[English] The Viper

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She screamed when another orgasm ripped through her body, and this time she took Marcos down with her. He gripped her ass, holding her tightly against him as he ****ed her harder, broken phrases bursting out of him. She didn’t need to speak Spanish to know they were vulgar, but she liked him just like this, wild and feral for her.

When it was over, Katie started to notice little things, like the feel of his sweaty skin against hers and the rain misting in past the open door cooling their fevered bodies. His weight over her was almost too much, but she was so relaxed she could barely think to complain. Instead she hugged him tighter, with her arms and legs, just completely wrapping herself around him, desperate to hold him close for as long as possible.

As crazy as it was, in that one peaceful moment, with his heavy breath stirring the fine hairs at the nape of her neck, she truly understood what a powerful man she had in her arms. He’d survived more than most would, and he walked through this life with a constant veil of ferocity because of it. She knew without asking that few saw anything else but the hard, bitter shell he had built around himself out of necessity and the fact that he was willing to show her his kind side made it all the more intoxicating.

“Thank you,” she whispered into the shuddering stillness.

He placed a kiss at the soft spot beneath her ear and then caressed her hair, brushing it back from where it was sticking to her neck. Then he pushed up and looked down at her, his gaze tender and contemplative.

“You okay?” he asked.

She nodded, and then bit her lip, before she gave him a shy smile. “That was impressive, but I can’t believe you admitted to doing that.” She could feel the blush burning her cheeks as she gestured down between them when he gave her a look of confusion. “Before. In your car. That’s scandalous.”

“You mean the jerking off?” He frowned. “Really?”

“Yeah.” Her smile was wide and pleased as she said it, because she enjoyed every minute of being with him. “I just never heard someone talk like you do. I didn’t know a man could be so crass and still so…s-***y. It’s a unique combination.” She shrugged and looked away. “I like it. A lot.”

He paused, and she could sense a tension coming off him, making her wish she hadn’t said anything. He cupped her cheek, his palm rough against her sensitive skin as he swept a thumb over her bottom lip pensively. Even with the fresh surge of embarrassment, she shuddered from the simple caress.

“Mierda.” He groaned and then leaned down and pressed his forehead against hers. “I’m sorry, cariño.”

“Why?” She ran her fingers over the ridges of his back muscles because she couldn’t help herself, and she found herself wondering what sort of inked decorations covered the warm skin under her fingers. “I feel amazing. This is probably the best I’ve felt—ever.”

“This is the best it’s ever been for you?” Marcos sounded anguished. “Right here on the floor?”

“Yeah.” She hugged him tighter, wanting to ease whatever was upsetting him. “And before, with your mouth and your fingers. I’ve never—” She shook her head, still reeling. “I didn’t know something could feel that incredible.”

“No.” He pulled away, still glaring down at her. “Don’t be nice to me. I ****ed you on the floor, Katie. I’m the pendejo.” He rubbed a hand over his face and corrected himself, “A-asshole.”

“I don’t think you’re an asshole,” she said in a rush, hating that he wasn’t getting it. “You don’t understand. Grayson would’ve never done it on the floor. We had to lay a towel down just to do it on the bed.” She ran a hand over his cheek. “I love this. I promise. I know it sounds insane, but the floor is the best place in the world as far as I’m concerned. I don’t even care that the door is still open. I love that it’s open. I love that I stop thinking when I’m with you.” She touched his lips that were swollen from their kisses. “Do you understand?”

He was quiet for a long time, as if contemplating her rushed confession. Then he grabbed her hand and kissed the inside of her wrist and asked, “You wanna break in the rest of the house?”

“Yes.” She couldn’t hide her excitement even if she wanted to. “I would love to.”

She leaned up and kissed him again, feeling his smile against her lips, and she knew why he was grinning like that.

He understood perfectly.

Chapter Nine

There were sirens wailing far in the distance, making Marcos’s heart drop on instinct. The cars were long gone, and he tossed his gun into the garbage can at the house closest to him.

Then he started running back home, barefoot and bare-chested. He hadn’t realized how far he’d chased the cars until he had to make the trek back. A part of him didn’t want to go back. He didn’t want to find out what he’d left behind when he ran out of the house into a barrage of bullets. Those mother****ers had been shooting at his house! Where his family lived! His gun had been on his dresser. He simply grabbed it and ran out the door and into the gunfire without thinking about anything but killing them.

He should have never made it two blocks over without even a scratch.

The door was still open the way he left it. The windows were shattered. He stepped over bullets that littered the driveway, but he didn’t really see any of it. There were people out of their homes, but the house still looked ominous and unattended to, making it obvious they were all too terrified to help, and he knew why. The anger and fury was almost pulsing off the walls, and the rage had a sound to it. Chuito’s sobbing, harsh and broken with a pleading that sounded foreign to Marcos’s ears.

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Chuito begged for nothing—until now.

Marcos ran up the steps and found Chuito on the floor in the living room. He’d expected him to be the one shot, and for a moment, Marcos wasn’t sure he wasn’t.

“Help me fix him,” Chuito was begging in Spanish as he held Juan cradled in his arms. There was so much blood. It was spread out in a wide, crimson pool around the two of them. The phone Chuito was holding to his ear was coated in it. His hand was shaking. “It won’t stop. Help me make it stop. Help me save him.”

Marcos’s heart felt like it had just dropped into his stomach.

It wasn’t Chuito dying.

It was Juan.

Chuito looked up at him, tears streaming down his face. “I’m sorry, Marc.”

He was sorry. Juan was lying there dying, and Chuito was apologizing to him— Why?

Then Marcos saw her lying across the couch. Saw the blood soaking her dress. He saw the wide, set look in her dark eyes, and he knew. He knew why Chuito wasn’t doing anything to save the aunt who had been a second mother to him since the day he was born. It wasn’t callousness or preference for Juan to be the one to live.

Marcos’s mother was already dead.

