by Bethany-Kris
Only time would tell.
THIRTEEN
Lucia hung back from Renzo as they entered what he called the shop. She didn’t think the run-down warehouse looked anything like a shop. At least, not from the outside. He’d vaguely explained that they worked on cars inside the shop, but he didn’t give her much else to go on.
She knew why now.
Lucia understood perfectly well what was happening once they were inside the building, and she had a clear view of the men working. Sparks flew and danced across the cracked cement floor from a lit torch as it was brought down through metal. She was quick to turn her eyes away from the bright light. Car parts were being packed in plain brown cardboard boxes filled with packing peanuts. Every single part from lights, to a smaller box for an emblem.
A Rolls-Royce, by the looks of it.
A Phantom.
That was, by no means, a cheap car. And without sounding like a spoiled, rich little bitch, Lucia highly doubted anyone in this warehouse could afford to go out and buy a Rolls-Royce Phantom.
She took in the sight of the unknown guys packing away a car they’d clearly just chopped down, and said nothing. Yeah, she knew what they were doing. It wasn’t very fucking hard to figure out.
Renzo’s fingers tightened around hers, and he tugged gently on her arm to bring her attention back to him for a second. “You good?”
She nodded. “Absolutely.”
A little curious about whose car that might be, though. She suspected there were only so many Phantoms in the city. It wouldn’t be very hard to track down the owner.
“Sometimes they get requests,” Renzo muttered, drawing Lucia to his side as they had to pass the torch-wielding duo cutting the chassis apart. He kept her just far enough away from the sparks that none would catch her shoes or clothes. “You know what I mean?”
“Not really.”
His lips came up to graze her ear as the noise level picked up a bit in the warehouse. “Most times, they’re just boosting whatever they know is going to be easy to resell on the market without it coming up as stolen after they remove all the identifiers and change paperwork. But sometimes … they get a request. Someone knows they’re not going to get their next few payments in, or whatever. They’re paying insurance, so if it gets stolen …”
Lucia blinked. “It’s all paid for.”
“Exactly.”
She heard what he was saying, then. The Phantom was a request by someone.
Huh.
She hadn’t even thought to ask Renzo what they were doing here—did he do this sometimes, too? Not that it mattered, really. A couple of the guys working stopped their business to glance up, and watch the two pass. Renzo nodded at one, but Lucia didn’t bother. She didn’t know them at all.
Once they were just beyond the guys working, Renzo directed Lucia to a row of crates with soda cans tossed into a box in front of them. Wordlessly, his hands grabbed her waist, and she let out a laugh as he picked her up like she weighed nothing at all before sitting her down on the crates. All at once, the noise of the warehouse and guys drifted away as Renzo inched closer to her, and his hands grabbed her thighs tightly. A gentle squeeze of his palms was all it took for her to be entirely distracted, and a little too hot.
What was it about this man that did it for her?
She wasn’t sure.
She just liked it.
Renzo’s gaze held hers as he leaned close, and pressed a fast kiss to her lips. His thumbs stroked her thighs as he murmured, “Stay put, and don’t wander. I’ll only be a few minutes. Got it?”
She pursed her lips. “I’ll think about it.”
His laughter came out dark, and heady. She loved the way he looked when he laughed—so carefree, and unbothered. It was the only time—except maybe during sex—when he seemed truly free. Especially in his happiness.
“You stay put,” he murmured, kissing her once more.
Lucia nodded.
Where was she going to go, anyway?
Renzo patted her cheek with the palm of his hand, and then turned away. Lucia watched his back disappear deeper into the warehouse where she could see a couple of guys waiting for him. Who they were, she didn’t know. Renzo was already shrugging off the messenger bag that was a constant companion on his shoulder whenever she was around. She never thought to peek inside the bag, and frankly, he never left it alone where someone could get a look at the contents, anyway.
Not that she wanted to.
That was his business.
The exchange was so quick that she almost missed it, really. Renzo pulled something from his bag to hand to the taller of the two. She couldn’t quite see what it was he handed over, though. Then, the shorter of the two passed over an envelope that was sizeable in its thickness. Renzo was quick to shove it in the bag, close it up, and shrug it back over his shoulder. Widening his arms, he got a nod from the two guys, and he replied in kind.
It didn’t exactly seem like the conversation was over, though, because the three continued standing in their semi-circle even after they exchanged their stuff. Sure, she couldn’t hear their conversation at all, but Lucia didn’t need to, either. Not to recognize what she was seeing, anyway.
Maybe it was the way Renzo stood …
Or how he directed their conversation …
She’d grown up around men who led—she recognized one when she saw one. Renzo was absolutely the leader of his … crew. Was that even what he called it?
Lucia was so caught up in watching the exchange at the back of the warehouse that she didn’t even notice the guy coming up to her until he was sitting beside her on the crates. He shoved the welder’s mask high on his face, exposing handsome features. A few streaks of ash had been smudged along his jaw, and cheek. His eyes—a bright blue—looked her over with interest, but she wasn’t.
Interested, that was.
Not at all.
“And who are you?” he asked. “Haven’t seen you around before.”
