42. Luca
LUCA
Dear Diary,
He should have just let me call the peacock Pinocchio.
Fuck, I hated my father. With every bone inside my body, every breath I breathed, every beat of my damn heart, I wanted to hurt him. I’d barely recovered from the beating he and my uncle had given me; the final traces of the bruising still yellowy-green across my ribs.
And now this. Not even bothering to let us know the plans had changed and that MacGregor had requested us there earlier. I knew exactly how the big Scot would take my late arrival, and not well was putting it lightly.
It would be taken as disrespect.
Just another way my father was punishing me.
Whether this one was still for taking Isabella away or if it was for taking Nyah’s punishment, I didn’t know.
It didn’t matter, the outcome was the same.
I didn’t know why I was surprised. My father had done this my entire life.
Set me up to look bad, leaving himself as shiny as a mirror.
I knocked back another drink, and eyed Lynx scurrying about the plane, getting Nyah’s things and then eventually coming to sit back beside me. I sucked in a deep breath, trying not to inhale his scent, but it was impossible not to when he was sitting so close.
I didn’t have the willpower to move farther away.
I nodded toward the bathroom where Nyah had been for a long time. “She okay?”
Lynx brushed his hands off on his suit pants. “Yeah. Fine. Of course. Why?”
I eyed him and the squeak in his voice. “Why are you being weird?”
“I’m not!”
“Your voice is two octaves higher than it normally is.”
“Is it?” He tried lowering his voice to its usual deep bass. “Apparently, it is.”
“Stop stressing about the passport thing. I promise you aren’t getting picked up by customs. Don’t forget, we have some practice smuggling people in and out of the country.” There was so much anger beneath the sarcasm it was impossible to miss.
He sat back and folded his arms across his chest. “Your dad is a piece of work, huh?”
“To put it nicely.”
Nyah came back down the aisle and went to sit in her seat and then seemed to think better of it. She tucked her bag away, but when she sat it was on the other side of me. “What are we talking about?”
“How much we hate my father,” I said idly.
She rubbed a hand over her chest. “Do I need to sign a membership form to join this club? Pay a fee? I’m in.”
My own scar, much older than hers, felt too tight.
The staff on the plane was always very good at keeping themselves unseen unless needed.
They sat behind a curtain, giving us the main body of the plane and the semblance of privacy necessary for all the business deals that had taken place here over the years.
I’d seen and heard and been a part of many of them.
It was almost nice that there was nobody here this time, and I could just take a fucking flight without having to discuss a cargo load of women we were smuggling like they were mass-manufactured goods, made in bulk and shipped from a third-world country.
“We should get membership badges,” I suggested. “We can pin them right on our chests, over our brands.”
Nyah snorted. “Or we could get membership cards. Ones with a discount. One free Guerra branding per member.”
“All members are invited to a bullet carving day,” I added. “You know, to etch his name into them.”
They both stared at me.
Lynx shook his head. “That’s dark. You thinking about killing your old man?”
I shrugged. “Wouldn’t you?”
He glanced toward the partition the crew sat behind, and I waved my hand dismissively.
“Don’t worry about them. They know I’m joking. I love my father.” I couldn’t keep the tipsy laughter at bay at that one.
Lynx eyed me with that worried frown that made him seem older than he was. I waved him off.
“Relax! I’m not going to kill him. Where’s the fun in that? Doing little things to torture him the way he’s spent his whole life torturing me is much more interesting.”
Lynx’s frown deepened. “Like what?”
I shrugged and threw my hands up. “I don’t know.
Let his prize peacock fly free. Fuck those birds.
He never let me name them when I was a kid.
I just wanted to call one Pinocchio, but noooo, he had to tell me that was a stupid name.
You know he named that fucking bird Mike instead?
” I huffed. “Pinocchio was a way better name for a peacock.”
Nyah hid a smile. “You could replace that peanut butter he likes with the crunchy version.”
I laughed. “The man hates texture of any sort. That would definitely piss him off. I like it. You can join my club.”
I reached out a fist to her, and she bumped hers against it.
“What about you, Lynx? You want to join the club? You can switch his thousand-thread-count sheets for a scratchy Walmart set.”
There was no joking in Lynx’s tone like there had been with me and Nyah. “Or you could do something that would actually really get him where it hurts. The way he hurt you.”
