Nineteen
NINETEEN
Mia
OH, FUCK ... I was coming and I couldn’t stop it, my muscles clenching hard around Luca’s dick. That gruff bark from the doorway; the sudden, unexpected hit of Byron’s aniseed scent. My back arched, and Luca made a cut-off, choked noise, shuddering above me.
Had he come, too? God, how was this so hot and so horrifically mortifying at the same time?
Sweet, sweet sex endorphins rushed through my veins and arteries, washing away the throbbing aches from my various injuries. I felt oddly clear-headed, as though my orgasm had been an icy splash of water to the face.
“ Jesus Christ .” The bark was gone from Byron’s voice, replaced with something else that I couldn’t quite identify.
He took a step back from the door... then another, until he was no longer in silhouette, and I could see his face properly beneath the overhead hall lighting. His expression was frozen in a blank facade, but his gaze was focused unblinkingly on me.
My black eye , I thought. He’s staring at my black eye.
“Byron—” Luca said, sounding half pleading, half wrecked.
Byron shook his head slowly back and forth, his unreadable expression set in stone. His scent, though... it was shouting a dozen different messages, and I couldn’t untangle a single one of them.
Lust?
Anger?
Guilt?
Fear?
Or was I just imagining those things?
“ Byron ,” Luca whispered again.
“We’ll talk about this in the morning,” Byron said, throwing the words down like an upset diner throwing down a wad of bills on the table before fleeing the restaurant. And sure enough, with that, he pivoted on his heel and disappeared down the hall like someone being pursued by demons.
As his footsteps retreated, followed a moment later by a door opening and closing, the reality of what had just happened slapped me in the face.
Holy shit. What had we done?
I’d had sex with Luca, who’d told me—flat out and early in our acquaintance—that he didn’t think of me that way. That I was too complicated . But if that was the case, why had this been so easy? Why had it felt so right?
Luca was still frozen above me, resting his weight on one hand and one elbow as he stared at the place where Byron had been. He was an omega—he couldn’t knot me any more than Nat could. But he was still inside me, still half-hard, and my body was doing its best to keep him there.
After a tense moment, his shoulders slumped. Green eyes slid closed, and he let his head fall until our foreheads bumped gently together. I let my eyes slip shut as well.
Jesus fuck .
With more strength than I might have given him credit for, Luca slipped one arm beneath my torso and used it as leverage to roll both of us over among the nest’s cushions. The movement was smooth enough that he didn’t even slip out of my body. We came to rest with him lying on his back and me straddling him. I pushed up until I was looking down at him, my hands braced on his shoulders.
“Well, that was painfully awkward,” he said after a pause. His gaze darted to the doorway. “I wish he’d closed the door when he left, though.”
I tried to quell the pulse of guilty heat in my gut at the idea that Zalen or Emiel might walk by and see us. Not helpful .
“Are you okay?” I asked instead... because Luca had been decidedly not okay when we’d started this. And frankly, I hadn’t been much better off.
“Yeah,” he sighed. “Oddly enough, I do feel better now.”
I debated flicking him in the temple and teasing him for the offhand insult to my sexual healing abilities, but I decided against it. Apparently, I wasn’t the only one who’d needed an orgasm to reboot my brain.
I hesitated. “Luca... those men who cornered us. They knew you. Who were they?”
It wasn’t fair of me to ask the question when we were in this position. But frankly, I figured he was less likely to bolt this way.
I was right, too. He twitched hard beneath me, and it was clear that if I hadn’t been straddling him, my body clamped around his softening cock, he would have been on his feet and out the door in no time.
“You can tell me it’s not my business,” I added quickly, “but I’d argue that it became my business when one of them punched me in the face.”
Luca quivered with tension beneath me for a long moment. Then all the fight went out of him at once. We both winced as his dick slipped out of me, leaving my passage clamping around nothing.
I swung my leg over to get off him, my bruised hip giving a helpful twinge of pain as I went. Settling myself on my unbruised side next to him, I propped my head on my hand so I could watch his face in the dim light.
A heavy sigh broke the silence. It sounded like it originated down around his ankles somewhere.
“I grew up in a gang,” he said slowly. “Which you’ve probably already guessed. Except for Zalen, we all did.”
I nodded. It made sense—who would be more passionate about helping teenagers escape gang life than people who’d escaped it themselves?
“My mother and father... weren’t exactly in the running for any parent of the year awards,” he went on. “I mistook the gang for stability. It’s not hard to do when you’ve never known anything but chaos at home. Since I was small and quiet, they used me as a lookout, mostly. I was good at it, and I liked being good at something.”
He paused and licked his lips, his eyes going far away.
“But?” I prompted, when the silence stretched for too long.
“My parents were betas.” His voice had grown hoarse. “No one ever told me about my own body. I had no clue. I presented as an omega at age fourteen.” He gave a rusty laugh with no humor behind it. “Late bloomer.”
