by Bethany-Kris
But he hadn’t seen her since she was fourteen. She was a pianist, or something. Apparently, the girl was a prodigy. Kind of like him, but without the genius aspect. They put her in front of a piano at two, and there was no taking her away from it.
Or, that’s how the story went.
She was in private schools, and privileged establishments meant to cater to her unique talent, and to grow her abilities. She usually came home in the summer, as far as Naz knew, and during the holidays, sometimes.
But a lot of the time, Naz was gone. Busy with work, or running guns. He didn’t stay in one place for too long, and he didn’t like crowds.
Maybe he saw her in passing, but his attention had been elsewhere.
Jesus Christ.
His attention was all on her right now.
All on her.
Back then, Rosalynn Puzza—Luca’s now seventeen-year-old sister—had been just a girl. Too young to catch his eye, and too quiet to be fucking noticed. She had been stuck in that awkward stage of teenage life between just coming into her own, and still being stuck as a little girl.
She was not fourteen now.
She was very much a young woman now.
Naz blinked.
His mouth went dry.
Christ.
Gone was the gangly long-armed and -legged girl with a quiet, mouse-like demeanor. She took after her mother in her features—soft, pretty lines with high cheekbones, and wide eyes. Her pink lips were painted with a gloss that accentuated the way her mouth fell into a natural pout. She had to be five foot, ten inches without her heels on—she was wearing flats with the soft pink summer dress that fell loosely over her body.
“Yeah, Rosalynn, I’ll be right in,” Luca said.
Naz kept staring.
She stared right back.
Luca didn’t miss it, either. “Shit—why, Naz?”
He didn’t say anything.
Rosalynn smiled.
Oh, damn.
The girl was a special kind of beautiful when she smiled.
“Naz, right?” she asked.
Like she didn’t know his name.
Like she didn’t know who he was.
She knew.
He liked that she teased him that way, though.
Suddenly, his brain went quiet. All that chaotic shit that just never left him alone—all the things he learned and knew that constantly kept him awake unless he worked his body to the bone was silent.
He was not Naz, the genius. He wasn’t Naz, the guy working to become a made man, and the gunrunner on the weekends.
His brain was struggling to remember how to talk to a fucking girl. His heart actually raced, and he was pretty sure his palms were sweaty.
It was crazy.
And amazing.
“Uh … Naz?” Luca asked, touching his beer bottle to the side of Naz’s head. “You okay?”
Naz pushed his friend’s hand away.
Rosalynn grinned wider. “It is, though, right? Naz?”
Finally, his incredibly smart brain decided to work.
Naz nodded. “Yeah, it’s Naz.”
“So hey,” Rosalynn said, biting on her bottom lip, “maybe they’re starting to dance a bit, if you want to come in and join me, Naz.”
He didn’t even have to think about it, or how he wanted to respond.
He knew.
Knew he finally found her.
Knew by the way his heart felt, and his soul was suddenly alive. Like there was some piece of him that had been waiting to find her, and now it finally had. And it was trying to crawl out of him, slipping around under his surface, and reaching out to her.
He knew.
His father used to say that’s sometimes how it happened for men like them. All at once, and a lightning bolt that came out of fucking nowhere to strike them hard, and put them on their goddamn knees.
To remind them faith was real.
God was good.
Love was true.
“A dance?” she asked again.
“Yeah,” Naz said. “I would love a dance with you, sweetheart.”
THREE
“Hey, wait up!”
Roz smiled even as heat climbed up her cheeks. She couldn’t remember a time when she had seen Nazio speechless like he was outside, so she … took a shot. It paid off big time. It wasn’t like her to be so bold, but Catherine gave her the idea.
Naz slid in beside her as she headed down the hallway back to where the engagement party for his sister and her fiancé was in full swing. “Are you still at that school in England for music?”
“For now, yeah.”
“It’s been a—”
Luca pressed in between the two, and darted in front of them. Probably to go find their father, but who knew? Roz didn’t miss the way her brother glanced over his shoulder to give the two a look, and then shook his head. Roz had never been the type to go after her brother’s friends, and she was sure Luca was going a little crazy right now.
Oh, well.
She smiled back at him.
Luca darted around a corner, and out of sight. It left Roz alone with Naz in the back hallway.
“Anyway,” Naz said, drawing in Roz’s attention again. “It’s been a while since I talked to you.”
“Three years, actually.”
“That’s a shame. I missed out, huh?”
Roz’s gaze darted up fast to find Naz staring at her the same way he’d done outside. Like he was seeing her for the first time, trying to take everything in at once, and didn’t have the first clue what to do with it.
It was there—in his eyes—where she found a mix of softness, fire, and something else entirely. She didn’t know what it was, but she loved that he was looking at her like that. That it was because of her.
Swallowing the nerves in her throat … she refused to show them … she asked, “Missed out on what?”
