Athena
“You look beautiful,” Luciano murmured when I stepped into the smaller room. He had picked a frilly red gown that draped rather softly against my skin. It was different from my usual style of tight-as-hell dresses, but it wasn’t so far off from how revealing they were.
Luciano must enjoy me showing as much skin as possible. That was the only explanation I could think of. What else would explain how deep the neckline of the red dress I wore was, despite the overall modesty of the dress?
“You seemed very intentional about picking this dress,” I grumbled, pulling the neckline up. “I swear my breasts are almost spilling out of this!”
“And I like that very much,” Luciano grinned like the jackass he was. “I like when you’re easily accessible to me Cara,”
“Everyone will stare at me,” I grumbled.
Placing his palm on my back, he steered me towards the door. “No, they won’t,”
I scoffed. “Easy for you to say. How do you know that?”
He stopped then to look me in the eyes, molten brown that blinked slowly at me. “Because I’ll gouge their fucking eyes out.”
“That’s violent,” I grumbled again, pushing past him towards the door. He was being…different. Well, he had been for a long while now, and even though I knew it was all for an ulterior motive- Getting into my pants.
“What can I say? I’ll do anything to protect what is mine.”
Here we go again with the ‘mine’ talk. Someone ought to tell him he chose the wrong person to be his. I was determined to have his head on a pike. If anything, he should be running away from me like his ass was on fire.
Pushing the door open, I stepped outside to see guards posted there as usual. Enzo wasn’t there though. Which meant he was cleaning up the bodies of the men they had abducted the night before. They bowed and nodded and I realized I hadn’t even questioned Luciano.
Anyone in their right senses would wonder why he had men stationed outside his suite. Sure he was a rich man who had money and could hire as many bodyguards as he wanted, but these men looked more like hijackers and kidnappers than bodyguards.
I had rolled on with it because I knew who he was and why those men were there. At least I thought I did. But naturally, I ought to have asked questions.
Shit.
Pasting a fake ass smile on my face, I turned to Luciano as he stepped out. “Why do you have men outside our room?”
He grinned and stepped closer reaching for a strand of hair that kept whipping against my face. The overlord had demanded I left my hair down instead. Which meant no ponytail and no hair clip. Nothing to fight with when he decides to turn on me. I was feeling pretty fucking vulnerable at the moment.
“Did you just call it our room?”
“Are you trying to change the subject?” I asked, narrowing my eyes.
Luciano gave a noncommittal shrug. “I’m a wanted man, Gonzalez. You can’t be as rich as I am and not have made enemies.”
Sure, stick with that, I wanted to say. He could lie all he wanted. I knew the truth anyways.
“We’ll be a bit late tonight,” he informed the guards. “You can go on about your business.”
“Yes boss,” they chorused, careful to keep their gazes away from me.
“Come on Cara, I booked us a table.” He urged, pulling me towards the elevator.
It was late noon in Sicily. The sun was pretty high up, and the sky was very beautiful. If I wasn’t so lost in my thoughts, then maybe I could enjoy the view.
Luciano didn’t take a driver with us this time. He drove instead to a rather fancy restaurant. Its name was Italian and rather than give myself a heart attack trying to pronounce the name, I asked Luciano for the meaning in English.
“The belly dancer,” he replied with a straight face and clasped a hand over mine. “Whatever happens in there, you’re with me, okay?”
“What’s going to happen-”
“Raven,” he said in a tone that told me, this wasn’t a joking matter. “Listen to me this time. Okay?”
Sighing wistfully, I nodded. “Okay, but I hate being ordered around.”
“I know that, Mia Donna. I know,” he mumbled as we walked into the restaurant.
“Ooh Lala,” I whispered. The interior was enchanting. It had a dark romantic feel to it, with wine and red colors draped in dramatic angles.
There were candles on the tables which had wine-colored clothes and slow sensual music played in the air. “I don’t get why it’s called the belly dancer though.”
“Because you come here with the one who makes your heart flutter and your belly dance,” Luciano replied as we got led to our table.
“That’s cheesy, Luciano.” I teased and he chuckled.
“Do you like cheesy?” He asked and I almost cursed when I saw how genuine he was. Fuck, he was either a very good pretender or was out of his mind.
“Why does it matter?” I asked.
A waitress stopped by, rapping in Italian, and for the umpteenth time that day, I wanted to yell at them to stop spouting in Italian. The woman left after Luciano told her God knows what and I arched my brow in disbelief.
“What?” He asked.
“What did you order?”
“Food, Cara. And don’t worry, I ordered something I know you’ll enjoy. Something beautiful and very, very delicious.” I half expected him to wink after he said that and almost sighed in relief when he didn’t.
For a while, we sat in silence. I thought about the change I had witnessed in Luciano and wondered if it was real at all.
Fuck, was I thinking this way? Real? There was nothing real about this. The quicker I adjusted to it, the easier it would be to bear.
They brought our dishes and he was not wrong. It was so beautiful, I almost didn’t want to touch it. It felt like a sin to eat it. After our food, He drove us around Sicily, showing me different places and the origin behind them.
As we drove back home, I glanced in the mirror to see the black car that had tailed us throughout the day. Fools. At least they weren’t following us in the police car any longer, that was relieving. But when would they learn that Luciano shouldn’t be followed during the day but at night?
I could tell them, but when I had asked Frederick to talk to them about being obvious when following us, he’d said their head of police flipped like he had eaten something awful and warned him to stay away from their business.
Perhaps Frederick had said it in the most absurd way possible. That was likely. But whatever it was, the damage had been done. The Carabinieri were constantly after us and in every single fucking place. So damn annoying.
“We’re home Cara,” he mumbled when he swerved into the car park of the resort. “Did you have a good time?”
I did. And while I wanted to say something snarky there was that look in his eyes, that genuine look that made me swallow down every snarky word that threatened to spill out.
“Yeah,” I mumbled, looking outside the window. “I did.”
“Look at me when you talk to me,” he said and I sighed.
I didn’t want to look at him. Hell, I was already getting fucking confused. Sometimes it felt like he had an ulterior motive. But in times like this, I couldn’t be sure. Doubts were the most dangerous things I could have now. I couldn’t risk them. I didn’t fucking want them.
“Look at me Raven,” he whispered again, reaching his hand across to cup my face in his hands. His palm against my face felt so rough, yet so soothing. Unable to resist, I buried my face deeper into it and turned to look at him. “I’ll be honest,”
Ah, shit. What was that look in his eyes?
“I’m not doing this solely because I want to get into your pants. I’d rather go to the club, find a bitch and shag her brains out if I wanted to.”
“So there’s another ulterior motive?” I asked and saw his face crumble in a deep sigh.
“Why does there have to be another motive, Raven? I just wanted to spend time with you. I just wanted to… forget. To help you forget too. We don’t have to have responsibilities and shit all the fucking time! There’s no fucking ulterior motive. Yes, I want you. But I also spend time with you because I want to. Because I enjoy it. Fanculo! Why is that so hard to believe?”
Overwhelmed. I rarely felt that way. But staring at the intense look on Luciano’s face, I couldn’t help it.
The air felt too heavy to breathe and I did the most classically foolish thing ever, I opened the car door and ran like my ass was on fire.