Luna was so narcissistic he was certain she’d flown back to Navarro with the cash and forgotten about her husband. Again. Vincent discovered the only reason Luna caught him was she was looking for him to ask for more money and she’d spotted his truck out front of the condo. She knew the condo was his and she knew he usually kept spare keys hidden around his rental property. Fucking luck.
One thing he knew for certain, Luna was never going to tell Navarro about her husband being with his wife. Luna wasn’t wired that way. She wanted all attention on her, and revealing Tess and Vincent might be together was a kick to her ego.
Vincent grabbed his overnight satchel out of the back of his pickup, then he started across the tarmac toward the private jet he had waiting. His cell rang and he dug it out of his pocket.
Luna. He had to deal with her continually calling now. “What’s up, babe?” he asked, while he kept walking.
“Lover, we need some stage rehearsal time before our show and Sam is not being reasonable.” Luna’s voice got what she thought was sexier, he thought whinier. “Can you talk to him, darling?”
“Looking forward to seeing you on stage, babe,” he lied. “I’ll see what I can do. But Sam’s in charge.”
“You make my nipples hard when you get things for me, lover.”
Christ, he wanted to puke. “Come home, I’ll lick them,” he rasped. A few moments later, he nodded to the flight attendant as he ducked to enter the plane.
“Lover, I wanna give you this luscious body, but my fans need me to practice. Soon, darling.”
Yeah, fucking right. Vincent stowed his bag and took his seat. “I’m going to fuck that famous pussy,” he uttered, then he disconnected, not able to take any more. She wouldn’t care, probably barely notice. How Navarro could stand her was anyone's guess. Sam said Navarro was hooked up with the mob guys circling the Redrock.
They’d been trying to find a way in for several years, but Vincent didn’t scare and, further, he wasn’t interested. At all. He knew some tribes across the nation had mafia underpinnings. Wasn’t happening on his watch. However, he had a bad feeling those guys might think if they could get control of his wife, they could get control of him.
Surprise. They were fucked. But so was he, because while he could cut Luna loose after the vote, he still had no way, he knew of, to keep her crazy ass away from Tess should he try to publically hookup with her.
That messed with him. Bad. So bad he did stupid things like breaking into Tess’ motel room to have her five ways and make her come as many. And he knew he’d do it again. But as long as Tess could be a target for Luna, he had to keep it out of the public eye.
Vincent pulled his cell out of his pocket and texted Tess because he knew she’d not answer his cell call. “Still taste you. Keep that with me. Free night, see you the next. Be naked and ready.”
Yeah, he was a fool, but he couldn’t stop, and he fooled himself the most that he could keep it secret.
Tess’ gaze lifted from the text she’d just read from Vincent to look at Finn sitting across the table from her. Finn had invited her to breakfast.
“Chiquita, I made you look like that we’d be in bed.”
Tess immediately tried to stop looking like “that.” But it was hard not to be pissed off and turned on in the same moment. She nearly opened her mouth to tell Finn about Vincent and his miraculously getting into her room, even knowing it was her room, and disappearing by leaving the door locked from the outside. She figured Vincent picked the lock ... except leaving it locked when he left, and how could he possibly do that, made her jittery. More jittery than blowout sex ... no, but amazed.
Wisely, she didn’t blurt her innermost messed-up life events to Finn, who looked seriously badass that morning, in black jeans, a black tee, and a really worn motorcycle jacket. But better, his hair was a sexy mess and his intense green eyes were just for her. Not the gallery of women in the corner booth to their right, in the diner where they were catching breakfast. Five women, varying ages from twenty to mid-thirties, had clocked Finn’s arrival on a chrome-studded motorcycle when he’d pulled up front.
Tess didn’t know a thing about motorcycles, but Finn’s looked impressive. More impressive was Finn’s lack of acknowledging the women ogling him while he kept his attention centered on her.
So she blushed and quickly changed his subject. “You could get it five times, varying ages,” she informed him, nodding toward the corner booth.
