Page 31 of Green Flag (StormSprint #2)

“I thought straighteners were to straighten hair?” I asked, feeling dumbfounded. There were no thoughts in my head. Those who tried to get through the strong wall of my shock, through tiny crevices, were obliterated by pure confusion.

She grinned, and though we were alone, she reached for my hand again. “Of course not, silly. You can do so much with them. Sometimes, I even iron my clothes with them.”

Oh god, so much had happened in the last few minutes, that was what did me in. “I’m sorry?” I asked with a forced laugh. “You do what?”

“Iron clothes, of course. If I’m in a rush. I’ll be a doting housewife and do your shirt on Sunday if you’d like.”

“Um, yeah, okay. Thanks.”

She was still smiling as she led us into our hotel room and threw her suitcase on the very daunting king-sized bed—the one bed.

“I have a lot of stuff,” she admitted without shame. “And I’m ordering room service in the next ten minutes. And I’ll be living in that robe.” She almost cricked her neck, gesturing at it hanging on the door. “And nothing else.”

She froze and then looked up, staring at the wall before her. “Well, you know, underwear. Not nothing. I can wear my gym stuff, I guess.”

I threw myself on the bed with the same gusto she had her luggage, resting my palms on the back of my head. That way, I could see her as she unpacked.

“Wear as little or as much as you want,” I said, pretending to close my eyes, but peeking a look at her through my lashes.

Her gaze traipsed down me and she inhaled deeply through parted lips before turning back to her suitcase.

“At least this rooming business means we have more time to scheme,” she said, folding a tiny piece of fabric. Were those cotton panties? Ugh, they would feel so good, sopping wet against my cock.

“It will give us an excuse to get some shit on my dad. If only Nix were here, I was planning on getting him drunk and questioning him a little.”

Nix didn’t drink. He was off with Livie, and though no one voiced that, I was sure everyone knew it.

“Guess that gives you time for more self-defence lessons with Marco,” I said.

An uppercut had been her weakest throw before, but now I worried for my jaw if I ever pissed her off. It would be the first thing I’d go to cover when her eyes narrowed, not even my cock.

She hummed a non-committal response and perched next to me on the bed before ordering us both a burger and getting into her dressing gown.

We spent the time chatting and eating. When she first got her plate of food and took a ravenous bite of her burger, she did a little wiggle of her shoulders.

It was a move I doubted she was conscious of.

My breath caught at how adorable she was.

She deserved the world.

“If you could go back to university, would you?”

Her brows knotted and she dropped the rest of her burger on the plate. She chewed her mouthful slowly, eyeing me with suspicion. “No. I hated university. All of my friends were fake. Here…” She looked down at her food. “Here, I don’t think that’s true.”

She didn’t give me a chance to respond; she jumped off the bed and got into the shower.

I hated that I imagined her in there. That I didn’t even imagine fucking her in there — though the thought did cross my mind — but instead pressing our wet bodies together as I washed her hair, caressed her body and kissed her neck and comforted her.

No. I groaned and threw my head into the pillow. Nah. Nope. Nuh-uh. Nopity-nope. No way, Jose. Hell to the no. I could not get attached.

She was using me to piss off her dad.

I always thought he wanted the best for her, but… that conversation earlier. Was I really that bad a person for him to want me nowhere near his daughter? I mean, I knew I didn’t deserve her, but…

She wanted to blackmail her dad. I didn’t know the intricacies of why, but did I really need to?

And what would happen when we did? Would she vanish and leave me scrolling through her feed again?

My chest tightened at the thought.

But then, could the opposite happen? The date for my diary?

Cris loved Everly. It was clear in every word he’d said about her before and after she’d joined. She didn’t see it for what it was, but I sure did. And he was looking out for her by trying to get her to go back to her career and hundreds, thousands of miles away from me.

If we got what we wanted, if I got out of my contract, then I’d know if there was anything here. No matter how much I wanted it to never end.

I looked over the number Gio had sent me.

We could pretend to break up if I told her. But I’d seen her father hug her and kiss her on the forehead just the other day and she’d walked away from the exchange with the little, proud shoulder wiggle.

That weakened me to my knees.

If I were to tell her what her dad said… that would break her relationship and assault her self-esteem.

My need to leave was nothing compared to my need for her to be happy.

When she opened the bathroom door an inch, clouds of steam erupted from the gap, thick with the delicious floral scent she carried around. Blood rushed to my cock.

Nah, no, this was too much.

I couldn’t get hard over a smell.

