22. GIULIA
“LATE NIGHT?”
I shoved North in the arm, and grumbled, “Fuck off. Like you’d know over all the noise you make.”
“Sisters are allowed to hear brothers during sex. Brothers aren’t allowed to hear sisters.”
My brow crumpled at that logic. “What the fuck are you talking about?”
Hawk merely sneered at me. “You really don’t want me to do an impression of you when you’re coming, do you?”
Maybe other women would be icked out by this conversation, but I wasn’t other women, and I’d grown up around this place and these two fuckwits all my life.
“I always thought I was quiet in the sack,” I told them, my tone musing.
North pulled a face, but I saw his gaze drift to my throat that, as was getting to be a regular thing, was sporting a hickey. “TMI, Giulia. Too much fucking information.”
“You’re the one who started this conversation. Not me. And with the amount of women you’ve fucked, against the rules I might add, you’re lucky that?—”
Hawk scowled. “You threatening us?”
“Depends,” I retorted. “You got anything worth blackmailing over?” I eyed their scruffy jeans and the tees that looked like they needed a couple of weeks in the laundry before they’d be clean again. “As far as I can see, you don’t.”
North rolled his eyes. “You’re all heart.”
“No, I just see nothing worthy of bribing you over.” I shot him a grin, then twisted around and returned to the bacon and eggs I was frying.
If there was a spring to my step, then so be it.
I was, I’d admit, happy.
Yeah, I wasn’t used to the feeling either.
Whether it was because Nyx was boning me enough to make me cock-drunk, or I was just enjoying my current status quo, I couldn’t say.
Having never been cock-drunk before, it wasn’t something I was used to feeling, so my inexperience was shining through, but aside from being tired from work, play, and fucks, yeah, everything was currently coming up roses.
I didn’t think it would last, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t enjoy it until it was over, did it?
“I can’t believe you’re still not cutting Dad any slack.”
With my mind on the food, I’d missed half of North’s complaint, but the second he said the word ‘Dad,’ that turned my smile upside down.
Gritting my teeth, I stated firmly, “If he won’t cut me any slack, why should I cut him any?”
I hadn’t told them about him trying to slap me that first week. I saw no reason to wreck their relationship with him, even if it totally merited it. Dad was a violent bastard, and it wasn’t in a way that I could get behind.
Nyx was like a grenade with the fuse halfway pulled out. He was ready to blast, and I knew that. But it would only be something worthy of his violence that would take him to the edge.
My dad? Not so much.
Control. That was the difference between Nyx and my father, and that was why I didn’t and never had trusted him.
“I have no desire to be in his life, and just because I’m here, under the same roof as him, I see no need to talk to him.” To me, he deserved as little attention as the club sluts.
“He’s our dad, Giulia,” North muttered, and from his stern frown, I figured I was about to get a lecture.
“You might want him in your life, but I don’t want him in mine.”
“He’s fucking lucky he’s in your lives. Period. I almost had Rex toss him out the week you arrived after that stunt he pulled with your sister.”
North and Hawk tensed the second Nyx had arrived, and I couldn’t blame them. They were, after all, Prospects, which meant they were way down low in the pecking order, and Nyx, even if he was a terrifying motherfucker who collected skulls on his back to go with the souls of the men he’d taken—I’d have to ask him if he was an equal opportunity murderer and went for women pedophiles too—he was also the Enforcer.
And that meant a fuck ton to the MC.
“What did he do?”
Hawk’s belligerent tone didn’t altogether surprise me, not when his back was to the wall. Hawk hadn’t been given that much charm, instead, North had gotten the lion’s share of it in the womb.
“Slapped her.”
“Tried to slap me,” I corrected with a frown, not pleased with him sharing this story when I’d wanted to keep it to myself.
“That supposed to make it better? A second later, and his hand would have connected with your face.” He glowered at me, even as he carried on walking around the counter, not stopping until his hand was on my ass.
That was how he greeted me every day.
Like we hadn’t just woken up in bed together.
Like he hadn’t just eaten me out before making me scream down the house as he fucked me before I had to make breakfast.
His ‘hello’ was a hand on my butt.
It surprised me by how unoffended I was by it.
Any other fucker, and I’d have squeezed their balls in retaliation. I didn’t like invasions of privacy, but Nyx was one big invasion, and I kinda liked it.
I was even going to miss it when he went on the run tonight.
I didn’t know what was going down, didn’t know when he’d be back—there was too much déjà vu for my liking, because it just reminded me of when I was a kid, and I hadn’t known when my dad was coming back home or if he’d be coming home at all—but, oh, the irony, it was just a part of the life.
And I couldn’t believe I’d allowed the thought to cross my mind.
Fuck, I hated it when my mom had said that to me, and I was using that BS to console myself now.
Jesus Christ.
“What did you do to make him want to slap you?”
The question didn’t surprise me, but it had Nyx’s biceps bulging in a way that didn’t bode well for my older brother.
Sure, it was a dick question to ask, but Hawk was a dick.
