Nico twists and rolls into the office. He sprawls onto his front. Drags himself up on his hands and knees. He crouches, ready to spring. He’s aiming for the big old desk. Is there a stick of furniture in this godawful place that was made this fucking century? I guess he keeps a weapon in the desk. He’s definitely a concealed weapon kind of a guy. Probably stashes them all over the place.
I wait until he draws back for the jump. The force of his body, coiling to spring, rocks back and meets the swing of my toe. There’s a thick, fleshy crunch as the cap of my polished brogue connects hard with his balls. He yells as he splays forward on the floor.
I don’t need to rush. He can writhe on his tatty old rug for a moment. It gives me a beat or two to look at the girl. Take in the wet parting of her red lips and get a long look at the softness of her throat. The inviting curves of her ripe thighs. What makes me stiffen, though, what pumps my blood in a stead thumping beat is the crackle of fire in her eyes.
Nico hauls himself up onto all fours again.
“You can stay down,” I aim the swing of my foot at the exact same spot. My eyes stay on hers. Her lip trembles as I tell Nico, “Move again and your balls will need a ride to the hospital.” She takes a deep breath and I laugh, telling him, “You’ll come back a changed man, Nico. Have you got all the kids you want to have yet?”
She looks at me, questioning, and she gestures to a chair. I nod. Her tongue slips out across her lips as she sits. And I want her.
I could reach across, put a hand on the back of her neck. Pull her to me. Take her.
I remind myself, Keep your mind on your work, Connor.
Chapter Two
Luce
The man stands over uncle Nico and his eyes swivel back to lock into mine. He’s hot as a poker and I can’t look away. My chest swells and I feel like I’m trapped. Held. Like he can hold me, just with his look. Lift me, turn me around. Touch me all over. Like he can possess me completely with his eyes.
While he looks, with his hip cocked, the thrust in his pelvis pushes forward and raises a tent in the front of his pants. He sees me watching and he grins as he shrugs. It’s a big tent.
I want to crawl across and feel it. Touch the heat. Put it against my cheek. More...
Uncle Nico breathes, noisy and hard. His body clenches and I can see he’s in pain. I don’t like to think that gives me pleasure. But waves of sensation wash through me from too many sources. I can’t know for sure if his discomfort is one of them.
I can’t feel too sorry for him either. He deserves all he gets as far as I’m concerned. I have a good idea what he has in mind for me and if something doesn’t change, he won’t wait much longer. So, I don’t want to admit it, even to myself, but seeing him on the floor, hurt, brought down and humiliated stirs a dark and smoky breath of sensation from my thighs and up through my body.
More of it is the sight of the stranger, though. Strong, dark, and huge, his voice is a rumble, a low echo of temptation. Graceful, unhurried, like he’s got all the time in the world, he moves like a panther. He looks like a super-tough version of a red-hot model. He’s dressed like one, too.
He leans back on Uncle Nico’s office door to close it, with the cracks in the frosted glass radiating around him. His hips cock and I’m so drenched, the smell makes me sigh.
He tells Uncle Nico, “You’re late.”
Uncle Nico starts to say something, “You’re not...” His face stretches, pale and hollow and sweat breaks out on his forehead, as the man’s expensive looking shoe slams up with a hard crunch between his legs again. Not as loud as last time, but the noise, like a wet lettuce being crushed, makes my breath stop.
As his eyes travel over my body, my breasts rise and press up. Toward him. The buds of my nipples harden and swell, pointing in his direction. I can’t keep my legs still as the heat of his look travels slowly, confidently around, over and up my thighs.
He’s still looking at me as he says, “I’m the guy, Nico. Now.” He keeps the sole of his shoe on Uncle Nico’s balls. “Believe me.”
The way he makes me feel scares me, but it’s a thrill. A dark thrill.
His eye gleams hard as I cross my legs.
“So, Nico. Now the vig doubles. You call it the ‘vig’ here?” He looks down at Nico, “I know it’s from the Jewish and Italian mobs, but it’s what we call it in Boston, right?” Nico nods, “Anyway. the long and the short of it is, you need to give me thirty grand.”