She doubted these guys had women in here very often, if at all, to be honest. Unless they had a woman working on the cars, this just wasn’t a girl’s scene.
“Lucia,” she said simply, “I came with Renzo.”
That was all she gave the guy, mostly hoping he would get the hint that she wasn’t up for conversation, and make his way back to his work. He didn’t get the hint at all.
Leaning in closer to Lucia, the guy smiled. “My name’s Karl, but everybody just calls me Diesel.”
Fascinating.
Lucia kept her mouth shut as to not make the guy think she was interested in having a conversation with him, but her silence didn’t seem to bother him a bit. He just continued talking like he was the only one between them who might have anything interesting to say. “I fucking knew he was keeping something on the low. Are you the same one that parked the nice car in front of his apartment building, then?”
Lucia blinked.
Who was this fucking guy?
Then, he got closer.
Too close, really.
Lucia leaned back, and it wasn’t subtle, either. It was clear she was putting more distance between them, but that didn’t faze Diesel, either. His hand found her thigh before Lucia even knew what was happening.
“You’re fucking wasting time with Ren, girl,” he said, grinning. “You’re too pretty for a guy like him, anyway. Get what I—”
Her gaze narrowed, and disbelief swept through her system. The anger that followed right behind it was just as swift, and destructive. Lucia didn’t even think whether or not it might cause a problem for Renzo when she outright slapped Diesel’s hand away from her body. The sound echoed.
How had it gotten so quiet in the warehouse?
“Don’t touch me,” she murmured.
He opened his mouth to speak, but Lucia had already jumped down from the crates. Spinning on her heels to head for Renzo on the other side of the warehouse, she came up short in her first step at the sight of him standing right there. At first,
by the hard, cold expression on Renzo’s face, she thought he might be pissed at her.
But just as quickly, those dark eyes of his drifted past Lucia to the man still sitting on the crates. Renzo arched a brow, and strolled closer, and shoved his hands in his pockets at the same time.
As he came up to her side, one of his hands lifted, and he stroked her cheek with two fingers. “You good?”
“It’s fine,” she promised.
It wasn’t. The guy really overstepped his boundaries like a lot of guys did, but she was okay. She just wanted to get the hell out of there, now.
“Give me a second,” he told her.
“Ren,” she whispered.
A plea, maybe. A request to just let it go so they could leave. It was the simple shake of his head that told her, no, he absolutely would not be letting it go.
“No harm done,” Diesel said, throwing his hands up with a playful smile. “I was just testing her, Ren.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
Renzo nodded, and came to a stop right in front of Diesel. He glanced to the side like he found something interesting to stare at in the corner of the warehouse before his gaze cut back to the guy on the crates. “Didn’t know you were working here with Perry, too.”
“Gives me extra cash.”
“I bet.”
His words were tight, and so was his jaw. Like he was holding something back, but it was about to spill out like lava shooting from a fucking volcano.
“Listen,” Diesel said, pushing down from the crates to land on his feet, “just thought you’d wanna know what she was like when you weren’t looking, you know?”
Renzo let out a short laugh, his head tipping down a bit as he muttered, “I fucking know exactly what she’s like when I’m not looking. I don’t need shit from you when it comes to her.”
“Ren—”
Before the guy could even finish whatever bullshit he was about to spew, Renzo struck out at him. Renzo caught Diesel by his face and throat with both hands. It was but a blink, and he had smashed the other man back into the crates, busting them apart and taking Diesel to the floor with a loud bang.
The noise from the others working stopped altogether. Someone shouted, but Lucia wasn’t hearing them at all. She moved forward—not because Renzo needed help as he picked Diesel up, and slammed him into the floor again, but because she didn’t want trouble for them.
She didn’t even get close to him.
One of the guys Renzo had been talking to earlier pulled her back with a dry laugh, and his large form blocked her from moving closer to the mess a few feet away. His large hands came up to make it clear he didn’t want to put his hands on her, but he would if she tried moving past him again. “Hey, I’m Perry. And you’re not going over there.”
The other guy from earlier came up on her other side, shrugging like this wasn’t anything new. “He’s always trying to fuck with Ren, you know? Pushing his buttons, and trying to get away with more shit than the rest of us. He’d have fewer problems with Ren if he’d just do what he was told like the rest of us.”
Wait, Diesel was a part of the guys Renzo was running, too?
“Look at me, yeah?”
Lucia knew those words weren’t meant for her, but she still peered around Perry’s large linebacker-like form to look at Renzo. Still leaning over Diesel on the floor, his hands hadn’t left the man’s throat or face. If anything, he’d just dug in his fingers because the guy’s face was red and he didn’t look like he was willing to fight his way up from the ground. Peeking out from the back of Renzo’s jeans where his jacket had ridden up his back was the sight of something Lucia was all too accustomed to seeing, but had never saw him handling one.
A gun.
She sucked in a shaky breath.
Maybe it was because she’d never seen Renzo get really angry before, or rather … he never had a reason to show violence with her around, but she found this shocking. How quickly he could go from smiling and easy-natured to a man willing to beat a guy into the ground because he stepped out of line.
