Chapter 7
Luca
I pull the pillow and blanket from the couch and then move Evan so his head rests on my chest. Neither of us speak, and as I lay there rubbing his back, I try to wrap my mind around what just happened.
I’m a different man than the one who went to sleep last night.
That man hadn’t kissed Evan, hadn’t felt Evan’s lips around his cock.
He hadn’t known what Evan looks like when he comes.
And that was just the physical side of what happened between us.
Because last night was way more than bodies rubbing off on each other.
There was a connection I’d never experienced with another person.
Beside me, Evan lifts his head and looks up at me. My heart thuds in my chest. My mind is still whirling from what just happened between us, and I’m not ready to begin to answer what this means.
“Are you alright?” he asks, his eyes soft as he seems to look straight into my fucking soul.
“Alright?”
“The nightmare you had.” He bites his lip, still swollen from all my kisses. “It…it seemed pretty bad.”
I can’t help craning my neck down to kiss him. His concern touches me. When I pull back, I answer simply. “It was.”
It’s a gross understatement. I’m used to nightmares about my past. I should have figured that, as hyped-up as I’ve been about Evan covering Freedom Fest and being distracted from keeping up with my regular yoga routine and centering practices, I was due for a bad one.
It was worse than bad, so bad that I don’t want to deal with it right now. Not when Evan is naked, and his lips are so goddamned irresistible. So I give in and kiss him again, and I don’t stop until we’ve both come again and lay exhausted in each other’s arms.
I awake to the sound of my cell vibrating. After some fumbling around, I retrieve it and am shocked to realize it’s past noon.
I look over at Evan, who’s still dead-ass asleep, and think of all the ways I’d like to wake him up but answer the phone instead.
“What do you want?” I grumble to Grave, who is on the other end of the line.
“If I said a friend who isn’t a grumpy-ass fuck, I’d be shit out of luck.”
“You’re the bastard who woke me up, so deal with it.”
There’s a pause on the other line. “Considering it’s past noon, I’m guessing you’ve decided you like Evan now.”
“What did you call me about?” I ask, ignoring his targeted question that I’m not ready to answer.
“An apartment in Grant Park burned down last night.”
“And?” I ask, already knowing the answer isn’t going to be good.
“Evan used to live there before Cash and Johnny made him move apartments.”
“Are we sure faulty electrical coding didn’t cause the fire?”
“According to Eli, who hacked the arson investigator’s initial report, they found C4 at the scene.”
Fuck. Grave and I both know what that means.
It was the Reivers who started the fire.
Explosives aren’t typically used to start fires.
Most arsonists use accelerants, but Digger and Hawk insisted on using C4 along with gasoline when they ordered a building or a house torched.
The resulting explosion was always more dramatic, and it became a signature warning to their enemies not to fuck with them.
“Luckily for the people who used to live there, Evan’s old apartments were scheduled to be renovated to condos, and the owners kicked out all the old tenants.
” Grave chuckles. “It’s the one fucking time gentrification was a good thing.
And lucky for Evan, whoever burned it down was a fucking idiot and had the wrong address.
Though maybe you could have caught the bastards in the act. ”
I think back to what I was doing last night and realize if the Reivers hadn’t had the wrong address, I wouldn’t have caught them.
I was too busy fucking Evan to have noticed someone setting a fire until too late.
Evan and a lot of innocent people would have died last night because I messed up and decided to be Evan’s lover and not his bodyguard.
“I gotta go,” I tell Grave and hang up the phone. Throwing on my clothes, I go out to the fire escape. I take out my spare cigarette. This time, I smoke it, and when it’s gone, I want another one. Hell, I want a whole carton, which, as soon as I can, I know I’ll be buying one.
Without another cigarette to distract me, the dream I had last night comes back in technicolor and at full force.
I was back at the Reivers clubhouse in the cage, fighting in the culling.
A packed clubhouse surrounds me, full of bloodthirsty bastards eager to see me die.
I’ve survived nineteen one-minute rounds with some of the best fighters in the club and their weapon of choice.
I’m broken, bloody, and barely alive, but I have one more round to survive to be free of the Reivers forever, and I know it will be my hardest. The twentieth fighter in the Culling is chosen to guarantee maximum punishment.
