“Enjoying yourself?”
“Absolutely. There’s so much to see in this place.”
His back teeth ground together. She was ogling the brothers. He wondered if he should pull the fire alarm to clear the clubhouse.
With any other new female, he would have laughed at her antics, being in awe of the bikers. It happened all the time. He took it in his stride if women wanted to treat them like celebrities. It was bullshit. Capone still put his pants on, one leg at a time, and stood to take a piss. But he’d known for a while now that being part of a one-percenter MC meant their reputations were put on pedestals from rumors alone, growing until they were admired and feared in equal measure.
He didn’t want Lucia laughing at one of Grinder’s jokes or listening aptly to Preacher’s antics. It didn’t matter how neither man would stray from their old ladies. It mattered to Capone that Lucia was enchanted in someone that wasn’t him.
His only saving grace to keeping a cap on his temper was she’d stuck to his side like glue. And being a newly possessive man, he didn’t mind at all.
Over the hour, she was friendly. Soaking up conversations like a sponge. He didn’t know how lonely she’d been, but he recognized when a woman was hungry for friendships.
She wasn’t flirting. He needed to cool the growls waiting to erupt from his throat.
Instead, he palmed the back of her neck, felt how she leaned into his hand.
Good girl. Now he could breathe while she talked to Paige and Reaper, listening raptly as Paige explained their fated relationship. When she turned her eyes around to him, he frowned seeing tears. “It’s so romantic. Did you know their story, Gi?”
“Sí.”
And then she did something he didn’t expect. She burst into tears, all but falling out of her chair; she climbed into his lap, burying her face in his chest and she cried.
What the hell?
What else could he do but put his arms around her? Paige smiled at him as if she understood the sudden waterworks. Wish someone would explain it to Capone because he was shit out of clues.
“That’s real love, Giancarlo,” Lucia hiccupped when she lifted her face. Even with tear streaks, she was effortlessly beautiful. He could lean down and suck on her lip; he could lick the tears away, tasting how salty she was. “It’s like a fairytale. I’m never going to have someone who loves me that much they wait for years.”
The punch of her words hit him square in the chest.
You have that already, amor. Right here.
It was then he caught the eyes of one of his friends watching them.
Gia knew about Lucia.
Not right away. He’d only talked about his grief. But eventually, Lucia’s name filtered into their conversations. And now the woman was curled up in his lap.
He felt exposed, but it wouldn’t stop him from comforting her.
“Of course you will,nena. Now stop crying, or I’ll cut off the drinks.”
Or he’d kiss her because she was looking at his mouth and sucking her lower lip between her teeth. Arousal slammed into him, filling his balls, hardening his cock. She gasped and stilled; that’s when he knew she’d felt his hardness under her ass.
“My… my tears turned you on? You’re a sick monster.” She chuckled. Tears gone.
Everything about Lucia turned him on.
The way she nibbled on food or her lower lip.
How she smiled when she should be depressed about her life. She saw the good in people, him included. Her optimism seeped down to his bones and made him ache.
He grunted an answer, and she seemed delighted by it, until his thumb betrayed him and pressed against her smile.
“I like your friends,” she whispered from behind his thick thumb, nibbling it a little enough to drive him mad. “But I like you best of all.”
How was he meant to resist her after that?