He’d seen enough death in his seventeen years to know there was nothing in the world that could save her.

It was a weird survival mechanism that allowed him to abandon his dead mother like Chuito had and rush up to his cousins instead. Juan couldn’t die. He just couldn’t. There wasn’t a God in the universe that would leave the two of them completely unscathed and allow not just his mother but Juan to die too. He couldn’t look at his Aunt Sofia when she got home from work and tell her that her youngest son was gone. He yanked the phone out of Chuito’s hand, falling down in the blood and feeling it soak up into his jeans as he shouted, “Tell me what to do!”

“Help is coming,” the 911 operator responded in Spanish, making Marcos realized he was speaking it too. “He just needs to keep applying pressure and—”

Chuito screamed, and then lifted his head to look at Marcos. “He stopped breathing! He’s not breathing!”

* * * *

Marcos jerked awake. His body was coated in a cold sweat, and he was gasping for air, still trapped in the hellish place where every memory was so real and bone-deep it felt like it had just happened rather than something that went down eight years ago. He looked at his arm, staring at the seven blood drops inked into the body of the snake of his Los Corredores tattoo, just to reassure himself he’d gotten revenge.

But it wasn’t helping. The dream had been too real this time.

He put a hand over his eyes when he noticed the burn. He blinked to fight it as he sat there in a bed that had a soft, feather-down blanket that could only belong to a woman. He dropped his hand, staring at the pale pink paisley design, feeling seventeen again.

Coño, how many girls’ bedrooms did he hide in after that night? If he wasn’t fighting, he was ****ing to escape the demons. Yet, even as he fought to clear his head he knew this wasn’t just any girl’s bedroom.

He looked to Katie, who was still sleeping deeply. Eyelashes like half moons on her pale skin. Her long curly hair spread out around her. He reached out and picked up a strand of it, finding it as silky in his fingers as it had been the night before.

She looked so peaceful, and he wondered what it was like to sleep like that. The barest hint of a smile tugged at her lips, and he imagined she was having nice dreams. For some reason, that made him feel better. He caressed her cheek, and she let out a little moan, reminding him of the way she’d sounded the night before. His **** jerked, which was nothing short of miracle when he was still fighting the nightmares of his past.

She turned on her side, snuggling into her pink pillow, in her pink sheets, looking so beautiful his chest hurt from it. He wanted to slip beneath the blanket and do things to her that made that pale skin of hers as rosy as everything else in the room, but he held back. They’d done it several times too many before they finally gave in to exhaustion. Against the kitchen table. On the couch. In the shower. Everywhere except the bed. The only thing they’d done in the bedroom was sleep, and he wanted to break it in, but he knew she was likely sore. Hell, he was sore, and it hadn’t been two years since he’d done it.

Marcos tugged the blanket down just enough to see the slope of her bare tits. He admired them for a long moment, but then the urge to touch got a little too much, and he rolled out of bed and went on a search for his clothes instead.

They were on the floor by the door where he’d pulled them off in a mad rush last night. He picked his up, finding them still wet from the rain, well on their way to smelling musty. His underwear was clean enough, but the rest needed to be washed. He picked up hers too, before he headed toward the washer. There were other clothes in the laundry room, so he sorted through them, finding more darks, and did a full load of laundry because he could hear his mother’s voice from the past.

“Ay, chico, water costs money.”

Hopefully Katie wasn’t one of those women who was weird about guys touching their dirty clothes. He doubted it. She was pretty easygoing. He leaned back against the washer after he was done and looked to his phone that he’d pulled out of his jeans, finding a text message from Chuito.

3:12 a.m.

Where the **** are you?

Marcos wondered if that was how long the gringa was in his room before Chuito got wise and figured out Marcos had bolted.

He thought of saying something smart about taking off after Chuito’s church girlfriend nearly blinded him with her virginal, see-through nightgown, but that was a little too juvenile, and it gave the impression that Marcos was jealous of him, which he wasn’t. Certainly not of the skinny gringa when he had a real woman wrapped up in pink sheets, still rosy from ****ing him. And who gave a **** if Chuito had two championship belts and several million bucks in the bank and no ****ing criminal record? He didn’t care that his cousin had actually made himself into a man who deserved a woman like Katie.

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Okay, maybe Marcos was a little jealous of the last part, but that wasn’t Chuito’s fault. What did it matter if Chuito was playing whatever the hell kind of game he was playing with his neighbor?

He finally settled on texting him the truth.

At Katie’s.

’Cause Marcos didn’t play games.

Chuito texted him back right away, even though it was early for both of them.

WTF, Marc! I thought you were going home.

Marcos snorted.

Love you too, pendejo.

His phone rang a second later, but he sent it to voice mail. Chuito sent another text rather than leave a message.

Did you **** her?

He grinned as he replied.

No, I took a leaf out of your book. We just talked all night.

His phone rang again, and again he sent it to voice mail. The next text wasn’t friendly at all.

****. You.

Marcos decided sarcastic and juvenile sounded like fun after all.

Why don’t you ask the skinny gringa to help you out with the anger-management issues? She seemed willing last night.

He scowled when he saw Chuito’s response.

Because I think before I do dumb ****.

Maybe it was the dream, but Marcos started to read more into the texts. Chuito had always been more levelheaded than him, more prone to think before leaping. Marcos had run out of the house that night into a barrage of bullets, hoping to kill the mother****ers trying to hurt his family. Chuito had the foresight to stay behind and try to protect everyone in the house.

It hadn’t worked out for either of them.

The regret of it all was starting to wear on him. Maybe that was the difference between them. Marcos just didn’t have anything else. He needed Katie, and he wanted to convey that to his cousin, who had obviously succeeded in forgetting where he came from. Marcos couldn’t even fault him for it. He was jealous, but he sure as hell didn’t blame him as he typed.

That’s right, muchacho. We both know it’ll be me taking the next bullet. Might as well enjoy the ride.

