“Hey, bit.” He kissed her head. To John, he said, “I told you to keep her safe.”
John gestured at her with a flourish. “And safe she is. You okay?”
“Yeah.” He looked over John’s shoulder and nodded. “I need to talk to Nick. Do me a favor, and take her out of here. I’ll meet you at the beer stand.”
She didn’t like how they were talking over her. “Hey! Maybe I don’t want to leave.”
Luca looked down at her, and she saw that he looked totally depleted. “I need to get home, bit. Someplace quiet. Sorry.”
“Okay.” She leaned her head on his chest, but he pushed her off suddenly.
“I’ll meet you in five. Ten tops.” And then he walked away.
Manny was confused. It had been a while since Luca had confused her.
oOo
“What do you think?”
“It’s the ocean. I could see this three miles ago. And two hours ago. And pretty much every minute of every day.”
Her snark did not deter his enthusiasm. “Yeah, but from here, you can’t see anything but nature. And us. No boardwalk, no screaming kids, nothing. And from here, in a little while—the sunset in all its glory.” He set his big pack down on the sand.
For her birthday, Luca had apparently decided to torture her. He’d taken her on the family’s sailboat—which would have been cool, except he made her wear a stupid, bright yellow life vest because he said she wasn’t a strong enough swimmer. Which was true, but still. Yuck. They’d sailed to an island and then they’d hiked for about a hundred miles. Or three. Same diff. And they’d done all that so they could stand on a beach and look at the water—which they could have done from Quiet Cove.
And then they were going to sail back in the dark. None of these things would have been on her birthday to-do list.
That said, her grumpiness was mostly affect now. She’d caved to this idea because Luca had been down and distracted most of the week, and this trip had caught his interest. She’d had trouble pretending to be happy about it. But, once she got on the boat and stopped whining about the life vest, the sail had been fun. The best part had been watching Luca steer the boat. He’d been so obviously enjoying himself that it had been hard not to catch some of that. He’d needed a chance to enjoy himself. Something was weighing on him.
Manny could read him enough to know that, but she didn’t know if she was supposed to leave him alone about it or make him talk. Since leaving him alone about it felt more natural, that was what she’d done. And now she was sailing and hiking as a birthday present.
The hike hadn’t been particularly taxing, and it had been beautiful. They were on a small island without a lot of people, and they’d left civilization behind quickly. Most of the hike had been through woods, and it had been full of flora and fauna. Like he’d brought her to Eden or something.
He’d led her to a tiny, pristine scoop of beach that hadn’t had any traffic other than birds for who knew how long. The sand was smooth. Manny didn’t know if she’d ever seen dry sand that had not been trodden all over by human feet.
“How does it stay like this?”
“It’s private. A friend of mine owns about a third of the island. His family’s had it for generations. He gives me the run of the place, and I come up here and camp in the woods sometimes, when I just need to get away and don’t have time to go far. This little spot is shitty for swimming, you have to hike in to get here over land, and you can’t bring a boat up, so it gets ignored. But I love it. I thought you might like it, too.”
Manny walked up to the water line and looked out over the ocean. She turned and scanned the tree line and the perfect wedge of beach. It was possible to believe that no one else existed in the world. “It’s like Lord of the Flies.”
“You don’t like it?” He was disappointed; she could hear it.
“I love it, actually. Just—if we find a big shell, let’s just leave it on the beach, okay? It’ll start all kinds of trouble.” She turned and smirked at him.
Laughing, he came to her. “You got it. No shells.” She tipped her head back for a kiss. As his tongue searched her mouth, his hands went around and took hold of her ass. He lifted, and she hooked her legs around him. This was a thing they did fairly often now. It was a lot easier to make out with him when he wasn’t hunched over to compensate for their thirteen-inch height difference. Now that she enjoyed his touch, there were all kinds of wicked interesting things they could do.
She nibbled on his lip and then pulled away, grinning at his groan. “But why did you bring me here tonight?”
“I know tomorrow’s going to be stressful for you, so I wanted to give you a birthday dinner that was the opposite of that. Just you and me and the ocean.”
She hugged him hard. “God, I love you.”
“You know I love you,” he murmured, his mouth against her ear.
They were going to her parents’ house the next night for her family birthday dinner. Dmitri would be there. They had ‘made up,’ in a way. He’d dumped Gigi about a week after Luca broke his face, when the band had been unable to replace Kevin and had broken up. The promoters of the Battle had apparently gone ballistic; a lot of money and time had been spent already promoting Ferret as a contender for the finals. There’d been all kinds of drama, apparently, but Manny hadn’t cared.
Dmitri had finally called her and apologized, and she’d accepted it—because what was she going to do? Not like she could disown him. But tomorrow would be the first time they’d be in the same room together since he’d told her that he’d let her get dosed.
