“You need to let go and concentrate on one thing at a time. It should be all about your studies now, and I fully support you taking Luka along on your trip. I wouldn’t have been happy if you left without someone like him,” Dad said with that wise almost-scowl on his face. Of course he doesn’t know how Luka pays for school. He wouldn’t have given me his blessing if he did.
It’s funny. Sometimes I felt like Dad hit it off with the wrong twin. Not that he had anything against Julian—Dad is a jovial guy—but he seemed more tentative around my quiet, absent-minded fiancé.
Luka has a few finals he’s cramming for, while I don’t. Still, whenever I ask him to run an errand for the trip, he does it without delay. Last week, he received my text in the middle of a group seminar. According to Diego, he left immediately to pick up the F1 Energy powder that had just been restocked at the pharmacy compound on Ventura Boulevard.
Diego gave me the stink eye over it that night, saying I needed to let Luka finish his exams. Caressing my arm until it met my hip, he stopped there even though I needed more. “He can’t do two things at once right now, okay? He’s got five days left and he’s finished for the semester. Luka will never say no to anything you ask of him, so don’t. Just don’t ask.”
“Wow.” I slid a hand over Diego’s stomach and down his happy-trail to my relief. He sucked in a breath but stopped my hand.
“You don’t want that on your conscience.” My man for the night jutted his chin at me. “You want him to finish these classes, right? No more retakes?”
“Of course. I heard you. I just wasn’t aware that it was an issue, all right? It’s not like he tells me these things.”
Diego’s hand went up to my mouth, a thumb stroking my lower lip before he leaned in and kissed me. “Cool. He’ll do anything to—”
“Stop telling me what he’d do for me. It makes me feel like we need all-the-space between us instead of heading off into the jungle together.”
“’Kay, cool.”
With that, the discussion was over. Diego flipped me to my back and ate his way down my throat until my chest heaved. He sucked a swollen nipple into his mouth, groaning, and all sense of before and after was lost until I fell asleep with the best cure against insomnia wrapped around me.
“That’s a small lamp,” Luka says now, eyeing the solar-slash-battery-operated lantern I’m holding up for him. I wish that section of hair was long enough to stay put behind his ear. It’s distracting when it slips free and he automatically slides it back to where he wants it.
“You want a big lantern?” I don’t mean to sound flirty. Even to me, I do though, and the side of his lip hikes up. We’re at Wild Outfitters browsing the Valley’s biggest selection of sports-and-camping gear. A lot of what we need, we’ve already ordered online. It’s stacking up at the Queen, actually, filling a storage room in the basement. Now, we’re down to details we’ve missed, like water purifiers, lanterns, and lightweight sleeping bags.
“Nah, I’m good with buying small stuff. No extension needed here.”
Unfortunately, I’d have to agree with him. When my cheeks heat at the thought of his size, Luka’s lopsided amusement tilts both sides of his mouth up.
“Let’s grab three lanterns so we’re sure.” I drop the steel contraptions into our shopping cart and stalk on in front of him.
“Three? Are you planning to bring bearers into the jungle?”
“Oh. We do need someone to help us bring everything in there, don’t we?”
“And you haven’t...?”
I swing toward him. I must look scared, because his hands land on my arms while he fixes calm eyes on me. “Don’t worry. We’ve got two weeks, and this is the twenty-first century. We don’t need people carrying stuff into the jungle for us. All we have to do is find someone with some kind of robot machine.”
“A what now?”
Thinking hard, he scrunches his nose up, a move that looks extremely boyish on him. He’s charming, puzzled, and I’m having a hard time not tipping up on my toes and kissing him. It’s the identical-twin effect.
“I don’t know what I’m talking about, but damn straight there must be devices out there taking people and their luggage into the jungle. Either way, if Geneva wants three lanterns, Geneva gets three lanterns. Worst case, I’ll do a second round to pick up the rest of our shit from some preliminary camp or what-have-you.”
I laugh, god, because that’s freaking adorable. “Okay. We only need two lanterns. Now, let’s go to the rain-gear section.”
On the way back to the Queen, we pop by the Super-Pharmacy. It makes my heart lift a little to have Luka follow me through the aisles. Together we discuss and choose important first-aid paraphernalia. It’s clearly closer to his area of expertise than the futuristic genre of robotic jungle devices.