He looked up to see Katie standing in the kitchen, wearing a nightshirt she’d obviously slipped on when she got out of bed. She frowned when his phone started ringing in his hand. “Are you going to answer it?”

Marcos looked at the screen, seeing it was Chuito, and shook his head. “No, it’s just—” He turned off the ringer and went to put it in his pocket before he realized he was standing there in his underwear. “It’s nothing. Old bull****.” He slipped it into the waistband of his boxer briefs as he gave her his full attention. “Did you sleep good, chica?”

She nodded, giving him a sleepy smile, looking properly disheveled with her hair flowing wild and curly over her shoulders. “Very well. Thank you.”

“I did a load of your clothes.” He pointed back to the washer. “Mine were wet, and I went ahead and found some of your darks and—”

“You did my laundry.”

“Is that okay?”

“I’ve never met a man who knows how to do laundry.” She laughed. “I have to go to my father’s house twice a week to do his. Grayson’s been taking his to the dry cleaners since we got divorced, and I’m pretty sure my brother got married just to have Lily do his.”

He pulled back. “How hard is laundry?”

She shrugged as she tucked a strand of curly hair behind her ear. “Do you have any other hidden talents?”

“I wouldn’t call washing a few clothes a hidden talent.”

“I would, especially in Garnet.” Katie looked at him, her gaze running over him hotly, making the back of his neck warm and his **** swell. “But the laundry wasn’t the hidden talent I was talking about.”

“You are so easy to please, chica.” He reached out and grabbed her hips to pull her to him. “What’re we gonna do about that?”

She shrugged, a blush staining her cheeks. “I don’t know. Got any ideas?”

Marcos was pretty sure he’d made a commitment to himself to hightail it out of her place once the sun came up and head back to Miami with the taste of her still on his lips. That was the responsible thing to do; instead, he said, “How about I make you breakfast, and we’ll discuss it in bed?”

* * * *

The breakfast plates sat on the nightstand. Both of them were empty because Marcos could make eggs and bacon like nobody’s business. He cooked and did laundry. Katie was pretty sure that made him the perfect man, especially given the nice sight he made first thing in the morning, with his inky hair standing up in spikes and those light eyes looking up at her like he wanted a repeat of last night.

Marcos could be an underwear model, Katie mused as she sat straddled over him, drinking her coffee and admiring all those muscles and tattoos.

“Be careful,” he warned, his hands on her hips as he eyed her coffee. “It’ll ruin your afternoon if you drop that.”

She coughed and laughed, spilling some.

“Carajo.” He reached up to take her coffee from her and set it on the nightstand next to the other dishes. “You can’t be trusted with this.”

Katie laughed harder and leaned down to lick the coffee off his stomach by dragging her tongue over the deep ridges of his abdominal muscles. He grunted in response and tangled his hand in her hair.

“I like your mouth on me.” He groaned, holding her hair away from her face as he watched. “Eres bella.”

She lifted her head, staring into those beautiful eyes, and then tugged on the waistband to his underwear because his **** was pushing against the top of it, just begging to be set free. She took him in her mouth, wanting to taste because she could sense the restlessness in him.

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He told her a few times last night that he needed to be gone in the morning. Yet, here he was, making her breakfast and then letting Katie have her way with him. She got the distinct impression he didn’t want to leave any more than she wanted to let him. She also got the impression Marcos wasn’t harnessed easily, and she understood. Grayson had tried for many years to keep her in check and where she belonged. It hadn’t worked out.

Maybe they were more alike than she realized.

There was a side of her that really enjoyed the rebellious streak Marcos brought out of her. She realized now that’s what had changed after the accident. That’s where the boldness came from. The rebellion Marcos had unknowingly brought out of her on New Years.

She would never force him to stay here. She wouldn’t even beg and plead and try to manipulate him like other women might, but she certainly wasn’t going to kick him out like he tried to make her promise last night.

If he wanted to stay, she was more than fine with that.

“Ay Dios mio.” He groaned and arched his back when she took him deeper in her mouth while wrapping her hand around the base of his ****, stroking it.

Okay, now that was extremely ***y.

He was just so strong. So daring. So damn tempting.

Having Marcos under her, with his hand in her hair and his **** in her mouth, left her more than a little wet despite being very sore this morning. Who cared? He’d probably leave at the end of the day, because she wasn’t delusional enough to think he’d stay in a place like Garnet.

So she’d be sore and let her body remember him for as long as possible.

It was as if the two of them had been living in a fantasy for the past twelve hours. The outside world stopped existing, and it was as if time stood still, holding them in an alternate universe where she wasn’t too boring for him, and he wasn’t too dangerous for her.

For the moment, they were perfect together.

So she went down on him with a determination to make it as good for him now as it had been for her last night. Even when he started swearing in Spanish and using his hold on her hair to pull her off him, she held strong, sucking harder, stroking him faster. She grabbed his ass with her free hand, because it was a beautiful male ass—firm and round and made to hold on to.

He really should be an underwear model.

She wanted to taste him, and he finally gave up trying to fight her. Instead he held her close when his body jerked, and his **** pulsed in her hand. She savored the tangy male flavor of his cum against her tongue in a way she never had before. She liked the way he cursed in Spanish as he came, and then his words got softer, more affectionate when the tide started to recede. Now he stroked her hair rather than clutching it like a lifeline.

He fell lax under her when it was over. “You’re stubborn, cariño.”

Katie flipped her hair back. She crawled over Marcos and straddled him once more. She reached for her coffee and took a sip. She noticed he didn’t have a complaint this time. He seemed a little too relaxed to bother as she admitted, “I am very stubborn. Ask anyone. It’s usually their chief complaint about me.”

“I like it.” He tugged a long strand of her hair. “A lot.”

