Black Collar Beginnings: Cuba (Black Collar Syndicate) (5 page)

Seth blinks as though he's been slapped. He never would have even thought to phrase it that way. Love is such a strong word, in any case. Doesn't he love
his
city? Of course he does, and yet Miguel's words are like an embrace, the same way the humidity is. The sun is threatening his shady post again.

He has to look away to make himself say, “I miss my family, and I miss my home.” At least he hopes that by breaking the eye contact, Miguel won't see the affirmation that it's true; part of him does love Cuba. The two sides of him cannot coexist though, his loyalty is to his name, ultimately. All of this has been for his family.

“Yes of course you do,” says Miguel, “and you will return to them triumphant. But when you go, and you return to your cold city, when your sunsets are just gray smog, you will miss my motherland.”

The conviction behind Miguel's poetry sends chills down Seth's spine. Is he destined to never again truly be of one world? The jitters threaten to rise against his precious calm, just for a flash, before he takes a cue from his friend and boss. He pulls his sunglasses back down over his eyes, and stretches his feet back into the sun. At that moment, his nerves still. Maybe it hits him, all of those fuckers, all the naysayers that split the family, they were wrong. He has achieved what they believed he could not. All of them, even Caleb, will have to admit that he earned it – Caleb, who doesn't believe that Seth has ever earned anything. And maybe Miguel's right, sometimes Seth will miss this moment and this place, but this moment of perfection and achievement, it opens the doorway back. He realizes that Miguel was absolutely right, he's been thinking like a lost little brother, but now he is the guest of honor.
Honor.
A word that keeps recurring.

He smiles, deep and real and full of heat, like the last rays of an evening that will surely lead to debauchery. He smiles like he knows he can conquer the world with just that weapon, like a Morgan can. He
should
be thinking like the brat prince. He lifts his hand, palm up. He echoes Miguel from the yacht, holds his hand just so it looks like the sun is sitting upon his fingers. He turns his devil-may-care smile to Miguel, who can't help but smile in return. Seth says, “If that's the case, if your motherland really has become a lover of mine, then she will miss me just as much.”

Havana's Villa, August 5
^th
, 2012

By the time the moon is high, the villa is a hot spot of light, and brown, sweat-sheened bodies, mostly naked and writhing closely to one another. Bars have been set up throughout the downstairs and patios, and blow flows freely in every room. Still,
Papa
is nowhere to be found, but everyone present knows who organized this grand celebration. They all know why, as well.

Seth finds himself in the midst of a crowd on the main patio, near the pool. Torches dance around them as the wind comes in gusts. The storm that whispered from afar earlier is rolling ever closer, and the thunder growls every so often to remind them. The lightning creates a strange strobe effect that seems to flash in time with the club mix that blasts from a hidden sound system. The choppy waves are a soft accent that drifts in and out of the occasional lull in the other noise.

The night so far has been a parade of faces and introductions and warm embraces. High ranking Cubans who hardly had a civil word for Seth as a thug now welcome him with all the respect they show to their own. He has drifted through rooms of rowdy abandon, liquor, and lines. Gorgeous women in little or no clothing soften the speedy edge, and here and there he must wade through a cloud of marijuana smoke. Just now, two naked girls are setting flame to a row of shots, and someone slaps him on the back of his bare shoulder with a jeer. The crowd cheers as Seth, Miguel, and their Miami crew puff out the tiny fires and take their shots.

Despite Seth's considerable intoxication, he can still feel the liquor burn a trail to his stomach, and he's sure he could breathe fire if he tried hard enough. Already, he can hardly put names with faces, and his Spanish is getting sloppy. Someone mocks him for the grimace that comes with the shot, and he can't even form a sarcastic reply. He just grins. His tongue is so heavy, and his vision wavers.

The others are talking over one another in rapid Spanish, laughing, and talking a lot of shit. Though the guest list for this extravagant affair is full of extremely dangerous men, the atmosphere is heavy with warmth that has nothing to do with the temperature. This is truly a celebration, and the Cubans are full-heartedly embracing that sentiment. In the midst of Seth's mental fuzziness, he still feels the pang of bittersweet. Will his real family be so excited for him? Will they throw him a huge, no-expense-spared party in congratulations? The thought washes over him with a wave of drunkenness, and his stomach threatens to turn sour.

Suddenly, the press of people is suffocating. He swivels, a bit more unsteady than he anticipated, and he hears Miguel call to him. “Where are you going,
yuma
?”

“I have to piss, is that ok, boss?” He slurs 'boss'.

The groups laughs and Miguel says, “I guess so, Morgan”

Seth sets off toward the shadows beyond the blazing villa. The storm that began miles and miles away in the afternoon now presses so close it feels like velvet against his skin, and it seduces to his surface a coke-addled film of sweat. There's no relief in this place, this kind of weather, no moment when mother nature doesn't remind him that she is in complete control of his world. Down the beach to his right is a deserted pier, the darkness of the wood jutting out into the white capped waves. He ambles in that direction, and thunder booms above him.

The tide is high, and the waves are rough with the storm above, so that when he steps up onto the wooden slats, he can feel the whole pier shaking. At least, he's pretty sure it's the pier, and not his liquified muscles. He walks all the way to the end, and plops down with his legs hanging over. His mouth falls open at the vast expanse of ocean, and the lightning jumping along the clouds, as far as he can see. The thunder has become a constant sound, and a feeling in his gut that obliterates the thoughts of his home. In all this time in the far south, he hasn't seen a sight quite like this, this rolling, rumbling display of power. As much as he loves the canvas of stars, the storm above him is a perfect manifestation of his emotional state. He finds himself lying back without thinking to do so, and his vision blurs so that the lightning becomes a spiderweb of brightness sprawling around him.

