“Would you be able to look at me and?—”
“When I look at you, sometimes I’m conflicted.” She cut him off.
La’Nova shifted to her back as Luca lifted his arm and rested it beneath her neck. Her gray orbs gazed into his dark pools, and for a while they got lost in each other before La’Nova spoke.
“We both conflicted, Luca… no doubt our pain ties together sensually and spiritually. I feel you in here.” She tapped the center of her chest.
“We both need to heal, and I don’t know if that’s us doing that shit together because we wouldn’t trust one another, but we feel for each other… if that makes sense.” Her voice cracked.
Luca gently moved his arm from underneath her slowly. He sat up on his elbow and looked down in her eyes. His hand landed on the top of her forehead then traced down her scar intently. Like a moth to a flame, La’Nova’s hand reached up and stroked his neck.
Minutes felt like hours with them touching and stroking one another. Communication through touch because they both were lost in their own conflicted thoughts.
“A Don’s Love…” Luca’s hoarse voice broke through the thick silence. “I fell in love with you the moment I laid eyes on you. You made my pain and suffering disappear instantly. I don’t know how you did it but it happened. I feel good when you next to me, even outside my home inside of this camper.” The corner of his lips turned up. A small smile graced his handsome face as he thought about how good she made him feel.
He hadn’t believed in anything instant before La’Nova; not healing, peace, and damn sure not love. Life had taught him that everything meaningful came at a cost, usually paid in blood, sleepless nights, and memories that refused to loosen its grip. So when she walked into his line of sight, he didn’t recognize what was happening to him at first. He only knew something had shifted.
Luca remembered how La’Nova wasn’t even paying attention to him when she first walked into Lucille’s office. Since they met, he was confused by the unfamiliar sensations she brought on to him. For years, he had known attraction, lust and possession with other women. It was easy and predictable. But this felt likestanding at the edge of something sacred without knowing the rules.
Like his soul had taken a step forward in her direction before he could even pull it back. Truth be told, the only confliction Luca felt since tracking down her camper was already knowing that he wouldn’t be able to pull the trigger. He also knew that she probably wouldn’t want shit to do with him. Then all the pain that he felt before she came into his life would come crashing back into him.
There was confliction for him thinking about how she killed his father. She was the cause in the cure in the literal sense. She caused him great pain taking away the only person who understood him thoroughly. She was the cure in that before he even knew she was the cause. He forgave her and would do whatever he had to do to get things between them normal.
Luca felt the codependency that he desperately tried to hide and deny with La’Nova. He noticed the way his day shifted depending on her presence. If she was near, like now, the tension in his broad shoulders eased without permission. The edge that defined him didn’t disappear but stepped back just so he’d adjust and transform into the man that La’Nova needed at any moment.
“Ain’t nothing about us surface, it’s deep, too deep to ignore,” he whispered out clearly.
La’Nova’s lips trembled, her body was still caught somewhere between running and collapsing into him. She knew better. That was the part that frustrated her the most. The clarity of it all. La’Nova knew exactly who he was, where he came from, and what kind of blood he had running through his veins.
Secretly, she even knew Luca, or at least one of his men, put some sort of tracking device on her camper. She wanted freedom but didn’t want to be free of him. Even when every instinct in her screamed to run. To put distance between herself and him so that she could live her life and enjoy her millions. It’s what she’d been praying for, yet, there was something with Luca that pulled her soul in the opposite direction to where she was trying to go.
She felt safe with Luca. To her it shouldn’t have made sense, but it did. She hated how her body naturally relaxed before her mind could argue when it came to him. How natural it felt right now to be in his arms, being held securely without judgement or hatred. Luca had nothing to lose, and she didn’t either.
La’Nova understood that they were never meant to be anything besides enemies. She guarded herself with everything she had, keeping the important parts of herself locked away. She refused to give him access to the pieces of her that were too fragile, and now it was all laid out in front of him.
The one thing that both of them didn’t understand was that love didn’t ask for permission. It moved quietly, slipping past both of their defenses. Love settled into places they both thought were off limits.
“Your trauma is loud. Mine is buried so deep that it doesn’t even have a voice. When I’m in your presence,” Luca paused to swallow down the painful lump.
Before he could stop it, a tear rolled down his cheek and La’Nova graciously caught it.
“I feel good. Right now…I’m hurting, but I still feel good, even with knowing you pulled the trigger.” He shut his eyes tightly.
More silent tears escaped him as he rested his hand on the top of her forehead, nearly covering her eyes.
“I been in a battle, Nova baby.” He sighed.
He moved his hand away from her and sat all the way up in her small bed, pulling his knees up to his chest. Luca dropped his head in defeat.
“Battling myself and my pain.” He scoffed then pinched the bridge of his nose. The sane part of him held on just to be strong. He didn’t want to break and shatter right next to her when she needed his strength to feed off of. “I love you, I want you, and don’t want to see you go, but I want you happy.” His whispered words sounded muffled, but La’Nova heard him loud and clear.
She eased up and stroked his back lovingly. His confession moved her tremendously. Luca was laying it all out for her. He was literally giving her the option to get up from her bed, pick up one of the guns he carried into her camper, and put him out of his lifelong misery.
“Travel with me,” she offered lovingly.
“We can go?—”
“I’ll go anywhere with you, Nova baby. Let me just call Roy so he can grab the twins and keep them with him for a couple of days,” he said, pulling his phone out of his pants pocket.
