Lucian (9 page)

She noticed immediately the sheet was the only thing covering her, also. She wore no clothing underneath. Lifting the sheet enough to peer under only bothered her further. Bruises littered her arms, along with gauze wrapping in every direction she looked.

Her pain wasn’t as dulled this time around, however. It literally made her choke on air when she tried to move. From her head to her toes, Jordyn’s body was stiff and sore.

“Ah, the
principessa
is awake,” she heard someone say from the corner of the room. “It’s good to see you more alive than what you were yesterday morning. Lucian will be happy about that.”

Jordyn jerked in surprise at the unknown intruder. The action caused agony to ricochet all over. A whimper broke from her chest as she turned into the sheets, which only caused more pain. From the distress alone, her body fought back, threatening to upheave what might be in her stomach. A massive headache suddenly pounded in her skull.

“
Cazzo merda
. I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to scare you.”

Breathing deeply to try and ease the pain, Jordyn slowly calmed down. She peeked over the sheets through squinting eyes to see who the unknown male was. At first, she didn’t recognize his green eyes, or dark hair. His features didn’t ring a bell.

Then, she took another look.

Jordyn vaguely remembered the young man to be one of the four Marcello men who had been at Legs and Leather.

That brought with it a whole slew of other memories.

The anger in Will’s face. The cruelty in his words. A belt cracking over her body without any mercy or end in sight. A hot knife searing into her skin, burning off her tattoo. Vomit. Panic. Pain. Blood.

It was a never-ending cycle of memories playing on repeat in her overwhelmed mind.

She’d tried to clean her wounds. Jordyn distinctly remembered wondering if her first aid kit had anything for severe burns in it and if she should shower to wash the injuries first, or if that would only cause more harm.

That was all she could recall. After that, the pain had become so awful she thought maybe sleeping for just a moment would help.

It hadn’t, obviously.

Anxiety thrummed hard and fast in Jordyn’s heart, causing the organ to thunder like hooves as panic ebbed her breathing to short, gasping pants.

“Jesus, calm down. It’s okay. You’re fine. Lucian! Lucian, get in here!”

Jordyn felt his presence in the room the moment he stepped into it.

“What in the hell did you do, Dante?” Lucian growled.

“Nothing! She woke up and had a fucking panic attack or something.”

“Get out before I kick your ass, right now!”

When the bedroom door closed quietly, Jordyn felt Lucian slip into the bed with her. Strong hands curled around hers clawing into the sheets, pulling them free. Kisses dotted down to her knuckles over and over, a calm murmuring following each kiss. Jordyn had squeezed her eyes shut so fiercely it actually hurt, so when she opened them, she found herself face to face with Lucian’s panicked expression.

“It’s all right,” he told her. “Safe, remember? You’re always safe with me, sweetheart.”

Jordyn let him pull her up to a sitting position before wrapping her in a strong embrace. It was only then she realized what he was wearing, which was practically nothing at all. Nothing but a pair of boxer-briefs and a towel hanging around his neck. Even his skin and hair were damp, telling her he must have just gotten out of the shower.

She didn’t even care. It didn’t matter that she had nothing covering her but a sheet, either.

Every injury on Jordyn’s body stung like hell, but she clung tightly to the one thing that seemed familiar and safe.
Lucian
.

“H-he … he
beat
me,” she rasped out. “Like an animal. Just … beat me.”

“Will Vetta?” Lucian asked, his tone turning dark.

Jordyn nodded frantically. “The others, they … they didn’t do anything. Held me down and let him hurt me. They didn’t even care.”

With gentle touches and tender words, Lucian pacified Jordyn’s panic. Once she was calmed enough to think rationally, the first wisps of embarrassment fluttered through her emotions. The sheet hiding her nudity had fallen in her fear, exposing her from the chest down to where it pools between them.

Lucian, ever the gentleman, covered her with the sheet, never taking his gaze from hers once. “I’m sorry about your lack of clothes. I didn’t have anything in this apartment for clothing, and I didn’t take the time to grab you something from yours after I found you like you were. My mother will be around later to bring you some things and she’ll buy whatever you’d like to have otherwise, okay?”

That admittance sent Jordyn through a whole new round of emotions. He’d found her after the attack. Bloodied, bruised, and beaten. She must have looked near death if the way she felt now was any indication.

“Besides that,” Lucian continued, not noticing Jordyn’s distraction, “… Paulie suggested it wouldn’t be good for your wounds to be wrapped too tightly for the first couple of days, especially by something as constricting as clothing. This way, it minimizes the chance of infection for the bad ones on your back and hip.”

“Paulie?” Jordyn asked.