A queasy feeling took up residence in my stomach, and I fought the urge to tell him to stop... not to say anymore.
“I was the only omega in a pack of feral alpha and beta males. They used me as a fuck-toy. Pumped me full of synthetic heat stimulators so often that I was gagging for it half the time.”
My breath caught in my lungs and stuck fast. I didn’t want to picture this delicate, ethereal creature—barely more than a child at the time—being used and abused by people like the ones at the factory. Maybe by those very same men .
No wonder he’d been nearly catatonic with fear afterward.
“Luca,” I breathed.
He went on in a monotone, as though I hadn’t spoken. “Anyway, it took me four years before I finally managed to get away. Zalen took me in. Helped me earn my G.E.D. and acquire some marketable skills. Grant writing. Bookkeeping. Project management. That kind of stuff. And here I am.”
The queasiness continued to grow. I knew I had to ask the next question even though I didn’t want to.
“Luca... did I pressure you into having sex just now? Oh my god, I am so sorry —”
His bark of rusty laughter was unexpected, not to mention jarring. But Luca shook his head, his gaze coming into focus as he stopped staring at the ceiling and rolled onto his side to face me instead.
“No, Mia,” he said, taking my hand in one of his. “You didn’t assault me in my own nest. I like this kind of sex. The kind where I can feel in control.”
I blinked at him, trying to reshuffle my thoughts around this new information. Sex where he was the one doing the penetrating, I supposed he meant. Which... made sense, I guess. As much as I desperately didn’t want to think about the details, I doubted he was the one doing the fucking when he’d been in the gang.
“Okay,” I said in relief. “Good. That’s good.”
Now he was the one looking worried. “Do you regret it? I know I said I thought of you as a friend, and then I just—”
“No,” I said quickly, squeezing his hand. “I wasn’t expecting it, exactly. But...” Heat suffused my face, making my bruised eye throb in time with my pulse. “I’ve kind of been nursing a thing for you since that night we met at the bar.”
I couldn’t see well enough to tell if an answering blush tinted his cheeks, but his scent deepened noticeably.
“I asked Byron if he’d considered bringing you in as a third,” he blurted.
It took me a minute to untangle the meaning behind the words. Then I realized what he meant, and my empty passage gave a hopeful pulse.
“Oh,” I managed. I wanted to ask what Byron had said in reply. But I also didn’t want to know, because I wasn’t sure what kind of answer I could live with.
Seeming to pick up on my awkwardness, Luca cleared his throat. “Sorry, I probably shouldn’t have told you that. Look... um, I don’t know what time it is, but I think it might be best if we snuck out of here early, before Byron or Zalen manages to corner me and start telling me how stupid I acted last night. I could drive you home?”
Home . Dear god, I was going to have to get back to the house, clean myself up, and figure out if I owned enough makeup to disguise my bruised face when I went in for my shift at the restaurant. The very idea exhausted me.
“Actually, if you could take me back to Soulard where my car is parked, that would be great,” I said wearily. “You sure you’re okay to drive?”
He nodded, looking as drained as I felt. “Sure, it’s no problem. I’m fine.”
Somehow, I doubted that, but it was true that he seemed more himself now. His horrific tale of abuse had blindsided me, but he’d already had years to learn how to cope with it.
“Then I guess I’d better get back,” I said, dreading the next few hours.
Luca drove me to the parking lot, where I picked up my car. Thankfully, the little red Kia hadn’t been molested overnight. After an awkward farewell, I got in and turned on the engine. Luca waited until I’d pulled out of my spot before heading out of the lot and disappearing into early morning traffic.
I felt like week-old dog vomit as I made the drive back to Jennings. All the lovely pain-killing properties of a good orgasm had fled into the gray light of predawn. I arrived at the house, my heart sinking as I pulled into the driveway next to Nat’s Jeep.
Of course he would choose now to be home, damn him.
It was early, though. He was probably asleep. If I was quiet, maybe I could sneak into the bathroom with a gallon or two of foundation and concealer.
I let myself in as silently as I could—which wasn’t very.
Jesus , I thought as the door squealed. Did WD-40 work on door hinges? Or did you need actual oil for that?
I tiptoed in, only to find the light on in the kitchen. No way past without being seen, then. Not unless I wanted to go right back out the front door and try to sneak in through the back like a burglar in my own damned house.
Girding myself, I straightened my shoulders and strode down the hall.
“Mia?” Nat asked, getting up from the kitchen table with a cup of coffee in hand.
Indecision almost made me stumble. I could ignore him. Walk past as though he hadn’t spoken. But was that really what my life had come to?
I paused outside the kitchen, not turning my head to look at him. “Yes, Nat?”
My heart thudded as he came up to me, frowning in my peripheral vision.
“Mia, look at me.” His voice held an urgent note.
Something inside me responded to the command before I could stop myself. I turned and heard his sharp intake of breath as he took in the state of my face.