Page 5 of Blood Moon (La Famiglia De Luca)

Chapter 4

Tinsley

“ Going To Hell” — The Pretty Reckless

“W here did you run off to the other night?” Peter asked me a week later over breakfast.

I’d been avoiding him ever since. I needed time to perfect my innocent face because he could read me like a book. He always had.

“My stomach wasn’t feeling well,” I lied. “You know how sometimes traveling does that to me.”

That was the excuse I gave my brother. Better for him to think that it upset my stomach than for him to know it just made me horny as hell.

Also, I intentionally left out the “time” part of my “travels.” Peter’s bodyguard, or bulldog as I liked to refer to Liam, was sitting in a chair on his phone. He may have appeared busy, but I knew the man heard everything. No one but Peter and my mother ever knew that I time-traveled. My father had been in the dark until the day he died.

Peter grunted in reply, but the stare he gave me told me he didn’t one hundred percent believe me. I continued eating my food like I didn’t have a care in the world. Though that was a lie of epic proportions.

I hadn’t been able to get Gabriel De Luca’s brother out of my head since that night. Something happened when we fucked because when that orgasm hit me, it was like none I’d had before. As I screamed my utter ecstasy into the pillow, I could’ve sworn a lightning bolt went through my back to my chest. It had been more powerful than the energy that whipped around me as I jumped from my time to another and back.

It had left me shaken so much that after he finally fell asleep, I snuck out of his bed and ran out of that condo like my ass was on fire. Sure, I used the excuse to myself that I just wanted to get my rocks off after time traveling. I went so far as to tell myself it was nothing special, it was just fucking, yet I couldn’t convince myself that was true.

Which was why, a week later, I hadn’t mentioned him to my brother or tried to get his number. How would I explain to Leo that I needed to “travel” for my work and he couldn’t ever go with me? That was how my last relationship went to shit. He couldn’t accept that he wouldn’t be able to go with me and started accusing me of cheating on him when, in actuality, it turned out he was the one cheating on me.

“Gabriel and I were talking at his place that night.” I glanced up at my brother as he sipped his coffee and gazed at me—the picture of innocence. False innocence, maybe. My guard instantly came up.

“Mmm?” I hummed in a noncommittal reply before I took a bite of my omelet.

“We were thinking that maybe you and his brother Leo might get along,” he continued, and I choked on my food.

“What?” I croaked as I reached for my drink. My eyes were watering, and Liam had gotten to his feet, I’m assuming prepared to jump in to assist if I was choking. After waving him off, I coughed a few more times, then took a drink to clear my throat.

Liam’s phone rang, and he gestured to my brother, who nodded; then Liam left the room, speaking in low tones.

“I just thought that, well, you’re single… and his brother Leo is single. You’re around the same age and all,” he added as I tapped the corners of my mouth with my napkin. “And he’s not bad-looking.”

“Don’t,” I calmly warned before I got to my feet and smoothed my skirt down. “I don’t need your matchmaking. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go back thirteen years to get some stupid uncirculated coin for a client who has more money than brains.”

Ignoring my brother as he called out my name, I left the room and the building. I made my way down to Millennium Park, muttering to myself the entire time. No way was I going to date Leo De Luca. In fact, I had no intention of ever seeing him again. I didn’t like the way my body and mind still craved him a week later.

I’d vowed to never get involved with a man again. They were nothing but trouble. One and done—that was my motto. No ties, no repeats, no relationships. Period.

Stepping into my favorite little copse of trees, I removed my shoes and held them in one arm, withdrew my velvet drawstring bag from my purse, grabbed a pinch of fairy dust, and tossed it in the air. Without pause, I stepped into it and disappeared into the wild vortex of the portal.

* * *

“Fuck,” I muttered. My brother had me so flustered when I left earlier that I had allowed myself to be preoccupied. It caused me to be careless. Now I was out a hundred bucks for that poor kid’s phone—all for a coin that at best was worth six to seven hundred dollars.

When I’d handed that kid the money and he’d looked at me with those chocolate brown eyes, I had paused. A sense of déjà vu had sparked through me, and I’d wracked my brain trying to remember if I’d seen him in my travels.

Taking a deep breath, I tried to smooth my hair. My bun was completely demolished, so I took the band out and shook it out. There was an aching throb between my legs that begged to be relieved with Leo in between them. “Get yourself together, girl,” I whispered to myself.

Deep down, I knew it wasn’t my brother that had me flustered. It was this preoccupation with Leo De Luca that was bordering on obsession. Maybe, possibly, I might have accidentally done an internet search on him. He was four years younger than me, but he certainly hadn’t looked like it. Nor had he acted like it.

Leo might be the youngest of the De Lucas, but there was a hardness in his gaze that came with deep pain and loss. He carried the kind of pain that aged a person exponentially. I’d read about his twin being murdered and how it was speculated that his death had been a warning to their father, the head of the Sicilian mafia here in Chicago at the time. Now his oldest brother was the don.

They were all left extremely wealthy after their grandmother died and left billions of dollars to her beloved grandsons. None of them likely needed to actually work. Though neither did Peter and I now. Funny enough, other than that kind of thing, there wasn’t a lot that came up in a search for any of the De Lucas—just gossip-type shit.

As a notorious playboy, Leo had a lot of that.

People labeled him as a careless playboy more interested in partying and women than in doing anything productive with his life. The media had splashed his exploits all over the place without sharing anything of substance about him. None of them addressed that look in his eyes. None of them speculated how hard it must've been to lose his identical twin. None of them mentioned that it wasn’t until his brother died that his behaviors became wild.

I couldn’t imagine losing Peter—especially not like that.

I’d probably go off the rails too.

My heart broke for Leo at the same time that it fluttered at the thought of him. I’d had to stop myself from taking a little trip back in time to see the Leo that I’d found a single picture of—the studiously quiet intellectual. Someone had captured a candid photo of him when he was in college. He’d been in the library, with his study materials spread out around him. Wearing black-framed glasses, his expression had been focused and serious.

Maybe it wouldn’t hurt to see if he was up for a second go. A friends-with-benefits type relationship. Scratch an itch for both of us. He could be my outlet after I traveled. The more I thought about it, the more I wanted him. The fact that I’d just returned set aside, I wanted him. My entire body began to tingle with awareness as my nipples peaked as if it were the middle of winter.

Debating hard on the subject, I decided I would go to the high-rise that the De Lucas owned. I’d use my wiles to try to get up to his condo. If he was there, then I would fuck the hell out of him and be gone. If he wasn’t, I’d go home to my vibrator and a bottle of wine.

Mind made up, I slipped my shoes back on, straightened my jacket, and picked my way through the bushes and trees. Two steps from the clearing, a hand covered my mouth before I was immediately tugged back into the foliage. My arms were trapped under the steel band of my captor’s hold, leaving me helpless to fight him off. I tried to scream behind the hand, but it was so large it covered my nose too.

“Shhh… not a word,” the man’s voice whispered into my ear.

Unable to breathe, I was panicking. Tiny black dots spotted my vision before they spread and everything went dark.