Chapter 12
Enzo
The knock was quick, quiet, and urgent. I was on my feet before the sound finished echoing, already reaching for the door. I pulled it open without hesitation.
Serenity stood there.
For half a second, confusion set in. On the heels of that confusion came arousal.
She wore a long, silky nightgown that showcased her curves.
Those thin straps that rested against her shoulders and the way the fabric clung to her like the devil himself was behind it set my blood on fire.
Her hair fell in loose waves around her shoulders, and her nipples were unmistakably hard beneath the thin material. I thought she was here for me. For us.
Then I looked at her eyes.
Big and blue like usual, but they were also wide and alert. Filled with fear. Her lush mouth parted like she’d just finished a race, but then I heard it—the way she said my name. “Enzo—”
“What is it, Ren?”
She didn’t answer. Instead, she grabbed my wrist and pulled me down the hall before I could ask again. Her grip was tight and urgent, all business despite the way my eyes kept focusing on her gorgeous ass. There was no hesitation. No embarrassment. Just a grim determination.
Her room was dark, lit only by the moonlight that spilled through the window.
It smelled like her: clean and warm with just a hint of sensual femininity.
It was like being transported back to the past, and when I spotted her rumpled bedsheets, tossed back as if she’d exited her bed in a hurry, my throat went dry.
Ren wasn’t focused on those details, though. She tugged me so close to the window my hip hit the sill. “Listen.” She pointed to the sky just outside the window, one long finger to her lips.
I went completely still, and that’s when I heard it.
The low mechanical hum was steady and controlled, too fucking precise to be natural and too quiet at this time of night to be anything other than deliberate. My body turned to ice the way it always did when threats edged a little too close. “What the fuck is that?” I whispered.
She shook her head, leaning so close to the window I thought she might fall through it, and my hands went to her hips. “No idea,” she answered breathlessly.
I reached just past her to the red phone on her nightstand and picked it up. Seconds passed like hours until one of the guards picked it up. “What the fuck is this?”
There was a long pause, and then the voice was low and calm. “Drone, boss. Routine perimeter sweep.”
My shoulders lowered a fraction. “This late?” Were they trying to scare the fuck out of everyone?
“This is the best time for surveillance,” he replied in a serious tone. “If someone was watching you, this is the best time to get onto the property.”
I nodded even though he couldn’t see me. “Yeah, right. Thanks.”
“Sorry to alarm you, Boss.”
“No worry,” I assured him and then ended the call and placed the phone back onto the receiver, steeling myself before I looked at Ren again.
“Well?” she asked impatiently. “Tell me something, Enzo!”
“It’s our security drone, apparently. Routine security sweep.”
All the tension seemed to drain from her body instantly. Her shoulders dropped and her legs wobbled as a slow exhale escaped her. “Yeah. Okay. Good. That’s really good.” Her gaze was unfocused, and she kept nodding.
“Ren.” Her name came out in a sharp, clipped tone meant to get her attention. “Look at me.”
She kept shaking her head. “I’m fine, Enzo. Better than fine,” she insisted. “Just a bit of a roller coaster.”
My lips twitched. “You hate roller coasters.”
She pulled those full lips into her mouth, brows raised. “I used to hate roller coasters. For all you know, I could love them now. I could be a roller-coaster junkie.”
“Yep,” I agreed. “You could.” Another long pause settled between us as my hands slid up and down her chilled arms. “Do you love roller coasters now, Ren?”
Her nostrils flared, and I knew the answer before she voiced it. “No. I hate those damn death traps.”
A loud laugh exploded out of me.
“That’s not the point.”
“I know,” I assured her and pulled her closer until our bodies were flush together. It wasn’t a seductive hug, just a comforting gesture during a time of high stress. That was the goal, but there had never been a woman like Ren, at least not for me. “I miss hugging you, Ren.”
Her breath hitched, but she didn’t pull away. A shaky breath escaped, and her grip tightened imperceptibly around my waist. She said nothing, but the way she held me told me everything I needed to know.
She missed hugging me too.
“I know you feel it too,” I whispered into her hair, not expecting her to say anything.
A low breath stuttered out of her, hot and sharp against my chest. Still, she said nothing. But her hands began to move in slow strokes up and down my back.
I couldn’t pinpoint when it happened, but suddenly the air between us changed.
