Page 47 of Green Flag (StormSprint #2)

Luca

If I wanted to spend the final day of the year doing anything, it was with her in a hotel, having a lie-in as our tipsy bodies recovered with bottles of water and cuddles. And getting a massage.

Then back to cuddles.

The cushion wall was no more, as I’d wished it never to be.

And she’d snuggled right into my arms until one of them was dead. But I didn’t care.

The masseuse got all the knots out of my body and, looking over at her oily, exposed back… damn, I wanted to climb on over there and massage her myself.

Maybe that could be my excuse for getting her undressed later.

We hadn’t talked during our couples massage, though she moaned aloud a few times and it weakened my damn soul. My cock was rock solid, burrowing into the massage table. Almost painfully so.

She didn’t care for embarrassment and when she saw me widen my eyes after a particularly high-pitched, breathy noise came from deep within her throat, I was pretty sure she started the noises more frequently just to get me all riled up.

Were these things purely for the sake of getting someone ready and raring to go? Did people talk?

I didn’t know how we were meant to act. I’d never had a couples massage; in fact, I’d never had a couples anything.

And, lying there while the lady behind me dug her elbows deep into my rib cage, and the music went on and on, tinkling its little tune, I started to imagine what ‘couples’ activities would look like.

Not the filthy kind.

Couples retreats, sharing a tub of ice cream in bed, teaching her how to play StormSprint on the PlayStation, watching Netflix — and actually watching — and then I realised…

we had done all those things. I wanted her in my life.

His and hers sinks, his and hers mugs, a his and hers shower.

Oh damn, the house I was going to go and see back in my home town…

I’d get a couple of shower heads installed. If I were to buy it.

I’d also seen a nice little house an hour’s drive from Cris’s home and I shouldn’t have looked through all the photos and imagined her coming round for dinner and leaving behind her toothbrush or…

Oh no. No, no, no. That would do.

Because my cock was straining even more beneath me.

It simply was not fair that even normal things were getting me in such a state.

She wanted to snooze after our massage, and I couldn’t blame her; my body felt light and free and heavy and released all at the same time.

But when I woke up from our nap, she wasn’t there.

So, I headed to the gym and drank lots of water, as they had advised.

Everly had scrutinised the work the lady had done on me, asking if she’d touched me inappropriately at all.

That spike of jealousy gave me a shit-eating grin.

I was walking back to our room — hopeful she would be there — when my phone rang. I frowned at the Spanish area code but picked it up nonetheless.

“ Luca ,” a deep voice said, a northern Italian accent filling my ears. “ I’ve got an update.”

I swallowed and smiled at a couple that passed me in the corridor, pressing myself into the wall. “ Go on. ”

“ I know for a fact drugs have been carried on Ciclati flights after the dates you gave me ,” he said. “ From as recent as nine months ago. I’m working on finding more recent dates. And I’ve got surveillance on Cris Bacque while he’s in Florida. Nothing suspicious as of yet. ”

Shit. Everly was right; her dad had framed her ex-boyfriend.

To be fair, I didn’t blame Cris for trying to get rid of him. Though I might have gone for something a little more permanent. Like death.

If only it hadn’t come at the forfeit of her career.

I thanked him and let myself into our room, sitting on the edge of the bed as my thoughts spiralled.

Could I go through with this? Cris was a good guy. Despite all this drug shit. Even thinking of him actually doing it didn’t sit right with me. There had to be more to it.

Was I capable of blackmail? I’d got lost in the excitement of a reason to spend time with Everly… and forgotten exactly what it was we were actually doing.

Threatening to ruin a man’s life.

And that might make me worse than him.

I loved Ciclati; I loved my friends and all the opportunities it had given me, like meeting Everly.

The wrongful death trial was starting soon; couldn’t my family suffice with that? Couldn’t I have this?

Everly crashed into my thoughts, opening the hotel door and spinning to me with a grin. Her face fell when she saw me and she dropped her shopping bags to the floor. She stepped towards me. “What’s wrong?”

I shrugged and looked down at my phone in my hand. “PI called me. Drugs have been on the planes since Pedro was in prison.”

She nodded and breathed a sigh of relief. “Well, yeah. I wasn’t lying.”

But it hadn’t stared me in the face quite like this before.

“What do you think?” she asked, pressing a silk emerald dress up against herself and spinning around in the mirror, pursing her lips as if she thought she might look anything but goddess-like.

