40. Lynx
LYNX
Dear Diary,
I’ve become the emotional support animal in this house. But there’s no petting.
Istood at the edge of Nyah’s bedroom and watched her throw clothes into a suitcase, every movement accompanied by a grudging sigh.
She’d started wearing strapless tops without anything underneath, so the straps didn’t aggravate her burn, but it was pretty much healed now, the angry red scar all that was left of the ordeal.
I wasn’t mad that she hadn’t gone back to wearing bras. Not fucking mad at all. Though I did feel a bit guilty, standing here watching her tits bounce as she moved around, her nipples poking against the fabric that just begged for me to rip it off her.
At least it would, if she saw me as anything other than a friend.
I didn’t exactly know how we’d gotten here. But somehow, we had. And now she was so comfortable with me she didn’t even seem to mind the fact that her tiny top showed off her entire belly.
“That baby bump is starting to take shape,” I said idly.
She paused and looked down, then back up at me, her eyes full of worry. “Is it? Shit. I was hoping nobody would notice yet.”
Maybe they wouldn’t. Maybe I only noticed because I noticed everything about her, from the glossy dark hair that curled a little around her face when she’d just gotten out of a hot shower to the freckles across her nose.
And yeah, I noticed the way her stomach was no longer flat, like it had been when she’d first gotten here. There was a definite curve to it now that just screamed for me to run my hands all over it.
But that wasn’t my place.
“How’s the ‘jump Luca’s bones’ plan coming along?” I forced myself to ask.
She let out a snort of derision. “Yeah, great. I’m having wild, passionate sex with him right now. And I’m at least four months pregnant. Maybe more. He’s definitely going to believe this baby is his.”
I made a face at her. “Fuck.”
“Yeah, fuck.” She smiled at me. “It was a good try.”
“Do we have a new plan?”
She cocked her head to one side. “We? Last I checked, it was only me knocked up and unlikely to fit in her wedding dress, even if it is in just a few days.” She ran her hand over her stomach. “This baby has been getting bigger by the second it feels like.”
I turned away. I couldn’t handle watching her doing that without wanting to touch her. “We,” I said with as much conviction as I could. “You aren’t alone in this. We’re…”
Her gaze softened as it focused on me. “Friends. Right?”
I nodded; my mouth suddenly dry. “Of course.”
Where was Carlos with that branding iron? I wouldn’t have minded shoving it through my eye right about now. “I still think it’s the best plan. When was the last time Carlos or Luca saw a newborn baby? They won’t know what size they’re supposed to be.”
“Their doctor will.”
“Doctors can be paid off.”
“With what money? I have none of my own.”
I glanced around her room, full of fancy fucking shit Carlos had paid for. “Plenty of things here I could pawn.”
She sighed. “Yeah, maybe. But then there’s the problem of Luca. He’s been avoiding me.”
I’d noticed that too. Ever since he’d taken the punishment for her, he hadn’t been around as much.
If he was, he spent his time in his room.
He hadn’t been showing up for hockey training or games, and so it had been me who’d copped the full brunt of Carlos’s and Enzo’s wrath over their new hockey team being so utterly garbage.
I hadn’t told Luca. He’d had enough on his plate, trying to heal from the injuries he’d sustained at his father’s hands.
But it was no surprise Nyah hadn’t seen much of him. None of us had.
“He’ll be on this trip with you,” I said. “Maybe you’ll get a chance for seduction then.” I grinned at her. “You can join the Mile High Club.”
I really wasn’t sure why I was hurting my own feelings like this. But I did have a vague theory that if I saw her with other men, then it might put a damper on this ridiculous fucking crush I had.
Couldn’t make it any worse anyway.
She threw a pair of sandals on top of her clothes.
I continued to torture myself, thinking about her and Luca. “I’m not sure the two of you would even fit in a plane bathroom though.”
She stopped packing and glanced at me. “Have you ever been in a private plane?”
I laughed at her. “Oh, yeah. Heaps of times. Right between hockey fights while I was in college and the stint I did in prison.”
She rolled her eyes at me. “Well, you’re in for a treat, my friend. Because I’m pretty sure we aren’t flying economy to Scotland.”
I flushed warm over assuming the Guerras would be flying on a regular airline. Of course they wouldn’t. “I would have liked to see that.”
She glanced at me sharply. “What do you mean? You’re coming too.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Uh, no, I’m not. Criminal record, remember. And on parole. Don’t think they’re going to let me out of the country anytime soon.”
A full-body tremble took control of her body, and her face paled. “You have to come! I can’t go without you.”
I laughed. “Sure you can. You’ll have Bruno and Viktor to watch over you.”
Her eyes darkened. “Bruno and Viktor let Carlos lock me in a fucking cage and brand me with a hot iron.”
The laughter fell from my lips.
She crossed the room to me and stepped in, her fingers clutched in my shirt. And then she wrapped her arms around my middle and laid her head against my chest, breathing in deeply.
And fuck me, I put my arms around her and hugged her back, until the trembles in her body subsided and her breathing normalized.
She looked up at me, and for a moment, I thought about lowering my lips to hers, kissing her, telling her how bad I wanted her. I wanted to tell her I didn’t care she was carrying another man’s baby or that she was set to marry someone else.
I still wanted her. Every fucking inch of her.
This crush was out of control.
