by Bethany-Kris
Then, she’d brush her teeth.
Which she had.
And take her pill.
Her birth control pill.
She’d gone back and forth between a few different methods of contraceptive, always letting him know when she switched to something else to try so that he could be extra careful. The pill seemed to be the one thing that didn’t bother her as much hormonally, as she had less mood swings, didn’t gain weight, and wouldn’t have to deal with annoying shit like breakouts. Not that he cared about any of those things, but she did. So, the pill it was and whatever made her happy was just fine for him.
Tonight, she didn’t take the pill.
“You were serious about that, then?”
She peered at him over her shoulder. That towel she’d wrapped around her form after getting out of the shower slipping slightly, but she didn’t bother to fix it. He was hoping that soon, the towel would be gone altogether. Matter of fact, he seriously hoped she left it right where she stood before leaving the bathroom, seeing as how he was already hard from standing there watching her get ready for bed … naked.
“Hmm, what?”
“The baby thing.”
“Why would I joke about that?”
Renzo shrugged. “Never said you were joking—just thought maybe you may have thought about it a little more and changed your mind. I’m never really sure what goes on in that mind of yours, babe, not unless you let me in on all the secrets.”
“Ren.”
“Yeah?”
“I don’t change my mind that easily.”
Right.
She told no lies.
“So, that means what I think it means, then?” he asked.
Lucia’s lips split into a grin that felt entirely sinful as she helped the slipping towel along by pulling it away from her body completely. That left her in nothing but silky, gleaming, gold skin under the soft lights of bathroom. He had the best view of the curve of her waist and the way her lower back melded into a pert, round ass.
Fuck, yeah.
“That means what you think it means, Ren.”
His tongue peeked out to wet the seam of his lips as she walked toward him. “Love you, huh?”
“More than you know.”
Oh, he knew.
He’d know it forever.
When she was close enough for him to grab and drag close, he did just that. Once his lips crashed with hers, the world around him exploded in two things—sensation and need. Both of which warred together, their similarities too much and just enough to make him so fucking selfish to get those things from her.
“God, you better fuck me good, Ren.”
See?
It wasn’t just him who was selfish here.
“You know I love that—don’t you? When you just demand I fuck you?”
Lucia smiled slyly. “Of course, I do.”
Which was why he made it worth her while for the next hour as he sated the greedy side of himself. He made sure she came when she was on her knees. Flat on her back, too, and even bent over the bed. He gave her what she needed, and then he took his time to slow their chaotic love down when he rolled over to let her ride him to his own release.
God.
He loved this woman.
• • •
Renzo took a moment to admire the sight of Lucia curled up in the white sheets on the bed where she’d rolled over to his side the very second after he’d gotten up. There was nothing he wanted more than to sit and stay right there with her, but the time was ticking closer and closer to one in the morning with every passing second, and he didn’t want to be anywhere near her while he chatted about this thing he had to do for The League in Bali.
Besides, she needed to sleep.
Especially after their day and night.
Knowing if he didn’t go right then that he would stay there and watch her until his phone started to vibrate, Renzo headed into the hallway. Taking the stairs at the end two at a time—his footsteps still as light as a feather against the shiny hardwood floors—he headed for the back of the house. He had just gotten his laptop booted up on the back terrace while the sleeping forest whispered all around him when his cell phone vibrated on the glass table.
He didn’t hesitate to pick it up.
“Yeah, Ren here.”
“Wondered if you were going to decide to tell me to fuck off for this favor.”
His brow raised at the voice on the other end of the call. He expected it to be Cree, considering that was who called him in the first place. It was Dare, instead.
“Hear you got a problem with an ex, huh?” Ren asked.
Dare made a harsh noise.
In the background, Ren heard a familiar voice bitch, “Could we not?”
Ah, there was Cree.
“Let’s ignore that bit,” Dare said quietly, “someone is a little sour about it.”
“Because you were so fast to say yes after everything that asshole—”
“You all can call me back after you settle whatever issue you’ve got going on, you know?”
Dare sighed. “No, it’s fine.”
“Right, well—”
“It would be better for all of us,” Dare quickly explained before another issue could start, “if the officials from Indonesia, as well as the United States, weren’t in Banyu’s business, considering the ties that man has to many criminal organizations around the world—including mine. Before his little issue, meaning that kid of his, starts to cause more problems than he already has, we will fix it.”
“He has more than enough money to fix the issue without asking you, Dare.”
Cree clearly wasn’t pleased.
“Would you knock—”
“It’s a way for him to worm his way back into your life, nothing more.”
“There’s a viable threat to The League by way of exposure, and I can’t risk that, Cree.”
Cree snarled under his breath.
Great.
They were back to this again.
“How about,” Renzo said, “I will get the kid, once you two let me know how I should do that, then I’ll deliver him to where he needs to go, and the rest of you can work out your fucking issues on your own time, yeah?”