Lucia couldn’t decide whether she liked it, or it scared her.
Both, actually.
It was both.
“You get your fucking ass back to work,” Renzo hissed at Diesel, “and I don’t want to hear another goddamn word out of your mouth, either. And don’t you ever put your fucking dirty hands on what’s mine again. You got me?”
Lucia blinked.
What’s mine …
“Got it, Ren,” Diesel rasped from the ground.
Renzo let him go, and turned to Lucia with a nod to the side. “Let’s go, baby.”
She didn’t say a word.
She just went.
• • •
“No, there’s no fucking discussion here, Rose,” Renzo grumbled into the phone. It’d started ringing damn near to the second that they slipped out the back of the warehouse. “He’s coming back tomorrow, and you’re going back to school.” He was silent for a moment before adding, “I get it, but he’s taken care of. Like always. Stop worrying about it. Got it?”
Lucia didn’t hear his sister’s reply, but she figured Renzo got the response he wanted when he nodded, smiled, and then said goodbye. Hanging up the phone, he slipped it into his pocket like nothing was wrong. Like he hadn’t just been seconds away from beating the hell out of a guy just a minute ago.
They were walking alongside the warehouse when Lucia finally found her ability to speak again. “You know, you didn’t have to do—”
She didn’t even get the words out before Renzo grabbed her wrist, and spun her around fast. So fast that everything around her was nothing more than a blur in her vision. The empty, dark alley echoed with the noise of Lucia’s back hitting the wall. It didn’t hurt, but the sudden movement was such a shock that all she could do was drag in a sharp gasp, and freeze when Renzo’s hands came up to lay flat on either side of her head.
He came so close to her, then.
So fucking close.
All she could see were his russet eyes, and the way they practically nailed her to the wall. Those hands of his—soft to the touch, and able to heat her up in no time at all—cupped her cheeks and jaw. He tipped her head back, and came closer still, his weight pressing against hers and keeping her pinned in place.
Not that she minded.
Not at all.
Not when he looked like that.
Intense.
Sure.
Dangerous.
Her heart raced, and her nerves felt like they were on fire. All because he was close, and yet, she wanted him closer still. Strange how that worked.
“Yes, I absolutely did have to do that,” he murmured, his lips so close to hers that they grazed her mouth with every word he spoke. “Because there’s a lot of shit I am willing to deal with from stupid fucks who want to test me, but you are not ever going to be one, Lucia. This time, it’s someone thinking they can get too close to you while I’m standing right there. Putting their fucking hands on you—he’s lucky I didn’t rip his fucking esophagus out of his goddamn throat right then and there for doing that. But next time? Next time, if I didn’t make my point clear, it might be something else.”
She blinked, and sucked in a ragged breath when his palms slipped down her throat. Those teasing fingers of his tapped a sweet beat along her pulse point. His gaze followed the same path, still dark and heady and wanting, she thought. He wanted her, and fuck her if she didn’t want him, too.
She shouldn’t.
That should have scared her.
Sent her running, maybe.
Lucia was fine right where she was.
“Next time,” he added, his lips ghosting over her jawline, making her shiver, “it might be something worse. Now, it won’t be anything at all.”
“Okay,” she whispered.
Renzo hummed under his breath. “Just okay?”
“Give me a little warning next time when you want to go on a jealous ra
mpage, I guess?”
His laughter was a balm to her soul. Dark, thick, and wonderful.
“I wasn’t jealous,” he said, but his gaze wouldn’t lift to meet hers again. He so fucking was—she could hear it in the way his tone heated and turned just gruff enough that the sound alone was enough to make her crazy. “I can’t be jealous of someone else over something they don’t have, Lucia.”
She blinked.
It took her a second, and then two.
“See, I’ve kind of decided on that,” he murmured, his russet fire meeting her hazel storm, “or didn’t you know?”
She did.
She still wanted him to say it, though.
“Know what, Ren?”
“You’re mine.”
His words were punctuated by a kiss that bruised. God, she loved his kisses when they were rough, and demanding. Loved the way he could own her with a kiss. She didn’t even think he knew it was possible.
Renzo’s hands dipped under the skirt of her silk dress find what he wanted between her thighs. No fucking surprise, she was already wet and ready for whatever he wanted to do for her. And maybe that was the part that should have made her ashamed—she always seemed to want him.
It didn’t matter they were in a back alley.
It didn’t matter someone might see them.
None of that factored in to what Lucia wanted at that moment at all. She only cared about the way Renzo’s fingers felt rubbing fast circles around her throbbing clit, and how his other hand wrapped into her hair while his teeth scraped across her bottom lip.
“Fucking here, then?” he asked gruffly.
His tone was so dark.
Full of sex and promises.
“Right here,” she agreed.
He was down on his knees before she had even blinked, and he yanked her dress higher as he went lower. Her panties went down with him. Oh, God. She only caught part of his sly smirk as he glanced up, and the gleam in his eye before he buried his face between her thighs.
That first flick of his tongue was pure heaven.
That first second, she couldn’t breathe.