“That’s why you’re perfect.” She grinned, enjoying how completely unselfconscious she was around him. It was such a rare commo***y in her life. For some reason, she didn’t question for one minute that he liked her just as she was, wide hips, big ass, and all. She felt the same about him as she eyed his body under hers. She reached out and touched one of the stars on his shoulder. There was a matching one on the other shoulder. “What do these mean?”

He winced. “If you knew, you wouldn’t think I’m perfect.”

She arched an eyebrow. “Try me.”

“They mean I’m a thief,” he said simply, as if daring her to judge him.

“Of what?” She took another sip of her coffee as she studied the strange stars that decorated each of his shoulders.

“Of anything left unattended long enough for me to take advantage of.” He laced a hand behind his head, still studying her thoughtfully. “Cars. Houses. Pretty, innocent gringas with talented mouths.”

She laughed. “I’m not that innocent.”

“That’s what you think.”

“Mmm,” she hummed rather than argue, and took another sip of her coffee that was extra creamy and sweet, making it the color of Marcos’s tan skin. She studied him again, and ran her hand over the tattooed cross on his chest with the names of his mother and cousin above and below it. Then she touched the inked black tribal tattoos on his right biceps. It covered so much skin, and the left side matched. “What about these?”

He looked amused with her exploration of him. “They mean nothing.”

“Then why get them?”

“I dunno, ’cause I was young and vain and had a lot of disposable income.”

“From stealing things.”

“Yup.”

“Where’s your disposable income now?”

He laughed. “On my arms.”

“So you must not be stealing things anymore,” she said, because she suspected as much.

“Not right now, no.” He took her coffee from her and leaned up, stealing a sip before he put it back on the nightstand. “Soon, maybe.”

“Once a thief—” she mused.

“Always a thief,” he finished for her as he laced his other hand behind his head. “You’d be smart to remember it, chica.”

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“Why did you get the tattoos?” she asked as she touched his right arm again. She didn’t believe for one minute he did them just for vanity. Every marking on his body had a meaning. It was like an illustration to the history of his life, and she found it fascinating. “The truth.”

He looked away from her. His body stiffened all of a sudden, and she got the impression she might have pushed too far before he admitted in a low, raspy voice, “Because they hurt.”

“Huh?”

“I just wanted something to hurt me. To make me forget. To make it sting so bad I couldn’t think about anything but the needle digging into my skin.”

“Did it work?”

“No.” He looked back to her, the pain glimmering in his light eyes. “If it did, I would have a lot more.”

She lay down over him and let her head rest on his shoulder over one of the stars that marked him as a thief. He stroked her hair, and together they shared a quiet moment where she didn’t judge him, and he let her be still and ache for him.

“It’s spring break, you know?” she whispered after several long minutes.

“I didn’t know,” he admitted softly. “It’s been a long time since I partied for spring break.”

“You want to party here for the week?” she asked, trying desperately to keep the hope out of her voice. “If I promise not to stop you when you do leave?”

That seemed like a fair compromise. She wasn’t begging him to stay, but she was offering. Still, he was silent after the offer, stroking her hair as if mulling it over.

“Didn’t your papi ever teach you not to invite a thief into your house?”

“He may have,” she admitted as she smiled against his warm skin. “But we’ve already established that I’m stubborn. I make my own rules.”

“You kick me out in a week.” He tugged her hair, forcing her to look up at him. “I’m serious, chica. Promise me.”

She hesitated, because kicking him out was very different from not complaining if he walked out the door on his own accord. The denial was on the tip of her tongue when his eyes narrowed.

“It’s the only way I’ll agree,” he told her warningly. “If you don’t promise, I’ll pull my clothes out of the dryer right now and go home.”

“And if I do promise?” she asked curiously.

“I’ll go get my things from my cousin’s place,” he started, before a small smile tugged at the corner of his lips. “And then spend a week making sure you’re not as easy to please for the next muchacho who shows up.”

“Okay,” she whispered, deciding a week to figure everything out was better than nothing. “I promise.”

Chapter Ten

There were other cars in the driveway when he finally made it back to Chuito’s place at dusk. Marcos thought the extra company might be a good thing, judging by the quality of texts he’d been getting from his cousin. They got nastier as the day wore on, and Marcos ignored him.

He parked in back where Chuito usually did, seeing a sweet Mercedes GL next to his cousin’s car. He got out and looked in the window, finding that the door was unlocked. What an idiot. And this SUV was fully loaded.

He wondered how Chuito resisted stealing it. He might be rich now, but just like Katie had observed earlier, once a thief, always a thief. Old habits died hard, and the cousin Marcos remembered would’ve had this car jacked and out of the parking lot in twenty seconds on sheer principle.

If someone left this kind of car unlocked, they deserved to get jacked.

People with money never appreciated their ****.

At least he could give his cousin cre*** for that if nothing else. He wasn’t pretentious about anything. He still drove a Nissan, for ****’s sake.

He eyed the two car seats in back and decided to cut them some slack for being absentminded about locking the car. Marcos hadn’t stolen a car since he was fifteen. Once they got heavy into Los Corredores, he became too valuable in the shop, but even when they were young, Chuito and Marcos used to avoid cars with baby seats. Probably because they were raised by two single mothers. One time, right after his father went to prison, his mother’s car got towed, and Marcos would never forget her crying as she sat on the curb with him, Juan, and Chuito, and groceries melting while she called her sister.

What kind of asshole towed the car of a woman shopping for food to feed children? Even car thieves didn’t do that ****.

He sneaked in through the back, heading up the staircase like he was breaking in because he did not want to see that bitch Jules Wellings. Marcos added her to the long list of things he didn’t understand about his cousin’s life here. She was a part-time cop, and Chuito called her his friend. Whatever.

He heard people downstairs talking. Damn, that office was always busy. It was almost five, and it was still hopping. How many legal issues could be happening in a town like this? People didn’t even secure their cars here.

