CHAPTER NINETEEN
Bocca
For a long moment, we just stared at each other. Neither of us dared to speak. For me, there were just too many things I wanted to say. Only I didn’t know where to start.
Rosemarie blinked, and her body jerked as she snapped herself out of whatever trance we were in. Then she got to work checking me over and changing my bandages.
“These stitches can probably come out in four days. Most of them anyway. This one,” her finger touched the skin beside the deepest gash, “might need a day or so more. But I’m sure whoever you go to will figure it out.”
She was nervous. This was new and I didn’t like it. What had changed? My brothers walking in here all bold and burley? I prayed that was it, but I felt like that wasn’t everything.
I was a little sad that my brothers were here. I knew that I couldn’t talk them out of taking me home. Maybe that was the best thing because every minute I was here was one more I was putting Rosemarie in danger. That wasn’t fair to her. She was good. The kind of good that would help someone like me without batting an eye. She deserved to have a safe life. One that was far away from people like me.
As I stared into her beautiful, deep brown eyes, I knew it was best to thank her, say goodbye, and walk away from her.
But something inside me told me it wouldn’t be that easy.
“Rosemarie,” I whispered trying to bring back the woman that I’d seen.
I knew what she was doing, pulling down her mask and looking at me like I was just a patient in one of her examination rooms. Like I was just some random Joe that she was getting ready to discharge. I didn’t want to be that and yet, I knew it was best if I was.
She didn’t look up at me though I knew she heard me say her name. I tried again, this time using all the strength I had to sit up.
I cupped her jaw. How I wanted to kiss those cute, puffy lips. How I wanted to know what she tasted like. But I wouldn’t. I couldn’t be that asshole.
As I waged a war with myself inside my head, she shut down even more.
“Let’s get you dressed. I know your friends are ready to take you home.” Her tone cut to the bone.
I didn’t even try to man up and insist that I could dress myself. I knew I’d end up looking like a fool. So I helped her as much as I could, relishing in the simple moment when I got to touch her each time I shifted around.
“What should I do with your clothes?” she asked once she had me clothed and standing.
“Burn them,” I said without hesitation.
I had a good idea that she wouldn’t do exactly that. She’d probably just toss them in the trash chute the moment I was out of sight. That was fine. I didn’t care one bit to ever see them again.
At the door, I stopped. I couldn’t help it. Since my arm was already around her shoulders, I turned and crashed her body into mine. Despite the fact that she had cold fingers, her body seemed to be on fire. Or maybe that was just me. But it was warm and soft. And felt perfect against mine despite the fact that she was pressing against my wounds. I ignore the pain because I wanted to feel her against me so badly.
“Thank you,” I whispered into her ear. Then because I couldn’t just leave it at that, I couldn’t just walk away without giving her some sort of idea that she had gotten to me, I whispered something more. “Ho trovato la bellezza della vita nei tuoi occhi.”
Then I placed a quick, light kiss to her jaw. It wasn’t enough. I wanted so much more but I just couldn’t be that guy.
I turned, releasing her body, knowing that she was frozen because she understood what I’d said to her. With every ounce of my strength and manhood, I stumbled away from her on my own.
I was whisked away by my brothers. Away from Rosemarie. Out of the condo. Out of the building. And finally back home.
The scoldings came with a mix of anger and concern. I hadn’t meant to drown them out as they spoke, but it seemed like I just couldn’t make my mind focus on the words they were saying.
“I’m real fuckin’ glad you’re okay,” Cal said once they had me settled in my own bed. “But don’t you ever pull that shit again.”
Patch was there, checking over Rosemarie’s work though he didn’t need to. I knew enough to know that she’d done a great job fixing me up.
I had things to tell them but I was so tired and all I wanted to do was close my eyes. Patch offered me some pain pills and I took them just to have a moment of reprieve from it all.
“Hunt found you. He called us right before Sara Ann called Loch. That woman wouldn’t let Hunt in but he knew.” Cal was doing his best to fill me in quickly.
I brushed off the ‘that woman’ part of his statement. As much as I wanted to correct him and speak her name, I didn’t. He wasn’t saying it that way to be nasty or dismissive, and that was the only reason I let it go.
I had a feeling it was The Hunter that had been at Rosemarie’s door. That was the only reason that I didn’t pull my shit together and flee. From that moment on, it seemed like everything happened in a whirlwind. I had wanted to be the one to reach out, to let Cal know I was alive. But I’d been too late. I had everyone on edge and worried. That made me feel even more like shit. That I’d put my club through hell.
I pushed that away and filled them in the best that I could. My brain was starting to get fuzzy from the pain meds but I pressed on. I didn’t go into detail on what had happened to me, I was sure that would come later. Right now, I just needed to get the important shit out.
Cal told me about everything that happened on their end. And then I was done, my body giving in and my eyes closing for good.
I slept for days. When I finally came to, I felt better, at least physically. I could get up and hobble around on my own. I was even able to take a semi-decent shower.
There were meetings.
I searched and dug and tried to find any information on Keften Jugovac that I could. Now that I had a name, that was. Thanks to Silas and Hunt. Without them passing that along, I still would have been blind and clueless. The whole Vac thing made sense now. I knew about this guy, though he was more in the background. I should have put two and two together and I was kicking myself that I hadn’t.
More meetings.
More planning.
More searching and reaching out to people.
