Total pages in book: 81
Estimated words: 75737 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 379(@200wpm)___ 303(@250wpm)___ 252(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75737 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 379(@200wpm)___ 303(@250wpm)___ 252(@300wpm)
"Are you giving me woman advice? You, of all people?"
"Actually, I was talking about work. But you just confirmed a suspicion Lucky and I have had all day too, you dick," he added, smirking as he moved out of my way. "He can have any girl in town," Matteo declared as we moved into the kitchen where Lucky was brewing a new pot of coffee. "And he has to pick this one."
"Maybe it's a proximity thing," Lucky suggested. "Kind of like businessmen going for their secretaries. They're there all those long nights when the mood strikes..."
"I'm standing right fucking here," I grumbled, wondering if anyone had made a liquor run yet. If not, that was on somebody's next to-do list.
"I don't know. I think it might be a damsel in distress kind of thing," Matteo decided.
"Have you met Romy? She's not in distress," I objected.
"But not a full-on damsel in distress," Lucky piped in, ignoring me completely. "Not clingy and needy and can't do shit for herself. That gets old fast. But someone who needs him in some small way. I can see that being his thing."
"Yeah," Matteo agreed.
"I take back everything I ever said about you needing to be a more active member of this family," I told my brother, watching as his smile spread. "Go back to whatever skirt you ducked out of. We don't need you here."
"Struck a nerve," Lucky mumbled under his breath. "All jokes aside, Luca, what the fuck? Haven't dated a woman in months, then you get obsessed with this random woman at the docks?"
"I'm not obsessed with anyone," I told them.
"Maybe not fully. But I can see it brewing," Matteo said. "Remember that girl from down the street when we were kids?" he asked Lucky. "The redhead with the mean dad?"
"Emmie," Lucky supplied.
"Yeah, Emmie. Remember how she used to get teased mercilessly because she was always wearing hand-me-downs that never fit? Until one day Luca went all White Knight on everyone's asses, saying if they said shit to her, they answered to him? He's always liked being needed. Just a little bit. He likes solving problems."
"Yeah, he's so Type A like that," Lucky agreed and the two of them were having a harder and harder time keeping straight faces as my agitation clearly kept growing.
"I've had enough of this," I told them, going down to my room, throwing on a pair of basketball shorts, then coming back out. "I'm going for a run," I informed them.
"Try not to get distracted daydreaming about your damsel and fall into a ditch," Matteo called after me before I slammed the door behind me.
Ribbing aside, it was nice to have him back.
Being a pain in the ass was a job requirement of younger siblings. I had gotten used to it years before.
Besides, I realized as I ran until my legs felt shaky, my entire body drenched in sweat, they weren't exactly wrong, were they?
I was into Romy.
She was just a little bit in distress.
And I did like helping to fix problems.
And last, but certainly not least, one could absolutely make an argument that I was beginning to get just a bit obsessed with her.
Fuck.
That was a complication I didn't need in my life right then.
Chapter Eight
Romy
That happened.
Completely unexpected.
And, well, completely delicious too.
Yes, delicious.
That was the best word I could come up with.
I'd never been someone who was into arguing as foreplay, who liked things like make-up sex. Namely, because arguing with men brought back childhood memories of what came along with those shouts.
Pain and blood and bruises.
Scars of both the literal and figurative sort.
It wasn't sexy to me to see men angry.
That said, what was sexy was the fact that Luca seemed like he had been overcome with his desire for me, had been struggling to control it.
Then he finally snapped.
I'd been kissed a lot of ways in my life. Each kiss was different in its own way.
But I wasn't sure I'd ever been kissed with such uncontrolled need before.
If Matteo hadn't shown up, I was pretty sure Luca's hands would have been roving, roaming, grabbing, claiming, owning.
And, what's more, I would have leaned into it, would have begged for more, for everything.
Everything fell away in that moment. The men upstairs who would have heard if things got more heated. The strangeness of our circumstances. The fact that this man was an underboss in the mob. Even, yes, the reality of my missing sister.
That was how powerful desire could be.
It could wipe your mind blank.
It could replace everything with a clawing, aching, uncontrollable, undeniable need.
Even an hour later, tucked away in my room while Luca went off on a run to blow off some steam, I couldn't seem to get the unyielding pressure on my lower stomach, the throbbing emptiness between my thighs to ease, to let me think rationally through it.