Untamed Hearts 1: The Viper (14 page)

So she’d be sore and let her body remember him for as long as possible.

It was as if the two of them had been living in a fantasy for the past twelve hours. The outside world stopped existing, and it was as if time stood still, holding them in an alternate universe where she wasn’t too boring for him, and he wasn’t too dangerous for her.

For the moment, they were perfect together.

So she went down on him with a determination to make it as good for him now as it had been for her last night. Even when he started swearing in Spanish and using his hold on her hair to pull her off him, she held strong, sucking harder, stroking him faster. She grabbed his ass with her free hand, because it was a beautiful male ass—firm and round and made to hold on to.

He really
should
be an underwear model.

She wanted to taste him, and he finally gave up trying to fight her. Instead he held her close when his body jerked, and his cock pulsed in her hand. She savored the tangy male flavor of his cum against her tongue in a way she never had before. She liked the way he cursed in Spanish as he came, and then his words got softer, more affectionate when the tide started to recede. Now he stroked her hair rather than clutching it like a lifeline.

He fell lax under her when it was over. “You’re stubborn, cariño.”

Katie flipped her hair back. She crawled over Marcos and straddled him once more. She reached for her coffee and took a sip. She noticed he didn’t have a complaint this time. He seemed a little too relaxed to bother as she admitted, “I am very stubborn. Ask anyone. It’s usually their chief complaint about me.”

“I like it.” He tugged a long strand of her hair. “A lot.”

“That’s why you’re perfect.” She grinned, enjoying how completely unselfconscious she was around him. It was such a rare commodity in her life. For some reason, she didn’t question for one minute that he liked her just as she was, wide hips, big ass, and all. She felt the same about him as she eyed his body under hers. She reached out and touched one of the stars on his shoulder. There was a matching one on the other shoulder. “What do these mean?”

He winced. “If you knew, you wouldn’t think I’m perfect.”

She arched an eyebrow. “Try me.”

“They mean I’m a thief,” he said simply, as if daring her to judge him.

“Of what?” She took another sip of her coffee as she studied the strange stars that decorated each of his shoulders.

“Of anything left unattended long enough for me to take advantage of.” He laced a hand behind his head, still studying her thoughtfully. “Cars. Houses. Pretty, innocent gringas with talented mouths.”

She laughed. “I’m not that innocent.”

“That’s what you think.”

“Mmm,” she hummed rather than argue, and took another sip of her coffee that was extra creamy and sweet, making it the color of Marcos’s tan skin. She studied him again, and ran her hand over the tattooed cross on his chest with the names of his mother and cousin above and below it. Then she touched the inked black tribal tattoos on his right biceps. It covered so much skin, and the left side matched. “What about these?”

He looked amused with her exploration of him. “They mean nothing.”

“Then why get them?”

“I dunno, ’cause I was young and vain and had a lot of disposable income.”

“From stealing things.”

“Yup.”

“Where’s your disposable income now?”

He laughed. “On my arms.”

“So you must not be stealing things anymore,” she said, because she suspected as much.

“Not right now, no.” He took her coffee from her and leaned up, stealing a sip before he put it back on the nightstand. “Soon, maybe.”

“Once a thief—” she mused.

“Always a thief,” he finished for her as he laced his other hand behind his head. “You’d be smart to remember it, chica.”

“Why did you get the tattoos?” she asked as she touched his right arm again. She didn’t believe for one minute he did them just for vanity. Every marking on his body had a meaning. It was like an illustration to the history of his life, and she found it fascinating. “The truth.”

He looked away from her. His body stiffened all of a sudden, and she got the impression she might have pushed too far before he admitted in a low, raspy voice, “Because they hurt.”

“Huh?”

“I just wanted something to hurt me. To make me forget. To make it sting so bad I couldn’t think about anything but the needle digging into my skin.”

“Did it work?”

“No.” He looked back to her, the pain glimmering in his light eyes. “If it did, I would have
a lot
more.”

She lay down over him and let her head rest on his shoulder over one of the stars that marked him as a thief. He stroked her hair, and together they shared a quiet moment where she didn’t judge him, and he let her be still and ache for him.

“It’s spring break, you know?” she whispered after several long minutes.

