35. Luc
35
LUC
PAY THE PIPER
T he girls know.
I swear, I think damn near every single person in this town knows at this point.
But Marc doesn’t. He remains blissfully unaware of the things his sister does in private, and no one else is rushing to share the news.
So we just… we continue on with our lives.
With a vague, loosely made plan to eventually tell him when the time is right.
But until that point…
“We could go into the city or something.” I lounge back on the couch in the middle of Kari’s apartment, groaning when she sidles onto my lap and grinds just a little closer. “Go out on a real date,” I moan. “We could hit a fancy restaurant and sit there until closing. Get a little tipsy on good food and nice wine, then stay in a hotel for the night.” I drag her top up, gentle as I draw the fabric over her head. I’ve pulled her hair too many times to count. Tangled it in her earrings more times than we can recollect. It’s the price we pay, I think, for me to be able to sneak around with a beautiful woman.
The moment the fabric clears her face and our eyes meet, I grin. “Will you come out to dinner with me, Bear?” I drop the shirt and slide my hands over her delicate ribs. “I miss you so fucking much when we’re in this town.”
“You miss me when we’re in town?” Her cheeks warm. “How is that possible? We practically work together, and we sleep in the same bed five nights out of seven.”
“Yeah. But we can’t be open about who we are.” I slide my hand up and around to cup the back of her neck. “I want to tell the entire world who we are.”
“Luc—”
“I know.” I draw her in and press a gentle, barely-there kiss to her plump lips. “Marc’s going through some stuff with Meg and the baby, and you don’t want me to die.” I brush the threat of a beat down aside and chuckle instead. “The time isn’t right. I’m ready when you are, but it’s your call.”
“Soon.” She trembles on my lap, rolling her hips and studying my eyes. “Swear. But not while all the Meg stuff is going down. In the meantime,” she leans closer, her long hair draping around our faces to create a curtain we both get to hide within. “I don’t want to talk about them while I’m grinding on your lap.”
“Thank fuck.” I dig my fingers into the waistband of her pants. “I don’t wanna talk about them while my cock is hard. It’s… off putting.”
She snickers, her breath hitting my tongue and her breasts pressing to my chest. “We have work in a few hours.”
“All the more reason to get on my bike, right now. Head to the city. Call in sick.”
She rolls her eyes, though her smile is small and delicious. “That won’t look suspicious at all. People could die if we’re not at work.”
“Sounds like a them problem.” I massage the round globes of her ass and grin when she smacks my shoulder. “Tomorrow night, then?” I draw my hands along her back and trace the valley of her spine. “No work tomorrow. No dead people on our conscience. Besides, how am I supposed to ask you to marry me for real if we’re never openly a couple?”
“Marry?” She freezes in my lap. Stiffens and widens her eyes. “Luc, you?—”
“Did you forget this was where we were heading?” I lean in and take the warm column of her neck between my lips. “Did you think I was bullshitting when I said I loved you?”
“Well…” She gulps so I hear the sound through her delicate skin. “No. But we’re?—”
“Endgame.” I cup her jaw and tilt her head to the side to make more room. “We’re forever, Bear. We have time, since forever never ends. But my intentions have been clear from day one. ”
The apartment door opens without warning. No knock. No keys in the lock. No boots stomping on the steps outside. I lean to the right, expecting to find my sisters on the threshold. Not ideal, considering Kari is half naked, but not nearly as bad as what I actually find.
“Marc?” My stomach heaves. Painful, horrified, sickening nausea sprinting through my gut as Kari swings around on my lap. “Dude, we can explain?—”
“Marc!” Kari bounds up off my lap at the same moment her brother charges from the front door. Red in his eyes and fists already balled and coming for my face. “No!”
He slams his fist down on my jaw, a sickening crack echoing through to the back of my skull. Then blood spurts across the floor and bells ring in my ears, clanging and deafening, so I don’t even hear Kari’s screams.
“I’ll kill you, motherfucker!” Marc swings again, tossing me off the couch and raining hands down over my face. It’s all I can do to bring my arms up and shield myself. Guard. Don’t fucking die. “She’s mine!” he snarls, spittle hitting my skin alongside my own blood. “Mine!”
He’s a man possessed. Owned by his own fear and pain. Devastated by the circumstances of his life. And still, I let him. Bones crumble beneath his fists. Muscles ache because of his strength. But I don’t dare fight back. I let him take out a lifetime of anger and fear on my face and hope I’ll live tomorrow to still see Kari.
It could be an hour. Or it could be a single second. Fuck knows, my vision turns dark, and my arms scream for relief. But Marc continues to rain enraged fists down on my body. Kari screams for him to stop. He screams for me to undo what I’ve done. My brain screams for the pain to stop.
Then he’s gone. Reeling backwards when a pair of hands grab on and drag him away. He kicks out wildly, his feet arcing through the air and slamming my chin until stars float in my vision and exhaustion tries to drag me under.
Then he’s gone… and so am I.
