Chapter Thirty
Luca
We’re trying to get used to the small apartment, but it’s hard, especially when you’re accustomed to the size of our house.
It feels like we can’t get away from each other, and we can’t.
The apartment is just one immense room, with the bathroom the only privacy you get, but she’s safe, and that’s all that matters, even if she’s driving me fucking nuts.
All loose ends have been tied with the last job I’ll be doing. Having the four of us, Thomas, Weeks, Damian, and me, around the old table in the gym’s kitchen, talking and planning, felt like the days when I first started this. It was a full-circle moment for me.
Weeks and Thomas will accompany me, while Damian stays behind to keep track of any information we might need, and in case something goes wrong. Which I’m praying to God it won’t.
Since our meeting last night, my anxiety has increased. Fuck, really, I’ve felt it since I decided this was it. Because I fear who Luca is without all this… My escape.
I leave tomorrow morning, but tonight, it’s Rowan and me.
The need to give her a reprieve from what I’m going into, and the upheaval of her life, is potent.
I want to give my girl normal, but I don’t know if there will ever be a normal.
Normal for us isn’t everyone else's normal. We’ve killed, lied, planned, and got the ultimate revenge on those who did us dirty.
So, no, normal will never be in our vocabulary, but maybe I can find a middle ground for her.
“Can I get two iced vanilla lattes to go?” I ask the barista.
Liquid Gold is bustling with college students studying or just catching up. Everyone is so engrossed in their own lives or conversations. It’s weird being on the outside looking in, none of them knowing the evil that was lurking around them, and who and why it’s now gone.
“Keep the change.” I grab my coffee and head to the apartment.
Walking up the stairs, I remember when I came over here for the first time, unannounced.
Thinking there was someone else in there with her had my blood boiling.
She wasn’t even mine to feel that way about, but my heart and soul knew she was mine before my brain did.
The need to see her to know she was okay was like an itch I couldn’t scratch until I got my eyes on her.
And then that rash spread to where I needed her to just be able to feel okay within my body.
It was a weird reaction to someone I didn’t even know.
And to find out what happened to her in that tomb, to know the hell she went through by herself, broke me.
I broke for a woman I didn’t even know. But in her, I saw Lauren. Alone, hurt, and with no one to help.
My attraction and my desire to help were immediate with Rowan.
I smile down at her sleeping body, taking her in, enjoying the sight.
Her black T-shirt has ridden up just below her breasts, showing me the slow rise and fall of her belly.
I take her in, my eyes stopping on the atrocious scar that mars her perfection.
The lines are still so angry-looking, but unlike how red they used to be, they’re now dark brown, fully healed, unlike her.
I shake the plastic cup, the liquid and ice sloshing.
“Hmm,” she moans out, stretching. Her body automatically knows what the sound is, and I chuckle.
One blue eye pops open.
“I have coffee.” I show her my offering.
Her hands open and close. “Give me.”
“Scoot.” The bed dips with my weight as I lean to kiss her soft and plump lips.
“Thank you.” Her words full of sleep.
“Drink and get up. I’m taking you out.”
I watch her eyes widen. “Where?” comes out excitedly.
“It’s a surprise.”
I knew that would get her going. With her coffee in hand, she maneuvers herself into a sitting position, her dark hair tousled. “I like surprises when they’re from you.” She smiles.
After a few minutes, she forces herself out of bed, rummages through her bags, finding what she wants to wear.
Nothing is put away in the apartment. I think for us, if things are in order and in place, it’ll feel permanent, and we both don’t want that.
I watch her barely covered ass sway, walking away from me to the bathroom.
I mumble to myself, “Good Lord.” Before taking a sip of my coffee. Knowing exactly how lucky I am.
Not being able to stay sitting on the bed, I decide to take Roxy on a quick walk before we leave.
Roxy hates the city and a leash. She pulls and tries to bite it as I force her to walk. “I know. I hate it here, too.” Knowing she can’t understand me, but not caring either way. We share a hatred of being here.
We walk… Well, we fight the two blocks before I turn around, and we head back to the apartment.
Roxy finally gives in and uses the restroom right before we get back.
“Thanks,” I mumble to her as I pick her shit up, tying the bag.
She watches me with this look of I better clean up after her.
