20

MARGO

What the hell am I doing back here?

I asked myself that question while standing in front of the sturdy door of Rocello’s apartment. There were the same bumps and scratches I had spotted the first time I was there. There was even the same, sweet voice from inside. This time, little Thomas sounded thrilled.

At least one person would be happy tonight.

As for me? I didn’t think so.

I liked the fact that I would get to see Rocello again. He’d saved me when the bar was held up. I would never forget his power and his strength. Nonetheless, he was the leader of the three, that much was clear. If Jumaine had killed at least one man in the last week, what had Rocello done?

I’d always dreamed of being a lawyer. Laws were there for a reason, and I respected them. Rocello and his friends didn’t. They had to have broken the law about a thousand times already.

Thomas was probably in the clear, though. I listened to the little boy and smiled as I knocked.

“Welcome back,” Rocello said, as he held the door wide for me.

He offered me a warm smile and showed me in. Thomas ran down the hall. Unlike his dad, the boy’s hair was getting a bit long, sort of like his Uncle Slade’s. That thought gave me pause. Was Thomas close to Jumaine and Slade? Something told me that he was.

I bent my knees and held out my arms, receiving a huge hug.

“How are you, Thomas?” I asked, closing my arms around his back.

“Margo!” His voice was like music to my ears, although he was practically screaming in them. “Can we go play now?”

“He likes you a lot,” Rocello said, standing over me as he straightened up. “He’s been looking forward to this.”

“Aren’t you sweet?” I patted the top of Thomas’s head. “Can you go to your room and find us some cool toys to play with? I’ll be with you in a minute, okay?”

“Sure!”

I waited for him to reach his bedroom, feeling Rocello’s gaze on me.

“Thanks again,” he said.

“I was a little torn when you called me,” I admitted, his huge figure towering over me, even though I was standing now. “I, uh, recently learned some things about you and your friends.”

He put his hands on his hips, a frown on his face. “What things?”

“Cut the act, Rocello.” I found it hard to believe that neither Slade nor Jumaine had said anything to him since I’d talked to Zoey.

He nodded gruffly but gestured for me to go on.

“Let’s say they’re not flattering.”

Rocello’s expression told me nothing. “Will they affect the way you take care of my son?”

“They might,” I said, and his expression darkened. “I have to ask you something.”

“Go ahead.” His face still gave away nothing.

“Is there a gun in here?”

In answer, he patted his hip. I gulped and stepped back. I hadn’t realized he was armed.

“Is that a problem?” His voice was tight. “I seem to recall seeing you with a shotgun in your hands at the bar.”

I gestured at his midsection. “That’s not a problem for me as long as you come back in one piece.” Mentally, I added that I hoped everyone else he encountered tonight would be okay, too. “But I meant here in the apartment after you leave. Are there guns here?”

Rocello’s stiff posture relaxed, and his expression softened. “You want to know because of Thomas.”

“Yes.”

“I have a gun safe. And trigger locks. I wouldn’t leave an unsecured gun around a child.”

A breath of relief escaped me.

“Thomas knows not to mess around with guns, though I have taken him shooting.”

“Shooting?”

Rocello shrugged. “Just, you know, rats and stuff. And a few of those punks who hang out down by the bus station.”

I took a step back, my hand flying to my mouth.

Rocello grinned. “I’m kidding, Margo. I’ve taken him to the gun range.”

“Oh.” Color flooded my face.

“I like that,” he said, eyeing me.

“Like what?”

“That blush on your cheeks. Sometimes olive skin tones don’t turn red, but yours does.”

“My skin’s not olive.” I said it automatically, mostly to cover my embarrassment.

“It’s paler, yes. But you have that dark hair—I thought you could be Italian the first time I saw you at the bar.”

The way he was looking at me made me squirm. “I’m not, though.” My mother had some French and German ancestry. And she’d told me that my dad’s people came from Ireland a long time ago.

Rocello grinned. “Nobody’s perfect.” He slung on a jacket and took a final look around. “You’ve got my number. Call if you need anything.”

“Will do.”

Rocello left, and I tried to regroup my thoughts. Then I headed toward the younger DeLuca, the one who was far less complicated to talk to. Even if the conversations were mostly about prehistoric reptiles.

Thomas’s enthusiasm lasted for hours. It made me worry that the child was starved for attention, but that wasn’t quite it. He told me about the boy next door he played with after school. And at one point, he mentioned an Uncle Jumaine, so I was right that he considered his father’s best friends as part of the family.

So maybe what he was missing was a woman who paid attention to him. That made me feel a bit strange. I wasn’t really the maternal type. Most female bartenders weren’t. But still, it was fun hanging out with the boy. Tiring, but fun. The only arguments we had were over his bedtime, and since I’d anticipated that, it didn’t catch me off guard this time.

Thomas’s steady flow of words—and dinosaur facts—had kept my mind off bombs, police interviews and enforcer confessions. Most of all, they kept away the memories I had from being with Rocello in his living room last time.

But once I finally got him to stay in bed, the preoccupation with my current situation returned.

The biggest question was what might happen once the mafia enforcer returned.

What would I do with him later?

