Capri truly gave a shit. I’d not expected that from her. All these years of making sure she was safe, watching her because I couldn’t seem to stay away, it wasn’t because I’d believed she would be different. It was because of that moment when she’d looked into my eyes the first time and I had felt something kick. Come to life like a flame had been lit. Blowing it off was impossible. Just like forgetting it had been.

  In the five years after I’d killed a man for touching her, I’d convinced myself I’d imagined it. Whatever it was that she stirred inside me. She had been an awkward kid. A fucking minister’s daughter. Going to see her again just to close that door and find that there was nothing there, that I’d just had a twisted moment and snapped a man’s neck, hadn’t gone as planned.

  It had happened again. The burn. The switch. Whatever it had been. She’d ignited it, and I knew I’d not be able to walk away. I would have to make sure she was safe, happy, and taken care of.

  Keeping the guys away that got too close hadn’t exactly been something that made her happy. I couldn’t help that. When they kissed her or touched her, I’d become another person. My actions were no longer my own. I couldn’t allow them to take her innocence. I needed to know she was still pure. She wasn’t jaded. She was the light that I craved and could never have.

  I smirked. That ship had sailed. I had her now. She wasn’t leaving me. This was mine. I never had to walk away from that fucking window or leave her room because she was waking up again.

  She stretched, and then her eyes fluttered before opening. I watched as she looked over to my empty pillow, then started to sit up. Those grey eyes locked on me, and her face softened. Fuck yeah. She was happy to see me. I’d put that look on her face. Her tiny ass was all curled up on my massive bed.

  “Morning,” I said, setting my cup down on the mantel.

  “Good morning,” she replied, then glanced toward the windows overlooking the backyard. “I slept late.”

  It was after nine, and she was normally up before seven, if not six, every day.

  “I had my mouth between your legs at two this morning. You were tired,” I replied, walking over to her.

  She blushed and bit her bottom lip. I should have let her sleep all night, but I’d watched her for an hour after she woke me up, talking in her sleep. The need to have her on my tongue the rest of the night and hear her moan was too much. I’d woken her while licking her clit.

  I sat down on the edge of the bed and patted the spot beside me. She crawled over to it, and I pulled her onto my lap. Burying my nose in the curve of her neck, I inhaled. The silent purr deep in my chest didn’t surprise me. Every fucking dark corner of my soul this woman seemed to bring peace to.

  “What time is it?” she asked, running her fingers through the hair at the nape of my neck.

  “Nine,” I replied. It was actually nine thirty, but what did it matter? She was here in my arms. Time did not matter.

  “Oh!” she said, leaning back, her eyes wide. “I didn’t ask what time I needed to be at the stables to exercise the horses.”

  I brushed her hair back off her shoulder, then enjoyed the soft skin there. I fucking loved how it felt. Like silk but warm.

  “Thatcher,” she said between a whine and a moan.

  I grinned and placed a kiss on the spot I’d been enjoying.

  “Focus. We are back, and I have a job.”

  I was focused. On her. In my lap.

  “Please,” she begged breathlessly as I took a nip of her earlobe between my teeth.

  I wanted to keep her here all day and touch her, lick her, enjoy her little sounds.

  “I need to work.”

  No, she didn’t. But I had already taken Zephyr and the upcoming race away from her. I knew taking anything else would make her unhappy. I didn’t do well when that happened. Sighing, I lifted my head and looked into her eyes. She seemed anxious.

  “We’ll go down to the stables after you eat. I’ll let Miller know you’ll be there to run the horses.”

  She relaxed. “Thank you.”

  I waited a moment to see if she would bring up Zephyr again, and she didn’t. Part of me wanted her to fight for it. Stand up to me. Just so I knew she felt secure that I wouldn’t hurt her. The other part was relieved. I couldn’t let her get hurt. I wouldn’t survive that. No one would.