Uncle Nico’s head starts to shake. Before he can speak, the man tells him,
“By this time tomorrow.”
Uncle Nico starts to groan, but he’s silenced when the man just leans forward and presses the sole of his shoe down.
“I can take what you owe and make all of this easier for you,” the man tells him and my juices stir at the smoky heat in his voice, “Or I can make it a whole lot harder.” He looks back to me. I watch, fascinated by the flex in his thigh as he presses his foot down an inch. “Either way I’ll take what’s due.”
“So,” the man is still looking at me and a dirty smile starts in his eyes, then spreads. I feel it as he says, “Ten now,” and he treads down more on Uncle Nico’s balls. “You’ve got ten here. Right?”
Uncle Nico’s head starts to shake again, but then his eyes squeeze shut.
“Are you sure? Are your balls not worth ten grand to you?” The man grins as his foot presses a couple of inches deeper.
Uncle Nico nods his head and he gasps. “Yes” his voice is strained. “Okay. Yes. The safe.”
The man lets Uncle Nico crawl to where the safe is at the back of the little room. He fumbles to get the big bunch of keys out of his pocket. He gets up onto one knee to unlock it, and crouches to spin the combination dial.
The man moves to stand on the other side of the safe.
“Before you open the safe door, Nico, one thing. The things on your desk show that you’re right-handed. So. When you get the safe unlocked, before you open the door, you put your right hand up behind your back.” Uncle Nico frowns.
“See,” the man’s head cocks, “if it were me,” his tone is light, conversational, but with a buzz of menace. His eyes sparkle. “I think I might keep a gun in that safe. So, if you pull anything out that’s not made of paper, I’ll slam the safe door on your wrist.” and he looks hard in Uncle Nico’s eye. “Hard enough that it won’t mend.”
He pauses. “Believe me.” Uncle Nico nods, quickly.
Uncle Nico is on one knee to open the safe. “Right hand,” the man reminds him. Nodding, Uncle Nico has to reach across his body. He’s unsteady, off-balance on his one knee, with his right arm behind his back. I take a sharp breath as I see a flash of anger and defiance in Uncle Nico’s eye. He swings the heavy door at the man’s shins.
Relaxed, in no hurry, the man lands a perfectly timed kick on the corner of the safe door. It slams as Uncle Nico snatches his hand back. He’s not fast enough. He yells, loud and hard when the door bangs on his fingers.
The man shoves him aside and pulls the safe door open.
“I would have let you take out the ten and hand it to me.”
Uncle Nico shakes his head, red-faced. He kneels, rocking while he squeezes his hand up in his armpit,
The man takes the gun from the safe and shoves it in his waistband.
He pulls a white sack out of the safe. “You’re not really all that good at the tough-guy act, Nico.” He says, “Trust me. I do this for a living.”
He peers into the small sack. I know how much is in there.
“I’m taking this for the ten,” his lips purse and he shakes his head. “Probably about three times that much in here, right? Maybe more,”
More. Not too bad of an estimate, though.
“Please,” Nico pleads. His hand is red and swelling.
The man looks down at him, shaking his head again. “Not your lucky day is it? I wouldn’t be buying any lottery tickets today. Twenty more tomorrow, Nico. Bad things can happen.” and he leans dow
n, “Let’s try and keep them to a minimum, shall we?”
Nico’s eyes widen and droop as he watches the white sack swing from the man’s hand.
Walking calmly out he tells Nico, “Believe me.”
I believe him.
When he looks at me, sensation floods through me like a waterfall dropping into a canyon. My legs feel weak.
Uncle Nico scowls and his face reddens.
“That fucker,” he shouts after the door shuts. “I’m calling Garrett. This is a fucking outrage.” The dark glower in his eyes makes me wish I could hide.
He starts to climb to his feet and he snarls, “I’ll show that f...,” but he stops.
The door bangs open again.
The man’s smile is easy like sunshine. He says, “I’m taking the girl, too.”