Finn’s green eyes cut that way. The ladies took notice and started crossing and uncrossing legs, pouting lips, and one winked. Finn growled beneath his breath and turned his gaze back to her. “All bitches,” he announced. “Take a man’s balls and twist them. Not sweet and hot like you.”
Tess’ eyes widened as she asked incredulously, while secretly pleased at the “sweet, hot” comment, “How could you possibly know?”
“I’ve made it my business to train my eye after mine went frigid.”
Tess sat forward. This sounded interesting. “So the lady on the end, red dress, mid-twenties, what about her screams ... well, I’m not calling her that.”
“See,” he responded with a gleam in his eyes. “Fucking, sweet.” Then he tilted his head to the red dress as Tess experienced warmth from head to toe. “Her, she’s trying too hard. Desperate. I bet she gives it out but cuts it off even before the ring’s on her finger.”
Tess shook her head. “Babe, that does not say how you know she is like that.”
Finn’s gaze jetted to her, with his look zeroing in on her mouth. “You called me babe.”
“What?” she questioned.
He looked up to her eyes. “You. Called me babe.”
Tess did blush then. “No I didn’t,” she lied.
“You did,” he uttered. “I’m going to get you to do it again.”
Then he let her off the hook by looking back to the woman in the red dress. What was the matter with her? Flirting with Finn during the day and going to bed with Vincent at night. Not tonight, a little devil in her mind reminded her.
“Red’s been making eye contact with about three guys in here. Still, she’s not picked one to center on. Makes me think she’s flighty. How could a woman like the looks of me, then that trucker over there, and last the professor in the back?” Finn turned back to her. She was seriously impressed. “Too different, all of us. Desperate, you see?”
Impulsively, Tess grabbed his hand from the top of the table and held it. “Just hoping you’re not jaded by your situation.”
His hand curled over hers. “I might have been, but sweetness came along.”
He meant it. He really meant it. God, she shouldn’t be doing this, because she was getting divorced and she didn’t know what was happening with Vincent.
She opened her mouth to tell him that, when a man’s voice over Finn’s shoulder barked, “Wise guy, get your fucking hands off her. That’s Navarro’s woman.”
Finn dropped her hand. Tess heard the chair he was sitting scrape hard on the floor as her heart started pounding. She jerked her gaze upward to see the voice behind the harsh words was Victor Torenni. He was one of the bad men her husband hung out with and she knew he was bad because he’d helped beat up that guy who tried to flirt with her, just because Steven complained.
Finn surged to his feet, nearly toppling over his chair, and Tess realized Finn might be going to defend her. She stood too, exclaiming, “Finn, don’t.” Then toward Torenni, she exclaimed, “I’m getting a divorce, and what I do is none of your business.”
Torenni and Finn were squared off, nose to nose, both with black hair but there the similarities ended. Both totally ignoring her comments.
“You think this is any of your business, Victor?” Finn uttered with barely suppressed ferocity.
Finn knew Victor, Tess thought, looking between them. How else would Finn know Victor’s name.
Victor leaned in with a fierce scowl toward Finn’s ear, a totally threatening gesture. “I think our boss has
an interest in her you better be finding out about.”
Their. Boss? Oh God, well, she’d known Finn was living on the edge. She’d been ignoring what that could be. She’d thought the rumors must be wrong. And who the hell was Victor’s boss and what interest did he have in her? Finn looked as if he wanted to climb down Torenni’s throat. Tess scooted next to him and grasped his bicep. He was tensed like steel. She glared up at Torenni as she whispered Finn’s name.
“You got a man,” Torenni said stubbornly to her, as if it was his freaking business. “You’s shouldn’t be touching another.”
Finn backed up, carrying her, her hand still attached, with him several steps.
“You need to get out of my business,” she hissed at Torenni. Then she felt Finn unlatching her hand from his upper arm.
“Mrs. Navarro, it was nice for breakfast cuz I helped you move.” Her gaze turned to Finn, looking at him like she thought he was crazy. Which she did. He looked blank, tightly blank, as he continued. “Maybe I’ll see you around, and keep that shit you helped me with about my wife in mind.”