  • Thirty-Nine •

  I couldn’t let him ruin his life, protecting me.

  Capri

  King had come earlier and said something to Thatcher that caused him to leave the fence where he’d been watching me exercise the horses. I was able to focus more on what I was doing without him standing there, being a distraction. I managed to finish with Nemesis and Pharaoh while he was gone.

  Dismounting from Pharaoh, I took the lead and walked him over to Derek to take back to the stables and brush down. I knew that Miller had sent for Sword next, so I glanced back at the stables to see if he was on his way out or if I had time for a water break.

  The gorgeous Appaloosa that Storm had bought for his fiancée, Briar, exited the entrance with Briar leading her. I tried not to let my insecurities go running wild at the sight of her. She wasn’t like the girls that I’d seen Thatcher with. She was on another level. The kind of stunning that turned all heads. But the two times I’d spoken to her, she’d been nice. I liked her.

  Storm walked out then, wearing a brown cowboy hat, with Poseidon. They were going on a ride. I’d seen them leave together many times, doing this. He leaned over and kissed her, then slapped her butt, causing her to laugh. Before she had shown up, I’d seen Storm once with another woman. She’d been along the lines of the women Thatcher was always with. Storm wasn’t like that anymore. Briar had all his attention.

  “I’ll see what’s taking so long with Sword,” Derek told me, taking Pharaoh’s reins.

  “Thanks,” I told him, then walked over to the water bottle I’d brought with me from Thatcher’s. The water was still ice cold. I could even hear the ice in it still. Whatever kind of bottle this was, I needed one. My water was normally warm after being out in this heat for two hours.

  Miller stepped outside the stables and waved me in. Maybe Sword wasn’t coming out today. I nodded and headed for the gate. I had hoped I’d get a chance to see Carmen on Zephyr today. Now that I knew I had a better time than he did, I wanted to see what he was doing wrong. If Thatcher wouldn’t let me race him, then at least I could make sure he got his best time. He was Thatcher’s horse, and I wanted him to win and win big.

  I was almost to the stables when I saw someone walking up in my peripheral vision. Glancing over, I saw Wells, who wasn’t here as often as the others, and the blonde who had tried to flirt with Thatcher yesterday. I forced a smile and kept walking. No need to interact.

  “Capri!” Wells called out, and I turned to look back at him again, wishing I could have gone without this. “Have you seen Storm?”

  I nodded, then pointed in the direction he and Briar had ridden. “Gone on a ride with Briar,” I told him as they reached me.

  “Shit. I needed something from him,” he muttered.

  I could feel the blonde’s eyes on me. I didn’t look at her.

  “You work here?” she asked.

  Guessed I had to look at her now. “Yes,” I replied.

  She scrunched her nose at me, then smiled like she thought something was funny. “That explains yesterday. You must have pissed off Thatch. He never ignores me that way. I knew you couldn’t have his attention.”

  Okay, not taking that. I mean, I probably should, but I didn’t like mean girls. I’d had my fill during my childhood.

  “Best not to go there, Ruby,” Wells told her.

  She let out a short laugh. “Why not? She’s a stable girl or whatever. Thatcher was dragging her like an animal through the stables, and I knew it couldn’t be because he was gonna fuck her. If he didn’t want me on his cock, then he had to be upset.”

  “Shut up, Ruby,” Wells warned her, his eyes shifting around nervously.

  I didn’t need him to take up for me. I could handle her. There was likely a chance she wouldn’t be the first I had to deal with.

  “I’m a jockey. Not a stablehand. And I wasn’t in trouble with Thatcher. We were leaving. Together.”

  She smirked, and her gaze traveled down my dirty jeans, boots, then back up to the tank top I was wearing. “Not to fuck—that’s for damn sure.”

  “Enough!” Wells said, grabbing Ruby’s arm.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked her.

  She was making me mad. I might be insecure about the women he’d been with, but I sure as heck wasn’t letting one of them make me feel less than.