I’d picked up a few cryptic messages that Lucy had left in the unknown, but I hated to bother her. I did however, get in touch with her long enough to let her know I was alive. Though I tried to convince her that I had it handled and she should enjoy her honeymoon, I got the sense that she wasn’t going to be able to let it go.
And I understood that, because if it had been me, I wouldn’t have either.
I didn’t give her a chance to apologize and feel bad about putting me on this path. It wasn’t her fault and I wasn’t going to let her think it was. I’d chosen to go into this. To search out these people. To dress up, play pretend, and try to take these guys down. That was all me and I made sure that she understood that. I wasn’t mad at her, not in the least, and she shouldn’t be mad at herself.
Though it was hard, we decided to keep this whole thing in-house. We didn’t want to let the other clubs in because they already had enough to deal with. The danger didn’t seem like it was close and so there really was no reason to set everyone on edge.
Was it a stupid move?
Maybe.
But I agreed that it was the best one. Until we knew more anyway. Keften had gone deep underground. Either he feared us or he was using that time to regroup and come back even harder. We wouldn’t know until we found him.
There was still the fact that he seemed to know who I was that bothered me. I had a feeling that no matter how hard I dug, I wouldn’t find the answer to that. Keften had an ace up his sleeve and I wouldn’t doubt that he would go to great lengths to keep it hidden.
Three weeks went by and I found myself so busy that I barely had a moment to breathe, let alone stop to think. Even though insanity surrounded me, I never forgot about Rosemarie. She was always there, in the back of my mind, her beautiful smile helping to carry me through the hardest of days.
I wasn’t an idiot. I wasn’t one of those men that would push that shit away, thump my hard chest, and tell myself that I was crazy.
There was something there. It was real. And all I wanted to do was get back to it. Get back to her.
Even when the clubwhores came to me and tried their hardest to get me to see them, I didn’t. No matter how many times they batted their fake lashes, or pushed their boobs in my face, I just didn’t care. I didn’t want any of them. My dick had become interested in one person, and one person only.
Remember when I said I didn’t jack my shit anymore?
Well, turned out that I was a liar. Because I felt like I was constantly trying to take a moment to myself. Whenever the reminder of her sweet scent or sexy voice would fill my mind, I found my dick so hard that I had no choice but to excuse myself from whatever I was in the thick of and take it to the bathroom. I swear I tugged my dick so much that it wouldn’t have surprised me if it was on the verge of falling off.
I wanted to know more about her. The more she popped into my mind, the more blanks came forth begging for me to fill them in. I could have. I thought about it more times than I wanted to admit to. I had never had a problem digging into someone’s background. I didn’t usually pause when it came to searching out people’s darkest secrets. But every time I would stop what I was doing and question if a little peek wouldn’t be so bad, I started to feel queasy. Even when I went as far as to type her name out, I just ended up deleting it before I went any further.
I didn’t want to read about her. I didn’t want to find out things behind her back. I wanted to hear about her life from her lips. I wanted to be there to see the spark light up her eyes when she told me about her favorite things. I wanted to hold her hand when she told me about the hard things she had to go through. Hell, I just wanted to sit with her after she came home from work and wrap her in my arms while she told me about her day.
All of that should have scared me.
But it didn’t.
It proved to me that she was different.
It made me smile at the prospects of how my life could be with someone—more specifically, with her.
I hadn’t seen love in my upbringing. I was never shown that from my parents. Maybe in a way, it molded my young mind to not believe in such things. But lately, I was starting to question the whole true love thing. I’d seen it with some of my brothers. You know, how a woman could bring a man to his knees.
I saw it every time Loch looked at Reagan and how he melted.
I felt it every time Diesel kissed Ellie.
I heard it every time Tank called Nadya ‘Angel.’
And I was overcome with everything anytime Axe was around Allison. Because that right there, was the one that I never thought would get the good stuff in life. Not because he didn’t deserve it, but because I thought that his past had him too fucked up to accept it.
So with all that, I’d started to see that the world was perhaps different from how I’d grown up thinking it was. That maybe happily ever afters did exist, even for guys like us.
And that, well, got me feeling like this thing with Rosemarie could maybe be real.
I had two choices, fight it and try to move on, though I knew that I’d probably never feel something like that again. Or give in, resign myself to some weird kind of fate or some shit, and go and get the girl.
Which was what I wanted to do—go get the girl, that was. I knew the fact that I couldn’t stop thinking about her had to mean something.
Maybe I was a romantic deep down at heart. Sure, I could admit that.
I was going to make her my woman. I knew that much. I just had to wait a little bit and hope that I wasn’t alone in this whole feelings thing.
But then again, self-doubt was a bitch. And she reared her ugly fucking head when I was alone. What if Rosemarie didn’t feel the same as I did? What if this weird connection I envisioned was really one-sided? Hell, for all I knew, she never thought of me once I walked out of her door.
My chest ached and I blindly rubbed it as I flopped down onto my bed.
What if I was crazy?
I searched for all the signs and wondered if I’d missed something. I mean, could one really diagnose themselves?
No, I was certain I wasn’t crazy. At least not when it came to this. It was just strange because no woman had ever affected me like she did. No woman had ever held some kind of spell over me. Rosemarie was nothing like anyone I’d ever met and I for damn sure wasn’t ready to dismiss the feelings I had going on.
So that left me staring at the ceiling wondering how exactly I was going to get back to her. And how I was going to make sure I was the man that she not only needed in her life, but desperately wanted too.
First, I had to make sure I was worthy enough. Which meant that I had to get my shit together, like right fucking now.