“Okay, we’ve got antacids, aspirin, Pepto-Bismol for mild diarrhea, throat lozenges, sunburn salve, sunscreen, Band-Aids, bandages, aloe vera, Moleskin for blisters, Dramamine.”
“And here are condoms.” He throws an obscene number of boxes he won’t need into the basket.
“Oh my god, don’t be ridiculous.” I can’t help chuckling.
“And— Oh right.” My soon-to-be travel partner strides off, and I hurry after him. I find him at the counter, broad back to me—crazy taut ass too—and the sixty-something lady helping him pushes her glasses up so she can take him in. She tempers her surprise as he pulls me in against his side, tucking me close and asking, “What do you have of over-the-counter Morning-After-Pill choices?”
“Oh.” I flush flaming hot in two seconds flat. “Ma’am. He’s just kidding.”
Luka swings slightly, eyes so tender he looks one hundred percent genuine. “But honey, that’s not what you said this morning, remember? You wanted to finish school first.” He pulls me in, burying my face against his chest so I can’t defend myself.
“She’s like that,” he sighs world-weary-like to the pharmacist. “In one moment, she’s all passion and no consequences. You know how it is. Next thing, we’re in this situation. If it were up to me...” He trails off sadly. “But in a few years, you know. Gotta get settled in and all, I guess. Babe, this was our last mistake, okay? No more.”
I’m still fuming in the car. “I can never go to that place again. Jesus Christ, Luka. That lady glared daggers at me. You. Are so—” I growl in lieu of more words, because there isn’t a harsh enough adjective for what he is. “What’s it gonna be like once we’re in the jungle?”
“I know right? We’ll have no pharmacists to try out jokes on.” He emits the same fake sigh he did inside the store.
“You’re such a douche.”
He veers his brother’s car out onto the street too fast, body relaxed and hands on the steering wheel. I don’t want to look at the size of them, the veins lifting over tanned muscle courtesy of some porn shoot at Waikiki last weekend. Nathaniel had to take over his babysitting duties on Sunday because he wasn’t back until Monday. When he returned, first thing he did was go to bed. Drained, I’m sure. Grr.
“Drop me off at Joy’s. We’re going to the mall.”
“Yeah? Picking out something sexy for our vacation?”
“You really freaking need to chill.”
He lets out an amused snort and looks out the side window. The traffic light flips to red.
“It’s not funny.” Something’s happening to my lips though. They want to angle upward, and that’s just absurd in this situation. “You’ve got a stupid sense of humor.”
“Mm-hmm.”
“Did she answer?” Luka hangs over my shoulder in the library of the Queen, brushing my nape with his chin.
“Yeah, they’re on. Levari will meet us at the hotel.”
“The cousin, right? What’s the name of the girl you’ve been tweeting with?”
“Akuntsa. She wants to meet us in person too. Did I show you pictures of her?”
“Yeah. She looks cool.”
“I want to bring some kind of souvenir for them. Something fun from here as a token of appreciation for helping us.” As I say it, I realize how lame it is to assume they’re collectors of random crap from the U.S.
Luka shrugs. “Right. Maybe they watch movies? You can always bring them some Hollywood stuff, I guess.”
“I feel so stupid.”
“Why?” He’s too close and rumbles the question against my skin.
“I’ve been studying Amazon tribes for years, but I haven’t read up on a single thing when it comes to the villages around there. Ha, who knows; maybe they don’t even have TV? I have to do some research.”
He lets out an entertained puff, one side of his mouth curling as if it’s unplanned. “You’re such an overachiever. You’re this hot librarian my brother dragged home, and it’s beyond me that he kept your interest.”
Just like that, Luka makes the world come to a screeching halt. We were planning. I was bringing him, this guy I’ve never liked with me instead of the man we both loved.
“You’re a jerk, Luka. You know that? I wish everyone saw through your facade the way I do. The world doesn’t revolve around hot exteriors, you know, or porn-worthy appendages, brains, even when they get you through school. None of it matters if you’re a horrible human being.”
The gold in his irises fades. While his lips contract and gather into a tight line of acceptance, his eyes freeze and go muddy.
