Chapter 5 Treasure #2
Arms banded around her as her center of gravity was lost, her vision becoming swallowed up by a striking shade of lilac-blue that was, it turned out, quite soft.
It glided against her skin like the gentlest touch.
Very much unlike the hard, scraping ground suddenly at her back.
Her elbow burned, stinging in a bizarrely settling way, and Reiko sucked in a breath.
Guerra was above her, so close her entire body lit up the moment she realized it.
They were chest-to-chest. He had an arm tucked behind her head, another around her back, in a near crushing grip.
Their legs were intimately tangled. Given their natural size difference, she was surely lost beneath him as far as anyone else was concerned.
She shouldn’t have liked that. She shouldn’t have liked any of it.
Wait, the gun!
His eyes crinkled with warmth as if he’d read her mind. “We’re going to have to talk about that, beautiful,” he said, his voice a little rough. “But for now, I appreciate the gesture.”
Reiko blinked, tears stinging her eyes and blurring her vision as the fear returned in a rush. “What? Are you—”
“Christ,” he muttered. Then he lowered his head and the next thing she knew, his tongue was trailing up the swell of her cheek.
“Don’t you cry for me. No one deserves these tears.
” He murmured the words against her skin as he tilted his head and repeated the process of licking her escaped tears off her skin.
She had officially lost the ability to comprehend everything spiraling through her.
All she could do was latch on to the pieces she recognized—which apparently meant literally latching on to him, as her fingers found and curled into more fabric.
Fabric that was not her own for once. “You,” she gasped, “you’re not hurt? ”
She felt him smile against her skin before he lifted his head just enough for her to see it. “I think I lost three years off my life when you jumped off that bench. Does that count?”
Reiko swatted at him without thinking. “Don’t tease me!”
He laughed and pulled them both to their feet with an ease that ought to have concerned her.
All she could think about, though, was the strength of the arm that re-settled around her waist and kept her close.
His other hand lifted, brushing hair from her face.
“I am sorry about tackling you so roughly,” he finally said. “Are you hurt?”
She blinked.
“Sorry to interrupt, Boss,” Armando said before she could process Guerra’s words. “We should be leaving.”
Leaving? Reiko blinked and finally tore her focus from the confusing, enthralling man who hadn’t loosened his grip of her.
“What happened to the angry man? Those explosions were gunshots, weren’t they?
Don’t we have to wait for police?” She suddenly remembered Armando’s gun, and visibly mounting agitation, and snapped her eyes up to him.
Of course, he still refused to look at her.
She’d noticed that about him. “What about you? Were you shooting, too?”
Armando’s jaw jumped and he kept his stare affixed beyond them. “Boss.”
Guerra chuckled and gave her a squeeze. “Nico pulled a gun on me. My security fired back. We’re leaving because I no longer consider us safe here.
I’ll talk to the police later if they have any questions about that, but it’s nothing to worry about.
” He guided her focus back to him. “And no, beautiful. I wasn’t shot.
No one expected my woman to ninja-tackle me out of the way so well. ”
She flushed. “Please don’t describe it like that when you’re interviewed by police.
” She swallowed hard at the logical follow-through of her own words.
“I’m going to have to be interviewed, too, aren’t I?
” She had no reason to dread the thought, really.
She simply had never had good experiences with emergency services, of whom law enforcement qualified in her mind.
Guerra turned them both away, keeping her from seeing past him in the direction of where Nico had previously been. She suspected that was intentional. “I don’t see any reason for that,” he said calmly.
Reiko arched a brow at him. “I was right there when it all happened.” She refused to repeat his ninja comment.
He smiled at her, but this time it looked almost apologetic. “And I’m sorry for that, beautiful. You never should have been exposed to that.”
Reiko shook her head. “That isn’t what I meant.
” She dropped his stare in an effort to keep her thoughts organized, suddenly and stupidly remembering how he’d licked her tears off her face only minutes earlier.
This is not the time to be thinking about that sort of thing!
It took her another moment to realize they were walking with their arms around each other.
Her fingers were still twisted in his shirt.
