9. Amanda

Chapter 9

Amanda

If I wasn’t leaning against the building I would have fallen on my ass. “What did you say?”

“I said I love you.”

“You love me ? The unlovable?”

“What the fuck makes you think you’re unlovable?”

“I was left at the Home, and no one cared and?—”

He cups my face in his hands. “Until me. And I’m your forever, honey. So my love is the one that matters. This love doesn’t walk away and it doesn’t fade.”

All the pain from the years I spent alone trying to simply survive hits me hard. I try to stop my tears but can’t. I throw myself into his arms, gripping him tightly and cry. “I love you too. So much.”

Leo picks me up and carries me into the now empty building. I cling to him. My one and only love. My foundation. My shield. My giver of wings.

He lowers me to my feet and with each tear that falls, Leo kisses them away.

“I went back to the Home, but it was empty and shuttered. I was hoping for information that would help me find you. I wanted to tell you how much your friendship, and your protection meant to me.”

“Oh, honey. You went back to that place?”

I nod. “You were my everything as well as my bodyguard back then.”

“And I always will be. I’d gladly lay down my life for you because without you, I don’t have a life.”

He kisses my lips softly.

I wrap my arms around his waist. “Don’t go to Dallas,” I plead.

“I have to end this.”

I let go of him to pace the small room. “I don’t like it. The family I worked for was never unkind to me while I was there, but they had an air about them. A don’t-fuck-with-us air and all the employees knew it.”

Leo doesn’t answer me.

“People who were foolish enough to threaten them or their way of life had a way of disappearing or so the rumors said. And I saw the expressionless face, the darkness in the eyes of Gio Balestra, the underboss, once when a man got drunk and threatened his younger sister.”

“Amanda let’s not talk about this anymore. You’re not going to change my mind.”

“Does what I want not mean anything to you?”

“What you want means everything to me but not in this matter. I’m not fucking around when your safety is at risk. Now come over here and suck my cock.”

I laugh at the unexpected statement like he meant for me to as he puts a hand on my hair and smooths it down.

“Then I’m going with you.” I lift my chin, narrowing my eyes when he ignores that. “Leo? Tell me you don’t think I’ll stay here and do nothing while you’re driving into danger.”

“I don’t expect you to do nothing. Make me a sandwich to go.”

“Oh…you’re in trouble.” I know he’s teasing. I grab him by the belt buckle and run my hand down the front of his jeans. “Big trouble.”

“Just watch. It’ll get bigger.”

I lead him around behind the desk and nudge him backward into the chair. “Sit.”

When he does, I mount him, kissing his lips, his beard, his throat. He leans his head back and I move on to his chest, then slip from his lap onto the floor to kiss him above his belly button.

“I want to speak with the king about your trip,” I say as I unzip his pants.

He lifts his ass to slide them to his ankles and his engorged cock bulges against his underwear.

I glide my hand lightly over it. “And I know he listens to me because he likes me.”

Leo’s stomach shakes as he chuckles.

But he stops chuckling when I lean down and suck on the outside of the material and pull him into my mouth that way.

“Move the underwear,” he orders, his guttural voice barely recognizable.

“Make me, Leo. Make me suck your big dick.”

He yanks his underwear down and spreads his fingers through my hair, guiding my mouth to the tip. “Suck it good. Put your lips down over the head. Ah…yeah…that’s right.”

I pull him all the way in, my lips nearly at the base of his length, then I pull back to the tip and stay there.

“Don’t play with the king, honey.”

“Or?” I nibble on the head of his cock, licking my tongue across it. “Do you really want me to taste this? If you do, then make me taste it.”

He groans before he yanks my head down. “Suck,” he barks.

And I do. I grip onto him and suck hard.

Leo’s breathing speeds up, then he groans my name and his come fills my mouth.

I don’t pull off of him until I take every drop.

After we clean up, Leo asks, “I didn’t hurt you?”

“Not at all.”

He holds me and I know the jagged pieces of my life that never fit anywhere else fit here with him.

“Let’s go home, love.”

Home. Love. Two words I never dreamed were for me.

I wait until he locks up the building and we’re in his truck before I say, “I meant what I said earlier. I can’t stay here and do nothing while you head toward danger.”

“Amanda, I did this for a living for a lot of years.”

“I know but I didn’t know that before. I didn’t know you gambled with your life to protect people. I don’t want you to chance that when it comes to me. How could I be okay if something went wrong and you were hurt?”

“It’s not going to happen.”

Stubborn man! “Promise me that you’ll let me know when you’re leaving.”

“I promise.”

I have to be satisfied with that for that for now but I’m not giving up. When he goes, I’m going with him. This man is my past, present and future. I’m not going to allow anything to take our beautiful forever from us.

Leo

The night breaks into day as we pull into Dallas. I’m driving and Rio is in the passenger seat. My truck is followed by Fury and several of his crew from the motorcycle club.

I head straight to Bella Vita, the bar Amanda mentioned. It’s not normal operating hours yet but I know when dealing with this kind of shit, there’s no such thing as normal.

