21. Nyah #2
He grinned and flicked his blinker on, steering the car over on the main strip of Saint View.
I peered out the window at the grimy main street.
We were right outside the strip club, but the buzzing neon sign that cast a pink glow across the street at night was off, the place closed until a more debaucherous hour, I assumed.
The Greasy Spoon Diner was just down the road, but it was pretty quiet too, since we’d missed the breakfast rush but hadn’t quite gotten to the lunchtime crowd yet.
Dax’s tattoo shop sat across the road, and I grinned over at his artwork in the window. I couldn’t see him through it, but I liked knowing he was just over there anyway. “We’re visiting Dax at work? You getting a tattoo? Or a piercing?”
He sat back in his seat. “Why did your face just light up like that was the best idea you’ve ever had? Is it the seeing Dax bit?”
“No. It was the thought of seeing you in pain.”
He made a face at me. “Cute. I have a high pain threshold, so that wouldn’t have been as entertaining as you might have hoped.”
“Oh, really? Get your cock pierced then. Let’s see how brave you really are,” I dared.
He considered that for a moment and then shrugged. “Maybe.” He opened the car door and nodded toward the street. “Somewhere else we need to go first though.”
I followed his lead and got out. He walked around the car so we were both standing on the sidewalk, then hooked his arm around my neck, drawing me closer so he could cover my eyes with his palm.
“What are you doing?” I gripped his fingers, trying to drag them down so I could see again.
He wouldn’t let me. “Blindfolding you. So you don’t chicken out of where I’m taking you.”
I frowned, but he was already walking me down the street, and I mentally tried to remember all the shops on it.
But it was a long street, and the farther we got, the more I realized I had absolutely no hope of guessing. So I just went with it, inhaling his scent and enjoying having him this close to me.
Why did the man always smell like he’d just walked off a cologne photoshoot? It had to be part of his whole Mafia prince brand, that along with the suits and expensive shoes, had been drummed into him as part of his grooming.
But it did things to me. It was impossible to be this close to him and not have the smell of him making me giddy.
By the time we reached our destination, I’d basically completely forgotten the point of the whole thing. I was too busy trying to control my hormones.
So when Luca released the hold over my eyes, it took me a good few seconds of blinking to make any sense of what I was seeing. But when I worked it out, I glanced over at him with a raised eyebrow. “A sex shop? Before lunch? Seriously?”
He laughed and prodded me through the aisles of dildos and lube and floggers. “There’s never a bad time to go to a sex shop.”
“You a frequent flier here? Does the clerk know you by name?”
Luca rolled his eyes at me. “Yeah, that’s Bob. We’re besties.”
We both glanced over at the desk where a man in his sixties sat behind the register, reading a copy of Pride and Prejudice…which was possibly the most out-of-place thing in the store.
And that was saying something because there was quite an array of weird things on the shelves here. I picked up a two-dick monster dildo that was bright blue and had the impression of scales. “Do people really use these?”
Luca took it from me and studied it, a wicked grin spreading across his lips. “Should I buy it for you so we can find out?”
I shot him a look and smiled so sweetly it should have given me a cavity. “Why bother when I can just use yours or Lynx’s or Dax’s?”
He sniggered, putting the monster dick back on the shelf. “Look at you, all cocky now she got laid last night. I feel objectified.”
“Yeah, sure you do. What are we doing here anyway?” I wandered along, with him sticking close behind me.
I liked having him there. If it had been Lynx or Dax, they would have put their arms around me and snuggled in from behind.
Luca wasn’t like that. He kept just enough distance between us that it drove me crazy, and I kept anticipating him getting just a little closer, so I could feel him against me.
“We’re buying you an ass plug.”
I spun around. “Excuse me?”
He raised an eyebrow. “Are you seriously going to pretend you didn’t practically beg me to fuck your ass last night?”
I scowled at him, embarrassment heating my cheeks. “You know, it’s kinda rude to bring up things said in the heat of the moment. Have some manners.”
He leaned in so Bob up at the counter with his Jane Austen reading material didn’t hear. “You know it’s kinda rude to pretend like you aren’t turned on just thinking about it.”
I shoved him back a step. “You’re such a cocky asshole.”