Naz’s lips curved at the edges with a sexy smile. Easy, lax, and lazy all at the same time. Yet, it took his strong, handsome features and softened them just enough. He truly was a beautiful man, if that was the right way to describe it.
“Missed out on you, Rosalynn.”
Jesus.
His words came out like a murmur. It felt like fingertips gliding over bare skin, and sent a shiver racing through her bloodstream. And the way he said her name? She thought it sounded even better than the music that played constantly in her mind.
How?
He only spoke two fucking sentences!
Those butterflies were back in her stomach. Beating faster with every second that passed. Making her feel a little too light on her feet, and taking her breath away. She only realized it then but the two of them had stopped in the hallway, and were staring at one another.
A few inches apart.
She wasn’t even blinking.
What was air again?
“Missed out on me,” she echoed.
Naz grinned in that way again. “Yeah.”
“Maybe you should …” Now or never, she thought. “… catch up, then.”
At first, he said nothing. Simply kept staring at her like he was waiting for her to do something. Although, she didn’t know what. Finally, he said, “That’s definitely the plan if you want me to.”
Did she want him to?
More than he could possibly know.
“How’s the piano thing going?” he asked.
Roz couldn’t help but laugh at that question. As random as it was, it was more the way he asked it than anything. “The piano thing?”
Naz shrugged one shoulder, and glanced away. “You got quiet; I got nervous. I blurted out the first thing to come to my mind.”
Seems she had done it again.
Made him … speechless.
“A mind like yours,” she said softly, “and you don’t know what to say?”
Naz cleared his throat, and chuckled. “Hey, this is new for me, too.”
“I bet. The piano thing is pretty good, by the way.”
“I hear you’re fucking amazing, actually.”
Her fingers twitched to reach out and touch those lips of his that seemed perpetually smirking or grinning in some way. Especially with the way he was looking at her right then. He called her amazing, and she wanted him to say it again.
“Funny,” she said, “I hear the same thing about you.”
Naz glanced upward. “Yeah, but I was just blessed with this genius thing. You … you learned your craft.”
She bet he had to learn a lot of things, too.
“Maybe I’ll play for you sometime,” Roz said.
“I would love that.” Naz tipped his head to the side a bit, saying, “We were going to have a dance, yeah? You still up for that, or …?”
“Can you dance, or did you just say yes—”
“Don’t be cute. I can dance.”
This time, it was Roz’s turn to grin. “Prove it, boy genius.”
Naz smiled wickedly, and inched closer to Roz in the hallway. It wasn’t like there was a whole lot of space between them now, anyway. She couldn’t remember the last time she was this close to a guy, and felt this way about it. Like his cologne was soaking into her lungs, and her heart was about to pound right out of her chest.
It was wonderful.
“Boy genius,” Naz murmured, nearly eye-level with her. She was a tall girl—it made things awkward sometimes. But with him, he had a couple of inches on her, and she liked that. Loved that she had to look up at him. “Let me know when you see a boy, Roz. Because I’m pretty sure this man is far from just a boy.”
She swallowed hard.
He wasn’t wrong.
“And if you want, I can even show you sometime,” he added quieter.
God.
He was something else.
“A dance, then?” Naz asked.
He changed direction altogether but left her feeling oh, so crazy at the same time. He probably knew it, too.
“A dance,” she agreed.
Roz was light on her feet when she danced—she blamed that on the four years she’d wasted in dance classes that ended up going nowhere because becoming a pianist had always come first. She could hear a beat, though, and she could move to it, too.
She was trying really hard to focus on dancing and less on the way Nazio’s hands ghosted over her waist before grabbing tightly to her hips. She swore he only did that just so he could get her closer. Not that she minded.
She was, however, trying to maintain a little bit of dignity and space between them. It wasn’t like there weren’t a whole bunch of people watching them. Including family.
Her focus was entirely lost when the song blasting through the house changed to a slower tune altogether, and Naz spun her around with one hand. His arm curved tightly around her waist, so his hand could rest on her lower back while his other caught hers and wove their fingers together.
Roz laughed breathlessly when Naz winked. “I thought I said a dance, Naz.”
“I wanted two. I’m not very good at denying myself things I want, Roz.”
Well, then …
She could hear the murmurings of the people around them. Despite the house being quite large, it was filled to capacity. Someone had decided the best bet would be just to move the furniture out of the living room so that they had room to dance, and mingle. The hallways were still full of people, too.
“Food’s ready!” someone shouted.
Roz looked away from the man still staring at her to watch as people started to filter out of the living room into the conjoining dining room. “Aren’t you hungry?”
“In a minute,” Naz said.
His gaze caught hers again, and she swore it was like the floor tilted under her feet. “Why do you keep staring at me like that?”
Like the rest of the world didn’t exist. Like this was the first time he was ever actually seeing her, but he intended to make it last.
“Catching up,” he murmured vaguely.
“What does that mean?”
“It means … I don’t know what it means,” Naz admitted.