“Luc!” Kari skids down by my side, her hands fluttering over my swollen face. “Oh my gosh!” She cries out. “Luc!”
“Cool it!” Jack Reilly’s voice booms throughout the apartment. “Dude! Fucking cool it, or I’ll call X.”
“Luc!” Kari uses her shirt and presses it to my cheek. Am I cut? Is it bad ? “Holy shit. I can’t believe he just?— ”
“He touched my baby sister!” Marcus roars. Kicking and fighting from somewhere else in the apartment. “I’ll kill him. I’ll kill that motherfucker!”
“I think you already did, you fuckin’ idiot. X,” Jack adds… on the phone? “You need to come to Kari’s place. Now. It’s Luc. He might need an ambulance or something.”
I search for Kari. For her beautiful green eyes, but all I find are tears. She’s crying again. Because of me.
“Don’t cry.” My jaw hurts. My words. My whole fucking head. “No crying.”
“Marc. Beat the piss outta him,” Jack rumbles.
“He beat the piss out of me?” Dizzy, I bring my arm down and feel the crotch of my jeans. Just in case . “Nah.”
Sobbing, Kari lays her face over my chest and shakes. “You need an ambulance.”
“No.” I push her off. I swear, I don’t mean to shove her off. I never, ever, in my entire fucking life want to send her away. But I clear her off me and roll to the side. My body aches, and my ribs sing. Maybe they’re broken. Maybe they’re just really fucking sore. Coughing, I get my knees beneath my body, then my hands to the floor.
I ignore the blood spatter patterns the local coroner might study if this day goes worse. But then I stumble to my feet, swaying left when my brain rejects the notion of upwardness .
“Luc!” Kari scrambles to her feet and slides under my arm, holding me up when my knees prefer to tremble. “You need to sit down.”
“I need to see Marc.” My words slur, rolling the way they have in the past when I’ve consumed too much alcohol.
In fact, my tilting steps are kinda the same too.
“Let me go.” I unlink Kari’s arm from around my body and stumble out of her hold. Then I close one eye and search for the direction Marcus went.
I need to talk to him.
To clear shit up.
To tell him I love her.
This isn’t one of those one-night fuckeries he’s accustomed to associating me with.
“Marc…” I weave toward the kitchen, toward Jack’s rumbled words, and catch sight of Marcus for just a second. A single moment in time. Then he dives my way and swings his fist out.
I close my eyes to prepare for the pain, but Jack grabs him before he can get to me. “Cool it, man! ”
“I thought we were brothers!” I crack one eye open and watch the duo wrestle. One, for freedom, and the other, for submission. Kari sidles up beside me, squeezing my arm just tight enough to remind me I’m hurting. But Marcus only burns hotter. “I thought I could trust you!”
“Kari and I…” I swallow the nausea that has sweat rolling along my back. “It’s not as bad as it looks, brother, I swear.”
“Don’t call me brother! You’re no brother to me.” He scrambles to escape Jack’s grip. While my heart, my whole fucking soul, shrivels at his words. “I thought we were family, Luca! I thought you had my back, but you do this?”
“It’s not like?—”
“She’s not like Sassy!” he roars. “She’s not like those girls.”
“I swear,” I groan. “It’s not like that. If you’d just listen to us?—”
“Us? Us !” He looks from me to Kari, sneering the longer we remain standing side by side. “There’s no us for you two. You’re her brother. Not her fuck buddy!”
“Marc.” Kari steps forward to challenge him, but I shoot my arm out to stop her. It’s muscle memory. It’s my protective instincts, stupid as they may be. Because that one, simple move has Marc fighting against Jack’s hold.
“You don’t stop her from coming to me, you motherfucker!”
Kari slips around my arm and stands in front of her brother, looking up into his eyes with tears pouring from her own. “It’s not so bad,” she pleads. “I promise. We’re in love. If you take a breath, I can explain it.”
“In love? He’s a fucking whore, and you’re my baby sister.”
“I’m not a damn baby anymore!” Angrily, she shoves him back and charges forward to get in his face. If not for the puke rolling along my throat, I’d like to think I might stop her. “You need to get it through your thick head. I’m grown now! I don’t have to ask your permission to date someone.”
“You don’t get to date him ! You need to put a fucking shirt on, then he’s leaving and never coming back. You’ll never see him again, Kari!”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake. You don’t get to make that call! I’m in love with him. Do you hear me?” She taps her fingers to the side of his head. “We’ve been seeing each other for a long time, but you don’t know that because you refuse to see me as a woman instead of a scared seven-year-old girl.”
“Seems he has no problem seeing you as a woman!” He slips free of Jack’s distracted hold, and swinging out, faster than my body can even think to react, he slams his fist down on my tender jaw until I’m flying.
It’s kinda like I’m on my bike. And yet, as my head goes one way and my body goes the other, it’s not like being on my bike at all. I trip on my own feet, my brain too fucking damaged to even consider bringing my hands up in protection. Then the side of my face collides with the cabinet and that’s… that.
Sleep .