Chapter 6
Evan
Since agreeing to let me cover Freedom Festival, Luca has put me through rigorous daily quizzes of different what-if scenarios.
Today, we’re in the kitchen making breakfast. I’m toasting bread, and Luca’s mixing up a veggie omelet while he rapid-fires what-ifs at me. What if I were to get separated from him and my other bodyguards? What if gunfire broke out? What if Luca were to become injured while protecting me?
That one, I don’t have to think hard about.
“I’d help you,” I answer immediately.
“Wrong answer,” he fires out, startling me with his tone and volume. He turns around from the stove, eyes blazing, muscles tense. He’s furious.
It takes me a second to process it. I’ve screamed at him. I’ve accused him of things he didn’t do. I even threw several objects at him, and I didn’t even get so much as a raised voice in retribution. Telling the guy I’d help him if he were hurt is the thing that causes him to Hulk out?
He steps into my space. I give a startled gasp at having his muscled body pressed to mine. His strong arms grasp me by the shoulders and shake me lightly. “I don’t care if I’m dying in the street; you step over my convulsing body and get your ass to safety.”
He’s got to be kidding me. “No! I’d never walk away from you like that,” I say, truly horrified.
My response makes him even angrier. “Again. Wrong answer,” he grates out. “If any of our crew are around, you go with them. And if we’re alone, you do everything you have to get yourself to safety.”
I’ll fight him on this. Even if it means he keeps me from covering Freedom Fest. There’s no way I’ll agree to leave him behind if he’s hurt.
I look up at him and open my mouth to tell him just that when I see the vulnerability behind his agitated eyes.
I want to reach out and put a calming hand on his face, to take care of him the way he does me, but resist. “Why is this so important to you?”
Not getting another refusal from me seems to calm him a bit. I feel his muscles slightly relax. “I need to know you’ll be safe.” He shakes me again. “No matter what happens, I need you safe.”
This man wrecks me. No one has ever cared for me before, not really. And Luca, who I’ve known only for a few weeks, is here making me promise to put my well-being over his.
“Okay. Okay,” I tell him soothingly. “Whatever you ask, I’ll do it.”
“You’ll leave me behind if something happens to me.”
“Yes,” I say, even though it hurts to say the word out loud, and I have no intention of keeping my promise if the what-if game were to really happen. A flash of an injured, bleeding Luca invades my brain, causing my chest to seize. Please, God, let it never, ever happen.
With my lying words, Luca relaxes, and the anger melts from his body. Without the tense conversation between us, it becomes just the two of us locked in an embrace.
I start playing a different version of the what-if game. One I like a whole lot better.
What if he gripped me tighter instead of releasing me, and told me he would never let me go? What if he then bent down and took me in a kiss that made me feel safe and like I belonged in his arms? What if he told me he lo—
Luca’s muscles tighten when he comes back to himself enough to notice the way he has me pinned to him. He doesn’t loosen his grip or step back. Instead, his eyes sweep down and focus on the picture our bodies make locked together, and when his gaze returns to me, it’s molten hot.
Time stills as we stare at each other. I swear I can feel the beat of his heart against my chest as he slowly leans toward me, and I feel the whisper-light touch of his lips against mine.
Beep. Beep Beep.
What the fuck?
Luca jumps back from me, and it takes me a full minute to realize the sound is the smoke detector going off because the omelet Luca had been cooking is now a charred, smoldering mess.
He’s already dealt with the smoke alarm, turned off the burner, and soaked the pan by the time I process it all. “Luca,” I say, coming up behind him and putting my hand on his shoulder, hoping he’ll turn around and take me back in his arms.
He shrugs away my touch and turns around but avoids looking at me.
“Breakfast is trashed,” he says, grabbing his keys from the kitchen counter. “I’ll pick up some breakfast tacos from the Tex Mex joint around the corner.”
“Luca,” I call out, unsure what to say to him, but I need to know we’re okay.
He pretends not to hear me and bolts for the door. “I’m locking you in, but I’ll monitor the video feed while I’m gone.” Then there’s a slam of the door, and I’m alone.
It's four a.m., and I’m pacing my bedroom floor. That’s not unusual. I’ve only been in this apartment for a few months, and the cheap laminate floor is already worn smooth from my treading back and forth while I’m writing.
Tonight, I’m not pacing the floors while I deliberate over which slant to take on an article. I’m brooding over the kiss that almost happened this morning with Luca and the fact he ignored me the rest of the day.