Lucian offered her a supportive smile. “A very good friend, a doctor for us, our family.”

“Your family … Cosa Nostra. That one, you mean.”

“You remembered that, then,” he said, not seeming bothered by it at all. “I wasn’t sure you would.”

“Kind of,” she admitted. “I don’t understand, though.”

“Another time. It’s not important right now.”

“But you will tell me, right?”

“I will,” Lucian agreed. “When you’re better. It involves more than just me.”

Jordyn understood that. Thinking about the man Lucian had kicked out of the room, she asked, “Was that one of your brothers?”

“Yes, that was Dante. He’s a year younger than me. He should be in church this morning with our parents, but he’s using me as an excuse to skip. I need a babysitter, and apparently, my father agrees.”

“For what?”

“To keep me from killing someone,” Lucian said frankly. “They should know better. Out of the three of us brothers, I am not the hothead, even as pissed off as I am.”

Oh.
Well
…

“What did he call me?” she asked.

“What was it?”

“He said something when I woke up. I didn’t understand it. Caz … murder, I think.”

Lucian laughed darkly. “
Cazzo merda
?”

“Yeah.”

“Essentially,
cazzo
is a really offensive word in Italian for a man’s dick, but it’s also used in place of fuck or variations of the word fuck.
Merda
literally means shit. So …”

“Fucking shit,” Jordyn filled in, nodding. Of course it would be some form of a cuss. “I get it. There was something else, though. Princi … princa-something or other.”

Lucian’s head snapped up as if he’d been shot, his eyes blazing into hers. “
Principessa
?”

“Yeah. That’s it. What is that?”

Swallowing thickly, Lucian muttered, “It means princess in Italian. For men like us, it means something entirely different. I’ll tell him to cut his nonsense out.”

“I don’t think he meant anything by it,” Jordyn tried to say.

“Yes, he did.”

Seemingly not wanting to discuss it further, Lucian went about untangling the IV tube that had become wrapped in her arm and hand.

“Thank you.”

“Never thank me. Not for helping you, sweetheart. The only thing I need from you is for you to tell me what you need, when you need it. If I can, I will always give it to you.”

“Safety,” Jordyn whispered.

Lucian nodded, his fingers ghosting over the multiple bruises littering her arm. “I can do that.”

Chapter Nine

Jordyn awoke to pitch-black darkness. Perspiration soaked her skin and hair, dampening the sheets and pillows on the comfortable bed. She must have been tossing and turning something awful in her sleep, because the sheets were tangled around her lower half in a terrible knot of fabric, effectively keeping her from moving.

She didn’t have to wonder what woke her up. Jordyn knew. It was the same thing that had been affecting her sleep for the last six days since she woke up after her attack. The nightmares were recurrent of her beating. She could smell her vomit and blood, the tang of propane, and feel the pain like it was happening all over again. Even worse, the nightmare only seemed to get more horrible with every dream. There were more people there, some yelling¸ some urging her attacker on. No one would help when she begged them to.

Jordyn was aware they were just dreams. Not real, not now. It didn’t help much.

The fear from her dream was still running thick through her emotions, and before she could stop herself, she was gasping Lucian’s name. The sound was strained and terrified. Fisting the blankets, she barely called out for him a second time before his familiar, comforting figure was shadowing the doorway.

Did he ever sleep?

Lucian took a hesitant step into the room, staying silent. The thin sleep pants he wore rested low on his hips while his muscled stomach and chest were bare. Maybe he had been sleeping. Jordyn didn’t need him to tell her she was safe. With him there, she knew she was.

“You okay?” Lucian asked.

Jordyn wanted to reassure him, but she couldn’t.

“I’m sorry,” Jordyn whispered as Lucian watched her warily. “I just …”

What, had a bad dream?

Jesus, she felt like a child.

“Never mind,” Jordyn eventually said, embarrassment slipping into her voice. “Please go back to sleep.”

“Wasn’t sleeping,” Lucian replied easily. “I was just resting my eyes.”

Jordyn snorted under her breath. “Sure. I’m good, though, really.”

Lucian didn’t act like he’d heard her. “It’s a good thing Paulie took your IV out the evening after he put it in, what with the way you squeeze sheets to death every time you panic.”

She released her grip immediately.

“It’s nothing.”

“It’s hard, you know.”

“Huh?”

Lucian shrugged in the darkness. “Listening to you whimper and thrash around in here. I don’t know if you want me to wake you up, or what you need. I feel like I have to stay awake just to make sure at some point you’re sleeping without the dreams.”

Oh, God.

“You’ve been having them a lot,” he stated matter-of-fact.

“Yeah, but I’m fine, Lucian.”