Chuito’s door was locked, and Marcos went old-school and used the mini tool kit on his keychain to pick the lock rather than knock. He had the split-second thought of seeing something he didn’t want to see if his cousin finally made his move with his neighbor, but after this many years, he figured he was safe and pushed the door open.

He saw a flash of movement and was able to throw up his arm to protect his face. He got nailed in the side instead, a hard kidney hit that knocked the air out of him and put every defensive mechanism he had on red alert. He lashed out on instinct, kicking the intruder in the cojones and then nailing him with every ounce of anger he had, catching him in the side of the head.

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“They don’t teach you that in the cage!” Marcos shouted, ’cause he knew it was his cousin that had blindsided him. “I still live on the streets, muchacho!”

Chuito reached down and grabbed Marcos’s leg, pulling his feet out from under him and making Marcos hit the floor so hard it stole his breath a second time. His head smacked against the door frame, and it temporarily dazed him enough to have the UFC light-heavyweight champion of the world choking the **** out of him in some sort of ****ed-up jujitsu move that he couldn’t break out of.

“You ever talk about taking a bullet again, and I’ll shoot you myself,” Chuito growled into his ear in Spanish. “I can still take you. Got me, cabrón?”

“I know enough Spanish to say that’s cold.” A voice came from the kitchen, sounding bored as if watching family members kicking the **** out each other was an everyday occurrence. “Of course, my brother killed my father just ’cause I couldn’t get to him first. So who the **** am I to talk?”

Still struggling to breathe, Marcos lifted his head and looked to the kitchen, seeing a muscular, dark-haired guy sprawled out in one of the chairs by the table. He held an energy drink in his hand as he arched a bored eyebrow at both of them.

“Who is this pendejo?” he growled as he fought to break free.

“That’s Tino. Didn’t you see his car out there?” Chuito released him and rolled onto the carpet to cup his balls. “You low-hitting ****er!”

“The GL is his?” Marcos was wheezing too as he took in Tino again, sitting there like he owned the world. “I should’ve stolen it and had Angel wash the title.”

“****ing steal it.” Tino didn’t sound concerned. “I got LoJack, bitch.”

“You think I can’t disable LoJack?”

“I’m sure you can, but can you do it before I find you and make you eat my Beretta?”

“Si,” Marcos said with a laugh of disbelief. “No problema.”

“He probably could,” Chuito grudgingly admitted. “Yeah, definitely.” He lifted his head and looked to Marcos. “But don’t steal the car,” he warned in Spanish as if sensing Marcos would do it just to **** with him. “His people make Los Corredores look like pussies.”

That was a seriously ****ed-up insult that his cousin just made about his own gang, and Marcos stiffened on instinct. He didn’t love being associated with Los Corredores these days, but it was ingrained in him to defend them.

He was about to say something, when Tino lifted up his shirt, showing off the tattoo over the ridges of his stomach muscles.

Omertà.

Marcos dealt with the mafia enough in passing to know what that meant. Their presence in Miami was powerful, intimidating, and more than a little annoying to the rest of them, but he was saved from having to do something like apologize when Jules Wellings came upstairs.

“What the hell—” She paused at the open door, looking down at the two of them still lying on the floor. She just shook her head. “I have clients downstairs. You’re shaking the whole house.”

“At least they aren’t shooting each other. That’d really piss your clients off.”

Jules turned around and glared at Tino.

“I’m just saying it’s a good way to handle a family dispute,” Tino said reasonably. “In my experience, violence solves most problems.”

“Really, Tino? You know that ain’t funny.” Jules put her hand on her hip. “I thought you two were going to train. I’ve got the twins downstairs because you had to train tonight, when you knew I worked late, and Romeo has classes. This is my busy season.”

“I’ve had them every night this week. My babysitting services are free.”

“Your rent is free,” she countered.

Tino threw up his hands. “Do you want rent?”

Jules waved him off dismissively and turned to leave. “If you guys have to solve family disputes, use the Cellar to do it.”

“She lets him watch her kids?” Marcos asked Chuito in Spanish.

“They’re his nephews. He’s Jules’s brother-in-law,” Chuito reminded him.

“I already said I understand most of the **** you’re saying,” Tino interrupted them.

“¿Hablas español?” Marcos asked as he got to his feet.

“No, io parlo Italiano.”

“Oh.” Marcos shrugged. “Well, I don’t ****ing understand Italian.”

“I’m from New York, man. You Puerto Rican mother****ers are on every corner in my old neighborhood. I grew up understanding Spanish.”

“His brother speaks it. Fluently,” Chuito said it like a warning. “Without an accent. Like he was Boricua. It’s weird as ****.”

“Jules’s husband?”

“No, the other one.” Again it sounded like a caution. “He still lives in New York. He’s Angel on steroids.”

Oh.

He got the message. Somehow Chuito had managed to find some hardcore mother****ers to hang with in Hicksville, USA. He should be surprised, but he wasn’t. Like Marcos, trouble usually found Chuito if he wanted it to or not. It didn’t matter where he was, and no amount of levelheadedness could fix it. Some muchachos were just born to live hard.

“So what are you two fighting about?” Tino asked curiously, as if they were there to entertain him.

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“Nada,” they said in unison.

“Okay, this has been real.” Tino stood up and tossed his empty drink in the garbage can by the corner. “I’m gonna go hang with the twins.” He hit Chuito’s shoulder as he walked by him. “Before I get old.”

Chuito waved him off. “Five minutes.”

After Tino was out of earshot, Marcos turned to his cousin. “I can’t handle your life, bro. It’s too complicated for me. How is she from a cop family?” He pointed downstairs to Jules. “And that pendejo is mafia. How’s that all work?”

“Yeah, it is pretty complicated.” Chuito nodded, looking back down the stairs. “But Tino, he’s all right. He’s the best friend I got here.”

Marcos gave him a look of disbelief. He didn’t trust the Italians any more than he trusted cops. “What about the gringa?”

“That’s a different thing.”