“I didn’t know,” he admitted softly. “It’s been a long time since I partied for spring break.”

“You want to party here for the week?” she asked, trying desperately to keep the hope out of her voice. “If I promise not to stop you when you do leave?”

That seemed like a fair compromise. She wasn’t begging him to stay, but she was offering. Still, he was silent after the offer, stroking her hair as if mulling it over.

“Didn’t your papi ever teach you not to invite a thief into your house?”

“He may have,” she admitted as she smiled against his warm skin. “But we’ve already established that I’m stubborn. I make my own rules.”

“You kick me out in a week.” He tugged her hair, forcing her to look up at him. “I’m serious, chica. Promise me.”

She hesitated, because kicking him out was very different from not complaining if he walked out the door on his own accord. The denial was on the tip of her tongue when his eyes narrowed.

“It’s the only way I’ll agree,” he told her warningly. “If you don’t promise, I’ll pull my clothes out of the dryer right now and go home.”

“And if I
do
promise?” she asked curiously.

“I’ll go get my things from my cousin’s place,” he started, before a small smile tugged at the corner of his lips. “And then spend a week making sure you’re not as easy to please for the next muchacho who shows up.”

“Okay,” she whispered, deciding a week to figure everything out was better than nothing. “I promise.”

Chapter Ten

There were other cars in the driveway when he finally made it back to Chuito’s place at dusk. Marcos thought the extra company might be a good thing, judging by the quality of texts he’d been getting from his cousin. They got nastier as the day wore on, and Marcos ignored him.

He parked in back where Chuito usually did, seeing a sweet Mercedes GL next to his cousin’s car. He got out and looked in the window, finding that the door was unlocked. What an idiot. And this SUV was fully loaded.

He wondered how Chuito resisted stealing it. He might be rich now, but just like Katie had observed earlier, once a thief, always a thief. Old habits died hard, and the cousin Marcos remembered would’ve had this car jacked and out of the parking lot in twenty seconds on sheer principle.

If someone left this kind of car unlocked, they deserved to get jacked.

People with money never appreciated their shit.

At least he could give his cousin credit for that if nothing else. He wasn’t pretentious about anything. He still drove a Nissan, for fuck’s sake.

He eyed the two car seats in back and decided to cut them some slack for being absentminded about locking the car. Marcos hadn’t stolen a car since he was fifteen. Once they got heavy into Los Corredores, he became too valuable in the shop, but even when they were young, Chuito and Marcos used to avoid cars with baby seats. Probably because they were raised by two single mothers. One time, right after his father went to prison, his mother’s car got towed, and Marcos would never forget her crying as she sat on the curb with him, Juan, and Chuito, and groceries melting while she called her sister.

What kind of asshole towed the car of a woman shopping for food to feed children? Even car thieves didn’t do that shit.

He sneaked in through the back, heading up the staircase like he was breaking in because he did not want to see that bitch Jules Wellings. Marcos added her to the long list of things he didn’t understand about his cousin’s life here. She was a part-time cop, and Chuito called her his friend. Whatever.

He heard people downstairs talking. Damn, that office was always busy. It was almost five, and it was still hopping. How many legal issues could be happening in a town like this? People didn’t even secure their cars here.

Chuito’s door was locked, and Marcos went old-school and used the mini tool kit on his keychain to pick the lock rather than knock. He had the split-second thought of seeing something he didn’t want to see if his cousin finally made his move with his neighbor, but after this many years, he figured he was safe and pushed the door open.

He saw a flash of movement and was able to throw up his arm to protect his face. He got nailed in the side instead, a hard kidney hit that knocked the air out of him and put every defensive mechanism he had on red alert. He lashed out on instinct, kicking the intruder in the
cojones
and then nailing him with every ounce of anger he had, catching him in the side of the head.

“They don’t teach you that in the cage!” Marcos shouted, ’cause he knew it was his cousin that had blindsided him. “I still live on the streets, muchacho!”

Chuito reached down and grabbed Marcos’s leg, pulling his feet out from under him and making Marcos hit the floor so hard it stole his breath a second time. His head smacked against the door frame, and it temporarily dazed him enough to have the UFC light-heavyweight champion of the world choking the shit out of him in some sort of fucked-up jujitsu move that he couldn’t break out of.