It’s usually the Reiver with the biggest grudge against the member being culled or the club’s best fighter.
It had been Monty Beket with a brazing torch as the twentieth man in the cage that night, but in my dream, it’s not Monty walking through the cage’s door.
It’s Evan. He looks up at me, obviously scared, but then he gives me that same half-smile as when he opened his door to me the first time.
“I won’t fight him,” I shout to Digger, who, typical of the sick fucker that he is, always acts as the announcer-slash-referee of any cage match at the clubhouse.
He shrugs casually. “Then you die.”
“I don’t care.”
He smiles at me. “After you watch what we do to him first.”
Pure, uncut terror overtakes me. I’d walked into a cage prepared to die, hell, expecting to die.
To never have to wear the Reivers cut again, death was an acceptable stake to bear and a deserved penance for ever putting it on in the first place.
But Evan? He didn’t deserve to be touched by their evil.
I have to protect him. I can’t let them hurt him.
We have to escape. I look at the chained and padlocked door of the cage and then around at the crowds who chant for the twentieth round to begin. There is no way out of this.
“Fight him, or I’ll throw him out into the crowd. They’re hungry for blood.” His deceptively handsome face breaks into a chilling smile. “They’ll tear him apart.”
I have no choice. I have to ensure Evan doesn’t go through what they would do to him. I walk up to him, and he sees the tears streaming down my face.
He reaches up and puts his hand on my cheek, that same half smile on his lips as when we met. “Luca, I’m here. It’s going to be okay.”
I bend down to kiss him, my hands going around his neck as I taste the sweetness of his lips.
I pull back and meet his amber eyes. “I’m sorry,” I whisper.
Then, like the killer I am, I twist his neck hard and feel his body go limp against me.
He slumps to the ground, his beautiful eyes staring blankly up at me as Digger announces me as the winner.
That’s when I’d woken up, broken and destroyed. When I’d seen Evan kneeling in front of me, I’d pulled him into my arms, needing desperately to feel his heartbeat against me to know he was truly safe.
I’m not sure I would have ever been able to let him go, but when he’d started kissing my neck, he’d awakened a fire that incinerated my nightmare.
Touching him, kissing him, watching him take my cock in his mouth, and then edging him as I made him admit how perfect he is will forever be burned into me as one of the sweetest moments of my life.
It can’t happen again.
I call Grave back and make the necessary arrangements. Then I go into the apartment and find Evan just waking up as I enter.
He’s stretching, then he turns to me and smiles—not that careful smile he’d given me before, but one that reaches his eyes and shows his teeth.
“Good morning,” he says, then looks at the clock with the same surprise I had.
“Or good afternoon.” There’s a smokiness in his amber eyes, acknowledging why he slept so late with a hint that he’d like to do it again.
Every part of me wants to take the last fifteen minutes back. I want to pick Evan up and carry him to his bedroom, do all the things to him I’ve wanted to since I first saw him, and make him tell me again how perfect he is.
But I can’t. I already admitted to Grave how in over my head I am with Evan.
Evan sniffs the air, and his forehead crinkles. “You smell like smoke.”
“There’s been a change of plans.”
He goes still. “What kind of change?”
I clear my throat. “Grave’s brother, Cyrus, is going to take over guarding you.”
He doesn’t speak, but his smile goes flat.
“They need my help with security at Freedom Fest.”
“But I’m going to be there too,” he insists. “Can’t we just go there together like we’d planned?”
“That won’t work. I have to go up there early to meet with Cash and Johnny.”
“But, afterward, you’ll be coming back, right? I mean, until the threat with the Reivers is gone?”
The word “yes” almost tumbles out of my mouth. I want to tell him I’ll never leave him, but the last image from my dream of Evan’s cold amber eyes staring up at me fills my head and sets my decision in stone.
“No.”
“Is this about last night?”
I hesitate.
“Hand me my clothes,” he demands. When I just stare at him, he screams at me. “Hand me my clothes!”
I collect his t-shirt and sleep pants from the floor while trying not to remember how hot it was while taking them off of him. He snatches them from me, quickly shimmies into them, stands up, and heads to the door.
I block him. “It’s not about last night. It’s me. It’s my fault.”