“Yeah, I guess so.” Marcos laughed. “What the ****? You blindsided me.”

“You sent me a text about getting shot and then ignored me all day.” Chuito gave him a harsh look.

“I was busy.”

“That is ****ed up,” Chuito growled, his dark eyes still narrowed. “You and my mother are all the family I have left. You think I don’t wake up at night sweating over you still being in deep, and you won’t let me help you. It’s like you want to ****ing die. We’re like brothers, Marc. I don’t understand why you’ll take from Angel instead of me.”

Marcos paused, for one moment putting himself in Chuito’s shoes. He could understand his frustration. If the roles were reversed, he’d do anything to get Chuito out. He’d drain his entire bank account without thinking about it, but that didn’t change the streak of unbending pride Marcos had been born with. He just couldn’t take his cousin’s money. It wasn’t in him.

“I work for the money I get from Angel,” Marcos reminded him.

“Asshole, you strip cars for him!” Chuito yelled in Spanish. “You got off easy the first time because you were young, but you got a record now. The next time you get caught, you’re going down for as long as your father.” He hit Marcos’s elbow. “How many lines do you want on that thing?”

Marcos rubbed at the cobweb tattoo on his elbow that signified how many years he’d served in prison. “It wouldn’t be that long.”

“Bull****! It takes one raid.” Chuito held his finger up in front of Marcos’s face. “Just one. That’s it. And I know how loaded the warehouse is. The cars will be the least of your problems. That place has got enough drugs in it to keep half of Miami blitzed!”

Marcos snorted. “It does keep half of Miami blitzed.”

“That’s funny to you?” Chuito ran a hand through his hair and yelled despite the clients downstairs. “What the ****, Marc!”

“I can’t do anything else.” Marcos spoke very slowly as the fury rolled through him. “No one will hire me. I’ve tried.”

“Move here.”

“With your Italian mafia brothers? No thanks!” Marcos laughed bitterly. “Who the **** are you to be judging me? All I do is strip cars. What the **** are you doing for that mobster mother****er?”

“He’s my friend.”

“Bull****!” Marcos threw Chuito’s words back at him. “I know that’s a ****ing lie.”

“No, it isn’t.” Chuito shook his head in denial, doing a very good job of looking innocent. “I swear, he’s just my training partner.”

Marcos grabbed Chuito’s arm, pointing to the two red ink drops on either side of the snake’s head of his Los Corredores tattoo. They were small, discreet, something most people wouldn’t notice, but Marcos wasn’t most people.

“Those weren’t there before you left Miami. Hell, they weren’t there two years ago.” He glared at his cousin and then lowered his voice so no one could hear him. “Who did you kill for him?”

Chuito looked away rather than answer. There was a tick in his jaw, but he left his arm in Marcos’s grasp rather than wrench it away, which was telling.

He was proud of them.

But rather than admit it, Chuito just shrugged, still holding on to the lie he had obviously been telling himself since he moved to Garnet. “Those were nothing.”

“Really? Murder is nothing.” Marcos looked at Chuito’s arm that was so much more decorated than Marcos’s would ever be. The entire body of his Los Corredores tattoo was covered in ink drops. “I thought at first it was because you were out of room. That’s not it, is it? You put those outside because they had nothing to do with Los Corredores, but you still couldn’t resist getting the ink.”

“They were personal.” Chuito looked completely unremorseful, which was the scariest part of the whole thing. “I wanted them there.”

“Did you do it for him?” Marcos pointed downstairs.

Chuito looked away again.

“Yeah, some amigo. Found out what you’re best at, didn’t he?” Marcos said in English as he shoved his arm away. “I’m staying at Katie’s.”

“Marc.” Chuito followed Marcos when he walked into the living room and started gathering his ****. “You don’t understand. They helped me. I would be dead or in prison right now if it wasn’t for them.” He pointed downstairs. “I owed them. I’d do it again if I had to.”

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“I know.” Marcos turned back to him, feeling his heart ache for a cousin who had everything and still couldn’t stop finding reasons to hurt the world just because it hurt him first. “I know you’d do it again. That’s why you made sure you remembered them. That’s the most ****ed-up part about it.”

“It was only two.”

“Only two?” Marcos switched back to Spanish, hoping to God that Tino mother****er wasn’t listening. “And you have the balls to give me **** about stripping cars. I haven’t done it once since I got out of prison, and I certainly wouldn’t do it for some mobster who will probably try to shoot you in the back the first chance he gets.”

“That’s not true. Tino’s a brother. I know it. Besides, I didn’t do it for him. I did it because—”

“I don’t care why you did it!” Marcos turned back to him and hit Chuito’s chest. “There’s something wrong with you. Losing Juan ****ed you up. You don’t feel anything. It doesn’t even enter your mind to be sorry about it.”

“Are you sorry?” Chuito asked, as if just considering guilt for killing the assholes who’d murdered Juan and Marcos’s mother was a personal affront. “Would you take it back?”

“Do you hear yourself?” Marcos countered. “What sort of delusion are you living under that you can sit here over Jules Wellings’s office and pretend that you’re not that same gangbanger who took out anyone who was even remotely associated with Juan dying. You didn’t just kill them. You did it badly. I did too. That **** still haunts my dreams, and I know it haunts yours too.”

“It’s not like we did it for nothing. Every drop on here was for something.” He pointed to his arm furiously. “It mattered that we did what we did. We owed it to Juan and Aunt Camila, and I will not let you insult their memory by saying it didn’t. These two mattered too. Just like the others. No one is allowed to hurt my family, no one, and I better not find out that you’re starting to question it. When someone attacks my family, it’s war. You don’t feel bad in war, Marc. You know that. Tell me you still ****ing know it!”