“Oh yeah, babe,” he murmurs. “Don’t you worry about that. I’m aware, and everyone around us is too. See, this beautiful woman moved into the Queen six years ago, and ever since my brother told her what I do for a living, she made it her mission to flaunt her opinion of me.”
Like most people, Luka is susceptible to grief. Like few, he doesn’t hold a grudge. Me, it took me a couple of days to digest what he said about Julian and me, but I decided to go with mind over emotion; I needed to get past his stupid comment because he’s my only ticket left to the jungle.
It turns out that Luka is surprisingly easy to collaborate with. He takes charge of airline calls and lugging off the heavier equipment. He even makes a few shipments for us so we don’t have to take everything on the plane.
The man is smart, I hate to admit. I hate even more that he takes on a marathon contract with Lucid Entertainment during the last ten days before our departure. He’s tightlipped about the details, but then I overhear the other Fratters discuss them when they think I’m upstairs.
Lenny’s voice floats out to me. “Luka’s a machine, man. Why you think he’s been in the biz for so long? Of course he can bang ten chicks a day for ten days straight. He’s the sultan now, see?” Pans clang, and something crashes to the floor in the kitchen. Connor lets out one of his husky laughs while Lenny swears.
“That’s so random,” Nathaniel says. “What’s with the sultan thing?”
“He’s supposed to be an ice sultan or something with a harem in some snow country.”
“Like Russia?”
“Oh you’re right. Duh,” Connor says.
“Or da,” Lenny says, snickering. “That’s it, though, right? Fuck all this glass. Shit’s crazy sharp. We should only have plastic stuff in the cupboards.”
I crack a smile; it’s not the first time I overhear Lenny’s low threshold for pain. The guys don’t comment. No one in there has a nurse complex.
“Anyway, so they wanted a dude with tons of stamina, they want to show off a butt load of hot babes, and voila you have... What’s it called again?” Lenny continues.
Connor sighs. “A Thousand and One Nights.”
“Dude, that’s ridiculous. That’s some Arabian fairytale thing, right?”
“Uh-huh.”
Smack. Bam.
“What the fuck, dude? Are you done breaking shit or what?” Connor cracks up, while Lenny’s string of curses make Nathaniel join in on Connor’s har-hars. “Gotta go to Goodwill and replace all this now before the babe notices. She ain’t gonna like it.”
Their humor fades into short bursts of mischievous giggles of the kind you expect from naughty kids. “Okay, yeah. Gotta go to that store... whatchamacallit?”
“Salvation Army.”
“Cheap, right?”
“Better be.”
There’s so much anger in my chest I don’t go down for dinner even though it’s lemon scampi with rice pilaf and asparagus. Luka is just the wrong brother. I wish he’d died instead of Julian. What the hell?
Supposedly, today is his first eight-hour fuck-fest. And supposedly, he’s being filmed on top of ten girls in one day. I hope to god the guys exaggerated.
My brain is freaking predictable too these days. Seriously, what does it matter if Luka sleeps with one versus ten girls a day? Either way, the scumbag gets paid for doing it with different women, and it’s horribly, disgustingly wrong. There’s a reason why modern societies are built the way they are; we’re one-on-one, having sex with our partner because we love them and/or have children with them. Birds do it. Mammals do it. I don’t know about fish. The point is I know it’s not just a cultural thing to be monogamous. It’s fucking biological.
I turn up the volume on my music. I’m playing Limelight, indie rock with drums and unexpected basslines that never stop. I need them to rip through my body and drown out my mood. I stalk to the window and fling it open for air. Of course Luka pulls into the driveway in his shitty little wreck in that moment.
Even when Julian was alive, I thought Luka was making a show of being humbler than his brother by keeping that car. I hate it even more now. He could probably buy himself a Maserati with a week’s worth of onstage sex. Instead, he still drives the Corolla he got in high school.
I see him walk onto the porch. I see him disappear under its roof. I let Jesse scream bloody murder from my speakers while the door knob twists and the wood panel bends when I don’t answer.
Luka calls for me from the other side. He shouts. Shouts more, and then he— Breaks the door down. Fucking again? My gasp is so loud I squeak.
“You okay?”
“Who the hell do you think you are? Get out!”
He strides to my stereo, and he doesn’t just turn it down. Nope, he switches it off!