That look of fragile vulnerability I’ve seen before is there for a second, but then anger replaces it. “Perfect. You said I was perfect.” Evan shakes his head in frustration. “How could I have thought any of last night was real?” His hands come up, and he starts beating himself on the head.
“Stop that.” I start to grab his fists when he drops them to cradle himself.
“I’m so fucking stupid.” His lips twist into an ironic half-smile. “The old ‘it’s not you; it’s me’ speech. I used to get a lot of those before I wised up and realized nobody wants me for their friend, let alone their—”
He stops speaking, and it seems suddenly really important that he finishes his sentence. “Their what?”
He shakes his head. “It doesn’t matter,” he says with a bitter twist to his lips. “I already know the answer.”
He sits up straight. “When are you leaving?”
“Tonight. Cyrus will be here at seven.”
He nods slowly and stands up. I barely recognize the man staring at me blankly. There’s none of the fiery anger I experienced in my first week of guarding him, or the nervous, shy energy he has when he gets self-conscious and too in his head, or the lover I spent last night with.
I hate this. I want to smash this wall I put between us.
His voice is careful and measured when he speaks. “I’m sure you’d like to get your things together, and I need to try to track some leads on that church in Tennessee, so it’s best to say our goodbyes now.”
No, we still have a few hours before Cyrus gets here.
I start to protest.
“Please,” he says, with enough desperation in his voice that I can do nothing but agree.
I nod, and he puts his hand out for me to shake. “I appreciate everything you’ve done to keep me safe.”
I take his hand in mine and fight the urge to pull him into my arms. I gulp. “I’ll do everything I can to bring down the Reivers and make sure you’re safe so you can return to a normal life.”
His lip twists bitterly at the word normal. “Thank you.”
I know it’s time to let go of his hand, but I hold on to it. It feels too final.
You are leaving for a reason, I remind myself.
Reluctantly, I release his hand, and he swiftly turns and scoops up Delilah, who’d been sleeping on the couch, and rigidly walks to his bedroom.
The realization hits that I just let go of something I’ll never get back again.
“Evan, wait.”
The click of his door lock is his only answer.
I stare at his door for a long time, hoping he’ll come out. I’m not sure what I’ll do or say to him if he does, but that doesn’t stop me from waiting for him. When I realize Cyrus will be here in an hour and a half and I still have a shit load to do, I finally make myself walk away.
As I stow my belongings in my go bag, I realize I’ve never felt this way when leaving somewhere before.
Like I was leaving something behind that I wouldn’t find another in the next place I end up.
Desperately needing a distraction, I go over the security tech two more times until I’m completely satisfied it’s working as it should be.
To my annoyance, Cyrus arrives early, and after I drill him a couple of times to make sure he’s good enough at what he does to keep Evan safe, there’s nothing left to do but leave.
I grab my gear and head out. My boots hit the beige carpet in the hallway, and I swing around before Cyrus can shut the door on me, head straight for Evan’s bedroom door, and knock.
Nothing.
“Evan,” I rattle the door lightly.
Cyrus watches me, sizing up the situation, assessing if I’m a threat. I ignore him. “Evan, would you please open the goddamned door. There’s something I need to say to you.”
Still nothing, but I swear I can hear him breathing on the other side of the door.
I feel a light hand on my shoulder, and I spin around to see Cyrus holding up his hands.
“Look, man, my brother says you’re his friend.
In my book, that means you’re golden, but the guy behind that door is my responsibility now, and if he’s not wanting to come out to talk to you, it’s my job to tell you to move on. ”
I want to get in Cyrus’s face and tell him Evan is none of his business and that he’s mine to protect, and then kick down the door so I can make Evan talk to me.
But I know Cyrus is right, and I can even dredge up some reluctant appreciation that Evan has a guard who’s taking his job as his protector seriously.
“I’ll get out of here,” I tell Cyrus. “Let me just tell him one more thing.”
Not caring that Cyrus is watching me, I turn back and put my hand on the door.
“Evan, I’m going now. You don’t have to open the door, but before I leave, it’s my turn to apologize.
I fucked up. I’m shit at goodbyes, but I want you to know that—” I take a deep breath.
“—that I wasn’t lying—that you are the most perfect thing I’ve ever had in my life, and that’s why I have to leave. ”
I turn and lock eyes with Cyrus. “Take care of him or else,” I order and stride out the door.