She pulled her hands away quickly, suddenly fearing she’d crossed too many boundaries.
Though whether those boundaries were hers or his, she was less sure.
She felt more than a little frazzled.
Guerra made a sound like a complaint, then cut himself off and pulled them to an abrupt stop. He caught her wrist and turned her toward him, at an angle so he could extend her arm. For once, he wore a scowl. “You’re bleeding.”
Santino was fucking pissed. Anger was the only feeling stronger than arousal in the moment, which was only unusual in the intensity of the latter.
Having Reiko’s body crashing against his, rolling with his, and ultimately pinned beneath his had done terrible things to his resolve.
It’d been all he could do to keep from taking advantage of their position while he used the brief active shooter situation as an excuse to shield her with his body.
She was the perfect size. Small enough to disappear beneath him, and still large enough to not feel like a fragile doll he could so easily break.
He suspected she was insecure about her curves, given the way she always dressed, but he would show her.
He would teach her. And she would come to understand that the only thing she had to be embarrassed about was ever having been embarrassed about herself in the first place.
Until he could indulge that fantasy, though, he had to focus on his anger.
For that reason—and only for that reason—the sight of blood on Reiko’s otherwise flawless skin was good.
It was grounding. It helped him focus on the rage.
The blood was minimal. Nonno had brushed him off with worse scrapes as a boy. The wound wasn’t the point. It was the goddamn principle.
One of Santino’s own made men had not only interrupted his day, but had gone so far as to threaten him with a gun and ultimately drawn his woman’s blood.
He’d forced Santino’s security to shoot him dead in the city zoo—a fact his friends on the legal side of things were going to grumble about.
Debatably worst of all, however, were Nico’s last words.
Because so far as Santino knew, there was no such thing as a formalized Segreti family.
The Segretis were his own blood. Nonno’s oldest daughter had married a man by that name, a man who’d died some two decades earlier.
Zia Lorenza was sick, and too weak to even plot a rebellion.
Not that Santino could picture her doing such a thing.
She’d always been loyal to her father. But her son was another story.
Santino was going to have to have a much harder talk with Danilo, very soon.
Not today. Not before Reiko left his side, at least.
He’d promised Reiko his day, and unless the goddamn city caught fire, he was going to keep that promise.
Actually, if the city literally caught fire, he’d probably glue her to his side at that point just to keep her comparatively safe.
Regardless, it was barely time for lunch.
And she’d nearly fucking cried when he’d promised not to abandon her, so he wasn’t going to put her through whatever trauma was associated with that.
She was finally opening up to him. He wasn’t about to let Nico’s psychotic break ruin their progress.
Reiko shifted, pulling a bit on her arm as if to reclaim it from his grasp. “I’m sure it’s fine. It only stings a little.”
Santino raked his gaze over her again, checking one more time for signs of injury. He’d tried to shield her from the impact, but the angle and the urgency hadn’t allowed for him to be gentle with it. As the scrape on her elbow proved.
He exhaled, adjusted his grip so that he held her hand normally, and turned his head partially over his shoulder. “I want her arm bandaged up as soon as we get to the car. If this gets infected, it’s your fucking head.”
Fair? Not really.
Motivational? Every fucking time.
“Yes, Boss.”
Reiko tilted her head up to him with an adorably arched brow. It was the fourth time she’d made the expression that day. He loved that she was letting herself be more expressive with him. “That seems dramatic. It just needs to be washed.”
Santino laced their fingers and guided them down the walking path. “You’ll learn, beautiful. I won’t take risks with your health.”
She didn’t argue, and instead her hand held tighter to his. By the time they reached the parking lot, she was leaning into him, as if seeking something from him.
Santino wasn’t sure if it was a sign her adrenaline was crashing or if she’d hit her head despite his best efforts, so he turned his gaze enough to catch Armando’s eye and jerked his chin toward the waiting SUV. They were still several paces back.
Armando, of course, held his position and sent the driver—doubling as security—running ahead.
That was fine. It still got the job done.
The back door was open and the supplies were laid out and waiting by the time the three of them reached the vehicle.
Armando adjusted to cover their exposed flank without instruction.