  She gave me a disgusted look. “Oh, the stable girl is getting snarky,” she said, stepping closer to me. “You do not want to mess with me, bitch. I—”

  An arm swung in front of me, and the loud smack that landed on Ruby’s face sent her flying backward and onto her butt. I heard some cursing, and I was still looking at her in shock when Thatcher stepped in front of me. Realization hit me. Oh my God. He’d just slapped a woman on her ass.

  “GET OUT!” he shouted, standing over her as she scrambled back on the ground, trying to get away from him.

  The side of her face was already swelling, blood was pouring from her nose, and tears were trickling from the corners of her eyes.

  “Jesus Christ!” I heard King’s voice and snapped out of the shocked daze I’d been in.

  Thatcher grabbed her hair, and I reacted, rushing to him and grabbing his arm.

  “NO! STOP!” I screamed, pulling on him.

  He’d already lifted her off the ground by her hair when his eyes swung to me. That was bad. The feral, unhinged Thatcher was there, staring out of those dark pools.

  “Let her go. Please. I am begging you. She’s a woman.” I spoke calmly.

  He was breathing heavy as his eyes scanned my face. What was he looking for? Then, I heard her body hit the ground and a cry come from below.

  “Get her out of here now!” King told someone.

  I didn’t look to see who King was speaking to, but I was real thankful King was here.

  I placed a hand on Thatcher’s chest. “Calm down.” I hoped that worked.

  This was disturbing. He’d just hit a woman. I was trying to process that. How had he just whacked her across her face like that? She was a female. What if he’d broken her nose? Or cracked her teeth? Oh God, what if the cops came back?

  “Capri, step back some,” King said behind me.

  Thatcher grabbed me and pulled me against his chest, locking me in so tightly that it was hard to breathe. “No,” he snarled, sounding unlike his normal angry voice. This one was … not okay.

  I couldn’t see anything but his shirt that he’d pressed my face against. King was still there though. I hadn’t heard him walk away.

  “Thatcher, you’ve got her too tight. Can she breathe?” King asked.

  Thatcher’s hold immediately eased, but his arms were still like steel bars around me. I sucked in a deep breath.

  His heart was hammering against my ear. I needed to get him alone and snap him out of whatever this was. Telling King that with my face smooshed against Thatcher’s chest was hard to do though.

  “Why don’t you let her go?” King suggested.

  His body flinched. “No,” he replied in a deep, gravelly voice.

  Then, he scooped me up and began stalking away from the stables. The veins in his neck stood out, and his jaw was so rigid that I was afraid he was going to crack a tooth.

  I reached up and touched it. “Thatcher,” I said softly.

  He inhaled sharply, then let it out slowly before dropping his gaze to mine. Damage. So much damage in those depths. How did I handle this? Him? He had hurt a woman over me. She’d simply said words, and he’d have kept hurting her if I hadn’t stopped him. If she had been a man, would he have … killed him?

  I swallowed, realization hitting me. He had meant that. It wasn’t a threat. He’d meant it. He would kill anyone who he felt hurt me. This wasn’t going to be okay. People would say things to me. I would get hurt at some point. Thatcher couldn’t end them over it. He’d be in prison. On death row.

  My stomach turned. What was I supposed to do? What if Ruby charged him with battery? My eyes burned, and bile rose in my throat. I couldn’t let him ruin his life, protecting me.

  He stopped walking, his eyebrows drawing together as he studied me. He read me too well. I needed to mask the turmoil going on inside me, but I couldn’t. I was barely keeping myself together.

  “What’s wrong?” he demanded.

  “I’m scared,” I admitted.

  “Of me?” he asked, sounding pained.

  I shook my head. “No, for you. She could file assault and battery charges. You could go to jail.” A sob escaped me as tears filled my eyes. Saying it out loud was worse than thinking it. Now, it was real.