“You ever talk about taking a bullet again, and I’ll shoot you myself,” Chuito growled into his ear in Spanish. “I can still take you. Got me, cabrón?”

“I know enough Spanish to say that’s cold.” A voice came from the kitchen, sounding bored as if watching family members kicking the shit out each other was an everyday occurrence. “Of course, my brother killed my father just ’cause I couldn’t get to him first. So who the fuck am I to talk?”

Still struggling to breathe, Marcos lifted his head and looked to the kitchen, seeing a muscular, dark-haired guy sprawled out in one of the chairs by the table. He held an energy drink in his hand as he arched a bored eyebrow at both of them.

“Who is this pendejo?” he growled as he fought to break free.

“That’s Tino. Didn’t you see his car out there?” Chuito released him and rolled onto the carpet to cup his balls. “You low-hitting fucker!”

“The GL is his?” Marcos was wheezing too as he took in Tino again, sitting there like he owned the world. “I should’ve stolen it and had Angel wash the title.”

“Fucking steal it.” Tino didn’t sound concerned. “I got LoJack, bitch.”

“You think I can’t disable LoJack?”

“I’m sure you can, but can you do it before I find you and make you eat my Beretta?”

“Si,” Marcos said with a laugh of disbelief. “
No problema
.”

“He probably could,” Chuito grudgingly admitted. “Yeah, definitely.” He lifted his head and looked to Marcos. “But don’t steal the car,” he warned in Spanish as if sensing Marcos would do it just to fuck with him. “His people make Los Corredores look like pussies.”

That was a seriously fucked-up insult that his cousin just made about his own gang, and Marcos stiffened on instinct. He didn’t love being associated with Los Corredores these days, but it was ingrained in him to defend them.

He was about to say something, when Tino lifted up his shirt, showing off the tattoo over the ridges of his stomach muscles.

Omertà.

Marcos dealt with the mafia enough in passing to know what that meant. Their presence in Miami was powerful, intimidating, and more than a little annoying to the rest of them, but he was saved from having to do something like apologize when Jules Wellings came upstairs.

“What the hell—” She paused at the open door, looking down at the two of them still lying on the floor. She just shook her head. “I have clients downstairs. You’re shaking the whole house.”

“At least they aren’t shooting each other. That’d really piss your clients off.”

Jules turned around and glared at Tino.

“I’m just saying it’s a good way to handle a family dispute,” Tino said reasonably. “In my experience, violence solves most problems.”

“Really, Tino? You know that ain’t funny.” Jules put her hand on her hip. “I thought you two were going to train. I’ve got the twins downstairs because you
had
to train tonight, when you knew I worked late, and Romeo has classes. This is my busy season.”

“I’ve had them every night this week. My babysitting services are free.”

“Your rent is free,” she countered.

Tino threw up his hands. “Do you want rent?”

Jules waved him off dismissively and turned to leave. “If you guys have to solve family disputes, use the Cellar to do it.”

“She lets him watch her kids?” Marcos asked Chuito in Spanish.

“They’re his nephews. He’s Jules’s brother-in-law,” Chuito reminded him.

“I already said I understand most of the shit you’re saying,” Tino interrupted them.

“
¿Hablas español?
” Marcos asked as he got to his feet.

“
No, io parlo Italiano
.”

“Oh.” Marcos shrugged. “Well, I don’t fucking understand Italian.”

“I’m from New York, man. You Puerto Rican motherfuckers are on every corner in my old neighborhood. I grew up understanding Spanish.”

“His brother speaks it. Fluently,” Chuito said it like a warning. “Without an accent. Like he was Boricua. It’s weird as shit.”

“Jules’s husband?”

“No, the other one.” Again it sounded like a caution. “He still lives in New York. He’s Angel on steroids.”

Oh.

He got the message. Somehow Chuito had managed to find some hardcore motherfuckers to hang with in Hicksville, USA. He should be surprised, but he wasn’t. Like Marcos, trouble usually found Chuito if he wanted it to or not. It didn’t matter
where
he was, and no amount of levelheadedness could fix it. Some muchachos were just born to live hard.