Page 40 of Ride with the Devil

What? “You’re not demonic, Luca. You’regood.”

“Maybe. But I do work for the Devil of Springfield. I wanted to. Ibeggedhim for a job. I told him about my years as a wheelman in Hamilton, but you know what he did? He brushed me off. Didn’t need a driver, he said. But then he saw this mark on my by accident… and, suddenly, he was passing me the keys. I’ve been working for him ever since. I’ve been loyal to Devil ever since. You need to understand that, Kylie. I’ll do anything for the boss.”

I don’t doubt that for a second.

“What about these?” I ask. Luca reminding me that we’re only in this situation on Devil’s orders isn’t helping me rein in my anger. I need another distraction. I stroke one of the black line tattoos with my pointer finger. “Did your parents give you these, too?”

“Nah. This was me taking ownership of the way they ruined my arm. I mean, if they could disfigure it with a scar, why not get a tattoo? Working for Devil, I knew I would wear his mark on my skin. But these…” He counts them out. “Eight. The prophet had a hundred rules for us, but I believed in the Commandments. I got a mark for each time I willingly broke one.”

He has eight, which means there are two he hasn’t broken yet.

I only know, like, the four main ones. It’s easy for me to ask him which ones he’s missing than try to figure them out himself.

Somehow, I’m not even a little surprised when he answers me: “Thou shall not kill. Thou shall not commit adultery.”

Funny, though shall not fuck a woman who’s into you—and that you’re into, too—isn’t one of them…

They brainwashed him. That’s the long and short of it. This prophet and his garbage parents… they did a number on this poor guy. And now he’s sitting on the couch with me, after admitting that he chowed down on the cucumber I fucked in away to get around the brainwashing that he hasn’t shucked as much as he thought he has.

Poor Luca. Repressed isn’t the half of it.

I can’t make his scars go away. Not the physical one on his arm, or the ones that have hurt him deep inside. Just like I am, Luca was broken before I ever met him, but I’m here now.

The Hummingbird’s first instinct is to find his parents and kill them for hurting this kind-hearted, sweet man.

Kylie’s?

I think of the cucumber, and even if using sex to distract him isn’t something that Luca is used to, I also know that there are some things he’s open to…

I tap his knee. “So… the cucumber. Was it tasty?”

For a moment, he looks confused. Like he has no idea where the sudden change in top came from. “Kylie?”

C’mon, Luca. Play along. “Did youlikeit?”

His nostrils flare. “I… it was delicious. It was delicious because it was yours.”

Good boy. “Really? I’m glad. But you know what’s better?”

“What?” he grates out.

I grin. “Tasting it straight from the source.”

Luca freezes for a moment, then a dark look shadows his face. “I didn’t tell you all that for you to pity me, Kylie. I did it so you understand. For twenty-one-years, I was raised one way. I’ve been working to shake it off for so long now, and while these marks stand for how far I’ve come… I can’t go all the way yet.”

Literally.

I purse my lips. “Pity you?” I say. “Shit, ace, if I was pitying you, I’d offer to suck your dick.”

He sucks in a breath.

A thought occurs to me. I know he’s a virgin, but when he says he’s saving for marriage, does that mean just penetrative sex? Or all sex?

I nudge his thigh. “If I did, would I be the first?”

He shakes his head.

Damn it. I don’t realize how much I like the idea of being Luca’s firstanythinguntil he admits that someone’s been intimate with his dick before I’ve had the chance.

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