Page 54 of Green Flag (StormSprint #2)

Luca

We stayed up all night talking. We caught up on our lives over the last few months and cuddled each other to sleep. Wrapping myself around her was all the comfort I needed after everything that had happened and all the worries I’d let weaken me over the break.

When I’d seen her in the pit box and watched her avoid me, when she didn’t seek me out privately, I knew she regretted letting me in.

Maybe I’d been too rough.

Maybe I’d shown too many feelings.

So I’d decided to shake off every morsel of emotion in public and busied myself with events and practice.

But that didn’t stop the ball of guilt from forming in my chest every time I saw she was drinking on her Instagram — and not texting me.

It didn’t stop me from checking her horoscope and wondering how that impacted her day, even if I didn’t believe in that stuff.

Then seeing her lying on the beach, her hair blowing in the sea breeze, I wasn’t sure if I was hallucinating at first.

She hadn’t accepted my love.

Let alone returned it.

But she had feelings towards me and if that was all she was willing to call them for now, that was more than okay for me.

I was down for Everly in whatever way she would have me.

Spending the day away from her at the track was hard, but I spent a lot of my time sending her videos like we used to.

Then I posted one of the videos to my story, captioning it ‘How my queen and I message daily’, and my phone broke down with likes and replies until I muted the app.

It didn’t stop my texts.

NIXON ARMAS: Good to see the love birds are back on.

LUCA MENDES: Next time, don’t play Cupid and speak to me.

NIXON ARMAS: That’s a strange way to say thank you.

He accompanied it with emojis of a baby and wings.

ALESSIA: Ffs, Luca. I thought this was done??

My sister’s text couldn’t bring me down. My family had their wrongful death trial and they’d won a huge payout. That would have to be enough for them, because I was staying with Everly Bacque. Now that I had her, now that she’d accepted me, nothing was going to stop me from giving her my all.

During the short taxi journey back to Nix and Livie’s house, I bounced in my seat, excited to see her. For too long, I’d been worried to.

“Honey, I’m home,” I called to her cackle of laughter from the kitchen.

The lights were low, and she stood there in red, lacy lingerie, holding a wine glass and a fork.

I stopped mid-step.

“You were so lucky you left when you did,” she said, leaning over the countertop and bearing her cleavage at me, leaving me stunned and stiffening.

As always. She stabbed a chocolate-covered strawberry in her glass and waved it at me.

“I was seconds away from sending you a little video that would have tightened those leathers you were wearing.”

I laughed and took her hips, pulling them to mine.

She lifted the strawberry to my mouth and I chewed and swallowed it gratefully.

“Aren’t you meant to kiss the chef in thanks?”

She frowned. “I don’t think so—”

“Too late,” I said before taking her lips with mine in a slow, sensuous kiss, my hand roaming down her back, trying to restrain myself from unlatching her bra.

There was a clang as she tried to place down her wine glass without breaking our kiss.

Good girl.

Her hands reached around my neck, and she tugged me forward. I took small steps, trying not to step on her bare feet, ready to go wherever this woman wanted me.

Thankfully, it was a bedroom.

“I made you dinner,” she breathed, pulling my top over my head. “And your own chocolate strawberries, but I…”

Her eyes met mine, shaking as they looked from one of my eyes to the other.

Voice gaining power, she said, “But I have spent all day in bed, alone, thinking of how much I want you to fuck me. And then when you sent those videos…” Her head fell back, her hold around my neck the only thing keeping her up.

“And then when you shared your cute video to the world…” She moaned deep in her throat.

“And then when you walked through the door…” Her hands trailed down my bare chest as she got on her knees, almost knocking the air out of me as she shoved down my trousers and boxers in one go, already fisting my cock and spitting on my head.

“Well, shit,” I said, half a choked laugh. All humour left as she took me deep down her throat before dragging her pursed lips back up to flick at the banjo string like I’d taught her. “ Fuck. ”

She moaned around my cock and the vibration almost made me lose my footing, tripping back onto the bed and fucking her senseless.

“I need to kiss you,” I said, pulling her off and devouring her mouth with mine, dragging her onto the bed, breathless until we didn’t know which way was up.

I cherished her body, holding her to me, making sure I knew every inch of her, where made her jerk in my grasp, what pressure points made her moan.

She rubbed herself against my cock like the needy whore I knew she’d been this whole time.

Now that she was finally letting herself free, there was no holding back from the lovemaking this beautiful woman was about to receive.

I leaned over her, pressing my cock to her slit, thrusting against her. She frowned at me, pouting her lips with narrowed eyes.

Because she wanted me inside of her.

When I brushed against her clit, her mouth parted on a broken breath, which she tried to smother but I knew I had her.

I would always have her.

And when I pressed gentle kisses along her neck, she squealed. “That tickles!”

“Good,” I murmured against her throat, pulling at the skin of the crease of her neck with my teeth. She let out a gasp and wriggled beneath me, her breath ragged.

I nudged her entrance and her neck straightened, her arms tight around me.

“Please,” she whispered. “White wine. White wine.”

I chuckled, shaking my head against her collarbone as I pressed in, letting her tight heat surround me, inch by slow inch.

She was biting down on her lip, nodding for me to continue.

She stretched around me, her pussy holding me ransom, suffocating my cock in a brutal, euphoric pressure.

