13. Yes
THIRTEEN
YES
KYLIE
M y cucumber is… missing?
To be fair, once I slept off the orgasm I gave myself, I completely forgot about the poor vegetable.
Fruit?
Shit. How does that work? Seeds make something a fruit, and cucumbers have seeds. But they’re also green and not sweet at all so doesn’t that make them a vegetable?
Whatever.
I forgot all about it, and when I remembered that I should probably dispose of it, it was gone. Figuring it rolled off the stupid cot I have to sleep on, I checked underneath it. Nope. There was no sign of it at all, and I just hoped I found out where it went until it started to get moldy and stunk up the basement.
It’s bad enough that the contained space sure as hell smelled of pussy when I was done. To take the cuke as far inside of me as I did, stretching me out just enough for the pressure to help me go off as I flicked my clit, I still needed to produce a shit ton of natural lubricant. I was dripping everywhere .
Too bad Luca didn’t want to play.
Shit. Saving himself... if I have to be stuck in a mountain cabin with a guy as good-looking as Luca St. James, why couldn’t he be a player? Or a manwhore? Someone who would have no problem throwing my ankles up by my ear and fucking me senseless?
That cuke helped, but when I thought about how much better it is to have a warm dick inside of me, attached to a man with fingers and lips and hypnotic green eyes instead of a clammy green peel…
Damn it. I want Luca. Can’t have him, but I want him, and after a couple of days of torturing myself with how fucking hot I am for him—and still not being able to locate the cuke—I decide to see if we got more in with the latest grocery order.
I didn’t plan on asking him if he had any idea what happened to the last one. It was embarrassing to admit that I revved us both up by playing with myself in front of Luca, only for him to stay upstairs, leaving me and the cucumber alone downstairs to finish what I started. Then, add insult to injury, I lost the stupid thing.
So I didn’t mention it. Following my lead, Luca didn’t bring up the cucumber, either. We just went back to watching random movies on the streaming service Luca’s buddy is logged into after I told Luca that I was sick and tired of losing checkers.
Of course, he challenged me to one last game. I won it so easily that it was obvious he let me win, and while I appreciated the gesture, that took all the fun out of it. Besides, having an excuse to snuggle up next to Luca on the couch… I’m fucking shameless. I’ll take it, even if he won’t let me take him.
I’ve earned some freedom. He’s always upstairs. The cabin proper has four rooms: one that belongs to his buddy, a bathroom, the kitchen, and the living room. We don’t go in his friend’s bedroom; well, Luca doesn’t. I’ve gotten used to the bathroom in the basement. The kitchen is for meals and our checker games. The living room is where the TV and the fireplace is.
No matter where I am, Luca can tell that I’m there. I’m still locked in the basement every night, but during the day when he’s awake? He let me stay upstairs. I’ve proven that I’m not going to run for the front door given the chance, and he’s stopped treating me like a captive.
Not like he ever really did. But it’s… it’s different now. We’re kind of like two people who met on vacation, got snowed-in together, and had no choice but to get along—and get to know each other—until we can leave again.
There’s snow on the mountain. It’s not enough to keep us trapped here, as much as I’d like to pretend otherwise. I know our days are dwindling down. Luca’s been receiving phone calls daily from the Sinners. He goes outside each time, but when he stays by the door, I can overhear enough to know that Devil’s ready for him to come back—with or without the liability.
Me. I’m the liability.
I ignore all that. I’m not ready to give up Luca yet. Not ready to poison him and leave him busied in the icy snow out back. I could. I mean, I’ve peeked outside once or twice. Luca even let us go on a walk around the cabin, showing off the wintry mountain.
That’s how I know that same town car is out there. Plus, there’s enough space behind the cabin to bury dozens of bodies with room to spare.
And, no, that’s not a morbid thought at all. That’s just the Humminbird peeking through…
I like not having to be the Hummingbird. I know I’ll have to return to the real world soon, but until I have to, I’m gonna get my kicks while I can.
Including just how devious I am when I ask Luca about a new shipment of cucumbers, and instead of simply admitting they haven’t been delivered yet, he looks super fucking shady as he explains that he’s been trying to replace mine but he hasn’t be able to.
Sorry, but I jump on the word ‘replace’.
“Replace? What happened to the other one?”
He blinks. “What do you mean?”
“What I said, ace.” I arch my eyebrow at him. “Where’s my cuke?”
“I… ate it.”