Silence answered Ren back.
He didn’t mind that a bit.
“Well?” he asked after a moment.
“How many men do you think you’d need to extract the kid?” Dare asked. “From the source his father has, the kid is located in Kuta—not far from where you are. A little bit of money shoved into the right hands, and we can easily nail down his exact location.”
“Cree said he’s mixed up with a gang?”
“Yeah, apparently.”
Renzo nodded, though the men couldn’t see it. He’d already pulled up Google maps, and was currently scanning them, but he currently didn’t have much to go on so it didn’t particularly help. “Three men, including me, to be safe. I want full get up for this—bulletproof vest and all. A mask, too, so make sure it’s all on hand for me.”
“Let us get the kid’s location nailed down first.”
“Call me when you do—after one in the morning.”
“All right.” Dare let out a slow breath. “And thanks, Renzo.”
Right.
“Thank me when I ask for it—how I ask for it.”
THIRTEEN
“So, you’ve got, what, two more days there?”
Lucia smiled at her brother on the screen, nodding. “Yep.”
“Can’t wait!”
In the background of the video chat, Lucia watched as Diego passed by the chair John was currently using. She wasn’t at all surprised to see the kid at his house, considering John and Siena—plus their kids—lived only a couple of blocks away from Rose, her husband, and Diego. The teenager often went to John’s place to hang out, play games, or just do whatever. And John was happy to keep an eye on him.
For whatever reason, Diego didn’t take as easily to his sister’s sp
ouse as he did for … well, Lucia, when she’d come into Renzo’s life.
Renzo blamed the fact that Diego had been a lot younger when Lucia had come around, and he hadn’t been the type to be jealous back then. Rose’s husband came along when he was twelve, they married shortly after he’d turned thirteen, and he was still trying to adjust to this man—who, Lucia thought after meeting and spending time with him, was quite kind, and loved Rose to death—who took up a lot of his sister’s time, and was now the head of the house.
They didn’t fight.
Diego didn’t … cause problems.
Neither did Rose’s husband, considering the man didn’t even discipline Diego. He left all that up to Rose and Renzo, and never said a word edgewise about it. It was clear he cared a lot about Diego and tried to give him space, but something was still there.
A tension was definitely there.
They were working on it.
“How’s he been the last week?” she asked, lowering her voice when she saw in the corner of the screen that Diego had left the kitchen area. “He hasn’t been able to talk to Ren too much, so I wondered if maybe—”
“He’s doing fine.”
“Oh, well, good.”
John shrugged. “Sometimes, you have to give teenagers a bit of time to work out whatever thing they’re going through. It’s not like adults can understand, you know? Stuff that seems petty or silly to us might mean their entire lives are ending.”
“Bit dramatic.”
“And that’s exactly my point. You have to at least try to see something from their perspective if you want to understand why they react the way they do. Things would go a lot smoother, in that case.”
Yeah.
She supposed he might be right. Not that she would admit it out loud. If she did, her brother’s ego would grow, like most men’s, and that would be yet another thing Lucia would have to deal with. Today was not the day for that. Tomorrow didn’t look great, either.
“He talked to Ren this morning,” John said.
“I know, for like an hour.”
“He misses him.”
Clearly.
They missed everyone at home, too.
“Besides, I heard he couldn’t talk to Ren,” John added, “because someone decided you all needed to turn off your phones and just enjoy your vacation, huh? What happened to that, seeing as you’re on here, chatting with me right now?”
Lucia grinned. “You’re not wrong.”
“So?”
Damn her brother.
“We might have come to the mutual conclusion this morning that both of us are homesick like nothing else. We’re not used to being so unplugged from everyone—at least not willingly like this. Renzo has to leave his phone behind when he takes a job, but that’s different. Anyway, we wanted to call and say hello to some people.”
John put a hand over his chest, a smile splitting his lips as he faked a happy sigh. The bastard even dared to lean back in his chair and stare upward like he was thanking God or something. “And I was just lucky enough to be one of those people. I love you, too, Lucia.”
She laughed.
The ass.
Truth be told, though, her brother was still her very best friend. She had lots of girlfriends, a ton of family, and Renzo, too. Yet, at the end of the day, it was still John she called when she wanted to gossip or just needed to talk. It’d taken them a while to get back to that place with one another, but she hadn’t minded at all when it came to putting in the work between them. She loved her brother to the very ends of the earth and back.
She knew he loved her the same.
Even when he drove her crazy.
After all, what was family for?
“Anyway,” John said, “we’re all looking forward to seeing you both when you get back. Siena, especially, wants to take you out to breakfast, so make sure you put aside a bit of time for her, yeah?”
Lucia almost rolled her eyes—her brother, forever his wife’s biggest protector, even if Siena didn’t know it and didn’t need it.
