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“Hey, brother, isn’t that your woman?” Riker Devlin nodded to the coffee bar across the street where two women who were carrying shopping bags were about to enter the shop.
“Yeah, it is.” Hallelujah Thomas grinned and automatically looked down at the thick band on the fourth finger of his left hand.
“You realize you look at that damn thing about a thousand times a day, brother?” Riker shook his head. Hal had been married about three weeks now and in Riker’s mind that was a damn lifetime.
“Yeah, so what?” Hal scowled at him.
Riker shrugged. “So nothing, I just… ya know…it’s been a couple of weeks now, brother…”
“And?”
“I don’t know man…just seems…”
“Spit it the fuck out, Riker. Seems what?” Hal growled.
“Jesus, take it the fuck easy. No disrespect intended, man.” Riker hedged. “Just forget I said anything.”
Hal crossed his big arms against his chest and waited.
Riker sighed. “It seems like, you know…one woman?”
Hal hesitated a minute, then bellowed out loud enough for the people passing by on the sidewalk to turn and stare. “You asking me if I’m bored?”
While Riker looked on, Hal burst out with a knee- slapping, belly laugh for a good couple of minutes.
Riker let Hal have his fun for a few more seconds then snarled out. “You laughing at me?”
Hal wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. “I’m sorry, man. It’s just that the last thing I ever am, or ever expect to be is bored. Damn, just watching the expressions change on my woman’s face every five seconds keeps me entertained for hours. And this Haiti trip that Valentina is hell-bent on seeing through? My guess is that it’s gonna be a lot of things, but boring ain’t gonna be one of them.”
“Yeah, guess you got that right, brother.” Riker couldn’t help but grin. “I got three sisters and two brothers. All married with a couple of kids. My mom was married to my dad for forty years before he passed. But honestly, man. I just don’t get it.”
“Could be you just haven’t met the right woman yet.”
Now it was Riker’s turn to laugh. “Shit, brother. You sound like my mother.” Then he clapped Hal on the shoulder. “What’d ya say we go buy that fascinating woman of yours a cup of coffee? My guess is that there ain’t a whole lot of espresso bars in wherever the hell it is you’re going.”
Riker homed in on Gia the minute he entered the shop. It was as if a giant magnet pulled him toward her. She had a cup of coffee in her hand and her head was turned so that he could see the curve of her cheek and the graceful slope of her shoulders. She was wearing a light blue, thin strapped, cotton shirt, and white shorts. Her thick dark hair was pulled off her face in a loose bun. A pair of sunglasses sat perched on the top of Gia’s head and with her free hand she twirled a loose tendril around her fingers. God, she was pretty. Especially when she laughed like she was doing now.
Riker thought about their one night together often and with a measure of regret—an unusual feeling for him. Gia had been all for the fast and the furious and it made him wonder how long it had been since she’d had a man. Not that Riker hadn’t enjoyed it, but he could have done better and he had planned to. But then Valentina Abruzzi lost her shit and that was the end of that.
Although Gia and Riker had engaged in some hot sexting after that night, even that had been short-lived. Gia and Valentina’s abduction put an end to that—another reason to hate that asshole, Rooster. Aside from the cowardly act of kidnapping two women and putting them through that kind of damn terror, Riker had no doubt that the whole experience had changed the way Gia looked at things—at him.
He figured it might be because Rooster had been a member of Prosper’s club—Riker’s club— but he wasn’t sure. There was no way to tell or even figure out a way to ask her about it. Gia had pretty much cut Riker off and that bothered him more than it should. She had a unique way of looking at life, and a quick wit that made him laugh out loud. He had looked forward to getting to know her better. But since the rescue, he had tried texting her a couple of times and she had given him one-word answers. Then she stopped answering him all together. The last time Riker had seen Gia was at Sal Tettorio’s funeral and she had been surrounded by Gianni’s boys. That had made it pretty much impossible to get to her. But even from a distance, the sight of Gia had hit Riker hard in the chest—it was a feeling that he didn’t understand, recognize or even like too much.
As if pulled by an invisible string, Gia turned to face Riker as he and Hal approached the table.
“Hey, wife.” Hal bent down and kissed Valentina on the mouth.
“Hey, husband.” Valentina sighed against his lips.
Gia looked at Riker and rolled her eyes in a way that made him grin. But when Riker tried to hold her eyes with his, he saw something flash across Gia’s face before her expression went carefully blank.
Riker Devlin was one hot guy, that was for sure—with his ‘hey, baby’ eyes and rock- hard inked up body. He looked like the poster child for every woman’s dream of the quintessential bad boy. But when Gia Bonzini looked at Riker Devlin now, it was through a different lens. Then again, she looked at everything differently since the kidnapping—nothing screamed re-examine your life like having a gun pointed between your eyes. Besides, their night together hadn’t exactly been earth-shattering. Being with Riker had definitely not lived up to all the hype that the gossip had created.
Granted, it had been a while since Gia had done the deed and she had been anxious to move things along, but Riker’s performance that night had been pretty ho-hum. After that night, Gia and Riker had entertained themselves with some steamy sexting and that had been off the charts hot. But before that could lead to another shot for the two of them, Gia and Valentina had been kidnapped and almost killed by a biker- gone- bad.
That had been a traumatic experience —a life event that couldn’t leave a person unchanged. And unfortunately, the kidnapper had worn the Saints colors. So, as a result, every time Gia saw one of Prosper’s boys, she cringed just a little inside. Not that the club had anything to do with the dastardly deed, as a matter of fact, every Saints chapter and their affiliates world-wide were watching and waiting for Rooster to resurface. He would pay for his horrible transgression. But still…it had left its scars.
If Gia was honest with herself, the waning interest she felt for Riker had more to do with herself than anything else. The attention, admiration and singular focus she received at the beginning of a relationship was always way more satisfying and much more of a turn-on for her than anything that followed. Once the thrill of the chase was gone and the chance of real intimacy set in, Gia became bored and went on to the pursuit of the next new shiny penny. Even as a very young child, Gia had craved attention and affection to a sometimes self-destructive and dangerous degree. Thank goodness Gia had had her cousin, Valentina, as a voice of reason.