It grew thicker and more charged. I pulled back first to look at her, but an eternity passed before she pulled her face from my chest to look up at me, those big blue eyes dark and searching. For what, I had no fucking clue. “Ren.”
She licked her lips, and that was it, my control snapped.
My mouth slammed down against hers, savoring the taste of her mouth after too many fucking years.
She tasted sweet, as always, but the hint of red wine on her tongue made me deepen the kiss until she was bent over my arm, with one hand sliding under my shirt and the other fisting the fabric as if it was the only thing keeping her on solid ground.
A soft moan escaped when one hand slid down her back to grip her ass. My whole fucking body released a shudder. She was still so soft, so lush, and so beautiful I wanted to push her down onto her bed and show her all the ways I’d dreamt of her over the years.
But her tongue slid along mine, and it was all I could focus on—the taste of her on my tongue and the feel of her under my palms. She still tasted exactly how I remembered, and it took every ounce of willpower to keep my hands on her beautiful, round ass.
The kiss was never-ending. It was a brutal reminder of how much I once loved this woman, of how intoxicated she’d always made me. Dizzy with lust, wild with need, and insatiable in my desire for her. The longer the kiss went on, the more intense it became. The more it consumed me.
Fully.
Completely.
Fucking totally.
Ren had once been my everything, and this kiss proved that neither time nor distance had changed that. Everything made sense when she was at my side. Or under my touch. Her mouth moved against mine like she was also remembering exactly how perfectly we’d always fit together.
It was like no time at all had passed.
Except that a lot of fucking time had passed, and that was the reason I was here in Lucky. That was the reason she was here in my house. Caring for Matteo.
As if she could read my thoughts, it was Ren who pulled back first. Her eyes were wide, her lips were swollen, and her breaths came out in short, choppy gasps. She lifted her fingertips to her mouth in shock even before she locked her gaze with mine.
I leaned in again but only enough to let her feel the heat of me without actually touching her because I knew if I touched her again, that silky nightgown would end up in shreds on the floor.
“What was—” she started and covered her lips again, eyes sliding closed as if she was reliving the kiss already. Then she took a deep breath and tried again. “What was that?”
I smiled. “That,” I said in a low, rough voice, “was inevitable.”
She swallowed and licked her lips, still watching my face as I watched her nipples, stiff peaks behind the silk.
We stared at each other for a long time, just watching and breathing heavily, both of us in shock. It was crazy that we still had the same chemistry, that things were still so explosive between us after almost two decades. It shouldn’t have been a shock, but it was.
“Enzo,” she sighed.
I knew exactly how she felt because it still pulsed through me.
I wanted her. Badly. So fucking bad that I knew if I didn’t leave now, I wouldn’t leave until morning.
“Ren,” I growled, taking a step back. And then another and another until I was at her door.
“Fuck,” I muttered before turning on my heel and leaving her room like a goddamn thief in the night.
Sleep was impossible; I knew that after ten minutes, so I reached for my laptop, fired it up, and got back to work. A massive criminal empire didn’t run itself, and just because I wasn’t in California to keep an eye on things didn’t mean I could let shit slip.
That was how the enemies got in and took what was yours.
Not on my fucking watch.
I started with emails because those fucking things seemed to multiply faster than anything.
There were the usual messages from vendors, professional acquaintances, people looking to get their booze inside my clubs and restaurants—all kinds of shit.
But it was a message from an unknown sender with no subject line that got my attention.
It was sent a few minutes ago. In the middle of the night.
When I opened it, my blood ran cold. It was a photo, taken from a close distance. The subject was clearly smiling at the photographer, which only added another hundred degrees to my anger.
It wasn’t Matteo this time. It was my niece, Ella.
I picked up the phone and dialed Luca. “Yeah?”
“We need to pull Thorn in,” I said abruptly, talking about the hacker we often did business with.
The dude was shady as fuck, but he was the best I’d worked with, and he was discreet.
“I just sent you an email that I received a few minutes ago.” I waited, and when he let out a muttered curse, I knew he’d seen it.
“I’ll pull in Thorn right away. How are you guys holding up?”
My mind immediately went to Ren, and I smiled. “Not as terrible as I expected, but it’s hard being away from everything.” The truth was I wasn’t sure how easy it would be to leave Lucky—okay, to leave Ren—once it was safe to do so.
“How’s Serenity?” he asked, a teasing smile in his tone.
“Fuck off,” I replied, half-laughing as I ended the call.