“I don’t believe that for a second, and since my heart is in my throat right now, I really need to make sure you’re fine, sweetheart. Otherwise, I won’t sleep for another month.”

Jordyn didn’t know how to respond, not that Lucian gave her the chance to. Wordlessly, he crossed the room and sat on the bed before untangling the fabric around her legs. Then, he was lifting the soft sheets and lying under them with her. Lucian propped his head in his palm while he was situated on his side, watching Jordyn with that piercing stare of his.

Lucian, while clear in his interest of her, had been very proper in all aspects. He never crossed any boundaries, was always polite when she needed help changing her bandages, and didn’t give even the slightest hint he expected something from Jordyn unless she was willing to give it. He also respected her choices on other things, which helped for her to trust him. Like stopping the dose of morphine the very next day after she woke up, even after Paulie suggested she keep taking it for another day or so to help her sleep.

Morphine was a narcotic—addiction ran rampant in her family history. Besides that, Jordyn wanted her mind to be clear around these people, especially Lucian. She trusted him without even knowing him. What she didn’t trust, however, was her thoughts and choices when she was too high to think everything through properly. Her pain was severe for the first couple of days, but she gritted her teeth and handled it with over the counter pain meds that didn’t make her feel like she was swimming through clouds.

“Will this help?” Jordyn asked, waving between them.

“It might,” Lucian answered with a grin. “I’m here, so now you can sleep without fears ruining those dreams of yours.”

The faintest smile crossed Jordyn’s lips. It was almost funny how his words didn’t seem like an excuse to get into bed with her. The previous panic had all but ebbed away, and Jordyn couldn’t help but feel the exhaustion creeping back in. She rested back into the bed on her side, still facing Lucian. Comfort seeped into her veins.

The gentlest touch of a hot palm pressing to her naked hip and fingers curling tightly to hold her had Jordyn’s eyes flying wide.

“Shhh,” Lucian soothed. “Sleep.”

Jordyn almost laughed. Sleep would be impossible with his hand on her body. Every nerve had suddenly sizzled to life and zoned in on that one place. She was far too aware of her reactions to this man and the bubbling waves of desire pooling in her middle.

“That’s not going to be possible,” Jordyn replied faintly.

Lucian rubbed his hand back and forth on her hip, up the line of the cotton briefs she wore and then almost down to her knee before going back up again. “Better?”

Sure. Now, the heat was traveling all over her damn legs and straight between her thighs instead of just staying in one spot. That didn’t mean she didn’t like it because she sure as shit did.

“Jordyn?” Lucian prodded.

“It’s … good,” she managed to say.

Lucian’s hand wandered higher, edging under the hem of the too big T-shirt of his she wore. His touch was soft, but insistent, his fingers barely grazing while his palm was flat down. “Can I?”

“Do what, exactly?”

“Touch you,” he replied in that same frank way. “Nothing more, I promise.”

She trusted his words, as far as that went. He was always so careful with her when helping her take care of her injuries and getting her comfortable if she was particularly sore. Most of the bandages and gauze were gone, though a few on the bad spots remained. Still, Jordyn was curious. “Tell me why.”

“I want to explore you. The expanse of your skin All of the curves and dips. The places where you’re the softest, or the most sensitive. What will make your heart race, your toes curl, or your body tremble. What you’ll do when I touch you here,” Lucian said huskily, a finger slipping under the hem of her shirt to sweep her stomach with a teasing graze. “Or the sounds you’ll make when I kiss you while I learn you. Will they be loud and shaking, or mewled and quiet?”

Jordyn’s breath audibly hitched. “Lucian …”

“Like that right there,” he murmured. “My name in your mouth. Sweet and low with a little bit of air behind it. Wanting me. As if I’m the only man you need. I want to learn those sounds and what makes them … all of them.”

“You think you can learn those things just by touching, hmm?”

Lucian cocked a brow challengingly. “I know I can. Let me.”

Jordyn couldn’t find it in herself to deny him, especially when she was already a pool of longing hunger at just his words alone, so she didn’t.

Needing no further prompting, Lucian’s hand skipped under her shirt. A shiver crawled over her skin as he traced a path along the contour of her flat stomach. His touch was gentle but seeking. Faint taps of his fingers danced up her side, along the curve in her waist, and against the swell of her breast. As the tips of those exploring fingers swept over her breast a second time, his thumb rolling over her peaking nipple, Jordyn’s skin pebbled all over.

She hadn’t quite realized it, but her breaths were stuttering again.

“Mmm, there,” Lucian whispered. “I like that.”

Jesus, so did Jordyn.

“How would you sound if that was my mouth and not my fingers, sweetheart?”