He didn’t let me have any of the room. He closed it instantly, pinning me in to a shelf full of condoms. “Stop talking about ass unless you’re going to let me have yours.”
God, he was killing me. He smelled so good, and he was right. I hadn’t stopped thinking about last night ever since I’d woken up. I was literally just counting down the minutes until we could do it again.
Something crackled in the air between us, that stupid sexual tension I had zero control over. I breathed out, but it was unsteady, fully affected by how close he was and how dirty he talked.
He grinned like he knew it and reached over, plucking an ass plug from a shelf and holding it up, an unspoken question in his eyes.
I wanted to say no. Wanted to tell him he was a cocky prick and he didn’t have me all figured out.
And yet what I actually did was nod.
He winked at me. “Good girl.”
I stifled a groan. He needed to stop saying things like that.
He strode to the counter and handed Bob the plug with the amount of shame one would have buying a loaf of bread.
Bob rang it up with about the same level of excitement and tossed a tube of lube into the bag at the last second. “Free promotion,” he explained. “Raspberry flavored.”
Luca winked at me. “My favorite.”
The man was insufferable, honestly.
I wasn’t waiting around for him a second longer. This whole thing was becoming mortifying, and I was probably going to have to hand in my feminist card at this rate for acting like I had no brain whenever he was in my space.
Some fresh air would clear my head. I strode out into the morning sunlight and walked back down the street to where we’d left the car. Then decided I wanted to see Dax while I was here, because he was the best cure for a case of “too much Luca Guerra.”
I went to cross the road and paused for a black SUV to pass.
Someone grabbed my elbow and yanked me back from the curb.
Luca shoved me behind him, his chest heaving, his sex store purchases in a bag clutched in his other hand. He watched the SUV roll by, with his muscles locked up tight, tension in every one.
As soon as it passed, he whirled on me. “What the hell are you doing?”
I yanked my elbow out of his grasp. “Crossing the road? What does it look like?”
“You walked off without me! That wasn’t the deal, princess.
I sprung you for the day, but fucking hell, you think you’re safe out here, walking the streets completely alone and unarmed?
That could have been my father in that SUV.
You know how quick my uncle could have ripped you right off the street and into the back of it?
And then what, Nyah? You’re back with them, and this time, I can’t fucking get to you.
And trust me, if they get you back, what they did after they branded you will seem like a fucking vacation in the Bahamas. ”
His eyes blazed with anger, but there was something more behind it.
Pure, cold fear.
For me. For my safety. Because despite the way Luca was an asshole ninety-nine percent of the time, the other one percent showed me he actually cared.
Seeing me so close to a car he thought his father might be in had scared him.
“It wasn’t your dad or your uncle.” I pointed down the street to where the SUV had parked and a mom lifted a stroller out of the back, her toddler waiting patiently on the sidewalk for her. “See? Just a mom taking her kids to get the groceries or something.”
Luca cracked his neck to one side, the joints audibly popping and a little of the tension seeping out of his posture. But not all of it.
His fingers circled my wrist, and this time, I let him. He checked the street for cars then stepped out into it, pulling me along with him. His steps were brisk as he headed for Dax’s store, and I had to jog a bit to keep up with him.
“Luca,” I tried again.
But he wasn’t having it. He put his weight against the tattoo shop door, opening it and dragging me inside with him. The jingly bell above the door was at complete odds with the intensity Luca threw off.
Dax looked up from working on a client’s back, and his expression morphed from concentration to pleasure at seeing me.
It faltered when he picked up on the vibe between me and Luca.
Dax frowned. “Everything okay?”
I opened my mouth to answer.
Luca beat me to it. “Where’s your bathroom?”
Dax pointed.
“Don’t come down there. No matter what you hear, I promise, she’s fine.”
Dax’s expression darkened, and he got to his feet to intervene, only getting halfway before I shook my head.
His eyebrows furrowed with confusion, but my eyes implored him to sit down. To let this be whatever Luca needed it to be.
If it was a punishment for running off on him, then I would take it.
My core tingled at the thought of it. Because unlike his father, I knew I had nothing to fear from Luca Guerra’s punishments.
Dax didn’t seem happy about it, but he made no further move to follow us down the short hallway to the bathrooms. Luca pushed me inside and turned around, locking the door behind him.