FIFTEEN
Max
W hen we get home from the arena, I’m ravenously hungry. I only picked at my dinner before the game, too distracted and worked up. I should be sick to my stomach. But games burn thousands of calories.
I toss my duffle on the dining table and hike into my kitchen to look in the fridge. “Damn, nothing but leftovers.” I think about who will deliver at almost midnight.
“Hungry?” Luca asks.
“Yep,” I say, checking the pantry and snagging a box of instant mac and cheese.
Frowning, Luca tosses his suit jacket onto a chair next to my duffel. Something about the way he rolls up his sleeves, revealing thick, tattooed forearms, tightens my throat. The chaos of colors and shapes etched into his skin suggests his entire body might be covered.
I find that sexy as hell. He’s the sexiest man I’ve ever laid eyes on.
Striding into the kitchen, he takes the box from me. “I cannot in good conscience allow you to eat that in my presence.”
“Ordinarily, I would eat something more nutritious, but it’s late.”
With a level of comfort that floors me, he moves around the kitchen, in and out of my walk-in pantry, and then riffles through my fridge.
A few moments later, he’s sautéing fresh cherry tomatoes in garlic and basil on my stove. I’m too shocked and hungry to complain. When that smell hits me, I’m dying for whatever the hell he’s making.
With pasta now cooking in boiling water, I head to my wine cabinet. There I choose a bottle of red and open it.
“Wine?” I pour, then backtrack. “Oh right, you don’t drink. Sorry.”
“I’m used to it.”
“Wine isn’t really drinking, though,” I say after a hearty sip. “It’s just fermented grapes.”
“And vodka is just potatoes. Whiskey is just malted barley,” he says, briskly stirring the cooked tomatoes.
The guy’s smart. Articulate. Gorgeous. And can cook.
I sip my wine, unable to stop staring at his body. His white dress shirt tucked into flat-front trousers that hug his ass captures my attention.
Luca plates the food and brings me the pepper grinder, offering to season the food like a well-trained waiter.
“I got it.” I take it from him and clutch his arm, the heat of his skin, the solid feel of his muscles sends a blast of lust through me. “You don’t need to take care of me like this.”
“I’m trying to get on your good side.” He glances down at my hand on his arm. “If you like me, you won’t fight me.”
His words sound dirty, but that’s my dirty mind that won’t stop going a million miles an hour when I’m around him.
“Wow, this is really good,” I say after I wolf down several forkfuls. “What about you? You hungry?”
“Not really.”
Embarrassed at my near empty plate, I push it toward him. “Shit. Finish this. ”
“You eat.” He pushes it back. “I’ll grab something after I clean up.”
“Leave it for Gilda.” I point to the sink. “Makes her feel like she’s being paid for something.”
“I’ll rinse everything.” Luca grabs the sautéing pan, but I stop him.
“Please, Luc, eat something.”
“You need it more than me.”
“I’m full,” I say, ignoring how I want to be full of his cock. And startled these feelings are flowing so freely. Twirling the pasta on a fork, I hold it to him. “Please. Eat.”
He quirks a brow and takes the fork. “I got it.”
I watch him slide the food from the fork tines into his open mouth past full lips. Something glints in his mouth. Oh my God. His tongue is pierced.
Damn that’s hot.
Luca’s eyes flutter, and I wonder if that’s how he’ll react when my cock slides into his mouth. How will that piercing feel when it hits the sensitive underside of my shaft?
When?
Whoa, is hooking up with this guy a foregone conclusion?
His groan doesn’t help.
“Good, huh?” I ask to get out of my head. “You made it.”
“I learned to cook.” He puts down the fork, but I slide the bowl in front of him to finish. Eating more, he continues, “My wife didn’t cook, and we didn’t have a chef.”
“You have to elaborate. You’ve been so cryptic.”
Luca blows out a breath. “What I’m about to tell you can’t leave this penthouse. Not yet.”
Shivers run down my spine, but my tolerance is so low at this point. “Hit me.”
“A man named Ivan Belova bought Richmond, that’s public knowledge.” Looking me right in the eye, he says, “What no one else knows is, my wife was Ivan Belova’s sister. Belova runs the Chicago Bratva. That’s the Russian mafia .”
Alarm bells go off in my head. There’s so much there to unpack, and now with a full stomach, I’m ready to vomit. Luca knows what my stalkers want because he used to be one of those guys sent to hurt people.
Fuck.
“Did they hurt me to get to you?” But as I say the words, they sound ridiculous and self-centered of me.
Luca guffaws. “They don’t know where I am, and Belova would never think to look for me in Connecticut as a security agent for a hockey team.” His dark eyes draw me in. “My name’s not really Luca Sheppard. And no one else on the team knows this. Not even Bronwin. I’m trusting you, Max.”
“How?” I shudder. “How can you just have a new name?”
“A hacker in the Manhattan Italian Mafia gave me a new identity.”
“What’s your real name?” This unsettles me.
“No.” He swears under his breath. “I’m not putting that information in your head. Experts know when people are lying.”
“That’s terrifying. The Russian mafia ?”
He nods. “And I doubt Richmond will be the only team bought by a crime syndicate.”
“Hockey teams cost millions of dollars.”
“Belova and other bosses have billions .”
“Yet you had to cook for his sister?” I fold my arms. “What did you do for Belova?”
“Kill people,” he deadpans, finishing the pasta .
