Riding Dirty: Luciotti Crime Family (A Bad Boy Mafia Romance) - Kara Hart Page 0,3

to do more than that because I’m calling the police!” I yelled, making my voice heard.

He crawled out from under the hood and dropped his tool on the road. He walked forward, as close to me as he could get, until his chest practically touched mine. His words hit my face like a ton of bricks. “What do you want from me? You going to bust my balls all day? Am I going to have to force you to leave?” He asked me, clenching his fists.

He was built like a statue and I didn’t want to know what forcing me to leave felt like. “No,” I muttered. “It’s just that this is a nice community of people. We protect each other here.”

“Cute,” he said. His dark eyes pierced right through me. Now that he was closer to me, I could see the tattoo on his right side. “Z” with a knife coming down right through it. It looked like one of those mafia prison tattoos I saw in one of those History Channel shows a while back.

“Yeah, so watch where you’re driving,” I whispered, feeling my throat tighten up with fear, but also a strange kind of attraction that kept me standing there.

“How about a compromise? Why don’t you take a different route in the mornings so you never have to see me again? Because I know you’re a little Sherriff friend. And turns out, he’s a good friend of mine too. We should all get dinner sometime. I think that would be fun.” He smiled, though his eyes remained dark and determined as ever.

“I was just saying…” I gulped. I was flustered and embarrassed. I really didn’t want him to see that I had been staring at that “Z” for at least a minute straight. What did it mean? It was clearly some kind of affiliation to something. Let it go, Dahlia, my instinct told me.

He started to smile as his gaze fell downward. “You're pretty small, huh?” He asked me.

I took a slight step back. Maybe I shouldn't have stopped. Maybe I should have just went straight to work. “Why the hell do you care?” I found myself getting defensive. I glanced down at my chest and realized my cleavage was falling out a bit too much. I adjusted myself and remained still.

“It would be fun to take you for a ride,” he said, smirking. “Next time though.”

“Excuse me?” I replied, shocked he had the audacity to say such a thing. “Do you talk to your mother like that?” I asked him. It was an old lady thing to say and I realized how much I sounded like a mom.

“My mom’s been dead for years. I don't talk to her at all these days,” he replied. He turned around and began fiddling with his engine again. “Quit looking at my chest,” he said, shaking his burly head at me.

As he moved away from me, his scent enveloped the whole area. It smelled like cologne, foreign cobblestone, and old cracked leather. I couldn't help but feel intrigued, yet the way he spoke to me was repulsive. I pegged him for one of those patriarchal men’s rights type of guys.

“I wasn't looking at your chest, you pig,” I spat out. “I actually don't have time for this. I have work. Just stay off our roads if you're going to max out your stupid engine.” I huffed, making my way toward the café once again.

“Sure thing, honey. Catch you on the flip side,” he said with such arrogance I could have turned around and socked him. Before I started running, I turned my head slightly to get one last look at the guy. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw specks of reddish-brown around his bruised and injured left hand. One of his gold rings was practically painted with it.

“Is that blood?” I asked him.

“It's nothing,” he said, quickly covering it up. Though it was kind of out of the ordinary, it didn't necessarily mean anything. He could have gotten into a fight, or fell down somewhere. Who was I to judge? I shrugged it off and ran to work.

Of course, I was late. I ran through the front doors, as the bell above me loudly rang, and clocked in.

“You're late,” Carmelo Gelsone, my boss, said to me. He stood next to the bar, arms folded, and he did not look too happy. “And why do you reek of cologne?” He said suddenly, with a sour look on his