Then Finn O’Neil stepped back as if they barely knew each other, glared at Torenni, who looked thoughtful, but smug. Finn turned and walked away from them.
Tess was pretty much blown away, then she tossed her head and looked up at Torenni. “Who’s your damn boss,” she demanded.
He looked across the diner, watching Finn leave, then back down at her, as he said softly, “Someone you better be careful of, cara.”
Tess had had enough—she walked closer and poked his solid chest. “Do you tell my soon-to-be ex-husband the same thing, while he’s screwing and running around with Luna Whitehorse? Do you tell him ‘you got a woman, don’t touch others’?” Victor’s rugged features, with his obviously once-broken nose, looked amused, and that pissed her off more as she whispered fiercely, “Stay away from me or I’ll—”
Victor grabbed her finger, and she exclaimed under her breath, trying to pull it away. “Cara, you need a strong man to take your back,” he said lowly with his gaze intense. “For a woman like you, I might stand against my boss.”
“Oh!” Tess exclaimed, incensed, and finally getting her finger free. She did not give Victor a response to his crazy talk—she just turned, grabbed her purse, and stalked away.
Then she drove straight to her lawyer’s office, but on the way she texted Vincent. “So sorry I let out I knew about our spouses’ affair.”
THIRTEEN / I NOTICE SWEET JUST AS WELL AS THE NEXT MAN
Vincent read Tess’ text and wondered what the hell was going on. He needed one more night to make the board vote happen, because he’d just secured the last single vote. He swore looking at the text. He needed details, but just then his cell rang from an unlikely number.
“Yeah,” he answered. “Strange, you being in my ear.”
Finn O’Neil’s voice was low and measured on the other end. “I’m breaking all kinds of protocol making this call and a fucking year undercover, so listen up.”
Vincent stood from his seat in the jet, looked over his shoulder, and marked the hostess in the rear so he walked up to the pilot’s door and the farthest point from prying ears. He was blown away to hear Finn could be an agent of some kind, but determined to keep his cool.
“Yeah, bud, listening with all ears.”
“Know it’s a strange question but I need you to answer. You just do a one-nighter on Tess Navarro or have you set your sights?”
Vincent replied without delay. “Set my sights.”
“Shit,” Finn uttered. “Figures, but as much as it pains me, it’s going to be a good thing.”
“You’re losing me, bud,” Vincent advised him, however, he got the vibe that Finn might have a personal interest in Tess.
“Coronado’s tagged Tess. Got an interest, his man Torenni says.”
“Fucking A,” Vincent hissed. Then he released some of his own intelligence. “My work-up on Navarro showed the mob connection. It’s not lost on me their interest in Navarro, his in Luna, and Coronado’s in Redrock.”
“We need to get Tess out of the headlights,” Finn said.
“Why is it ‘we’?” Vincent demanded.
“I notice fucking sweet just as well as the next man, Vin,” Finn responded.
Shit, Vincent thought, he did not like Finn O’Neil tagging his woman. And the woman he had a hard time claiming in public.
“I’ll tell you something that goes no further, bud. Couple of things going down shortly should take me off Coronado’s to-do list through Luna. We will become irrelevant.”
Finn whistled, then said, “Can’t say it’s not unexpected, since you’re claiming Tess.”
Vincent knew Finn guessed, as he wanted him too, that thing happening was him divorcing Luna and he should tell Finn that he couldn’t let that out. But he was stubborn, not wanting a man interested in Tess to know that shit.
As Vincent remained doggedly quiet, Finn continued, “We will talk after you make happen what you got. See if it gets her out of Coronado’s sights. But heads up, amigo, deeper shit going on than Coronado wanting a cut of Redrock. Be good if Tess dumps her fucking husband and gets clear.”
“I hear you,” Vincent replied.
“Good if you get clear too,” Finn added.
“Thanks for taking the risk,” Vincent offered. “Later.”
“Definitely, later,” Finn said.