  “Don’t cry,” he said, sounding almost panicked.

  “I can’t help it,” I replied as another sob broke free.

  His hold on me tightened, and a wild look came over his face. “You can’t cry.”

  Well, too bad. I was going to. I buried my face in his shirt. I had just gotten him, and I was going to lose him. Over a stupid mean girl who hadn’t grown up.

  “I won’t go to prison,” he said, pressing his lips to the top of my head.

  “Yes, you will,” I cried.

  “No, I won’t. She signed an NDA before ever being allowed onto this property. And even if she hadn’t, she knows not to say a word. She knows … what would happen to her if she did.”

  I sniffled and blinked, staring at his chest, waiting for him to explain. He didn’t. He started walking again.

  Dread settled over me. The foreshadowing that you could taste and wished you couldn’t, knowing that there was a part of you that had accepted some of the truth deep down, but feared the full disclosure would be too much, weighed heavy on my chest.

  “What would happen to her?” I asked the words.

  He didn’t slow or stop walking. His beautiful face was tense, but the emotions I’d seen earlier were no longer present. He was back in control.

  “What happens when you piss off the Southern Mafia. No one wants to do that.”

  • Forty •

  “When I get locked in a place inside, you are what brings me out.”

  Capri

  Neither of us had said a word. He’d put me in his truck, then taken me back to his house. Once we were there I had gotten out of the truck quickly. When he had walked over to me, I had stepped back and held up both hands, stopping him from picking me up again.

  I needed some space.

  Stepping inside, I walked to the living room. Its brightness, high ceiling, tall windows overlooking the back patio, and sparkling blue pool—it was all so at odds with the heaviness in my chest.

  I had already started to wonder. Question things. This wasn’t the shock I was sure he thought it might be. It was that I needed a moment to digest it. See if there was any answer to how I was going to move forward now that I knew.

  I was going to talk to him about my needing to serve dinner at the homeless shelter tomorrow night. I’d missed the last week and first of this week. They needed me there. There weren’t enough volunteers. I hadn’t been at the nursing home on Saturday to read to them either. I didn’t like letting them down. I would need to go this week.

  I was in deep.

  I was in love with a man involved in the Mafia. Southern Mafia. I hadn’t known this existed. What did it mean exactly?

  “Capri,” he said, snapping me out of my thoughts.

  I looked up at him. I’d sat down on the sofa without speaking.

  “You had to have suspected.”

  There was a pleading to his voice. He wasn’t keeping that mask of indifference in place. Not here with me. He was vulnerable, and he was allowing me to see it. That made my chest tighten. Had he done this for anyone? Ever?

  “Why me?” I asked.

  There were so many things I needed to ask. That I should know. But that was the first thing that had come out. Because it was the one thing I couldn’t understand. Why was it me that reached him? What had I done to get this man’s trust? He treated me like he required me to breathe deeply, but why?

  “You’re mine.”

  I shook my head. That wasn’t what I was asking. Why was I his?

  “But why me? What did I do that made me different for you? Why let me inside when you don’t let anyone else?”

  He sank down onto the big square marble and stone coffee table in front of me and leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. His eyes locked on mine.

  “You give me peace.”

  I let out a breath and wished my heart weren’t trying to get all fluttery right now. We had real problems here. Life or death.

  “How do I give you peace? What is it I do?”

  He licked his bottom lip, pulling it into his mouth. I tried not to be fascinated by that, but he was stunning. Crazy or not. Murderous or not. He was hard not to stare at.

  “Breathe.”

  Jesus! He had to give me more than that, although I was feeling it. All over. I loved him, and hearing these answers, as short and not enough as they were, was getting to me.

  “Thatcher, I need to understand. You hurt a woman today because she was being catty with me. I was handling it. You didn’t have to slap her down. Her nose was bleeding, but even if it wasn’t, you can’t hit females. And you can’t kill men who upset me. I can’t have that on my conscience.”