“Did you at least peel it first?” Luca flushes, and I can’t help but laugh. “Oh, you’ve got a kinky side, don’t you? I never would’ve guessed.”
His flush deepens. “No. Not kinky. Just repressed.”
I stifle my laugh. He sounds so flat when he says that, it’s not as funny as it was two seconds ago.
He’s so repressed that he refuses to allow himself to be sexual with another person, but he… what? Tortures himself by watching me get my own rocks off, then somehow gets his hands on my used cucumber to snack on?
I shouldn’t tease. That’s just being cruel.
Especially when he admits softly, “It’s not as easy as I make it look, abstaining the way that I do.”
Well, that’s a problem easily solved.
Scooting so that our thighs are touching on the couch, I run my fingers over his arm. “So don’t. I mean, if you’re ready to fuck, I can’t think of a better way to spend our time while your boss decides whether to kill me or not.”
His cheeks hollow.
Hm. Was it something I said?
Oh. Right. Probably my multiple blatant propositions to fuck him. Or, you know, the way I can’t keep myself from reminding him that we’re only together in the cabin because the Devil of Springfield wants me dead, but Luca offered to watch me and somehow convince me that I didn’t see shit that night instead…
I take my hand back. “Sorry. I know better than to be a pushy bitch. You said you were waiting, and I respect that. Your religion is obviously important to you”—even though it seems hypocritical to me that he’s a gangster , but whatever—“and how you deal with it is your thing. I’ll be good. Promise.”
I took my hand back—and shoots his out, laying it on top of me, twisting my wrist gently so that he can intertwine my fingers with his.
My breath catches.
“The other day, you wanted to see what’s under my sleeve.”
I did. “Uh-huh.”
He takes a deep breath, shuddering it out. “Okay. You can look?—”
I want to, but now I’m not so sure I should. “Luca…”
“It’s okay. If anything, it might help you understand why I’m so fucking twisted up inside. Because… fuck . I want you, Kylie. Don’t ever doubt that. Those glimpses you’ve given me… I don’t give a shit if I am sinning. I mean, I’m a Sinner, right? But before I was a Sinner, I grew up in a church that really screwed me up. Inside and out. Go on. I mean it.”
How can I refuse?
Still holding his hand, I use the other one to shove his sleeve up to the crook of his elbow.
And then I see motherfucking red.
I look at life as if everything exists for my entertainment. I always have. The only time the rage wins, I do things so incredibly reckless, they changed my life forever. That’s why I’ve learned to control my rage, taking the world as a big joke.
But when I look at this?—
“Kylie?”
Shit. I’m squeezing his hand so tightly, I’ve jabbed my nails in his skin. Good job, idiot. Why not hurt this poor man some more?
Quickly, I untangle our fingers, dropping my hand in my lap. It’s either that or run my fingertips over the bump to see if it feels as hard and lumpy as it looks.
It’s an old, pink scar. That much is obvious. Stretching nearly the whole length of his forearm, I can tell exactly why he’s been hiding this from me. Because it’s not just a scar.
It’s a brand .
Those are third-degree burns that just healed wrong. I get the idea that that was on purpose. Someone branded him with a Christian cross, sizzling his skin until it bubbled up and turned into this horrifying mark.
Underneath the left part of the shorter side of the cross, I see four lines intersected with a fifth. Under the right part, there are three more. Those are obviously tattoos, done in black ink. I don’t know what they mean, and I barely pay them any attention since I’m too disturbed by the terrible brand.
Finally ripping my gaze away from it, swallowing the fury that has me trembling in place, I look at Luca.
His expression is blank.
“Did Devil do that?”
If he did, he’s a dead man.
“My parents did it,” he says, his tone as emotionless as I’ve ever heard it. “Using fire and an iron that they just so happened to have to brand their only son.”
I hiss through my teeth. “I’ll fucking kill them.”
Both of his eyebrows go sky-high. “What was that?”
Shit. Fun-time Kylie doesn’t get murderous. And since Luca can’t know that I’m the Hummingbird…
I shake my head, sending my loose curls dancing around my face. “Nothing. I just… what the fuck, Luca? Why would they do that to you?”