She twisted her fingers through mine, and I sucked in a breath at the feel of her hand. Smaller. Softer. Hands I wanted running through my hair, down my body, circling my cock…
I stepped away, my skin too hot, this fucking crush about to become really embarrassing when I got a hard-on. “I’ll talk to Luca. Maybe he can do something. Keep packing.”
She smiled up at me, and I spun on my heel, getting out of her room before I did something stupid. I forced my feet down the hallway to Luca’s room and opened the door, letting myself in without knocking.
He glanced over from his bed as I leaned against the door, breathing heavy.
He frowned at me. “You good?”
I shook my head, breathing deeply to try to rid my lungs of Nyah’s perfume, only to fill them with Luca’s cologne that smelled just as intoxicating.
I closed my eyes and tilted my head back so it was resting on the door.
I stared at the ceiling. “No, I’m not fucking good.
I’ve got you in here, shirtless, all bedroom eyes even when you don’t mean to.
And I’ve got her in the other room, all fucking tits and ass and clinging to me, telling me she only feels safe when I’m around.
” I glared at him. “The two of you are fucking killing me.”
Luca didn’t say anything for a beat, and then when he did, it was the absolute wrong thing to say for my barely hanging-on self-control. “What do you need?”
I groaned. “I need you to figure out a way I can get into Scotland when I’m on parole and don’t have a passport.”
“Done,” he said without missing a beat.
I eyed him. “Just like that? Done?”
He sighed. “I could get a fake passport when I was about five years old, Lynx. Ask me to do something actually difficult.”
“Get on your knees and take my cock.”
I hadn’t meant to say that. And yet, I didn’t regret it. My entire body was wound too tight. And Luca and I had started this twice now, and neither time had ended the way I’d wanted it to.
“I can’t,” he said quietly.
“You can. You want to.”
He shook his head, his gaze lingering on me, like he was remembering both other times he’d more than willingly knelt in front of me. “I want to. But it’s dangerous to do that here. If I got caught, my uncle and my father…”
I moved across the room and stood at the end of his bed, so fucking needy it felt like my skin was on fire. “When have you ever cared about them?”
He went quiet, his voice lowering. “Since I realized that them hurting people I care about hurts more than them hurting me.”
I swallowed. “Am I one of those people you care about?”
He said nothing, his gaze just connected to mine.
And fuck me, I put one knee on the end of the bed and then crawled up it, up him. My legs either side of his, my hands pressing into the mattress until I completely straddled him, my body not touching his, just hovering.
Until I lowered myself down on top of him, inch by inch, connecting our bodies.
“Lynx,” he said hoarsely. “I fucking can’t. I don’t want them doing to you what they did to me.”
“I don’t care. I can take it.” What I couldn’t take was the need curling inside me, the aching desire that I had kept at bay for what felt like my entire life, not just since I’d met him and Nyah, but for years and years before that.
I’d never gotten what I wanted.
And I was so sick of waiting for it.
My dick got hard between us, and I buried my face in his neck, inhaling the scent of him.
“Lynx,” he groaned, twisting his head, trying to avoid my mouth. “You say that now, but when it’s you down in that cage, being burned and beaten and broken, you’ll regret it.”
“I won’t.” I kissed his neck, licked his skin, ground my hips against his, desperate for a reaction.
The only one I got was for him to push me away. He turned his head. “I can’t.”
It was like a bucket of cold water being thrown over my head.
I got off him and walked across the room to the door.
“Lynx,” he said, his voice hoarse. “I’m sorry. I’ll get the passport. Be on that plane tomorrow night, okay?”
I couldn’t respond. I just walked back out to my spot in the hallway like an obedient little guard and counted the fucking grapes on the paintings.
The next morning, there was no hockey training, so I rode my bike straight back to the clubhouse and sat myself at the bar, even though the rest of the club was all sleeping in their rooms. I helped myself to a bottle of bourbon and slugged it straight from the neck.
The soft pad of bare feet came from behind me, and I glanced over.
Amber, one of the club women who lived here, raised a sleepy hand. “Hey, Lynx. You’re up early.”
“Haven’t been to bed yet.”
She nodded. “Right. You do nights at the Guerras. That’s tough.”
She had no idea.
She eyed the bottle of half-drunk bourbon clutched in my fingers. “Rough night?”
“I’ve had better.”
“You want to talk about it?”
“Not even a little bit.”
A smile ghosted over her lips. “You want to fuck about it then?”
I raised an eyebrow at her.
She shrugged. “What? We all know what I am here.”
“And what’s that?”
“A hole to stick your cocks in.”
I studied her. “Do you like that?”
She shrugged, sitting on the stool next to mine. “Sometimes. I like sex as much as the next person. And there’s no shortage of attractive men here.” She sniffed. “Even if they do keep getting married off.”
I chuckled at that. “There’s always the prospects.”
She wrinkled her nose. “They’re like slobbery puppies. No idea what they’re doing.”
I laughed. “So teach ’em.”
“Someone has to. But not going to lie, ever since Hawk shacked up with Kara, I’ve missed having a regular.”
There was an unspoken offer in her voice. And fuck, she was pretty and easy to talk to, and she had a banging body. It would have been so easy to take out my Luca and Nyah frustration on her.
And yet it would have been totally unsatisfying for both of us.
So I said to her what had essentially been the theme of my night. “I think what you actually need is a friend.”
She sighed, the flirt in her switching off. “You might be right. Other than the girls here, I don’t really have any of those.” She glanced at me. “Want to be my friend, Lynx?”
I nodded. “Sure.”
Because why the fuck not? I was everyone else’s friend, after all.