But when her head popped around the corner, liquid trailing down her beautiful face, with her hair wet, I had to inhale and ask her to repeat her question.

“Can you pass me those clothes?” she asked, her dripping-wet arm reaching out to point at them.

But I was just looking at her skin like some creepy murderer. A damn cannibalistic serial killer because I wanted to eat her up.

I swallowed and scooped them up. “I can go out and you can get ready in here if you’d rather.”

The side of her petite frame was visible. The tan line of her bikini on her hip was the only bit of skin I’d never been able to see. I wanted to run my tongue from her hip bone and follow it down to—

“It’s okay,” she said cheerfully. “I need to dry my hair in here anyway.”

“Yeah,” I said, nodding.

Her eyes narrowed in amusement. “Luca, are you okay? If you don’t want to share a room, I can find a hotel somewhere—”

“No. Absolutely not.” But we would need that pillow wall she was talking about.

She nodded and got ready. I went down to the reception desk, got way more pillows than were necessary and neatly piled them along the centre of the bed.

When she emerged from the shower, her hair was dry and placed in a large bun above her head. She was wearing a tiny burgundy shift dress with a square neck that still showed her bulging cleavage.

I tried to continue scrolling through my phone, instead of daydreaming about what it would be like to suffocate between her tits, but she stood at the end of the bed and threw the pillow closest to her at my head.

“I will be putting my cold feet on you,” she said with decisive nods. “So we don’t need these at the bottom. Pelvis up, we need.”

My brow rose.

“I know what your cock is like,” she said and I choked on air, having to sit up and slam my fist into my chest.

“You get erections when the wind blows,” she laughed.

When it blew her scent back to me, yes. But that was a new development.

“There, there,” she said and came to stroke my back as I wheezed. “I know I take men’s breath away.”

That was not helping. I spluttered, still ramming my fist into my ribs.

Her touch was soothing and warm. Maybe I should keep choking so she continued. Maybe I’d keep going so she’d stay here in that little red dress.

When I could finally breathe again, she sat at the desk and did her hair and make-up, trying to teach me how to curl her hair, to no avail.

And when she stood and put on her shoes, I wanted to come on the booze cruise with her.

I knew it was a grid girl event, but they wouldn’t say no to me gatecrashing, right?

She rifled through her bag, listing off what she had, including her taser, good girl.

“Bye,” she went to call, but I stopped her. I quickly stood at the door and shoved it closed.

What was I doing?

Because I’d been pissed she wasn’t going to kiss me goodbye.

Fuck.

“A coat, Everly?”

She shrugged and looked down at herself. “I don’t have one that goes.”

“Take mine,” I said. The red of her dress would go with the Ciclati jacket.

Her head shook. “I’m not wearing your clothes! Especially not work clothes, Luca.”

She’d spent about an hour unpacking her bag, but I hadn’t even started on mine. I threw open my suitcase and rummaged around in it to her frown.

“What are you—”

“Aha!” I cried and pulled out the small box. “The tights I owed you. I kept forgetting to give them to you.”

Her frown deepened. “Huh?”

“Well, a couple of months ago…” I swallowed at the memory of that night. “I ruined your tights.”

She held the box in her hand, her gaze slowly lifting to look at me. A rosy blush appeared on her cheeks as she breathed in and out. Once. Twice. “This is… so nice, Luca.”

“It wasn’t very nice of me when I ripped them off you,” I told her with a little awkward laugh.

“It was nice,” she said quietly, looking back down at the tights.

Thankfully, my swallow was silent.

I didn’t know what to say to that.

“There were so many options, I didn’t know what to do. Something about denier? I got thermal ones because it’s winter. Alessia, my sister, said these were a good brand.”

This time, her breath caught and she ran her thumb over where it said ‘80 denier’ or something.

On her tiptoes in her heels, she reached to kiss me on the cheek. I was certain the skin she had marked with her red lipstick would warm me forever.

“Thank you. It’s a shame these don’t go with my heels. Open-toed.”

“You’ll catch a cold,” I warned.

“I guess you’ll just have to nurse me back to health,” she said, placing the box on the side.

“How presumptuous,” I told her. “You’ll be chilly. You’re going on a boat.”

“It’s a glass boat. Do you want to cover this dress up? I don’t think so.”

“It’ll be chilly.”

She gestured down at her dress. “I can’t hear you over how adorable I look.”

If I could wrap her up, I would. Preferably in my arms.

“Adorable, indeed,” I said and as she opened the hotel door, I called after her, “Thumbs out!”

She called it back, shoving a correctly formed fist through the door as her parting wave.

And I called the PI.