He moves his arm so that I can see it from his angle. “Look at it this way. It’s upside down, right? You know what that means?” I shake my head again, and he tells me, “It’s the mark of Satan, they said. Bullshit. Anyone raised in a Christian church knows it’s the Cross of Saint Peter. But the prophet who ruled our sect insisted that those teachings are wrong. That the symbol is anti-Christian and satanic. My parents agreed.” He huffs, shaking out his arm. “Even though they branded the cross the right-side up when they were looking at it, they claimed the devil’s influence was working on me once the mark was on my skin. When the prophet said I had to go, they agreed. The cross didn’t take, they said, and then they disowned me.”
The fire inside my rages higher. I still want to kill them—and this prophet, too—but I know better than to say so out loud again.
Instead, I just stay quiet.
Luca is glancing down at the burn. “They thought I was working with the devil. That I was a demonic son. Look at me now, Kylie. I am.”
What? “You’re not demonic, Luca. You’re good .”
“Maybe. But I do work for the Devil of Springfield. I wanted to. I begged him for a job. I told him about my years as a wheelman in Hamilton, but you know what he did? He brushed me off. Didn’t need a driver, he said. But then he saw this mark on my by accident… and, suddenly, he was passing me the keys. I’ve been working for him ever since. I’ve been loyal to Devil ever since. You need to understand that, Kylie. I’ll do anything for the boss.”
I don’t doubt that for a second.
“What about these?” I ask. Luca reminding me that we’re only in this situation on Devil’s orders isn’t helping me rein in my anger. I need another distraction. I stroke one of the black line tattoos with my pointer finger. “Did your parents give you these, too?”
“Nah. This was me taking ownership of the way they ruined my arm. I mean, if they could disfigure it with a scar, why not get a tattoo? Working for Devil, I knew I would wear his mark on my skin. But these…” He counts them out. “Eight. The prophet had a hundred rules for us, but I believed in the Commandments. I got a mark for each time I willingly broke one.”
He has eight, which means there are two he hasn’t broken yet.
I only know, like, the four main ones. It’s easy for me to ask him which ones he’s missing than try to figure them out himself.
Somehow, I’m not even a little surprised when he answers me: “Thou shall not kill. Thou shall not commit adultery.”
Funny, though shall not fuck a woman who’s into you—and that you’re into, too—isn’t one of them…
They brainwashed him. That’s the long and short of it. This prophet and his garbage parents… they did a number on this poor guy. And now he’s sitting on the couch with me, after admitting that he chowed down on the cucumber I fucked in away to get around the brainwashing that he hasn’t shucked as much as he thought he has.
Poor Luca. Repressed isn’t the half of it.
I can’t make his scars go away. Not the physical one on his arm, or the ones that have hurt him deep inside. Just like I am, Luca was broken before I ever met him, but I’m here now.
The Hummingbird’s first instinct is to find his parents and kill them for hurting this kind-hearted, sweet man.
Kylie’s?
I think of the cucumber, and even if using sex to distract him isn’t something that Luca is used to, I also know that there are some things he’s open to…
I tap his knee. “So… the cucumber. Was it tasty?”
For a moment, he looks confused. Like he has no idea where the sudden change in top came from. “Kylie?”
C’mon, Luca. Play along. “Did you like it?”
His nostrils flare. “I… it was delicious. It was delicious because it was yours.”
Good boy. “Really? I’m glad. But you know what’s better?”
“What?” he grates out.
I grin. “Tasting it straight from the source.”
Luca freezes for a moment, then a dark look shadows his face. “I didn’t tell you all that for you to pity me, Kylie. I did it so you understand. For twenty-one-years, I was raised one way. I’ve been working to shake it off for so long now, and while these marks stand for how far I’ve come… I can’t go all the way yet.”
Literally.
I purse my lips. “Pity you?” I say. “Shit, ace, if I was pitying you, I’d offer to suck your dick.”
He sucks in a breath.
A thought occurs to me. I know he’s a virgin, but when he says he’s saving for marriage, does that mean just penetrative sex? Or all sex?
I nudge his thigh. “If I did, would I be the first?”
He shakes his head.
Damn it. I don’t realize how much I like the idea of being Luca’s first anything until he admits that someone’s been intimate with his dick before I’ve had the chance.
Okay. “How about if I let you go down on me? Have you done that before?”
This time he answers me with a very throaty, “No.”
“Do you want to?”
When Luca stays silent, I cover my renewed rejection with a casual shrug as I start to get up from the couch. “If you change your mind, you know where to find me.”
I’ve taken two steps before he says, “Yes.”
I spin around to look at him. “Yes, you know where to find me?”
He shakes head. “I mean, yes, I want to know what you taste like.”
Okay, then.