20. Lynx
LYNX
Dear Diary,
Nothing bonds two men quite like standing in awkward silence while a woman orgasms in the next room.
Everything was fine in the hallway. I had my grape paintings to keep me occupied, and I was up to at least three hundred when I thought I heard something from the other side of Nyah’s bedroom door.
I paused, listening to see if it came again, but when it didn’t, I went back to staring at the grapes.
“Why are you squinting like that?” Luca asked.
I jumped a mile, sucking in a breath so sharp I ended up coughing. “Where the fuck did you come from?”
But it was pretty obvious. He had sneakers on, and the only other thing on his body was a pair of running shorts. He had one AirPod in his ear, and the other in his hand, his dark hair sweaty and messed up.
He looked so good that it took me a long moment of staring and I forgot I’d promised Nyah I’d warn her if anyone was coming.
I gave three quick knocks on Nyah’s door, blocking the movement from Luca’s view with my body, though there wasn’t much I could do about the sound.
Luca slung a hand towel over his shoulder. “I was down in the gym. Needed a run.”
“I didn’t even know there was a gym here.”
“There is. A big one. It’s down in the basement. With the cages.”
I raised an eyebrow. “The cages?”
“The ones we keep my father’s enemies in.”
I laughed. “Right. I’ll remember that for the next time I want to get a workout in. Turn left at the dungeon.”
Luca leaned against the wall opposite me, all smug and sweaty. “You say that like it’s a joke. When that’s exactly what it is.”
My mouth dropped open. “Are you for real? Your father has a dungeon full of cages, and he actually keeps people in them?”
Luca shrugged. “Only people he doesn’t like, normally.”
I threw my hands up. “Oh, of course! How ridiculous of me to assume you were joking.”
Luca laughed, like the whole thing was funny instead of completely fucked up. I was no saint. I’d done some messed-up things. I lived with a bunch of bikers. None of us were exactly strangers to fights and weapons and spilling some blood.
But there was something creepy as fuck about realizing Luca was dead serious when he talked about cages in the basement.
It sent a shiver down my spine. I’d killed people in my time, with very little or even no remorse.
I was probably a borderline sociopath. Or Hell, maybe I had a whole damn leg in the psycho pool.
I didn’t know. It wasn’t like I regularly laid myself out on a therapist’s couch and allowed them to diagnose me.
But I’d been locked up for the best part of a decade. Knowing there was another prison just downstairs didn’t exactly have me jumping for joy or interested in going to check it out.
Luca stared intently at my face the entire time I was trying to process the dungeon bomb drop. The corner of his mouth flickered in amusement, and he crossed his arms over his chest. “You done mentally processing that one?”
“For now.”
“Good. You got any other clothes here?”
I glanced down at my suit. “What’s wrong with the ones I’m wearing?”
“Other than the fact that suit is so cheap it’d probably catch fire if I lit up a smoke within six feet of you?”
I flipped him the bird. “We aren’t all made of money like you, rich boy.”
He ignored me. “Not the point. We’re going to the fights tonight. The old man wants Nyah there, so that means you’ll be there too. But you’re going to stick out like a dog’s balls wearing that.”
“Then I’ll need to go home—”
“No time. We’re leaving in thirty.”
I shrugged. “Then this is what I’m wearing.”
Luca rolled his eyes. “You can wear something of mine. Come choose something.”
“You own something other than suits?” I mocked.
“Was I wearing a suit when we met?”
“No, but I figured that was just a phase you were going through.”
He took a step closer, and fuck me, I couldn’t help the way my gaze lowered down his body, skating over his pecs and then lower to his abs and the trail of dark hair that started beneath his belly button and ended somewhere beneath those running shorts that did nothing to hide the muscles in his legs.
He was way too fucking close, his voice too damn breathy when he asked, “Am I wearing a suit now?”
I was all too aware that he wasn’t.
He winked and stepped back toward his room. “Come on. Quit checking me out and come choose something. I think I have something that’ll fit you.”
I should have said no. Should have stayed where I was supposed to.
But he was my boss, and if he said I needed something else to wear, then who the hell was I to argue?
It wasn’t like anything much was going to happen to Nyah when she was just next door, getting dressed or putting on makeup or whatever the hell it was women did before they went out.
I followed Luca into his room and found him in the insanely large closet. He tossed a pair of jeans and a T-shirt that was probably slightly big on him but I suspected was going to be like a second skin on me.
I caught them and sidestepped into the en suite bathroom, shrugging off my jacket.
Luca walked in a second later and turned on the shower.
I raised an eyebrow at him. “Seriously? You’re going to take a shower right now? While I’m in here trying these clothes on.”
Luca kicked off his Nikes. “Don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I kind of reek.”
He didn’t. He was sweaty as fuck, but he didn’t smell bad. At least not to me. “You don’t want to wait two minutes until I’m done in here?”
Luca gave a mock gasp. “Oh, the horror! You’ll see me naked!
” He pulled off his socks and then his shorts, leaving him in nothing but his underwear.
He jerked his head toward the bedroom, and his voice lowered to his regular, masculine tone.
“Go. You can try them on in my room. I’m not going to subject you to the sight of my dick.
I need the bathroom more than you do. If you don’t like those, try on whatever else you want from my closet. Just remember it’s casual.”
My feet didn’t want to move. They’d suddenly turned to lead, and all my eyes wanted to do was drink in the sight of Luca’s body.
He noticed and fell silent.
The air around us turned hot in a way that had nothing to do with the steam coming from the shower.
Nyah’s shout of pleasure came through from the other side of the wall, loud and fucking clear.
Both of us stared at the wall that joined their bathrooms.
“Fuck,” Luca ground out. “Was that…?”
I couldn’t fucking talk, because her shouts and moans kept coming, and there was no doubt in my mind why she was making them.
Luca grinned. “I got her all hot and bothered in the kitchen downstairs. Told her I was going to fuck her while she was wearing that little frilly apron and nothing else.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Did you mean it?”
Luca ran his tongue over his teeth. “Wouldn’t you?”
This felt an awful lot like us both trying to work the other out. I had no idea where I stood though. I didn’t dare say that I had been thinking about fucking Nyah in any way she’d have me ever since I’d first laid eyes on her.
But I also didn’t trust Luca as far as I could throw him.
She was his father’s woman. I’d been warned away from her more than once, and so that was exactly what I was going to do.
I was just here to do a job. Whatever fucking sex games she and Luca were playing were between the two of them and had nothing to do with me.
I took off my shirt and put on his. A second later my suit pants were on the floor, and I was tugging on a pair of his jeans.
They all smelled like him. Goddammit.
Luca pulled off his underwear and got beneath the water.
But his eyes never left mine.
Not until I turned around and walked out, knowing full well he was going to get hard listening to Nyah come, and I was going to need a cold shower to stop thinking about both of them.