“I will make time for her, I promise.”
“Good. Enjoy the rest of your vacation. Bring me home something.”
“Like you did for me when you went to the—”
“Love you, bye, kiddo.”
John hung up the call with a grin and a wink that said he knew exactly what he was doing. That was all Lucia saw as the call cut off, too. Just her brother’s frozen face in that smug expression before the screen went back to the home page of the video chat app altogether.
Fucker.
She still loved him, though.
Lucky him.
As she didn’t have anyone else to check in with—she’d already called her parents, and her other siblings, as well as her assistant, although only to tell the woman she was going to need a couple of extra days after her vacation before she returned to the gallery—Lucia powered down the laptop and put it away.
Then, she went in search of Ren.
Soon enough, she found him in the outdoor shower, surrounded by walls made of smooth rocks on the upper terrace that they could use privately by walking through the sliding doors from the master bedroom. The showerheads dropping water on him looked like small waterfalls, and for a moment, Lucia stood back and enjoyed the sight of her husband’s naked, wet body. All those hard lines of his dripping with rivulets of water, and his muscular legs shifting from foot to foot as he wiped the wetness from his face.
Renzo turned, shaking the droplets from his face at the same time. His gaze came to land on her just beyond the shower. She didn’t move to join him, although she would soon. There was little to no doubt about that. If only because she had no self-control around this man, and now he was grinning at her like he knew it, too.
Goddamn him.
She loved him.
“How’s everyone?” he asked, reaching for the bottle of shower gel sitting on the floor.
And yeah … that gave her a nice side view of his ass.
A very sexy ass.
“They’re good—missing us as much as we miss them.”
Ren nodded, standing straight again with the bottle in his hand. “And then you know like a week after we’re gone, we’ll miss Bali, right?”
She didn’t doubt it.
“We’ll come back,” she replied.
“Yeah, we’ll come back.”
His gaze drifted over her form, his stare lingering in all the right spots and making her wish she were under the shower with him. He tipped his head back, that silent invitation she’d been waiting for. She didn’t even hesitate to join him.
FOURTEEN
Learning to walk without making a single sound could be unsettling to most people around him, but Renzo found it to be a valuable asset. Like now, he moved around the bedroom in the Bali vacation home without his wife as much as shifting on the bed. She slept peacefully while he gathered things he needed, between his bags in the walk-in closet and the phone still stuffed in his discarded jeans from earlier.
He’d already dressed—waited just long enough for Lucia to fall into a deep sleep before doing so. He wore all black from his head to his toes, which was the standard uniform whenever he did a job for The League. It was one of their first lessons. A man needed to learn how to blend in, even if he was the type to stand out in a crowd.
He couldn’t draw attention.
Turning the device provided by The League on, he took a moment to appreciate the sight of his wife, who was happy and unbothered on the bed. He liked to believe that she’d found a good head space here. All the stress of life that she’d left behind in New York probably didn’t seem like such a mountain now; more like a small hill for her to tackle.
That’s all he wanted.
Knowing damn well it was about to be a long night for him, he crossed the bedroom and dropped a kiss to the top of his wife’s head before smoothing back the wayward strands of her hair that had fallen in her eyes during sleep. Her lips curved into a soft smile, an
d while he couldn’t be sure if that was from him or whatever she was dreaming about, he also figured it didn’t matter. As long as she stayed happy, then that’s what counted.
“See you soon, babe,” he murmured. “I’ll be back—promise.”
Forever.
He’d always come back.
It was one of her greatest fears, and while she didn’t voice them, that didn’t make it any less real to Lucia. She’d told him all of once, and he’d listened well enough to know that she wouldn’t tell him each and every time that he went out on a job. It wasn’t like the fear was unfounded, either, considering how dangerous his line of work could be.
And still, he came back.
He made sure of it.
Dropping one more kiss to her forehead, Renzo straightened to his full height and left the bedroom without another look back. He had to. Otherwise, he might never leave at all. Her fear might revolve around his safety, but his was firmly stuck in the idea that he had to go when he never seemed to want to.
Win some, lose some.
Life was funny like that.
Renzo gathered the other things he needed as he walked through the house and headed for the front entrance—his lighter on the counter, the pack of cigarettes he’d left near the back of the house, and even the small sleeve inside the hidden compartment of his bag that had a fake ID, cash, and a passport.
All things he needed just in case.
Stepping out of the house through the front, he found two black vehicles already parked and waiting in the circular driveway. He’d passed the code for the gate onto Cree, who’d then given the information to whatever team would be helping him here with this little side project for The League. Between the two cars, six men stood waiting.
More than he needed.
Renzo would take it.
“Someone’s gotta stay here,” he said, taking the steps two at a time, “but whoever it is, they don’t go into the house and the woman inside never sees you. Got it?”
None of them said a thing.
They all nodded, however.