“More,” she demanded before nipping at my earlobe.

I thrust into the hilt, grunting a swear as a choked yelp passed her lips. My forehead against her, I drank in her sweet moans with each stroke, taking her cheek in my palm as she folded her legs around my back, holding us together.

I’d had sex before, but it had always been shattering in the physical sense. Exhaustive. Sex was amusement. Sex was entertainment. Sex was a reliever of all my frustrations.

This wasn’t any of that.

This was adoration. With each thrust, I caressed her, kissed her and took great pride when she cried out my name as she came and broke around me, clawing at my back. She kissed me then, her lips slow and soft against mine, pouring all the feelings she bore me into my racing heart.

She would have my heart, soul, being in every lifetime.

Her tongue brushed mine and we were grabby and desperate all of a sudden. The kiss harshened, teeth and tongues clashing as my pace picked up and she grabbed my ass as I fucked her hard, drilling into her like I planned for the rest of our lives.

My hand met her throat and I held her in place as I fucked and fucked and fucked. She was a mess of trailing begs, eyes rolling back into her head, pants and tears as she came around me once, then twice more.

When I went to lift my touch, she grabbed at my fingers, clutching them tighter around her neck and nodding breathlessly, too satiated for words, her eyes drowsy with orgasms.

I came grunting in her mouth, filling her up as she’d asked those months ago.

She lay there panting, arms and legs splayed as I cuddled in beside her, careful not to pull out of her.

Her arm fell onto my chest and she rasped, “That was…” She shook her head in disbelief. “Luca, how on earth are we meant to leave this bed?”

I chuckled and planted a kiss on her shoulder. “We don’t have to.”

She rubbed at her neck and panic slammed into me. I brushed her throat, looking for any marks.

“Was I too rough? I’m so—”

“No, no,” she said, shaking her head again. “Get that out of your mind now. Just because we’ve only had actual sex a couple of times, it doesn’t mean I’m breakable. I lost my virginity at sixteen. I’m not new to this.”

The sentence hung in the air, thick and heavy, and for a second, I couldn’t even process what she’d said.

Fuck.

Had she just punched me in the chest? If she did, Marco was giving her some moves he hadn’t shown me because my breath was gone. Her words were a physical blow, mental whiplash spiralling my thoughts that tangled and splintered.

Sixteen?

She’d been sixteen?

“What did you just say?”

“I’m not breakable,” she repeated with a smile. “I like it when you’re rough with me. I like knowing you can’t control yourself around me.”

“No,” I said softly and brushed her cheek. “You were how old?”

“I was sixteen,” she repeated. “I told you this. On our first night together.”

No, she did not.

My mind sprinted back to that night, pushing aside all the events I countlessly replayed. She’d said a teenager, I was sure of it.

And I’d assumed she meant the very tail end of those years.

I blinked back the tears and looked down at her, taking her face between my palms. “Everly,” I said, voice choked. “Oh my god.”

She tried to shrug it off, but I pulled her onto me and squeezed her, wrapping her up in my arms. That soft love, the gooey centre I melted to around her, hardened into a protective need to keep her safe.

“I’ll kill him,” I breathed. “I will fucking kill him.”

Her head shook against my chest. “No, I wouldn’t fare well if you went to prison.”

I wouldn’t need a ring to choke him out. I’d do it without a wrap or a boxing glove. I would smash his face until it crunched and popped, bursting with blood by my bare hands.

But I let her lead the topic of discussion. It was the least I could do.

“Would you visit me?”

She shrugged again, wriggling to rest her head in the crook of my neck. “Depends.”

“On?”

“Whether it’s for the press or not.”

I chuckled so loudly she looked up with a smile, placing her chin on her hands lying on my chest.

“Nothing about us is for the press, Everly,” I said, brushing her hair again because I had to touch her always. “Has it ever been?”

Her eyes narrowed in thought.

“When you kissed me in the pit box, that wasn’t for the press.”

“No,” she admitted, with a hint of surprise.

“It’s all been to piss off your dad, but not for me.

I always wanted you.” Holding her with one arm, I leaned down to grab my phone from the floor, where it had fallen when she’d tugged down my trousers.

I found her Instagram and swiped and swiped and swiped until I came to the end of her 389 posts.

“This photo is the first time I ever saw you,” I told her.

On the screen, in a very pixelated photo, she was grinning with a swoopy side fringe and an ice cream.

“I’ve been following your account for five years. ”

She laughed and tried to argue with me that it was old and ugly.

“I couldn’t believe it when you walked up and sat beside me at the bar.

Let alone when our pinkies touched.” I wrapped mine around hers and her cheeks flushed.

“And, at first, it might have been friendship and lust, but… then it wasn’t.

Very quickly, it wasn’t. It isn’t, Everly.

So if I become a murderer and go to prison, you’ll be coming to visit me as my very real girlfriend. ”

My phone was out of my hand and thrown across the bed as she pushed herself closer to me again to kiss me.

Before we could get too carried away, I pulled back. Because it wasn’t just lust.

“And as my girlfriend, you can talk to me. About anything. Him. Your dad. Your sister. Your mum. Music.” I stroked back her hair, my thumb rubbing against her cheekbone. “I want to know every detail in that beautiful head of yours.”

She nodded, tears in her eyes, and told me about Pedro.