I try to mimic his relaxed tone, but to make my voice as firm and strong as I can at the same time. I love the way he does that. I love how it makes me feel. And I love the effect it had on Uncle Nico. On the floor, cowering, he looks like a frightened, slimy lizard.
Raising my chin, and as quietly as I can, I answer him back, “What do you mean, ‘taking’?”
His dark chuckle sets me tingling. I’m charged, like I’ve been electrified.
“Well, we’ll find out, shall we? Work it out as we go.”
He holds out a hand. If I go with him like this, he might think he owns me. Men like to think that, it seems. He’s so much older. I can’t pretend I wasn’t thinking about it but now that it’s real, I know that I should resist him.
But, whatever he’s got in mind, it’s not going to be much worse than being owned by my uncle. Spending all day in this cramped little room, cooking his books for him on a computer from the iron age, wondering what evil scheme is festering in Uncle Nico’s sordid lizard brain.
No, I have to take the chance. Excitement and a zing of fear at spin inside me at the same time. As I jump up to my feet, his hips roll. I say, “Yes.”
I can set him straight soon enough. Can’t I?
As I stand my knees are weak but I’m determined not to let him see. I look in his eye, firm and defiant. I tell him, “You don’t own me,” and I say it like I mean it. And my heart jumps as he looks in my eye and he gives me a solemn nod.
Then, I tell Uncle Nico, as cool as I can, “See? You don’t own me either.”
I don’t know how I ever would have gotten out of here without him.
Just like I don’t know what the hell I’m walking into.
Chapter Three
Connor
I tell the kid, “Good work, Gabriel,” and his eyes light up when I hand him a ten. “The car’s exactly where I left it.”
He turns to run but I call after him, “This minute, you’re winning. You don’t have to run. Take your moment. You earned it.” He holds back a grin as he pockets the money, but his shoulders swing as he strides away.
When she slips in the seat beside me, I feel how she settles down into the welcoming hug of the soft leather. The seat pleases her and she lets out a short sigh as she relaxes into it. Her face glows. She breathes out and stretches in the chair, cocooned in the solid, practically soundproof seal of the car’s protective cockpit.
As soon as I fire the engine, even before I’ve swung the beast into traffic, my feelings about the car have changed. I know that it’s because she’s in it. Maybe because she likes it.
Her face is bathed, painted in the rich colors of the lights in the Mercedes cockpit. I give it some gas, feel the kick of acceleration.
I ask her, “Do you like the car?”
“This one? Sure. I love it.” She’s being dry. Cool. That makes my blood race. “Why,” she says, “don’t you?”
“This isn’t my kind of a car.”
She thinks for a second. Then she nods. “I can see that. I’d say you were more of a Dodge Charger kind of a guy.”
“Funny you say that.”
“Or a Camaro.” Then she says, “You don’t have music in the car? Let me find some,” and she reaches for the controls of the stereo.
“I didn’t bring my music out. Truth is, I’m still pretty much packed. I only got into town a few days ago.”
She looks t me and shakes her head. “You’re in New Orleans. You don’t need to bring music anywhere. You just need to let it in.” The radio plays some sultry jazz. Then she flips it to a something with fiddles. It’s all in some kind of French and it’s in rhythms I don’t know, but her eyes light up and her shoulders roll and shake. I can get used to it easily enough.
I don’t have a plan. But then I never do. I haven’t thought what I’ll do with her. The idea to take her didn’t go much farther than that. I felt like I would be freeing a caged bird. But now, I’m so sure about releasing her back into the wild. She could be in danger. Maybe I should keep her safe. Just for a while.
It’s going to mean finding an apartment a lot sooner than I planned. But that’s okay.
Staying with Corky, it’s alright. You could be in worse places than in that huge penthouse of hers. It’s not a place to keep a captive bird, though. And I wonder how Corky is going to feel about the girl. No, I need to find somewhere else to stay and soon.
No sooner have I started to turn over the idea of her as captive bird, than she says,
“What made you decide to take me?”
“I don’t really know,” is how I answer her. It wasn’t only for something more to take from Nico.