Miguel was so fucking right it hurts. Seth loves this place with an unexpected passion, one that he knows will haunt him. He knows it like he knows the comedown from a coke binge, like he knows the tipping point into a messy drunk, like he knows the absence of his princess.

“
You look lonely
.”

A defense trigger fires in his brain, but it's a blank, and he doesn't move. It takes him long enough to process the Spanish that he convinces himself the female voice isn't real in the meantime. Surely the party hasn't strayed this far from the house. No, it's just the storm and the sea, fucking with him. Lonely. Yes, more than anything.

“Would you like some company,
guapa
?”

The voice is real, and quite close. He tilts his chin back and realizes that he's staring up at a long, slick body, mostly naked, a plane of island skin and curves for miles. Did she follow him? Did one of the guys send her his way? At the moment, he can't make himself care. She has her face pointed down at him, and dark hair falls over her shoulders toward him. He can see the outline of her full lips smiling.

The drugs and booze have already set loose a chemical conflagration in his body, and his thoughts go spinning away at the sight of female perfection. She looks so soft and supple, and young, probably not quite his age. Good god. Suddenly he wants nothing more than some company, her company. A lazy, distant smile plays across his lips, and he says, “It might rain.”

She sits beside him, propping herself on one hand and she looks down at him. Her hair nearly brushes against his chest, so close it sends chills across his surface.

“The storm has come to celebrate you, just like we have.” Her accent is so thick, such a sensuous rhythm that feels like fingers sliding along his spine. With that honey voice and that accent, he doesn't care what she says, but the whimsical play of her words makes him choke back a guttural sound of hunger. She leans down a little closer, and her hair does touch him, tickles him, and he can't suppress the shudder she fires along his nerve network. Her tone is raspy, tangible, when she says, “I think the storm likes you, because it is like you.”

“You don't even know me,” he says, eyes searching hers for sense.

Her smile deepens, and her head shakes from side to side. She says, “No, I don't. But what I see here,” her hands ghosts up his sternum, “is the same as what I see there.” And she points to the sky.

“Who are you?”

His voice sounds small to him, far away and foreign. He can hear his own amazement, and his suspicion. Always, there's suspicion. It's a reflex, second nature that comes with the name, and the way of life. She runs the backs of her knuckles down his cheek, and says, “I'm just the entertainment.”

Fuck it
. All of it. Everything goddamned thing that's not this wind swept world of waves and intoxication and rumbling storm. Fuck Nicolette if she couldn't understand his duty to his empire, and fuck all the whispering assholes who have a mind that they can run the family better than Gabriel Morgan did. The lackadaisical smile returns to him, born of booze and his indignant thoughts. He reaches up to run his fingers through her curling hair. Her tiny bikini does little to cover the curve of her full breasts, and her big brown eyes are heavy with adoration. Of course she wants him. What woman doesn't?

“You're gorgeous,” he mutters, just letting her soft hair brush against the skin of his hand. He's hard. He doesn't give a damn that she'll notice. This kind of girl knows she's hot, gets paid to be so. It's stupid to mumble at her like he's some kind of kid, but he's drunk enough not to give a shit.

She giggles, her gaze crawling down his bare torso to his standing cock. She makes a long “Mmmmmmm,” at the sight. Then she plants a gentle kiss upon his lips. For a moment, the world just spins. She's so soft against him. And that's all it takes to kick his hormones into overdrive. His fingers curl in her hair and he deepens the kiss, invading her mouth with his tongue. The thunder growls.

Her hand loves his slim, hard muscles, the smooth plane of his chest, the ridges of his abs. She moans again, this time into his mouth. And his hands love her, the dip of the small of her back, the curve of her hips. She shudders as his knuckles brush against the little bikini bottoms.

Her lips begin a burning trail down his throat, and the storm begins its onslaught, unleashing slow, fat drops of rain. Her kisses are on his pectoral muscle now, and then his nipple. She teases it with her teeth, soliciting a hiss from him and an arch in his back. Her fingernails scratch gently down his sides, and her breasts brush his raging hard on. The speed amplifies the sensations, so that they obliterate all other thought. She must like to hear him gasp, because she frees him from his shorts, arches down like a cat, so that his dick slips between those exquisite breasts. Her nails dig into his hips and she moves, up and down.

“Good god,” he grunts. The rain doubles in strength. He watches her hair weight into her eyes, watches as her make up starts to run. The darkness that seeps down from her eyes coupled with the lightning and thunder trigger a primal change in him, one that makes him feel savage, like he could flip her onto her back and fuck her until there are splinters in her flesh, until she screams loud enough for the whole island to hear. Yet her rolling body renders him helpless.

She smiles down at him, like the Devil himself, and her fingers begin to undo his shorts. He couldn't move if he wanted to. All he can do is groan. The skin-to-skin contact is almost too much when she frees him. It's only a moment, though, before she lowers herself and runs her tongue from his balls to the tip of his cock. It takes every ounce of his resolve to lift his head to watch her take him in her mouth with that fuck-me makeup running down her cheeks. She holds the eye contact as she does.

Usually, he likes a fistful of hair when he's getting a blow job. He likes the power, the reigns to set the speed, to make her choke on him if he so desires, but this time she has taken control. His hands are useless at his sides, and he loses the battle to keep his head up, and his eyes open. He falls back against the pier and lets the rain have his heat, as she takes him deep, again and again. Occasionally, she moans onto him, and the vibrations threaten his self control. If he lets her continue this for long, he'll lose it.