30. Luc
30
LUC
THE SEX STUFF
M idnight rolls around, and the end of another shift sneaks closer. I’ve been on the job a hell of a lot longer than Kari has, and my shifts are always with Mitch, which means we know each other now, we know how the other works and the strengths each of us bring to the job. That means we have a system that has me out of the bus on time, except in the case of an emergency.
Tonight is not one of those nights.
I sit in the ambulance dock, hidden in the shadows, and watch the doors as they whir open and the afternoon shift wander out. Nurses. Doctors. Administration. It’s a hard change once midnight hits, which means any patient inside, if they’re in pain at midnight, will have to wait a second for the handover to occur and the new staff to familiarize themselves with what’s going on.
It’s not a perfect system, I know. But this is a small town, and it’s rare that anyone is left for more than a minute or two for the personnel change over.
“I can give you a ride.” Bernadette—a nurse—moves through the doors with a to-go cup of coffee in her hand and a purse dangling off the other arm. But her companion, Kari, is who holds my interest. “It’s not safe for you to walk home alone, Kar. And we don’t live all that far from one another, so I don’t mind?—”
I step out of the shadows, casual as fuck, and grin when the duo glances across at the movement. Bernadette’s shoulders slump, relief, while Kari’s come up.
“Hey.” I swagger closer and swing my keys around my finger. “Marc is working at the club tonight and asked me to come get you.”
“Oh well, that’s easy then!” Bernadette winks at me and continues on. “Thank god Marcus is organized, huh? I was getting worried.”
“Thank god for Marcus,” I agree as Kari’s eyes narrow. “Come on.” I move in closer until only a foot separates us and sling her backpack out of her hands. Slipping my arm through the strap, I turn to walk by her side. “I’m taking you home tonight.”
“You’re being insanely obvious,” she growls. Her body is taut and her lips barely move. “Luca…”
“Sneaking isn’t always about not being seen.” I wrap my hand around her bicep and steer her into the shadows. “Sometimes, it’s about ensuring you’re seen in all the places you’re expected to be.” I look down and smirk. “It’s math.”
“It’s stupid.” The moment we’re out of the light, she yanks her arm from my hand and snatches back her bag. “You’re stupid.”
“You’re cranky.” I lead her to my bike, which just so happens to be two feet from the hospital exterior wall. Then I shove her against the bricks and inhale her gasped breath. “You’re cranky when you want me. You’re cranky when you’ve got me. What do I need to do to make you smile?”
“I’m just a cranky person in general.” Her perfect, emerald eyes search mine. But fuck, her hands come to my hips, too. Her throat rolls as she swallows the lump clogging the middle. “It’s who I am now after years of being angry. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry.” I lean in and feather a kiss along her jaw. Nibbling. Biting. Beaming when she gasps. “Be here with me. We only get to experience this time in our lives once.” I take her bottom lip between my teeth. “Be present, and stop looking for a reason to hate me.”
I cup her jaw and force her head back. Her hair catches in the brickwork, tugging and tangling as I move her. But she doesn’t complain. She doesn’t push me away. If anything, she pulls me closer, her chest lifting and falling as she searches for air.
“Come for a ride with me, Bear.” I dive in and savor the flavor of her neck on my tongue. Her sweet, floral scent. Her warm, heady intoxication. “We can take an hour before you have to be back. No one will even notice you were gone.”
“I’m actually really tired.” Blushing, she forces her eyes open and searches mine. “That’s not a cop out, though. I’m on my fifth, consecutive twelve-hour shift, and my eyes feel like they might spontaneously combust.”
“Take you home?” My heart stutters. Her rejection, so gentle, and yet… right there. “You want me to just drop you home?”
She swallows, gulping noisily. “But you could come in with me.”
My heart comes to a dead standstill. “What?”
“Britt’s staying at the house with X, Laine’s staying with Graham, and Jess has been working a bunch, so she’ll be asleep. If anyone saw your bike out front, they’d assume you were visiting your sisters. You could come in…” She hesitates. “We could just hang out. No… ya know.”
