Page 36 of Veiled Amor

Where the fuck would he start?

“Santiago is gone.” She stated quietly. He didn’t want her upset, not because of him or his brother. But he realized his actions all this time had contributed to her sadness. It wasn’t all Nicholas’ doing. He was just as culpable.

“Lucia—”

“I’m not wearing his ring,” she interrupted, showing him her empty hand. Unconsciously, it was one of the first things he’d noticed. “I haven’t almost from the start.”

Frowning, he rubbed at the back of his neck. “Why haven’t you?”

“You never asked.”

He hadn’t asked a lot of things because he couldn’t fucking take the answers.

“I’m going for a walk, I’ll stay within the boundaries. But I mean what I say, Capone. I’m grateful for seeing you again because I think it’s shown us both we’re ready to move on from what we’ve never been able to confront.”

And then he let her walk out because all he had in him were words begging her to stay.

After she’d gone, he paced around like a caged animal. Every instinct in him was to go after her, tell her everything he was thinking.

Helping had turned out to be harder than he thought. He didn’t hesitate when she’d asked him, using the excuse to be around her again. A Louisiana prospect could have collected her easily. Capone wanted to be near her. But it was no good for her, was it? Now it sounded like she wanted…neededa clean break from him if he couldn’t at least talk about things.

Once he calmed down, he headed out into the main area to find booze.

After a shot of El Rayo Plata tequila, he looked to the door again, hoping to see her walking through it.

He wanted to make up.

Only, in his way, it involved a bedroom, messy sheets, and wet screams.

Though he wasn’t a fancy fucker, he could make it up to her without a bed or sheets. The floor and his imagination would do fine.

He waited.

And waited.

Stalking the doorway, resisting the urge to find her.

This chapter had more hangarounds than Colorado. Women approached, but his only interest was for the woman coming through the doorway, blowing in her cupped hands. He was up from the stool, ignoring the conversation going on around him. Her gaze came over as if she’d been searching for him. She didn’t look happy to see him. Capone grinned. He liked her fiery. But he didn’t have the right to drown her in his feelings just because he couldn’t keep it reeled in.

She didn’t belong to him.

And that was a hard fucking taco to swallow.

The bravado was on her face when she didn’t hesitate walking up to him.

“It’s freaking cold,” she puffed, still breathing into her hands. Without thinking, he took them into his to rub them. “What you said earlier. That isn’t happening, Lucia. I’m here now, you may not want me to be, but I am,sí? You can kick my ass to the curb once I know you’re not gonna be sold into fucking slavery.”

Lucia’s expression made him want to laugh. There was a loosening in his chest when he got close enough to smell her. Fucking animal that he was, felt at ease by her fragrance.

How hadn’t he realized she had a panther in her petite body? She looked like she wanted to claw him up, and the dirty part of him would welcome it.

He recalled a time when he walked away from her bed full of scratch marks. He couldn’t look at himself in the mirror for days until they healed because the welts made him harder than stone.

Shaking from the memory before he did something stupid by asking her to climb him and rub her pussy on his stomach, he continued warming her hands.

“It wasn’t slavery,” she informed, “the Texan wanted a docile wife.”

“Docile? You? Does your father even know you?”