Chapter 20 Johan
CHAPTER TWENTY
JOHAN
Lark stares up at the ceiling for several long moments before finally turning her attention to me.
While things are a little fuzzy without my glasses, I can definitely see her checking out my dick. I don’t bother to hide myself from her view. I’m hard. And I’m covered in Noah’s dried seed, a fact that makes my jaw tick.
Not because I’m embarrassed.
But because I fucking hate feeling unclean.
However, I don’t rush Lark to move. If she wants to lie there and check out my knot, that’s fine. “Want me to strike a pose for you, little black cat?”
Her brow furrows a little, her gaze lifting to mine. “Cat?”
“A play on hat,” I murmur. “You are a black hat, right, Lark?” She’s really not. But I know she understands the term because her lips twitch.
“From what I found on my new laptop, I believe the same could be said about you, Mr. Aegean.”
I grin. “That’s more of an alias than a hacker name.”
“As is Lark. In most situations, anyway,” she points out.
“Touché, Ms. White.” That’s the last name she uses as Lark. Not all that clever, given what her real last name means in Italian.
“Says John,” she tosses back, teasing me about the first name I use with my alias.
“It’s easy to remember.”
“So is White,” she returns as she slips out of the bed.
Any response I may have had to that disappears as she stands before me. Naked. Beautiful. Covered in slick.
I swallow, my throat dry.
All I want to do is lift her into the air and toss her right back onto the mattress.
Cover her with my body.
Slide into that wet pussy.
And rut her for fucking days.
“You’re stunning,” I whisper, feeling the need to say something. Compliment her somehow. Worship her.
My words feel… dull. Not powerful enough.
“The most gorgeous woman I’ve ever seen,” I add, striving to make it better. Striving and failing. “You’re like a goddess.” Which sounds like a really stupid pickup line.
I wince.
“I’m fucking all this up,” I mutter and run my fingers through my hair. “Let’s just go shower.”
I turn toward the door, then spin around in the direction of her bathroom because we should probably go there. Although, I have no idea what soap is in there.
Actually, no, I do know what’s in there since I ordered it.
What the fuck is wrong with me?
I’m thirty-seven fucking years old. I know how to talk to women. Especially naked ones.
Granted, it’s been a while.
But still.
I kissed her not even fifteen minutes ago.
And now I’m basically running to a distraction so I can hide from the mortification inspired by my ridiculous commentary.
“Johan,” she calls after me, causing me to pause on the threshold.
I take a deep breath—which fills my senses with the delicious scent of brown sugar and honey—and look at her over my shoulder. “Yeah?”
“You’re stunning, too.” Her eyes roam over me with interest. “And also one of the most gorgeous men I’ve ever met.”
Fuck, I love her. A thought that sounds more like Noah than me. But fuck it.
I rotate to move toward her, no longer giving a shit about the shower, and pull her into my arms to kiss her.
She responds with her tongue, engaging me in a passionate embrace that has me lifting her into the air and carrying her into the bathroom.
It smells like honeyed chocolate in here, topped with a hint of cherries, telling me she and Laz must have played in the shower at some point.
That’s fine.
I’m about to add my own scent to the mix.
Lark’s mouth explores the stubble on my jaw before going to my neck as I pause at the bathtub to flip it on. Then I continue on to the shower so we can rinse off first.
Because I am not getting in a tub while covered in Noah’s version of a claim.
Warm water rains down on our heads, causing Lark to bend back and catch some in her mouth. “Thirsty, sweetheart?” I ask her.
She smiles. “I’m starving, actually.” Then she grabs my head and pulls me in for a hungry kiss, one that has my knot throbbing against her.
“Fuck,” I breathe.
She hums in response, her fingers threading through my hair to keep me close. Her thighs tighten, too, like she’s afraid I might set her down. I press her up against the wall instead, my dick gliding through her slick cunt and tempting me to slip inside.
I don’t.
I won’t.
I can’t.
But if she asks me to… I might.
Noah will be pissed. However, he’ll understand.
Saying no to our omega isn’t an option. She owns us in a way no one else ever will. When she realizes that, she’s going to comprehend what it means to be our mafia queen.
Her tongue skates along my bottom lip, her legs clamping down once more. “I feel so alive,” she whispers. “Yet lost.”
“Lost how?” I ask, holding her hips.
“This isn’t what I wanted,” she says, causing me to frown.
“Do you want me to stop?” I pull back so I can stare into her eyes. “Because I will, Lark. Just tell me.”