Chuito’s dark eyes blazed with a fury that was raw and terrifying. Their fight had cracked the invisible shell he put around himself since he’d moved to Garnet—the wall that told the world he was nothing more than a famous UFC fighter trying to look tough. The gang tattoos were just a myth, part of his persona. Like some rapper trying to be hard but not actually doing the time. Few knew just how real those marks on his body were. This was the cousin Marcos remembered from the streets. Chuito had always been so much more dangerous than Marcos could ever be. There was something in the calculated way he did things. Chuito didn’t just kill for revenge. He plotted it out first.

“Don’t worry, I don’t feel bad about it, but a part of me is starting to think I should,” Marcos admitted as he turned to leave, knowing the drive-by ****ed him up just as badly as Chuito. He felt guilty for abandoning him to the gringa, because he hadn’t seen his cousin this unleashed since they were teenagers. “Do your neighbor a favor tonight. Don’t sleep. Dreams don’t lie.”

* * * *

Katie made dinner while Marcos was gone.

Nothing fancy, burgers with fries that she threw in the oven, because everyone liked that. Marcos was gracious and seemed to appreciate her cooking, but he was quiet and withdrawn in a way he hadn’t been before he left.

“Are you okay?” Katie asked as she sat next to Marcos on the sofa in the living room watching a travel show. He wore only jeans and was certainly more compelling than the television with all those muscles and tattoos on display, but she couldn’t help but voice her concern. “You know, if you’re not comfortable staying here—”

“No, that’s not it. I like being with you.” He reached over and squeezed her knee reassuringly. “I got into a fight with my cousin today.”

“Oh.” She picked up a fry and took a bite as she thought about that. “It wasn’t because of me, was it?”

“No.” He shook his head and set his plate on the table. “It wasn’t about you at all.”

“Is Chuito mad you’re staying here?”

“He’s probably glad I’m staying here.” Marcos stretched out on the couch, resting his head on her thigh. He reached up, helping himself to one of her fries before she set her plate down. “It’s other stuff. Being around him is not so easy anymore.”

Katie stroked his hair, enjoying the way it felt against her fingers. “Why?”

“I think I remind him of what he’s trying to forget. Here, he’s the Slayer. Famous fighter. With me, he’s…something different.” Marcos took another bite of his fry, appearing deep in thought as he rubbed his chest, his hand resting over the cross above his heart. “I dunno, maybe that’s not it at all. I mean, coño, he’s obviously that person around that Tino pendejo, and he sees him every day.”

“You don’t like Tino Moretti?”

He jerked and looked up at her with a glare. “Do you know him?”

“Yeah, he’s Jules’s brother-in-law.” She shrugged when she saw how tense it made him. “We’re not friends or anything, but—”

“I don’t want you talking to him.” He tugged on a strand of her hair to make his point. “You stay away from him, you hear me, chica?”

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“Bossy.” She arched an eyebrow, because that sort of controlling tactic reminded her of Grayson. “I don’t like people telling me who to talk to, Marcos.”

“No.” He sat up and turned to her, his light eyes blazing. “You listen to me about this. Stay far away from him.”

She frowned, more than a little unnerved. “Why?”

He reached out and cupped her face. His rough thumb ran over her bottom lip. “Because I asked you to. If you trust me, you’ll do this for me.”

“Tino Moretti couldn’t pick me out of a crowd,” Katie assured him. “It’s fine. We’ve only spoken a few times.”

“A few times too many.” He was still caressing her lip, his emotions so clear to read, anger mixed with compassion. It was a strange combination, but it was there as he leaned in and kissed her. “And make sure after I leave he’s not the next muchacho to show up.”

She laughed. “I doubt I’m Tino Moretti’s type.”

“You’re every man’s type.” He kissed her again, just a tease of their lips meeting that had Katie running her hand up his bare arm, tracing the muscles that bunched under her fingers. He kept his lips a breath away from hers. “Promise me.”

“I’ve given you enough promises today.” She smiled, thinking two could play this game. If he could tease, she could too. “Are you jealous? He is a horrible flirt.”

“He thinks people are supposed to jump when he speaks,” Marcos whispered with bitterness. “Stay away from guys like that. There’s usually a reason for that kind of attitude. They’ve earned it. The hard way.”

“You have that kind of attitude,” she reminded him. “Did you earn it? The hard way?”

“Yes, chica, I did.” He kissed her again, another brush of his lips against hers as he spoke against her mouth. “You should’ve stayed away from me too.”

He pushed his hand into her hair and then fisted it. He tugged her head back with all the attitude he claimed to have earned the hard way. He studied her, the concern in his gaze being replaced by something much more carnal. “Now open for me.”

She parted her lips, and he took what he wanted. His tongue slipped into her mouth, making a wave of white-hot pleasure wash over her. It was a kiss meant to be obeyed, meant to break her and leave her wanting more.

It worked.

She would have agreed to stop talking to anyone at that moment as he fell back against the couch, pulling her with him until she was straddled over him. She held on to his bare shoulders for support as he kissed her like a man possessed. All she could think about was him. He stole every other thought in her head—like a thief—shamelessly and without remorse.

Chapter Eleven

Katie didn’t stay up late.

Marcos did.

It was one of the first major issues they discovered in their compatibility, but Katie fought sleep as she lay curled into Marcos in bed, her head resting in the crook of his arm. She was trying to read, but the romance novel wasn’t as interesting when she had the real thing next to her. She tried to focus and keep from yawning, but it wasn’t working.

“Sleep, chica.” Marcos was looking at his phone, using his thumb to flip through whatever he was doing. “You don’t have to stay up for me. I know how to entertain myself.”

She laughed, thinking of what he admitted to doing in the car the night before. “I know you do.”

“Yeah, that’s not happening tonight.” He laughed with her, his eyes still on his phone. “You wear me out.”

Katie folded the page on her book and tossed it aside, curling into him instead. She looked at his phone, seeing that he was on Facebook. “You have a lot of friends.”

“Most of ’em aren’t friends.” Marcos didn’t seem to be shy about her watching. “Acquaintances.”