I am only human, after all. I narrow my eyes at her.
Get it together, Luca, you’re having beef with a fucking dog.
Dropping her leash, I let her run up the stairs back to our home away from home, watching her tail wag. “Only a little while longer, Rox.”
Unlocking the door, it announces my arrival back before I let it close behind me, enjoying the view I’m met with. Rowan naked, hair wet, sipping her coffee.
My legs take me straight to her, grabbing the coffee out of her hand, setting it down, and maneuvering her to the small bistro table. “Hands on it, and ass out.”
Her giggle meets my ears, and my zipper undoing meets hers. I feel as though I have starved for her. Finally getting to have her anyway I want, it’s an awakening. Something I can’t put out. She’s addicting.
Using my feet, I spread hers apart as she lays herself on the table, my hand roaming up her legs, silky smooth, until I get to her pussy, rubbing her clit, making her moan.
Following her folds, I insert two fingers, needing no prep, as I massage her G-spot.
Never needing directions to it. I know her body like the back of my hand.
I’ve memorized every dip, curve, and what sets her body afire.
“Fuck.” She throws her hair over her shoulder and lays the side of her face on the table, where she can look at me out the side of her eye, and I can see her lips part further open with each stroke of my fingers.
Fisting my dick, precum leaks out, as I trail her ass, over her asshole, removing my fingers and plunging into her.
“Luca!”
My hips pound into her, and with that, the bistro table moves as well.
I can’t help but wrap my hand in her hair, lifting her face off the table, bending down and kissing her, licking her face, biting her jawline. My need to come has my balls drawing up.
“Fuck me hard,” she demands of me, and I do.
“Come for me, baby,” I tell her in a yell as I pull myself fully out and ram back into her. Her pussy walls constrict my dick.
“Just like that, Luca.”
And I keep my tempo until I can’t any longer and come inside her. Her hungry pussy pulses around my shaft with her own climax.
Laying my body weight on top of her, unfurling my hand from her tangled wet hair, we both catch our breath.
“Get dressed.” I slap her ass while simultaneously pulling out of her. With a step back, I watch my cum slowly leak from her. I can’t help the smile that stretches across my face. It feels primal, marking my territory.
“Wait. What?” Rowan looks at me when we stop in front of a tattoo parlor.
My eyes pan to her hidden stomach. “Are you ready?” I don’t have to say what I’m referring to; by the look now on her face, she knows.
On a whisper, she says, “Yes.” She moves her head up and down.
The bell rings as we cross the threshold.
“Hey motherfucker!” echoes from across the room and I see Jax barreling our way.
Rowan stands still next to me as Jax and I shake hands, both coming in for a quick hug. He’s been my tattoo artist for years. He’s never asked me what the names on my skin represent, but I know he isn’t stupid. Jax has worked on all of us. He’s the only man we trust with our skin.
He looks at Rowan, his hand held out. “Jax, nice to meet you.”
“Rowan.” She shakes it while turning to me.
“After your call, I had to come in and open, you know it’s my day off, asshole,” Jax says jokingly. Money talks, and mine talks loudly.
“That’s because you’re a good man.”
He laughs because he’s not, but we won’t say otherwise.
“Come to my station, let's see what you want me to do.”
We follow him, and I know the moment she spots the picture. Her body immediately stills. I have to step sideways so I don’t run into her.
Jax notices, too. “That’s my best piece to date.”
In a huge black gothic frame, my back piece is in all its glory. Dark and mysterious. An artistic piece that’s won him awards at tattoo shows.
“I love it.” Rowan walks to the hanging picture.
It’s as tall as her if it were sitting on the ground.
The tree is hauntingly beautiful, with its roots intertwined, representing Lauren and me.
“You did it.” It’s not a question, but a statement.
“It's my favorite piece of him.” Rowan turns and smiles at Jax. I can see she’s becoming more comfortable, understanding that I trust him.
Placing the finishing touches on the table, making sure it’s all sanitized, “Who wants to go first?”
I see Rowan’s eyes widen before I walk to her. “I know I sprung this on you; you don’t have to get anything.”
“No. I want to.” Her hand absentmindedly moves down her stomach.
Placing a gentle kiss on her lips, “Whatever you want, he’ll do it.”
“Can you go first?”
I laugh. “Yes.”