Amanda is going to be mad as hell that I left. I promised her I’d let her know when I was leaving and technically, I did. I left a note by the bed after she was asleep.

Every one of my brothers is home today watching after her and Fury also sent a handful of his guys to the ranch.

Mad as hell might be an understatement but I’ll deal with that when I’m back. My priority is taking care of the woman I love.

“I’ll go in first,” I tell Rio after parking.

Not much of a talker, Rio only nods as he exits the truck and walks over to check one side of the building, then the other.

I head to the front door and pound on it with my closed fist.

Feet shuffle behind me and I glance over my shoulder. Fury and his crew stand shoulder to shoulder like a wall of beards, leather cuts and tattoos.

The door opens slowly, and a girl peeks out. She looks to be about sixteen. “Giordano!” She backs away from the door as she calls the name.

Gio was the name of the underboss Amanda mentioned.

A man appears in the doorway wearing an expensive suit and tie. His gaze sweeps over me, then the crew behind me. He doesn’t speak and I don’t either. We stare at each other until a voice behind Gio says, “Come in or close the door.”

Gio steps aside and motions me in but holds his hand out when Fury starts to advance.

Rio is at my side in an instant, his expression the same fuck-with-me-and-find-out as Gio’s.

After a tense moment, Gio glances back at a group of older men, then nods to me.

Rio and I walk in.

The place is neat and clean. The older men sit around a table and one of them holding a cane tips his head and pushes a tumbler filled with drink toward me. “Consider a twelve-step program if you can’t wait until we open.”

I take a seat near him without being invited.

He shifts in his chair, regarding me through narrowed eyes as he holds his hand up to stop a man who’s barreling toward me.

“I want the man who broke into Amanda’s apartment. And I’m here to warn you that there better not be another incident like it.”

“Amanda…I remember her.” The older man studies me for a second, then raises his eyebrows and looks at Gio. “You order that?”

“I don’t terrorize women,” Gio scoffs, his dark eyes blazing at what he considers an insult.

“That’s right.” The man nods his head. “My son doesn’t believe in hurting women or children.”

“He wore heavy cologne,” I say. “And he walked with a limp.”

Gio jerks his head toward a man watching us from behind the bar. That guy disappears into the back and returns after a minute. “He’s not in yet.”

“He acted without my knowledge or order,” Gio says, his jaw clenching.

The old man sighs. “I bring a stray in, and this is how he repays me.” He makes a sound with his tongue.

“Whether he acted alone or on orders is irrelevant to me. Amanda didn’t steal anything, and she didn’t turn informant,” I say.

Then I smell him before I see him. The man with the limp. He enters the room. “You’re looking for me, boss?”

Gio inspects his watch, not looking at the guy. “Enzo, you visited Amanda’s apartment?”

The man swallows hard, his gaze darting around the room.

“You knew we found the thief and the informant,” the older man scolds. “And you have the balls to do that?”

“He doesn’t have enough brains to fill an ice cream scoop,” one of the other men at the table says.

Enzo clenches his fists. “She was always teasing me wearing those tight, short skirts, ya know? Brushing me off like she was too good for me. Women shouldn’t act like that. I was going to fuck her to teach her not to?—”

I’m on him before he gets another word out, pounding the fuck out of his sneering face. That he even thought of laying his hands on her is how he wrote the first line in his obituary.

My fists are a bloody mess before I’m pulled away from the sniveling excuse of a man.

At first, I thought it was Rio but it’s two of the older men.

One of them pats my shoulder. “Settle down, son. Bloodstains discolor the wood floors.”

Rio moves between me and a side door. He leans on it as it tries to open and forces it closed with his weight. “This is a private party,” he says to whoever is on the other side.

The man with the cane looks at Rio and chuckles, then pulls himself up from the chair and moves to where Enzo writhes and clutches his bloodied nose. “You made my son look bad and your actions brought outsiders to my door.”

He shakes his head, then leaves the room. The older men follow him, and immediately after they exit, two younger men walk into the room. They drag Enzo to his feet.

Gio straightens his tie and looks at me. “His employment will be terminated. If Amanda needs compensation?—”

“I’m the only thing she needs,” I say.

“He turns away.

After Rio and I walk out, Fury says, “We riding?”

I nod.

“Roll out,” Fury commands.

The crew rev their bikes in unison, making someone at a bakery across the street peek through the blinds. One by one, they pull onto the road and roar toward the county line.

My knuckles throb like a bitch and I think that moron flailing about kicked me in the thigh.

Hours later, I drop Rio off at his place and then I head to Amanda. For the first time since she told me about the apartment break in, my shoulders lose the tension. My woman is safe now.

All is well with my world.

She’s sitting on the front porch surrounded by all my brothers. Fury’s men are lounging in the yard.

When she sees my truck, she gets up and I swear I can feel the heat from her glare through the windshield.

She nudges Flint aside and marches toward me.

Almost all is well with my world.