“No sex?” My face hurts with how wickedly fast my smile curls up. “You’re asking me in, but you’re laying down a boundary.”
“I just… I want to spend time with you. But I’m not even sure I’d have the strength to hold on if we go for a long ride. I thought this was a decent compromise, but if you?—”
“I accept your terms.” I shoot forward and slam my lips to hers, bashing the back of her skull against the bricks again. But guilt fails to fill my veins. Instead, I feel something else entirely. Love. Want. Mostly anticipation. To spend time in her home, in her room… just her and me…
What am I? Seventeen fucking years old ?
“I’ll stay as long as you want me to.” I slide my fingers along her ribs and smirk when she trembles. “I’ll hide in the fucking closet if you need me to. If the twins were to ever become suspicious, they’d be cool anyway. I don’t give them trouble about their dating lives, they don’t give me trouble about mine.”
“Perhaps you should get more involved. Laine’s dating a complete jackass. None of us like him.”
“Laine’s a big girl. If she wants my help, I’m here for her. But if she wants to date a guy, I’m gonna trust her judgement.”
“Negligent,” she teases.
“Respectful. Marc should try it sometime. Now come on.” I grab her ass and drop one last kiss to her lips. Then I pull away and snag my helmet from the bike’s handlebars. Because whenever she’s on the bike, the helmet comes with us. “Put this on.” And yet, I do it for her, raising the helmet and plopping it over her head so her hair becomes a curtain covering her eyes.
It’s cute, really, the way she practically inhales her own locks and frantically brushes them aside to clear her vision.
“Climb on after me.” I let her fix the straps on her own and throw my leg over the bike instead, scooting forward to ensure she sits closer and swinging her backpack around to wear it on my front. I set the key in the ignition and start the purring engine. Then I grin, because she slides her leg over the seat and nestles onto the bike with her chest practically plastered to my body. Her breath touches the back of my neck, even with the helmet in the way, and her arms come around to crush my ribs. “You ready to go for a ride, Bear?”
“You ready to stop announcing everything we do? You make it weird, and then I get shy.”
“Ohhh, so like… you want to go for a ride, but you don’t want me to ask if you want to go for a ride?”
“Right. It’s weird.”
“Kinda like you want to go to bed with me. But you don’t want me to ask you if you want to go to bed with me? Because then you’re forced to reject me out of habit, or admit you want me.”
“Luca—”
“You want me.” Pleased, I balance the bike and kick the stand up. Then I slip the gear out of neutral and into first. “I understand now, Bear. You want all the things. You just don’t want to say them out loud.”
“I want you to stop talking,” she grumbles. “I’m quite happy to tell you so.”
“See, now you’re being cranky again.” Chuckling, I use my feet to steer the bike out of the shadows and away from the wall. Then, when I have a little space, I gently release the clutch until the gear catches and we’re moving ahead. “You’re too shy for your own good.” I use just one hand to steer, since we’re still in the hospital loading dock, and I use the other to reach down and stroke her leg. “Don’t worry,” I speak a little louder. “I’ll speak enough for us both.”
“ S he wanted all the things,” Kane sniggers. “She just wanted you to be forward enough to take them. She considered asking for them a weakness on your part.”
“I mean…” I slip the bottle’s nipple between Billy’s lips and shrug. “I’m no shrink, but I guess that’s how it was. She was too timid to say the words out loud. I basically had carte blanche to do as I pleased.”
“So you took her home and went to bed with her.” Kane is way too fucking comfortable digging towards the details of intimacy I shared with Kari. All those nights secreted away. All the times we snuck out to be alone. All the family events we attended together, but not together . “All yours for the taking?” he prompts, eager.
“You have a serious boundary problem.” I stare down at my daughter and shake my head. And instead of speaking my words out loud, I hold them within myself. More memories I get to visit. More love, just for me and Kari.