Mafia

Protected

"I can't mama, Luca needs me here right now." My voice was soft as I told her this, and I knew my mother would understand what I wasn't saying. Luca did need me there right now, but I also wanted to be there. For him. 

Now that my brain was somewhat functioning again, I remembered the look of terror in Luca's eyes as he'd made it to me after the drive-by and I knew that for however long it all went on, Luca had been living a nightmare of his own. 

He'd made me leave him in order to protect me from his world before, and nothing like this had happened then. Honestly, part of me was worried that he'd attempt to do something similar again, but what he might not realize was that I was far safer with him than without him. Especially now that the whole city had seen him tackle me to the ground and shield me from a hail of bullets by covering me with his body. Luca Valente wouldn't do that for just anyone, and whether he understood it or not, even if we for some reason ended up splitting apart again, his enemies wouldn't hesitate to use me as a way to get to him. 

"Just, be careful sweetheart and call often. We worry." I looked down at the shiny surface of Luca's desk and felt my face soften as my lips turned up at the corners. 

"I promise mom. Give my love to dad and the family, tell them I'll come around sometime in the next few days, let you all see for yourselves that I'm fine." 

"I will, honey. Love you, sweetheart."

"I love you too mom."

Hanging up after that honest and heartfelt goodbye, I moved around Luca's desk and headed for the door, wandering slowly towards the area from which I could detected voices. 

The second I rounded the corner from the hall to the livingroom-slash-kitchen area, Luca's eyes came to me, he jerked up his chin in a way that made all the voices die down and I looked at everyone in turn with a small smile as I walked past them and straight to Luca. 

He was standing with his back against the breakfast island pointed outwards, his long legs stretched out and crossed at the ankles, his arms that were crossed over his chest uncurled as I moved into him and he wrapped them around me while he tilted his head down to let his eyes roam my face. 

"You okay?"

"Yeah," I whispered and gave him a squeeze with my arms around his middle. 

"Your mother okay?" 

"Yeah," I repeated on another whisper-and-squeeze, but this time I curved my lips into a smile too. 

"Good." He murmured and I melted into him, pressing my face into his chest as his arms tightened around me and he spoke over my head to his men. 

"We'll pick this up later, you all know what to do. Gabe, I need you to stay back for a few minutes." 

I heard movement all around me as his men took off, but I didn't make a move to turn around and watch them go or even say goodbye. I was too comfortable, and once again I was reminded of exactly how many things I'd missed about being with Luca, his safe strong embrace being very high on that list. 

"You got guys on Sophia?" My head snapped back and my eyes shot up as these words left Luca's mouth. He had his eyes trained over my head and I slowly twisted my neck to see Gabriel standing there, his jaw tight and eyes flashing before he jerked up his chin. 

Oh. My. God. 

"Did you get her the roses?" Yup, this was me having no brain-to-mouth filter what so ever, and also my curiosity levels just spiked to like a million. This was seriously juicy gossip right here, and I'd been dying to know who bought Soph fresh roses for her desk every single week. 

Gabriel's eyes sliced to me, they did the roaming thing that Luca's did, and then I watched his face soften a smidge before his lips twitched. 

"Yeah," he confirmed my suspicion, and I couldn't help it. I grinned. Huge. 

"Awesome," I whispered, twisted my neck back around to press my face into Luca's chest again and sighed in happy contentment. Luca chuckled, clearly finding me amusing, but I didn't mind. After the day we'd just had, a little humor was a good thing. 

"Right, I'll call you later. Watch your back." I didn't hear Gabriel say anything back before I heard, about three minutes later (or something like that) the front door open and close, and I figured he'd just done one more of those macho-man chinlifts that seemed to come so natural to these guys. 

Oh well. Whatever. 

I'd just had a day with a rocky start, a happy middle, and scary-crazy turn, I didn't really care. All I cared about was living in the moment, and in that moment I felt really freaking good. 

"Are you hungry?" I pulled my face out of his chest again and took a small step back, his arms loosening slightly to give me some leeway without letting me go all together and I shook my head. 

"No, I'm still full from dinner." And also, I'd kind of lost my appetite after my close encounter with death. 

"Want to lounge on the couch, watch some TV or a movie?" 

"No," I murmured, lifting my arms to press them against his chest as I got up on my toes and aimed my lips at his jaw, "I want to go to bed." His arms clenched around my middle, and I pushed up a little further to brush my lips against his, my eyes tipping up to glance at him under my lashes before I clarified, "With you." 

It was safe to say I was totally over the wanting-to-do-the-dating-thing. Any man who loved me enough that he would use his own body to shield me from gunfire was a man who didn't need to prove himself through dating. And bottom line, I loved him. He was a scary macho-man mafia boss and any woman in her right mind would run screaming in the other direction if he so much as looked at her, but he was my scary macho-man mafia boss and he always had been. Even when I hadn't wanted to admit it. 

I was done lying to myself and making this complicated. Almost getting dead made me realize just how short life really was, and I wasn't going to waste a minute more. 

Clearly, Luca agreed seeing as about half a second after I voiced my wishes, his lips were on mine, his hands were on my ass lifting me up so I had to wrap my arms and legs around him, and he was once more that day carrying me to his bedroom. 

Only this time, the only crying I'd be doing would be as a result of pleasure, and that was perfectly fine by me.