Which meant she needed to go to the opticians.

How she couldn’t see what was right in front of her baffled me.

“You are breathtaking,” I said, momentarily forgetting everything else in the world with the lack of oxygen in my brain.

She laughed, shaking her head and rolling her eyes. “You’re silly.”

“I’m 100% serious, Everly.”

She shook her head again and stripped to put it on. Right in front of me.

Because she knew what that would do.

I turned away and started steaming my shirt for our formal dinner that Nix had booked us.

I wasn’t planning on drinking tonight. I wanted to be completely sober for whatever would happen between us because we needed a sober conversation before we shared a bed again.

My maximum would be one glass of champagne to see the new year in.

It took her less than ten seconds to slip into the dress and she cleared her throat to get my attention. “Zip me up?” she asked, slipping on her heels.

My fingers brushed her back as I pulled the zip up, the sound hopefully foreshadowing how I would also pull on the zip in a few hours.

“What do you think now?”

I didn’t say anything; I just looked her over. She was everything to me. Her hair looked silky smooth and her cute little smile made my knees weak. “There’s, er, one little thing.”

She blinked. She knew she was beautiful. I loved that she wasn’t shy or scared to show it, either.

I pulled out the box from my bag and her eyes widened, zeroed in on it.

“I think this would perfect it.”

“Is this…?” She took it from my grip, holding it up with a finger and thumb and squinting as if it were some holy artefact. “A pantie vibrator? Remote controlled?”

Her eyes were bulging out of her perfect head.

“Yes,” I answered, trying to keep my voice strong. “You wanted to be a naughty exhibitionist, so…”

“Luca, we’re sober,” she said, voice raw, sitting on the edge of the bed, facing the wall. “This isn’t a drunken fondle. You’re my best friend.”

I hadn’t realised it, because I had so many different friendships across StormSprint, but she was mine too. When I’d won the charity match, she was who I’d wanted there at my side. I wasn’t even that upset that my family hadn’t come to see me. Because she had.

I lifted her chin and rubbed her bottom lip with my thumb. She inhaled deeply and I wanted nothing more than to press my thumb into her warm, wet mouth.

“Remember when you got on your knees and pulled down my boxers? Remember when you choked on my cock? Licked your lips clean of my cum like a desperate little whore?”

Her blinks were rapid. Her chin fell into my hand as her mouth opened further, inviting me in.

“I’m not sure if you can recall, but last night you begged me to fuck you,” I reminded her and gently thrust my thumb past her lips. “That witty little tongue of yours is talented in many ways. You swallowed my load and wanted more, didn’t you?”

She jerked her head in my hold.

“That was more than friendly, Everly,” I said, voice low as I straightened, still holding her to ensure she didn’t look away for a second. “Friends don’t know how each other taste.”

She swallowed, her hazel eyes bright as they tracked me.

“All I’d be doing is pressing a button.”

She breathed in deeply as I dropped my touch. Her hands reached to glide over where I’d held her and she stood, shaking her head and avoiding my gaze.

“It would be…” She looked up at me with her beautiful, wide eyes, breathing in deeply as she tried to find the words. She pursed her lips as her face heated, making her round cheeks rosy. “Naughty.”

“Would it potentially sate that little desire in you to do something public?” I asked, stepping further towards her, the box pressing against her chest. “You liked it when I took control that time.”

She nodded, not taking her gaze away from the box between us. “I did,” she admitted. “This would be…” When her eyes finally met mine, she nodded more firmly. “Yes. Okay.”

I pulled the seal and gave it to her. “Do you want to pop it in or do I get the honours?”

Her eyes crinkled. “I think you could do the honour of taking it out? That would be a nice warm-up.”

“Hmmm,” I mumbled, pretending to consider, but she snatched the box from me and took herself into our en-suite.

She sat on the bed as I used the app I’d downloaded over the weekend. Her legs forced against each other and her raspy breath was almost a scream when I turned it on.

It had immediately started on setting 3 out of 10.

“Fuck, that’s— too much.”

I brought it down to a one, and her eyes rolled back as she leaned forward. “Okay… that… that’s a tease.”

I upped it.

“That’s even more torturous.”

When I got to three again, she squirmed, looking down at the floor. “That’s actually really good,” she laughed. “I think it was just a shock.”

“Any rules with this?” I asked

She shook her head. “No rules. Just edge me all night long until we get here.”