“No.” The answer is emphatic. Immediate. “No, that’s not what I mean. I… I want what Lazarus has said to be true. But you all left. I wasn’t included. I didn’t know where you went. You didn’t respond to me. And I… I can’t live like that.”
I study her, my mind sifting through each of her statements. I’ve more than gathered that she’s afraid of being a traditional mafia wife—only included when the don’s pack needs her for something sensual.
But that’s not us.
Except our actions the last few days suggest otherwise.
I know Laz explained this to her, told her that she’s not part of our pack yet. However, I disagree. She’s ours. We all know it. Even her.
We just have to embrace it.
Move forward.
Become a unit.
And communicate properly.
“I’m going to be very honest with you, Lark,” I tell her, my eyes holding hers.
“Okay.” The wariness in her tone matches the uncertainty in her gaze.
“There’s a reason we’ve hunted you for years.” I draw a circle against her hip with my thumb, the touch one that Noah often does to me. But it feels appropriate to do it now to her, to try to soothe her while I speak.
She swallows, the movement catching my gaze for a beat before I return my focus to her pretty brown irises.
“Laz was livid when he realized someone had stolen money from us. That’s never happened before, primarily because he has me.
” My jaw ticks at the memory of the day I discovered that someone had hacked our system.
“No one has ever been able to pull off something like that under my watch. No one. Until you.”
Her cheeks pinken a little. But it’s not from embarrassment. She’s proud.
As she fucking should be.
“It took me years to track your work through the web. While I may not have been able to focus on it one hundred percent of the time, I definitely devoted a lot of hours to figuring out what the fuck happened. And when I finally did, I told Laz and Noah.”
They were both ready to drop everything to track the culprit down and rain hell on the bastard’s head.
Except I had to inform them that “Lark” was a woman, not a man.
And not just any woman, but Aurora Bianchi.
“It’s one of the few times I’ve ever seen them speechless.” I grin at the memory. “Noah demanded to see your profile, I think because he wanted a photo. Meanwhile, Laz said we’d found our queen. No hesitation. No debates. Just a declaration of intention.”
“Because he wanted revenge?” she asks, clearly guessing at his motives despite the fact that he already discussed some of them with her. He told her about the other offers he’d received and why he’d rejected them.
But I’ll elaborate again for her now if it’ll help her accept this. Accept us.
“He didn’t want revenge. He wanted you because you bested him. And he loves that.”
She blinks. “He does?”
“We all do,” I inform her, my nose skimming hers. “We want an omega who will fight us and hold us accountable. Someone we can rely on to help our organization thrive. Who challenges us more than she submits. And who is strong enough to handle all three of us.”
I pause, considering that for a moment.
“Well, primarily Laz and Noah,” I amend. “As the only one who has been taking care of them these last few years, trust me when I tell you it’s not an easy task. I’m very much looking forward to having some assistance in that area.”
She frowns at me. “Why don’t they just fuck each other? Or take another…?” She trails off. “I don’t want to think about that, actually.”
“They’re too violent to fuck each other. As for the latter, you don’t need to think about it, as they haven’t taken anyone else to bed—other than me—since the night I revealed the truth about your hacker identity—the night they learned about you.”
It just didn’t make sense to any of us at that point. We were consumed with the desire to hunt her down.
But that didn’t curb Noah’s and Laz’s urges. Same with mine.
So I saw to their cravings.
Lark stares at me. “They haven’t been with anyone else since learning about me? Anyone other than… the pack?”
I nod. “There wasn’t a purpose. We knew who we wanted, little hacker. You.”
Her eyes search mine. “Because I challenged Lazarus.”
“Yes.”
“And because of my name?”
I consider that for a moment. “It’s more about your experience in our world. The fact that you know what we’re capable of yet you chose to steal from us anyway. That marked you as bold, intelligent, and daring. All traits we admire. You being a Bianchi just adds to the allure.”
Laz already told her that he would have rejected an offer from her father, just like all the others he’d turned down.
“Can you just imagine for a moment how much you and I could accomplish together as a team?” I ask her. “Think about the jobs we could pull off. The protection we could weave around the various Ferraro organizations. We would be fucking unstoppable.”
And just the thought of it has my dick throbbing all over again.
She’s the root user to my server. Which is cheesy as fuck, but true. Because there will never be any firewalls between us.
“You know I’m not really a black hat, though, right?” she asks cautiously. “I consider myself more of a gray hat.”