Jordyn’s eyes fluttered closed as a soft moan tumbled from her chest. Then, without warning, Lucian was moving much closer. Close enough that his warm breath washed over her cheeks and his nose was grazing hers. His hand left the confines of her shirt long enough to grasp the back of her knee and pull her leg up to hook around his hip.

The new position allowed Jordyn to know exactly how Lucian’s body was reacting to his study of her. The hard ridge of his erection pressed to Jordyn’s stomach, a pulse in his shaft resounding straight through to her own heartbeat. Silently, Lucian went back to discovering her body. She was thoroughly entranced with his hot hands and teasing fingers.

Up to her face, his fingers traced the landscape of her cheeks and jaw, ghosting over lax lips and fanned eyelashes. Along her back, his fingers pressed a little harder to her spine, down to the line of cotton briefs where he briefly dipped below the fabric to roll the tips of his digits to her swell of her backside.

The noises crawling out from the back of her throat and climbing out of her lungs couldn’t be stopped. Not when he tickled the creases of her elbows, or when his mouth brushed to hers with the same innocent kiss like he gave her the first time. The almost soothing touches lulled her into a comforting daze she wasn’t expecting. At the same time, she was still hyperaware of his thick cock and the obvious desire he must have felt, never mind her own. Jordyn was so turned on she was burning hot with an ache deep in her blood and bones.

“Sleep,” she heard Lucian order. Jordyn’s eyes finally opened again, confusion settling in her heart. She met bright hazel eyes watching her intently. While Jordyn was still sore and healing from the attack, that didn’t mean her body didn’t want this man entirely. “Just touching, I promised. I’m here, so no more nightmares. You can dream of something beautiful instead.”

Oh, she didn’t doubt that for a moment.

• • •

“Hey, Skip.”

Jordyn poked her head out around the enclave that led to the tiny kitchen. Her spot kept her well enough hidden from Lucian’s guest seeing her. He seemed to have a lot of these guests lately.

“Morning,” Lucian replied, setting his gun to the table in plain sight.

Turned away from her, Jordyn had a great view of the eagle wings tattooed on his upper back. He’d been quick to jump out of the shower with no questions asked when she told him someone was buzzing the apartment and had been for fifteen minutes.

A white envelope was passed between the men, and like his gun, Lucian simply tossed it to the coffee table without giving it a second glance. Jordyn suspected there was money in that envelope. She watched a lot of cash travel through this apartment in the last couple of days.

“Why the early payments this month? I’m not used to this, but I could get that way fast.”

The young man grinned, shrugging. “Word got around you were in the neighborhood. Probably got some of the guys thinking you were checking up on us.”

“Everything good, then?”

“Fine, Skip. I’m going to need another twenty kilos by the end of the month.”

“Talk to my brother. You’ve got his contacts. I’m not dealing with managing the product for a while.”

“Something got you busy, Skip?” the young man asked.

Lucian turned his cheek, giving Jordyn a view of his profile and smirk. “Something like that. Just communicate with my brother, like I said. He’ll point you to the contacts for the month from there.”

“Anything else?” Lucian asked.

“Nope.”

“See you next month.”

When the apartment door was shut and the two deadbolts were locked, Jordyn stepped out of her hiding place. “Why Skip?”

Lucian crossed the space to grab up the envelope on the coffee table. Jordyn was right in her assumption that it held cash. He answered her while he flipped through the bills, counting how much was there. It was a lot.

“It’s another street term for capo in our business. I prefer it to my real name, really. It keeps a distance between them and me. When they talk about me out there, it’s always what the Skip says. It’s never Lucian. Most of them don’t know who is running them above their boss, honestly. They never meet me, and instead, only hear of the Skip who will and has stepped in to clean house when needed. The unknown breeds fear. Fear breeds obedience. Obedience breeds a good crew. Therefore, I need them afraid.”

Huh. That was kind of brilliant.

“It was one of the first things my father taught me about being a good capo,” he finished quieter. “Gio is probably the best at it, really, and he’s more than earned being known as the Skip with his guys.”

“And you like this?” Jordyn asked.

“It’s in my blood. What my real father did, and what my family does. A great deal of our money comes from bigger venues and deals, but we keep crews on the streets to remind people of where the power is coming from. Gangs might assume they’re running the show, but most of them are buying the majority of their products from families just like mine.”

She learned a lot about Lucian Marcello over the last week and a half. If she asked, he would explain to the best of his ability. Honesty was clearly something Lucian kept in high esteem, or maybe it was just for her. Bit by bit, she was learning more about the mafia world of his. It was not the same as the MC, of that, Jordyn was most sure.