Her parents wanted their family back together. She understood—it had taken a lot of ranty talks with Luca and with both of her parents before she did understand, but now she got it.
Forgiveness, however, was not something Manny was naturally good at. Maybe because it required empathy. And she did not—she simply did not—give trust twice. She and Dmitri would never be what they were. But maybe she could be in a room with him and have a piece of cake. She wouldn’t know until she tried. But for Manny, trying and failing could go very wrong.
She was scared.
And here Luca was, trying to make sure she had a good birthday no matter what happened tomorrow.
He had a picnic in his pack, complete with blanket, cold fried chicken—one of Manny’s favorite foods in the world—Orangina with plastic champagne flutes to drink it in, and two cupcakes—vanilla with milk chocolate frosting. Her favorite. There was even a candle.
When they were done eating, they fucked on the blanket, sitting up. Luca held her tightly and sucked her tits as she rocked on him. She’d never fucked outside, with the lowering sun warming her bare body while his hot mouth, his hard body, and his huge cock turned her insides to fire. When she came, she let herself yell as loud as her body needed, not caring whether anyone was near enough to hear.
Then they packed up and stood hand in hand and watched the sun drop into the water. In the twilight, they hiked back with flashlights, which was creepy and cool, and then Luca sailed her home and fucked her again in her bed. When they were done, she laid her head on his chest, as she often had. But on this night, she didn’t move away as she felt sleep come on her.
This time, she let herself go under with Luca’s arms still around her, and they slept that way until dawn.
21
Luca opened his eyes and reached over for his phone. Four-twenty-five. He turned off the alarm, which was set for four-thirty, and relaxed back on the pillow. Manny lay next to him, turned away. She’d kicked the covers off, and he could see gooseflesh stippling her skin. He turned to his side, pulled the covers up over her shoulder, and watched her sleep.
She didn’t sleep much. He’d gotten used to falling asleep with her and then waking in the night to find her gone. At first, he’d gone to her, concerned. But he’d always found her reading, or eating, or messing around online. It was just the way she slept. In naps—an hour or two here, an hour or two there. She’d c
ome back after a while and have another nap. Then she’d wake while he was getting ready and go back to bed for a while when he left for work. Luca slept deeply, usually, so now he simply rolled over and went back to sleep during her nighttime ramble, if he woke at all.
He was essentially living at her place and had been for about two months or so, since late August, when he’d first been able to touch her almost like normal. It wasn’t an ideal arrangement; he liked his apartment, which was in a better location and was just infinitely better, in his opinion, than this rat trap. But she was more uncomfortable in his sparseness than he was in her clutter. The only time he spent a night in his own bed these days was when they really fought, and that didn’t happen often. They hadn’t been in his bed together since that first, and last, time. He doubted they ever would, and he was fine with that.
But he thought it was about time for a new arrangement, a place they could share that was a livable compromise of their disparate needs. They’d been together since June, four and a half months. Was that long enough to suggest such an arrangement? He didn’t know. They were both new at this—at relationships, at love. It was an area in which he was as clueless as Manny. They’d moved fast to get where they were, but the next steps were more permanent, and he didn’t want to move faster than either of them could handle.
Carlo and Sabina had started living together three months after they met, but there were all kinds of extenuating circumstances with those two, so Luca didn’t know if they were an apt model.
He’d have loved to be able to talk to Carlo about it, but that wasn’t going to happen. He was civil to Manny now, but no more than that. Luca didn’t know how to bridge the gap his older brother’s mistrust of his girl had caused. He only knew that Carlo had to come to him. Carlo was in the wrong here, and it pissed Luca off that he wouldn’t even try to see Manny for who she was. He’d branded her an ‘unstable woman,’ tossed her in a bin with Jenny, and closed his mind.
The fact that Manny was fairly open about the things she had trouble with only seemed to harden Carlo more. Which made no fucking sense. From what Luca had ever been able to see, Jenny had spent half her time in denial that she had any issues, the other half using her issues as an excuse to be a whiny, selfish bitch, and all of her time expecting people to take care of her. Conversely, Luca had never known Manny to whine. The only time she even complained about her stuff was out of frustration—with herself, not with others.
Manny was not in denial, and she didn’t expect anyone to take care of her. If anything, she was too aware of her stuff. Sometimes, Luca thought that her complete acceptance of the ways she was different impeded her from seeing the ways she was not. She thought of herself as a freak and assumed no one would understand her. It was difficult to make her see that he understood.
Lying on his side, watching the ridges of her spine flex with each sleeping breath, Luca chuckled silently. He’d spent fifteen years or more making himself a life he’d thought of as simple and clean. Uncomplicated. No soul-sapping entanglements with women, no demands on his life but his own—and yeah, his family’s. He’d loved that life; it had suited him perfectly. He’d been content.