“Really?”
“My brain fails me today, apparently.”
“That’s a sad thing,” Roz whispered.
Naz shook his head. “I don’t think it is. I think it’s pretty amazing, actually. My mind never stops, Roz. Even when I’m sleeping, my dreams are overwhelming because my brain just goes, and goes.”
“And it’s not right now?”
“It’s going,” he said, “just not like it should.”
“Is that a bad thing or a good thing?”
“Right now, it’s good.” Naz tugged her a little closer, and her body tucked against his chest. Never once had he stopped moving them to the beat of the slow song echoing out of the speakers. Most of the room had filed out for food. A few people remained, but they weren’t paying them any attention. “It’s really good.”
“Huh.”
Naz quirked a brow, and his gaze drifted over her face slowly. “Can I take you home later? We could walk, or I can drive. Whatever.”
The butterflies were back.
So was her racing heart.
He just … waited.
“You probably should,” Roz said, “I might get lost.”
Naz laughed. “You got it, sweetheart.”
FOUR
Naz didn’t drive women home, let alone walk one. They were lucky if he called them a cab come morning, to be honest. It wasn’t that he was purposely trying to be an asshole, but he was upfront about what he wanted or expected from a woman, too.
Usually something quick.
One night.
Even better if they were gone before morning.
That was it.
He didn’t have time for more—his life didn’t allow it. He was accustomed to handling the physical side of his life and needs as they came up, and moving onto the next task in his day. It was how his brain liked to micromanage everything.
Relationships and sex were the same thing.
Except … he wanted nothing more than to walk Roz back to her parents’ home simply because she said he could when he asked. He wanted five minutes with her where they weren’t surrounded by everyone else watching.
Because yeah, they’d been watching.
His parents. Hers. Their siblings.
Fucking everyone.
Roz hadn’t seemed to notice, and maybe that was a byproduct of the fact the girl was used to being on display, in a way. She’d have to be used to people staring at her considering how often she sat in front of a piano on stage, right?
Naz wasn’t the same.
He noticed.
The genius thing made people pay attention to him, anyway. But that novelty quickly fucking wore off when people realized the only thing the genius thing did was make Naz smarter than them at the end of the day. It didn’t make him particularly special—but he was just because he was him, and there was only one of him—or a goddamn superhero. He swore people thought just because he had a genius level IQ that some kind of magic was about to pop out of his ears from his brain.
That’s not how it worked.
Nonetheless, he was very aware of the people around him at all times. It was partly because of the genius thing, and he wasn’t fond of attention but also because of who he was. His last name and the legacy behind it meant Naz couldn’t afford to not pay attention. The moment he decided to follow his father’s footsteps in Cosa Nostra and as a gunrunner meant Naz no longer had the excuse of being distracted.
Even if he seemed like it.
So yeah, he noticed.
Naz was a lot of things.
Criminal.
Dangerous.
Quiet.
He was not, however, unaware.
And right now …
Roz looked over at him, and smiled.
He was also in love—how and why and all the rest, he didn’t know. But it was the strange clenching of his chest every time he caught Roz’s stare with his own; the
way his heart beat-beat-beat like it was going to pound a hole right out of his chest; how he felt like if he took his sights off her for too long, she might fucking disappear.
Because he didn’t know how this was real. How was something like falling in love with someone at first glance real?
But what else could it be?
Naz had been told his whole damn life that he was something amazing. That he was going to do great things, and not because he was a genius, but simply because he was him. Was this that great thing?
Was she his great moment?
Naz wasn’t sure.
He sure as fuck wanted to find out.
Roz glanced over at him on the darkened trail, and though there was about six inches between the two of them as they walked, he had the greatest urge to grab her around the waist, and bring her closer. His heart and his mind just wanted her closer. And that was all before he got in to what his body wanted.
He ignored that bit.
Naz wasn’t fucking this up because regardless of how smart he was, he was still a damn man at the end of the day. And men tended to fuck shit up just because they couldn’t help it. Men thought with the smaller head between their legs, and not the one resting on their shoulders. He wasn’t one of those. Or shit, he was going to try really hard not to be.
Not for her.
“Did you know our dads cut these trails when they first built the houses on adjacent properties?” she asked.
Naz’s brow dipped. “I didn’t know that.”
He’d never asked, really.
Roz nodded, smiling. “Yeah, I guess when they were kids, they had trails connecting their homes. So, that’s why they did it.”
Huh.
Naz made a mental note to ask his father about that if for no other reason than he thought it was kind of … interesting. And also because Roz told him. From the moment she shouted for her brother on that porch, Naz’s mind had soaked up each and every single word that came out of her mouth. His brain was a sponge; it absorbed anything and everything it found most fascinating.
That’s just how it worked.
And right now, everything in his world had shifted just like that. With nothing more than a girl he had known his whole life—but never really noticed until it was apparently the right time to—speaking. His brain flipped the fucking switch on him.