“Do you think women deserved to be slapped if they backtalk?” Nyx asked, his tone quiet, but Hawk would have to be a fucking moron if he didn’t hear the deadly poison dripping from each word.
“No, but Dad...” North sighed and scrubbed a hand over his face. “That’s how Dad works.”
“And that’s how domestic violence passes through the generations,” Nyx growled. “If I hear of you beating any of the women, slapping them around, I’ll have your fucking guts hanging out on the front lawn to feed the opossums.”
“I didn’t know opossums were carnivores.” If my tone was musing, then so be it. I was curious.
“That’s all you have to say to that threat?” North sputtered.
I shrugged. “I hope he does it too. Dad’s a dick, but that doesn’t mean you two can be dicks as well. Whatever’s left of you after Nyx slaughters you, I’ll piss on. How about that for a neat and tidy bow?”
“Opossums are carrion-eaters,” Nyx inserted, his tone helpful now that my brothers were gaping at us both like we were the next episode of American Horror Story.
I could deal with that.
I’d always been the bloodthirsty one. It was why my stepfather had resorted to bitching at me about my weight after he’d tried making a pass at me.
My kick to his balls had been hard enough to rupture his testicle, and after a lot of surgery, and many doctor’s appointments, he’d had one removed.
That was why my brothers knew to be wary around me.
I was a ball buster.
And proud of it.
“Anyway,” I carried on, “he was bitching at me for not coming around to meet his new Old Lady.” I huffed. “Like I was even interested in meeting her.”
“Katy is cool. Cooler than Dog. And if that’s how he takes rejection, then I’d better visit her and find out if he’s treating her right.”
“She seemed happy enough when we met her.” North wriggled his shoulders.
“How anyone could be happy with him is beyond me.” I sniffed, then flipped the bacon once more to make sure it was extra crispy, the way Nyx liked it.
Double whipped.
Sheesh.
“Does he know about Lance?”
Hawk’s question had me snorting. My brother was digging as well as trying to shit stir. “He knows of the situation, yes.”
“Bet he doesn’t know you’re more than capable of defending yourself.”
I didn’t bother shooting him a warning look, because that would just fire him on all the more.
“You say that like it’s a bad thing,” Nyx retorted.
“It isn’t. We helped teach her, we just taught her too well.”
“Is that possible? If she’s good at defending herself, then that’s?—”
North raised a hand to stall him. “No way she told you all about Lance.”
“I saw no need to discuss his surgery,” I said with a grumble.
“Surgery? And who is Lance, anyway?” Nyx demanded, finally moving his hand from my butt so he could fold his arms.
I didn’t think he was scared off because he didn’t back away, just leaned against the fridge and waited, impatiently, for my brothers to tell their story.
And hey, who was I to butt in?
I wasn’t ashamed of the tale, but I half expected he’d be running away by the end of the conversation.
My brothers always looked queasy when they talked about this, and for some reason, they talked about it a lot. I figured they were, in a weird way, proud. But male camaraderie meant they had to be grossed out by it too.
“Lance is our stepdad. He’s a dick,” North replied, pulling a face.
“If he’s a dick,” I butted in, “then he’s a small one.” I waggled my pinkie finger. “The smallest of the small. We’re talking micro penis.”
Hawk snorted. “You’d know more than us.”
Sure, it was an insensitive thing to say, but when Nyx growled, stalking forward like a puma on the hunt, I quickly grabbed his arm and stopped him from slamming my brother’s head into his knee.
“It’s okay. He didn’t mean it that way,” I insisted quickly, glowering at my dick of a sibling all the while. “I kneed Lance in the balls when he tried to touch me.”
He grunted, “Good.” But he was still throbbing with tension, and I knew he really wanted to smack my shithead of a brother.
“She didn’t just knee him,” North corrected. “Deservedly,” he tacked on, his hands raised in surrender at the stone-cold killer glare Nyx aimed at him. “She ruptured his fucking testicle. Bastard had to have it removed.”
Nyx stilled, then he shot me a look. “How did you do that?”
“Well, I kneed him in the balls,” I repeated warily.
“You’re forgetting the stiletto,” Hawk chimed in.
“You stabbed him in the nuts?”
Okay, so I definitely wasn’t mishearing the appreciation in his voice now.
Some of the tension I’d been feeling since my twin brothers had decided to be dicks eased. “Not with a knife. With a stiletto heel. I kneed him hard, then when he was on the ground, I stood on him. I had a good aim.”
Nyx grinned while my brothers still looked pretty green around the fucking gills.
“Pussies,” I hissed at them, as Nyx curved his arm around my shoulder and hauled me into him.
Of course, I was too flustered to appreciate the first PDA we had.
Not too flustered, however, to appreciate Cammie’s stunned expression when she wandered into the kitchen a second later.
If my smile was smug when I turned the stove off, then it was smug.
Fuck it.
Nyx was mine.
For the interim.
And I didn’t mind if people knew that. Especially not if the shit about Lance’s nut got out. Hell, I’d be safe as houses.
?