“Jesus.” My breath whooshes from my lungs. “Don’t hold back or beat around the bush.”
“I was third in line on the enforcer team. Hold your praise, it was a nice title, but a shit job.”
“What happened?” I swallow. “After your wife died?”
“A month after the accident, Belova sent me to Boston on a hit with mercenaries. More families are using them. They’re cheap, and great for one-and-done jobs. They usually get paid through a third party. That’s how I identified the shell company that paid the broad who lured you to the hotel. Mercs are given minimal instructions. They didn’t know me or my relationship to Belova. The job was simple, until we were ambushed, and they all died.”
“All of them? How many?”
“Eight. I was set up. The hit was on me, not our target, who didn’t exist.” He stares at the wine, his jaw tensing.
“I can’t even imagine.”
“Belova wanted to cleanse my family name. But they trained me well. I shot my way out and laid low.”
If working for a professional hockey team counts.
“How did you know about the hit and that you were the target?” I ask, stunned.
“One guy on the team gave a deathbed confession as he bled out. That I was set up. He’d been told the whole operation. That meant Belova planned to kill them. These mercs didn’t realize that Belova plays dirty like that.”
Play dirty... He’d said that before. He wasn’t kidding. Suddenly his being assigned to protect me doesn’t sound so excessive.
With the dish empty, Luca takes it and rinses it out. Despite suggesting he leave it for Gilda, he cleans up the entire meal and loads the dishwasher .
“Is Belova the reason you’re not renewing your contract?” I turn and face him.
He studies me with steady scrutiny. “In a way. I can’t risk him figuring out where I am. It’s not fair to bring that heat on the team. I had a good run. Five years. Now it’s time to move on.”
“Where?”
He smirks. “Find another mafia house, a family, a brotherhood. For protection. Loyal bosses punish the death of their capos and soldiers with a vengeance. If the right don takes me, I won’t have to worry about Belova. Even if he finds me.”
“You have a house in mind?” I bring the goblet to my mouth, surprised how easily I adapt to the lingo.
He stares at my lips like he’s wondering how the wine tastes on them, and I’m warmed by the thought. “I do. In Manhattan.”
The city that never sleeps.
I’d been tempted to head down to the city. I’d heard about all the sex clubs on that tiny island. Figured it’d be easy to find one and get my urges satisfied by the right male who has no idea who I am, guys I’ll never see again.
Luca satisfies one of those two elements. As soon as the season is over, I’ll never see him again. It strikes me how much that bothers me. But also drives my desire to get this man into my bed. Just for one night. Get it out of my system. Get him out of my system.
“In your professional experience, is this threat against me long-term?” I ask to refocus on my safety.
“I can’t say. Are you thinking of retiring?”
I stiffen, shocked at how well he can see right through me. I’m not bouncing back from injuries like I used to. “How old do you think I am?” I snap.
Luca spits out my birthday with a teasing grin. He knows exactly how old I am .
“How old are you?” I ask, because it’s not a crime punishable by death to ask a dude his age.
“I was twenty-seven when I married Lia, that was ten years ago.” Odd how he calculates his age based on that one event. But he’d said he didn’t want to marry her.
Yet, they were married five years and had a son.
“As far as Richmond goes, if the new owner thinks hurting me creates a path for his team to win the finals, he’s in for a battle. No one is chasing me from the only team I ever played for.”
It’s been a personal goal to stick with this one team. See my name and number on a jersey high up in the rafters. It’s part of the criteria. I can only have ever been a Crusher.
Luca smiles. “I definitely prefer to guard a fighter. Just not a reckless one.”
“No problem there.” I smile back, and we’re caught in a moment. Clearing my throat, I ask, “But if you leave at the end of the season, what happens to me and my protection after you’re gone?”
“The security division will reassess the threat and decide if you need protection during the off season and next year.”
That sets me back. I’m only letting them put a guard on my ass 24/7 now because the playoffs are in a couple of weeks. I refuse to live like this forever.
I won’t have a bodyguard for the rest of my career. Especially if it won’t be Luca, or whatever his real name is. The idea of another side of Luca, under a different name, living in the shadows amongst killers in Manhattan leads to a rock-hard boner.
Great.
My killer bodyguard stands in my kitchen figuring out the ice machine on my fridge. I’m not even the least bit afraid of him. In fact, all I’m focused on is how hot his ass looks in those trousers. Is he faking the confusion so he can stand there and let me drink in his amazing body?
“I got it.” I cross the room and take the glass from him, our fingers brushing.
The spark of electricity and the sudden shock of lust has me lurching back. The glass heads for the floor, ready to shatter.
Luca intercepts it with his foot, kicks it upward, and snags it midair.
“Whoa.” I breathe in relief, not wanting to clean up glass at one in the morning.
“Cat-like reflexes,” Luca boasts. “You develop them by sneaking into someone’s house to kill them in the middle of the night.”
Okay, now I’m a little afraid.
“Shit.”
“Don’t worry.” He hands me the glass.
“Cubes or crushed?” I ask.
“Crushed, always crushed,” he says with a smile.
I laugh. “Because you work for the Crushers?”
“Sure, that’s the reason.” He takes the ice water from me. “Get some sleep, Max Ryan. I’ll lock the doors and arm the security system.”
My bodyguard struts past me, and his shadow dances on the far wall before it cuts out when he turns for the control room.
Crush.
Yeah, I get it.