Chapter 13
Evan
I wake up searching for the warmth of Luca’s arms but only find the pillow he used the night before.
Was it only the night before? It feels like I’ve slept for days. All I really remember is begging Luca to hold me, feeling his strong arms go around me, and then falling asleep.
I stretch, and with a dreamy smile, I wish I’d woke up to him holding me like that.
Who in the fuck do you think you are, Evan? Because you're acting like a character in one of the old Doris Day musicals your grandma liked to watch when you’re more suited to being a guest star in a Sons of Anarchy episode—the character who gets killed or has an important appendage cut off.
Read the room—the empty room. Luca is nowhere in it, and that tells you everything you need to know.
He saved your life, he watched you go through a four-day meltdown, and then after you begged for him to hold you, he gave in and complied.
That tells you everything you need to know.
Next time, just cuddle up with your cat and leave the poor man alone.
Given a sour-tasting shot of reality by my inner voice, I get out of bed, get dressed, and practice looking in the mirror so I don’t greet Luca with moon eyes when he comes in.
I’m feeding Delilah when the door finally opens, and Luca comes in carrying an armful of logs. “You’re up,” he says, a smile on his face.
I nod. “How long was I out?”
“About eighteen hours,” he replies, placing several logs in the fireplace to feed the low fire he’s kept going since we got here and the rest in the fire box next to it.
“Wow. I didn’t realize I slept so much.”
“You needed it. You went for three days without any sleep other than the cat naps you took snoring on your laptop.” He studies me from head to toe. “How are you feeling now?”
“Better.” I pick Delilah up and start petting her for a little kitty comfort. “Sorry about that. Sometimes, I can go off the rails when life gets to me.”
He frowns. “Who the hell doesn’t sometimes?” He walks over to me and low-level glares at me. “And considering you were in a car wreck, kidnapped, and almost framed for an assassination, I think you handled it all with a lot of fucking grace.”
I hadn’t thought about it that way.
He reaches out to pet Delilah, and our hands accidentally touch, causing way too big of a thrill to run up my spine, given the casualness of the touch. “Evan, you gotta start giving yourself credit for being the badass you are.”
I feel color running up my face. I don’t know how to respond to that, so I divert to another subject. “That breathing exercise you coached me through really helped. How did you learn to do that?”
“It was part of my yoga training.”
“Yoga training?”
He looks at me with a smirk. “That’s my profession. I travel around and offer intense two-month workshops to students who want to immerse themselves in mind-body work.”
“I thought you were a bodyguard,” I say dumbly.
His eyes find mine. “Only yours.”
My heart does a funny little flutter at his words. “Why me?”
“Grave and I knew each other before, and he knew I hated the Reivers. He came and found me and recruited me to help bring them down. When I eventually agreed to help, he assigned me to guard you.”
I’d been so angry the first week of knowing Luca I hadn’t bothered to wonder how his presence in my life had come about.
We’ve been through so much together. I know the sounds he makes when he comes, and he knows the same about me.
I feel like I know him at an elemental level, but now, I’m wondering how much missing knowledge I have about the sexy man in front of me.
The nosy journalist in me kicks into full journalist mode. I need to fix that.
“Let’s make some lunch and sit down to eat,” I suggest. “I think we have some catching up to do.”
I start off with simple questions. “What’s your favorite color?”
He answers with an amused smirk. “Amber.”
“Favorite writer?”
“Evan Kelly.”
I roll my eyes. “Stop teasing. Favorite writer?” I repeat.
“Evan Kelly,” he says again and gives me that sexy, intimidating bodyguard look that warns me not to challenge him on his answer.
“Fine,” I huff, pretending to be exasperated when I secretly want to believe he’s serious.
”Favorite singer?”
A sly smile forms on his lips. “Well, I do like the Taylor Swift medley you belt in the shower.”
“What?” I yell out, only to find him laughing at my reaction, and I can’t help joining in.
The laughter goes on longer than Luca’s joke warrants, but it feels good to share something so light between us after the drama of the last several weeks. When we finally quiet, we’re left with an intense silence between us as we’re caught in each other’s gaze, unable to look away.
Lucas’s phone rings, breaking the silence. I nearly jump out of my shoes at the sound, but Luca calmly picks up the phone to see who’s calling.
“It’s Johnny,” he says, his face grim, preparing himself for the news that Cash didn’t survive his second surgery like the doctors warned might happen.
“Put it on speakerphone, please,” I ask.
He nods and answers the phone while both of us try to prepare ourselves for some shitty news.
Instead, Johnny’s voice sounds like he’d just won the lottery as he tells us that Cash finally woke up and that, other than being a grumpy-ass patient, he’s on the mend.
He goes on to tell us that, thanks to Eli arranging for the live streaming of the death match between Cash and Johnny, the FBI has been able to obtain warrants for every Reivers chapter and is raiding them as we speak.
The Reivers are going down.
I feel like a ten-ton weight is off my chest, and looking over at Luca’s shocked but smiling face, I’m pretty sure he does, too.
Johnny finishes off the call by warning us that though the Reivers are well and truly fucked, we should probably remain in our safe house because fully rounding up every Reiver may take a while, and Patriots Now is still a big threat.
Johnny’s warning doesn’t do much to dampen our spirits. Luca hangs up the phone and goes straight to the kitchen and the bottle of tequila he bought when he picked up supplies. He holds it up. “Wanna celebrate?”
“I thought people celebrated with champagne.”
“Tequila is the champagne of badasses.” He pours two shots of tequila and hands me the Tajín. I set it up just like Dream taught me to do, and Luca and I clink glasses. “To us,” he says, and we drink our shots.
It’s the perfect night. I keep asking questions, and he keeps indulging me by answering with complimentary, bordering on flirty answers that send a warm shimmy through me every time. I can’t get enough.
I find out so much about him. He has a dog, that he helped liberate from Digger’s dog fighting pens, but because it sustained internal injuries it had to be operated on, and is currently going through a rehabilitation program at a local vet.
He also admits to getting his GED and afterward, taking a few college classes.
The structure wasn’t for him so he prefers reading books if he’s curious about a subject.
He gets me to talk about myself too. It’s hard to be self-conscious when he looks so interested in my answers to his questions.
I tell him about how I found Delilah as a stray, and about my favorite college classes.
I even tell him about the time I got locked out of my apartment in only my underwear.
One of my most embarrassing moments suddenly turned laugh-worthy when I have Luca to share it with.
We go on like this for hours, and I realize how natural it feels to laugh with Luca and how I hadn’t once worried he might make fun of or be mean to me.
The only bad part of the night is the end of it. Luca puts the tequila away and readies to sleep on the porch even though a late storm has blown in and it’s freezing outside.
I watch him button up his sheepskin coat, which I can’t imagine will be comfortable sleeping attire.
“Sleep with me,” I blurt out. I then glare at the bottle of tequila on the counter, totally blaming it for my outburst.
Luca’s head shoots up, and he stares at me.
“It’s cold out there, and it’s a big bed.
” I try to list all the good reasons for him to stay, but they don’t seem to work.
He returns to buttoning up his jacket, but this time, he seems to be in a hurry like he’s in a race to get out the door.
“I don’t want to have sex with you,” I finally shout in a last-ditch lie to keep him from freezing to death and to pathetically feel his warm body against me and pretend for just a little while that he’s mine.
His hand freezes on his button. “You don’t?”
“Yeah.” I shrug like his relieved response didn’t just gut me. “We did that already, right? Got it out of our systems. No need to go back for seconds.”
“No need,” Luca repeats stiffly but starts unbuttoning his jacket, and when it’s finally off, he follows me to bed and turns off the lights.