Ask him about his job? No. That felt pointless, and possibly even dangerous. Everyone was responsible for their choices. Rocello had made his own. Though they weren’t the choices I would’ve made, there was no way I would lecture him on how dangerous his line of work was. I was sure he knew that much better than I did.

Fool around with him? God, that sounded so tempting… Having those big hands on my body. Have them touch all my sensitive spots. Staring at him while he rubbed my clit. Seeing the desire in his eyes, just like the other night.

A knock at the door interrupted my thoughts and gave me cause for concern at the same time. I went over to the front door and stood on my tiptoes to look through the peephole. Fortunately, the man outside wasn’t from a rival mafia family, ready to gun us down.

It was Jumaine.

I unlocked the deadbolt and undid the chain.

“Hey,” he whispered, looking over me. “Rocello got detained. He sent me back here so you could leave.”

“Like arrested?” I said, louder than I meant to.

“No.” Jumaine stepped inside, closing the door behind him. “As in held up.”

I relaxed, even though “held up” could have more than one meaning. Jumaine’s relaxed demeanor convinced me that nothing bad had happened to his friend.

“Thanks for coming,” I told him, keeping my voice down. “I’ll just get my things.”

Jumaine followed me into the living room. The overhead light revealed something on his left cheekbone. It was a small cut, in the middle of a nasty bruise. “What happened to you?” I asked, raising my hand up to his wound. His short beard tickled my palm.

He reached up and cupped his hand against mine. “Margo.” He whispered my name, his nose brushing my forehead. Our gazes locking, I felt sparks of electricity running down my spine. “I keep thinking about that kiss.”

“Me, too,” I admitted, as his gaze dropped to my mouth.

But this was wrong. A few minutes ago, I’d been thinking about sharing some kind of intimacy with Rocello. But Jumaine was just so damn tempting—and that was even before I knew he’d taken out the guy who’d been heading for my bar with a bomb.

In an instant, he threw his long arms around my waist. Before I knew it, he was picking me up off the floor with ease. Our mouths smashed together in a passionate kiss, and I hooked my legs around his hips. He spun us around, my back hitting the wall next to the door with force. I snaked my arms around his neck. We were in roughly the same position we’d been at the bar the other day, but everything about this kiss was different.

He'd been thorough and methodical when he kissed me before. Unrushed.

That wasn’t the case tonight.

He nipped at my bottom lip, his right hand traveling down past my hip. He cupped my thigh and squeezed, the feel of his muscled body against mine igniting my desire. My skirt rose up a few inches, and he ground his erection into me.

“You taste like peaches and cream,” he said huskily. I tilted my head back. He took the hint, his lips landing on my chin. His fingers stroked my thigh as wave after wave of desire rolled through me. His erection was hard to miss, and it seemed to be growing larger with every passing moment.

Our bodies swayed apart before he smashed up against me again, pinning me to the wall once more. My legs spread further apart, and Jumaine eased his hand between us, his longer fingers hovering at my core. When he palmed my mound, I took one hand off it and used it to cover my mouth. The last thing I wanted to do was to wake the little boy sleeping in the other room.

Shit.

There was a little boy sleeping in the other room.

Sure, his door was closed, but this was wrong. We were in Rocello’s apartment. I was here at Rocello’s invitation.

So what the hell was I doing with Jumaine?

Unlike me, Jumaine knew exactly what he was doing. Literally. His fingers glided over my heated slit, and I moaned in spite of myself. His thumb nudged my clit, he positioned a finger at my entrance.

“You’re going to come.” He said it as a fact, and I believed him. I wanted to. I was close. But… the damn voice in my head wouldn’t let up. The one that said this wasn’t right, no matter how good it felt.

He rubbed my clit up and down, making me bite down on the heel of my palm to keep from crying out. He bucked forward, giving me a preview of what I might someday experience. If he was stiff a minute ago, he was rock hard now. His finger sliding through my folds, I threw my head back. The rocking of the wall behind me filled my ears, acting like a call back to reality.

“Stop,” I gasped.

“Come for me,” he ordered.

“No.” This time I meant it. “We can’t.” I let go of his neck and leaned back, putting a little space between our chess. “Please, stop.”

He sighed and pulled back, releasing me from his hold. “Fuck.” His voice held more resignation than anger.

“We can’t. Not here.” Maybe not anywhere, but definitely not here. I tugged my skirt down, trying to ignore the hormones that were still making my body tingle. “I hope you understand.”

“I do.” He took a shaky step back, and I made sure not to look at the bulge in his pants. “You’re right—not here.”

I waited, half expecting him to suggest some place else, but maybe he was thinking about how we’d let ourselves go too far in his buddy’s home, too.

There was a smudge of my lipstick on his lips. I reached up and brushed it off with my thumb. “Goodnight, Jumaine.”

I waited a moment for him to leave, but then remembered that he’d come here to take over babysitting duties from me. I gathered my things and went to the door where he waited for me.

“Goodnight,” he said simply.

As the door closed behind me, I leaned my back against it, my hand over my chest while I tried to calm my breath. Though my mind had finally decided what we were doing was wrong, my body hadn’t gotten the message. My cheeks were flushed. My heart had not stopped racing. To make matters worse, the ache between my legs was killing me.

My libido was telling me to go back inside, but I knew I’d done the right thing.