Vincent thumbed off the call and returned to his seat. He’d had plans before that call to make the vote happen when Luna was on stage at Redrock. Making it impossible for her to get in on it. He wondered who Tess had told and if they’d spill it. Luna was so convinced she had him wrapped around her pussy that he’d not guess she was still fucking another man.
But someone coming up and telling her, she’d know he was playing her.
He called Tess this time with his gut tightening the second he heard her soft voice. “I’m so sorry, Vincent. I wasn’t thinking, just mad.”
“Who’d you tell it to, beautiful?” he asked as quietly.
She made a sound of not wanting to tell him. “It doesn’t matter, just that he might tell Luna or definitely Steven.”
Vincent held his temper, picturing how sweet she was when she wasn’t being stubborn. “Need to know who.”
He heard her sigh. A sound that had places on him thinking about rising. He quelled those urges. “Okay, Torenni, Victor Torenni. Do you know who that is?”
Vincent grimaced—he did not like Tess being around Torenni at all. “I know he’s mob and up your husband’s ass,” Vincent muttered, and maybe he should have held back at little.
“Mob?” Tess expelled. “So it’s the real mob?” she exclaimed.
“Yeah, beautiful, and I do not like you on his radar.”
“Torenni said his boss was interested in me,” she whispered. “He ... God, Vincent, he came on to me, saying maybe I was worth standing up to his boss for.”
Christ, Tess so needed him claiming her ... in public ... so these assholes would back off.
“Beautiful, you need to go to my house tonight and lock yourself in. No one will find you there.”
“Vincent ...” She sounded unsure. “I started the paperwork on the divorce today. Steven should be served by the end of the week.”
“Good,” he clipped, then he backed up the conversation. “You stay at my house tonight. Keys on back porch, under the clay planter, left side.”
“I don’t even know we are together. I thought you and Luna were—”
He interrupted her. “Told you, that’s not what it seems. Now’s not the time to talk, but we will.” Complete silence. “Tess, taking my offer is smart. And it doesn’t have anything to do with us.”
“Only if you don’t come there.” Her voice broke.
He cussed a silent stream, then he uttered, “Yeah.”
Tess got off the phone with Vincent and looked out into her flower shop. Everything was such a mess. The mob? Her husband was caught up i
n the mob? He was just a really bad talent agent that couldn’t keep his hands off pretty and wild women. How that translated into the mob, she thought was crazy. But she could see now Victor Torenni was mob through and through. Even that beat-up thing they did to that guy innocently flirting with her was all mob-like.
“Hey, Tess, I have to set the camera directions.” Tess opened her eyes, surprised to see Cabe standing at the counter a few feet from where she sat. He was very quiet, and she looked at him, trying to figure out how he did that.
“I worked out all the trajectories last night to cover the most ground,” he said, then he asked, “Are you okay? You look upset.”
Tess stood, trying to give him a smile. Didn’t really work. “Just, you know, marriage-falling-apart stuff.”
He nodded, coming around the counter; she saw then he carried a ladder. “I got a line on that falling-apart stuff, if you need an ear.”
Tess wondered what he meant and she glanced at his hand. Oh. Cabe was married, she saw he wore a ring. Was his marriage rocky too? But she had too much going on to even know where to start.
“Thanks.” She did smile then, and he sort of stilled, looking at her closely. He had nice eyes and a workman-type build. Very nice. “I’ll take a rain check,” she finished softly.
He seemed to want to say more, but then his face showed he came to a decision. “I’ll be back in the corner.” He nodded and moved past her. She wondered what he’d been thinking. She knew he and Vincent were close. Did he know about them?
She bit her bottom lip. Was there a them? Vincent had gone straight to Luna and walked out with her at the condo. But every time Vincent said, “Things aren’t what they seem,” she thought of how violent Luna was toward them. And she thought about how protective Vincent had been toward her from the moment they met.
Cabe worked quietly, and she tried to get her life in some semblance of order by calling Rusty and inviting (begging) her to come spend a girl’s night at Vincent’s. She just told Rusty it was a friend’s place, but she’d clue her in later that night about everything, because she really needed advice, and Rusty agreed to come.
Curves for Him - 10 Delicious Tales Page 106