Katie studied the pictures and posts he paged through, most of which were from Miami, though there were several from Puerto Rico. A few from California. She spotted one in Nevada and four in New York. Over half of them were written in Spanish. Even the ones that were in English were cryptic, using slang she didn’t understand. There were lots of pictures of strong, tattooed men flashing strange hand signs. They all looked like they were partying and having fun. Other pictures were of babies. Or backyard barbecues with the Florida sun shining down.

“You hate it here, don’t you?” she asked curiously as she looked into his world, finding it miles apart from hers. “In Garnet, I mean. You hate this town.”

“I like you.” He squeezed her arm with his free hand. “I like my cousin when he’s not being a hijo de la gran puta. The rest of this town can **** itself.”

“You would never move here, would you?”

“No,” he said without hesitating. “I couldn’t live here.”

“What if you got a fighting spot at the Cellar?”

“I can’t get a fighting spot at the Cellar.”

“But what if you did?” Katie pressed.

“I can’t, Katie. I have a record. They don’t want me.”

“That seems unfair,” Katie pressed, because it irritated her. Jules’s husband had a record, and he’d done just fine. “Romeo Wellings has a record. He was a fighter.”

“Well, he’s screwing the boss. Maybe if I went down on Jules Wellings, she’d change her mind.”

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“Do you want to go down on Jules Wellings?”

“Ay Dios mio, no. I hate that bitch. I wouldn’t do it for all the green in the world.”

“Romeo was a fighter before he was screwing the boss,” Katie mused, because it all seemed so unfair. “The record didn’t hurt him.”

“Not with mafia ties, no.” Marcos seemed to agree about the unfairness. “His brother probably bought him that UFC contract.”

“I’m sure Romeo isn’t involved in the mafia.”

“You keep believing that.”

“The mafia nearly killed Jules and Romeo. Why would he want to be associated with them?”

“There’s different mafia just like there’s different gangs. Gangsters shot at my house, remember? That doesn’t change the fact that I’m still one.”

“You really think of yourself as a gangster?” The word felt strange on her tongue.

“Sí.”

Yes. Just one word, without hesitation.

That was very curious, considering all the pain it had brought him, and she couldn’t help but say, “I don’t understand.”

“I know, cariño.” He tossed his phone on the nightstand and then rolled into Katie. He wrapped his other arm around her, holding her tight as he pressed a kiss to the soft spot on the curve of her neck. “You’re not supposed to understand.”

She threaded her fingers with his, and then studied their hands molded together. His tanned, work-roughened palm against her smooth, pale one. There was nothing in the world that should allow them to be there, companionable and peaceful in her bed.

“I don’t want you to go,” she admitted softly.

Marcos was silent rather than respond, and Katie was trying very hard not to let her feelings get hurt. She had no business getting as attached to him as she was. Everything in her wanted to try to find some way to hold him here, away from his other life, but she knew Marcos wasn’t a man to be controlled like that.

Her phone beeped on the other nightstand, and she reached out to grab it. She looked at the screen, seeing it was another message from Grayson.

Why are you ignoring me? I’m concerned for you, Katie girl. Tell me you’re okay, or I’m coming over there.

Katie didn’t doubt his threat and was thinking of a response when Marcos ripped her phone out of her hand.

“What are you doing?”

He rolled onto his side when she tried to grab it back, using his shoulder to block her. She crawled over him, trying to reach for the phone when she saw him typing, but she didn’t actually get the phone until he let her have it.

She fell onto her back and read the message Marcos had typed.

**** off.

She winced. “I would never type anything like that, Marcos.”

“You should type something like that. He thinks he still owns you.” He took her phone from her and flipped off the ringer before tossing it on the nightstand. “You want me to fix that problem before I leave? I’ll do it. Gladly.”

She eyed her phone, unsure how she felt about Marcos talking for her. “How come you’re so bossy?”

“You know you like it, chica.” Marcos sounded completely unapologetic as he buried his face against her neck. “Do you still want him? You miss *** on a towel with that little prick?”

“No,” she said without hesitation as she sat there wrapped up in Marcos’s arms and glaring at her phone. “But I can handle my own issues.”

“Obviously not.”

She just yawned in defeat rather than argue, knowing she wasn’t going to change him. She didn’t really want to, even though she thought she had enough of controlling men to last her a lifetime. She supposed the difference was, Marcos was controlling, but he always seemed to have good intentions. Grayson was completely self-serving.

He tugged on a strand of her hair and whispered in her ear, “Sleep.”

And damn if she didn’t listen to him.

* * * *

Katie had a real quiet way of sleeping. Peaceful. No snoring. No nightmares. Just soft little puffs of breath that hit Marcos’s arm while he held her and looked at his phone, trying to will away the storm of adrenaline the fight with Chuito had caused.

If he was going to be here a whole week, he was going to have to work out. There wasn’t enough *** in the world to shake off this much furious energy.

Maybe they should just take Jules Wellings’s suggestion and beat the **** out of each other in the cage at the Cellar. Marcos still fought in the underground circuit at home under the name Viper. He wasn’t a UFC champion, but it had also been a very long time since Chuito had fought underground. The rules weren’t there to protect you in the matches Marcos fought in, as he’d proved today when Chuito tried to make the drop on him.

Of course, Marcos still had his ass handed to him.

As if he didn’t have enough problems, Angel had been texting him. A lot of Los Corredores had been trying to get ahold of him. Everyone wanted to know where he was, considering he’d showed up at the warehouse and then disappeared off the face of the earth. He’d been ignoring them until the last text popped up as he held a sleeping Katie.

Stopped by your tía’s today. She said you’re visiting Chuito. Why didn’t you just tell us, bro?

Marcos stiffened, reading the text again as his pulse pounded in his ears. Angel went to his Aunt Sofia’s house. He read that as a thinly veiled threat, and it made him more than a little apprehensive.