I tell her that the moment I saw her, I was on fire inside. She made me want things. I tell her quietly and watch her reaction. She colors up nicely. “But mainly, I had a hunch you needed rescuing.”
Usually, I just do whatever comes naturally. I guess taking her fits into that category. But it’s different with her. I feel like I need to be careful. Have a plan. With fallbacks. There’s something I’ve not tried before.
My phone rings. I don’t need to look at the screen. I put in an earpiece. “Hercules.”
I don’t think he likes my tone too much. He demands, “How’d it go?”
He has eyes and ears in Nico’s, I fucking know it. His timing is too good. The way he asks tells me he already knows how it went.
I tell him, “Nico bought me flowers. We’re going dancing tonight.” I look at the girl. Her grin and the effort she’s making to hold back a giggle makes me want to eat her. She stays quiet and, like that, we’re sharing a secret.
I ask Garrett, “What do you think I should wear?”
“Don’t fuck about.”
“Don’t dick me around then.” I wonder how much he knows.
“You get the ten?”
“That I did. Twenty tomorrow.”
“Keep the ten. Bring me the twenty when you get it.”
He doesn’t know everything then. I tell him, “I could run that place. Better than Nico’s doing it.”
“I didn’t bring you here to wear fancy clothes and act like a club boss. I brought you in to crack heads.”
I don’t reply. I’m thinking. She’s watching me and I’d rather be talking to her. I tell Garrett, “I’ll call you tomorrow.”
“You got more to do tonight. Sharkie’s Lounge. It’s a regular collection. He’s going to have to raise his kick. I want fifty percent more.”
“Tonight?”
“No. Give them a week.”
“Is there a reason?”
Garrett is quiet on the phone for a long moment. “The reason is I just fucking said so. Problem?”
“No, not at all. That’s what I’ll say if I’m asked.”
“Call me when you’ve made the visit.”
I hang up.
“He’s your boss.”
I laugh. “How could you tell?” We’re easy together, like we’ve known each other forever. And I don’t even know her name. I need to be careful. The idea of getting her out of those clothes is too delicious. And she’s too young. And I would absolutely fucking ruin her.
She says, “You’re right.”
&nb
sp; “What about?”
“You could run the club better than Uncle Nico.”
“He’s your Uncle?” It feels like I found a part of the puzzle.
She almost purrs as she asks me, “Who are you?”
“I’m your goddamned fucking guardian angel, darling.”
She lets out a laugh. “You don’t look much like an angel to me.”
“My wings are under cover.”
“I can’t wait to see them.”
“I can’t wait to see yours.”
She doesn’t miss a beat. “That’s not going to happen.” But she bites her lip as she says it.
She tells me, “Momma always said, from when I was little, ‘Don’t get with a man who’s in the life, and whatever you do, don’t get with an Irishman.” She chuckles. “I asked her, ‘But what about Daddy?’ and she told me, ‘Daddy’s not in the life, sweetheart. He might help out some people now and again, but he’s not in the life.’ and I said, ‘but he is an Irishman,’” she laughs, but it’s a nervous laugh. “She told me there are always exceptions.”
“Good thing there’s nothing on the cards between you and me, then. Two strikes already. I’d hate to be scorned by your mom.”
“Not much chance of that.”
“Why, where is she?”
“I have no clue where she went or what happened to her. But, since she gave me up to Nico. I think I’ll get over it.”
“You don’t care if she’s alive or dead?”
She swallows hard and changes the subject, “Have you got a name, Irishman?”
“I’m Connor. Connor McCarthy.”
“Well, angel Connor, I am Luce Felloni,” she pronounces it ‘Lu-che,’ “but I was born Lucinda Gilligan.”
The name Gilligan sets a few bells ringing. But I guess there must be dozens of families around here with that name.
I tell her, “I like ‘Luce.’ It’s light.”
“In Italian, yes.” She smiles all the way from her eyes down.
“So, Is Felloni your married name?”
“No, it’s Uncle Nico’s name. He told me to use it when... “ and she hesitates, “when he took me to stay with him.”
Break Her Free: A Curvy Captive Romance Page 2