I dropped my gaze, my ribs suddenly throbbing again. “There’s no point killing him, Lynx. I’d have to kill my uncle as well, and if I killed both of them, there’d be more who came out of the woodwork to challenge me.”
“I’m not talking about killing them. You want to hit him where it hurts?” His gaze slid to Nyah. “Take his wife.”
I stared at Lynx for a long moment.
And then burst out laughing.
Lynx didn’t laugh. Neither did Nyah.
I widened my eyes. “Oh, holy shit. You’re actually fucking serious?”
Lynx sipped his drink, the ice clinking. “Why not? You both hate the man. And you can’t tell me the two of you aren’t attracted to each other.”
It was an automatic reaction to deny. “I’m not—”
Lynx shut me up with a look. “Your walls are fucking thin. I know you jack off every time you and her have one of your little arguments. They’re basically foreplay.” He stared at me. “Are you seriously telling me you didn’t get hot watching your old man spread her legs and finger-fuck her pussy?”
I closed my eyes and groaned, not sure if it got me hot, because I didn’t like that he’d touched her at all, and especially not when she so clearly hadn’t wanted him to. But the sight of her pink slit opening to take his fingers had done things to me.
As had seeing her naked in my bed, that “pretty girl” tattoo on her snatch, reminding me of what I already knew.
Next to me, Nyah’s breath quickened.
I glanced over at her, and she pressed her legs together, but not in a way that made me think she didn’t like the idea. It was more like she was trying to relieve the pressure building inside her.
I sat back and ran a hand through my hair. “Jesus fuck, Nyah. Don’t respond like that.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You didn’t have to.” I looked over at her and saw the same heat in her eyes that had been there that day in the kitchen when I’d riled her up and promised to fuck her wearing nothing but an apron.
I closed my eyes, not wanting to see it. “This is a very fucking bad idea,” I groaned, even though the alcohol in my system said otherwise.
“Or a really good one,” she whispered back.
Fuck my old man. Let the crew tell him I screwed his woman.
I reached for her. “Come here.”
And fuck me, she came. I guided her to straddle my lap, and my dick got hard beneath her instantly.
Her tits were in my face, her hair all dark and long, her lips pink and pouty and so fucking kissable I couldn’t stop myself from fisting the hair at the back of her neck and dragging her mouth down to mine.
She whimpered, and I circled my free arm around her, holding her tight against my chest. I flicked my tongue over her lips, until she opened for me with a moan of need. Her lips tasted of strawberry lip gloss, her tongue the mint of her chewing gum.
And fucking hell, I liked it.
I’d never kissed a woman and felt the way I did when I kissed a man. And yet Nyah was entirely different. I didn’t know if it was just the fact she was the one woman I couldn’t have that made me want her so much, or if it was just her, but in the moment, I didn’t care.
Because all there was was her, and her tits and the curve of her hips on top of me, and all of it just felt so fucking right it shocked me to my core.
Her little moans against my mouth set a fire through my lips and straight into my bloodstream. It pulsed and burned until my chest tightened and demanded more.
I found the hem of her T-shirt and pulled it up and over her head.
Her mouth leaving mine for the split second it took for me to get her shirt off felt like an eternity, and it was me seeking her out again, connecting her lips to mine, devouring her in a frenzy of need I couldn’t stop now that I’d started.
I wanted every trace of my father off her skin.
Wanted to mark her with my own.
I kissed the swell of her tits, all plumped up and perky in a red bra that did things to me no woman in lingerie ever had. I’d seen plenty of it and never cared. It was all just skin enclosed in lace, and none of it had done anything for me.
Until it was her skin in lace. Her nipples showing through the sheer material and just fucking begging for my mouth.
I lowered my head and sucked her.
It had an immediate effect of her grinding down on my dick, her back arching to give me better access. I switched sides, sucking and biting the other nipple through the fabric, my dick aching beneath her and desperate to get in on the action.
Beside me, Lynx moved, and I eyed him, not taking my mouth from Nyah’s breasts.
He glanced away. “I’m just going to…” He made a move for the bedroom, which is probably where I should have taken Nyah, but I’d been too fucking greedy for her.
And yet I found myself grabbing his arm.
His gaze slammed into mine. I said nothing, just went back to getting Nyah naked.
While Lynx watched.
If Nyah had any hesitations about Lynx still being there, she didn’t show them. Her mouth found my neck, sucking and licking me until I was thrusting up against her, my body not caring that there were still multiple layers of clothing between us.