“Oh no, no.” I laugh, my fingers prying his fist off the volume, but he grabs my hands and lifts them, eyes so yellow they’re frozen flames.
“What’s going on, Geneva?”
“‘What’s going on?’” I spit out my cold laughter. “What could possibly be going on, right?” My laugh fades off in some sitcom-style hiss-chuckle.
“Are you upset with me? Is that why you’re not at the table downstairs?”
“Pfff.” My chest blares angry beats my stereo can’t assist with because an entitled dick turned it off. “I want my music.”
“Food first.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“Yeah?” Luka’s pupils flare. “When did you eat last?”
For one stupid moment, my brain searches for a truly honest answer, and when I say, “Half hour ago,” Luka laughs too. He does it demonstratively and without humor, like he sees right through me.
“What did you eat?”
“Hot dogs!” I bark out quickly to leave no room for doubt.
James pops his head in. “Everything okay here?”
“No, he’s bugging me.”
“We’re good. Thanks,” the asshole replies.
“Guess you better get used to that, babe,” James mutters. “Ten weeks in the jungle together, right?” He lumbers off while I let out some sort of growl.
“So, hot dogs?” Luka picks up where we left off, and he’s curving a grip just beneath my jaw, tipping my face up so I can’t look away. He’s so. Annoying! And he’s damn hot too, which makes me even madder.
“Yep.” I clench my jaw and grit out the rest between my teeth: “Hot dogs. Now, let go of me.”
“Where?”
“Where what?”
“Where did you buy hot dogs?” His voice is silky, like he’s propositioning me—that’s definitely what my boobs interpret. They pucker excitedly, and this whole situation is just... Agh!
“At the mall.”
“Really? That’s a ten-minute detour on your way back from school. Let me ask you this: have you ever gone to the mall and bought a hot dog?”
Oh my god, he’s so rude. “What’s it to you? You’re not the boss of me.”
“You like to remind me of this.” He lets out a sexy chuckle that I want to scrub out of my ears.
“Much the way you like to break down my door.”
“Ready to come down for dinner?”
“Oh yeah, sure. In your dreams.” I know: lame.
He bites his lip, smiling, and for a second I see straight into his brain and how he’s not saying what he thinks, that he’s doing a lot more to me in his dreams than taking me downstairs for dinner.
I blush so furiously.
His smile turns blindingly wide.
“Okay,” he says, simply. “I’ll bring some up for you. Don’t go anywhere.”
“Yeah, not likely,” I say stupidly, and— Wow, maybe my brain needs food after all.
I’m flicking slivers of wood off the door when he returns. He’s had a shower, smells of some herbal delight, and has water dripping from his bangs and onto his lip. He licks it, pulling my attention far off the food he carries.
“You need to fix this, like, asap. I’m not going to live here without the option of locking my own door.”
I groan inwardly, dreading his impending comebacks. The options flit through my head, involving reminders of how I have an open-door policy to every Fratter on the schedule anyway. Hell, I could walk around naked whenever I wanted to and no one would see a thing they don’t own on a regular basis.
“You’re blushing again. I’ll take care of the door, okay?”
“Stop breaking my door down, okay?”
“Sure, just stop locking it.” He lowers the lemon scampi onto my nightstand and thumps down uninvited, large body leaning back against the headboard. “Eat now.”
I’m seriously losing my footing here, and I’m better off not entertaining him with further comebacks he won’t heed. Instead, I ask, “Tired?”
He doesn’t seem to catch the scorn in my voice. I glare while he plays with the tip of the comforter. Thankfully, he doesn’t try to slip under it. Tonight is James’ night, and Luka knows it. Not that he’d get to sleep in my bed if it were Sunday either.
“Yeah, exhausted. I could sleep like a baby.”
“The sleep of the innocent, huh?”
He stares at my fork. Watches as I slip a mouthful in between my lips and chew.
“Definitely.”
“Funny how thugs can sleep like innocents.”
“Thugs?” He frowns, barely creasing the smooth surface between his brows. “Oh. This is about the Lucid gig, isn’t it? Wow.”
“What? No, your business is your business. What do I care?”
A spark of contentment sets off in his eyes. “Nice. Who knew the babe could get jealous.”