But here he was, in a bedroom that looked like it had been decorated by an Oompa-Loompa on LSD, lying in bed with a woman who was the definition of complicated. She had made every corner of his life more difficult. She had changed it all. And he was more than content. He was fulfilled. He was in love.
He wouldn’t raise with her the idea filling his head yet, though. Whether or not it was the right time in their relationship was nearly irrelevant in relation to the question of what would happen in the next few weeks. He was deep in with the Uncles right now, and doing some real undercover shit for them. If he got caught, it would go badly for him. He couldn’t change her life so dramatically while there was a chance he could leave it abruptly.
As far as Manny knew, he was simply training Anthony. Deciding it would be too stressful for her to know, he’d told her none of the stuff about fight-fixing that he was doing. His father and John knew some of it, but that wasn’t the kind of thing they’d share with anyone. Mostly, though, he was alone in this. And he felt entirely alone.
He’d lain watching her for too long; he needed to get up and get ready for work. But he wasn’t ready. His thoughts had gone dark and lonely, and he didn’t want to leave her.
He scooted closer. “Manny. You awake?”
It was still easier for her if he wasn’t touching her when she woke. Once she was aware, he could touch her as he liked, for the most part—though she had a limit, a point when she’d need him to get clear for a while. A couple of times, she’d hit that point at very inopportune moments. But he always got clear. Things between them were so much freer, so much more normal than they once had been that he wasn’t about to push the limits she still had.
“Manny.”
She squirmed and took a deep breath. “Hey.”
He scooted closer, bringing their bodies together, and kissed the back of her neck. “I want to fuck you. Right now, like this.” He brushed his nose over the length of her shoulder, but she shrugged away from that touch—too light.
But she wiggled her hips and pressed her ass against him.
“That’s it, sugar.” He grabbed her thigh and pushed her leg up toward her chest. She rolled so that she was lying mostly on her stomach, and he shifted his body over and sank deep inside her. Sliding a hand under her chest, he took hold of a pierced nipple and pinched.
“Oh, fuck, that’s good,” she whispered in a rush.
Yeah. It really was.
oOo
Headed back to his H3 after doing the final check on a completed job site, Luca took his hardhat off and tucked it under his arm while he checked his messages. He didn’t notice the black Navigator parked in front of him until he’d opened his hatch and tossed his hardhat in. With his hands on the buckle of his tool belt, he paused and looked around the back of his truck.
Nick was leaning against the Navigator, smoking.
Luca took his time. He rid himself of his work gear and closed the hatch, then walked to his cousin.
“Nick. Just pulled over for a smoke break?”
Nick dropped his cigarette and toed it out. “Luc. Let’s take a ride.”
Luca nodded and walked around to the passenger side.
They drove for about five minutes without speaking. Those five minutes dragged into hours for Luca, as he tried to anticipate the purpose of Nick showing up at work—how had he known where he’d be, anyway?
Anthony had a fight coming up Friday. He was doing pretty well, winning more than he was losing, climbing up the rankings, starting to get noticed. It was known now that he wasn’t good in a hold, but it was also known that getting him in that position was not easy. He had a few KOs under his belt, too.
As for the other side of Luca’s coin, he hadn’t yet gotten the Uncles what they wanted. No one had approached Anthony or him with anything shady yet. But he had seen some sketchy fights and he’d been asking questions. He’d gotten some old friends to confirm, at least, that the rumor was strong. Everybody believed it, which made it almost certainly true. No one would get more specific than that.
Being entirely inexperienced at playing super-sleuth, Luca had nearly gotten himself into a couple of dicey situations. On the night of Anthony’s first fight, he’d ended up pissing off Tino Jones, a slimy little shit with moderate pull who was backing a featherweight toward the bottom of the card. Jones had seen him talking to his fighter’s trainer, an old friend of Luca’s.
Jones had gotten up in his grill, poking at him and posturing like some bandy rooster. Luca could have torn him in half, and he’d wanted to. It was rare for him to let a guy walk who’d put even a finger on him. But that posturing had made him think Jones was twitchy about something, so he’d backed off and taken his suspicion to Nick instead.
To this point, that was all he’d been able to give Nick and the Uncles. Suspicion.
Whispers. This little ride they were taking now told Luca that they were done waiting for more. Nick’s first words confirmed it.
“We need something, Luc. Something Uncle Ben can lay out in front of Church. Leverage, at least. You have to get deeper.”
“I hear you, coz. But I don’t know how to get deeper.”
Watching the road, Nick said, “Offer Anthony.”
Luca didn’t think his cousin could have meant what he’d just said. “What?”
“Make it known that he’s looking for a bigger payday.”
“You want the Beav to throw a fight?” Christ. He was serious. That made no sense.
“He’s perfect for it, right? Good enough that he’s coming up the favorite in his matches, but he’s got a known weakness. A fixer’s wet dream.”
Touch (The Pagano Family Book 2) Page 28