One minute, he’s willing to sacrifice his life for mine and almost kisses me, then it’s like I’m invisible.
I’ve felt invisible most of my life, and Luca making me feel that way hurts.
I hear noises coming from the living room. The last time I’d peeked out, Luca had been sleeping on my couch. Maybe he left the TV on? I quietly slide the door open a crack to check that he’s still sleeping, to find him thrashing his arms and yelling.
He's having a nightmare.
I rush out of my bedroom to kneel in front of him. He’s drenched in sweat. “Luca,” I call, but he doesn’t respond.
“No,” he keeps repeating. “I won’t do it.” His arms flail wildly and his hands are clenched in fists as if he’s fighting someone in his sleep.
“Evan,” he cries desperately, tears sliding down his face.
“I’m here. I’m here.”
“Noooo!” Luca screams in agony, and then, with a gasp, he bolts up into a sitting position, a look of pure terror on his face.
He’s breathing heavily and looking wildly around, obviously trying to place himself in the here and now. “It’s Evan,” I tell him, reaching out to touch my hand to his knee to ground him. “You’re in my apartment, and you’re safe.”
He jerks at my touch and then looks at me in surprise as if he just realized I was there. “Evan,” he cries in relief as he pulls me into his arms and holds me desperately tight against him. My arms instinctively go around him, and I realize he’s shaking.
He pulls back. “I have to make sure you’re not hurt.” His hands go over me, checking for injuries despite my telling him numerous times that I’m fine.
Finally, sure I’m okay, his searching hands still. Assuming now that he’s calmer, he’ll want his space, I start to move away. His arms circle back around me, and if anything, he holds me tighter. “I can’t let you go yet,” he says, burying his face in my neck.
I once again let my arms wrap around him and relax into his body.
He begins to rock back and forth, and I get lost in the rhythm of his movements.
Seconds, minutes, hell, maybe hours pass with us like this, holding each other like two halves of a whole.
It feels so natural to be in his arms that I start dropping small kisses on his neck.
They start as an offering of comfort, but the deep, woodsy scent of him and the rough, unshaven scrape of his stubble against my lips warms my blood, and my body starts to move against him as I continue to trail kisses up his jawline until I reach his mouth.
Fuck. What am I doing?
He needed comfort, and here I am, rubbing myself off against him. I jerk back and start to move away, ready to apologize for taking advantage of him in a vulnerable moment, when he stops me.
“Don’t go.”
There’s need in the low, rough timbre of his voice as he asks me to stay, but what kind? Is it the need not to be alone after whatever horrors he just faced in his nightmare? Is it just the simple need for human touch? Or is it more?
I’m afraid to look at him and not see the same need burning through me. He lifts my chin to meet his eyes and my mouth goes dry at the want I see there.
No one has ever looked at me like Luca is looking at me right now—like I’m more than just a body that can get him off. Like there’s more to me than that, and he wants all of it. He wants all of me.
My mouth crashes into his, eager to taste that want. To swallow it, to take it in and let it spread through me until it’s all I know.
His hands come up to hold my face as he takes over the kiss and slows it down, so it’s not a mad rush of lips on lips and tongues fighting for control, but an agonizingly sweet exploration of mingling desire.
As he kisses me, my body shamelessly rubs against his, fascinated by the feel of his hard cock against me.
Luca trails his hands down my body to grip my hips and pulls them hard against him so I can feel the size and girth of him.
His groans of pleasure against my mouth spur me on, and I begin to ride him relentlessly as we kiss.
I could come like this, but I need more. I break the kiss. Luca growls in protest and attempts to pull me back in his arms, but I slide down to the floor.
“I need to taste you.”
He’s wearing a thin pair of yoga pants that I pull down from the knees.
The fabric inches down with each pull until his cock springs free—his big, beautiful cock.
I lick my lips at the drop of precum at his tip, and Luca, who’s tracking my every move, practically starts vibrating at the sight.
Placing my hand on his muscled, hairy thigh, I bend down and lap it up.
The salty tang of cum explodes on my tongue, and I moan approvingly at the taste that is distinctly Luca.
I want more. I wrap my hand around his base and take him in my throat.
The kick of his hips and then the pulse of his cock under my tongue sends me wild.
I hollow my cheeks and suck as I slide my mouth up and down his cock and get lost in the delicious rhythm.