Godz. I couldn’t find anything at all on the Deadly Sinners.

Once I spotted Bella, I debated if I should follow her in, but after a few minutes she came back out looking dazed. When I saw the man introduce himself to her, and that teasing exchange afterwards, I knew something was up. When she hoped on the back of his bike, I knew I had the lead I was looking for.

I followed them at a fair distance, keeping a few cars between us. Once they got onto the George Washington Bridge, my interest was definitely peaking. Then, they merged onto the Garden State Parkway and headed for Montclair.

New Jersey, huh? I guess if you wanted to hide out, Jersey was the place to go, I thought. The traffic thinned out and soon there were only two other cars between me and the bike. I slowed down, putting even more distance between us for the next eight miles. Once he’d driven through Montclair and reached the rural outskirts, my heart was beating wildly.

I watched as they slowed down before turning onto a dirt road and disappearing into the tree line. I pulled over on the shoulder, counted to ten, then slowly turned my car onto the dirt road, crawling along and hoping like hell nobody spotted me.

Dante

My growling stomach woke me up. I opened my eyes and blinked away the pain from the bright sunlight. I was definitely more of a night owl, usually staying up all night, drinking and thinking.

I thought about last night, how the hours had melted away while Gabby and I made love all night. It’d been so long since I’d done anything like that, and it had woken up a part of me that had been dormant for way too long.

I found myself possessed with this insatiable hunger for Gabby, and no matter how many times I sank myself into her, it was never enough.

My cock was throbbing hotly between my legs right now, never letting me forget that hunger for a moment. I threw on a pair of jeans, shoved my gun in my waistband and walked out into the living room to find her.

A flash of alarm shot through me when I saw the open door, the sandwiches half made on the kitchen counter.

“Gab?” I called. “Bear?”

Determined not to make a fool of myself like I had earlier, I took a deep breath as I walked outside to look for them. Bear probably just needed to go out again. No big deal. Nothing to be alarmed about, I told myself.

I walked out into the bright sunshine, squinting my eyes and looking around for them.

“Bear?” I called out again, and then I heard his barking. I walked towards the sound, around the back of the house. “Bear!” I called again, and he barked once more, the sound coming from deep in the woods.

“Shit,” I muttered, walking down the trail.

“Gabby?” I called out. I was answered with more barking, and nothing else, as I kept walking, then I heard the growling. A low, angry, threatening growl that I’d only heard Bear make once when a raccoon came up on the porch last summer. I started running towards him, knowing whatever I found wasn’t going to be good. I pulled out my gun just as I rounded the corner, and froz

e in my tracks.

“What the fuck!” I yelled. Bear was standing on top of a very large man that was sitting on the ground against a tree, his bared teeth inches from the man’s nose. Gabby stood a few feet away, staring in shock at the scene in front of us.

“Get him off!” the man pleaded, his eyes glued to Bear’s growling mouth.

“You okay?” I asked, walking over and standing between her and Bear and the man on the ground. It was then I saw his cut. One of the Godz.

“I’m fine,” she whispered.

“Get behind me,” I said, turning to Bear and the man.

“Get him off!” he pleaded again.

“Who the fuck are you?” I asked, making no move to pull Bear away.

“Gino. Gino LaRocca,” he answered.

“So the Godz sent you,” I replied. “Fucking took you long enough.”

“You’re a fucking no-name club. Nobody knows fucking anything about you. Yeah, it fucking took a minute, but did you think you were just gonna get away with fucking with us?”

“No, I’m smarter than that. But you must not be very smart, coming all the way out here by yourself.”

“Who said I’m alone?” he said, the words spitting from his mouth. Bear lunged at him, growling louder. “Fuck! Can you please do something about this fucking beast?”

“Nope.”

“Ahh! Fuck!” he screamed, jumping when Bear snipped at his nose.

“So, here’s what’s gonna happen, Gino,” I began. “We’re gonna get to know each other a little bit, you and I. I’m going to pull Bear off but don’t think he won’t bite your fuckin’ head off in a second if I say the word, you got that? We’re gonna go into my cabin, and we’re gonna have a little chat. You understand?”