Page 84 of Made in Love and Blood

11. — daddy issues and daddy’s issues...

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Lower Manhattan, New York

Frankie, Greenwich Village

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“Wake up.” The soft words accompanied gentle kisses against Frankie’s closed eyelids. Nico’s lips found the apple of her cheeks next, the caramel coffee he liked so much whispering across her skin, before he kissed her forehead last. “I gotta go.”

She mumbled unhappily, turning her face slightly into the pillow to prolong the inevitable. “If I say five more minutes, can we just pretend you don’t still run back to the estate before the clock hits three?”

Nico’s hand tugged her back, his palm cupping her jaw and cheek while his thumb found her chin and the center of her bottom lip. He pressed just hard enough to get her attention, that said he wanted to kiss her, but it also made her open her eyes. He didn’t even turn on the bedside lamp Frankie had picked up at a thrift store yesterday, leaving the room cloaked in darkness but for the glow outside from the wall of windows looking out from the penthouse bedroom. On the other side of the place, another glass wall overlooked the waterfront.

She really needed draperies...but goddamn.

He looked beautiful in a dark light.

“Are you teasing me about a curfew?” he asked, grinning.

“Is it gonna make you stay in bed for another five minutes?”

His smile deepened to something sexier.

“You really don’t get it, do you?” he asked her, but his tone remained playful.

“Get what?”

Nico’s knee hit the side the bare mattress sitting on hardwood floors so he could lean in and snatch his next kiss. The slight stubble on his face awakened her tender skin while that mouth and tongue of his did wonderful work on hers. She didn’t understand how he did it. How he kissed her ravenously, his teeth finding her lip to bite and tug every time he had the chance, but he held himself back, too. He never pushed unless she did. He never took unless she gave first.

Even though she wanted him to.

Even though he made her ache.

“Five more minutes,” she breathed against his mouth when their foreheads met. “Tell me no and mean it, Nico.”

He kissed her again, but harder, and he didn’t linger, saying, “You don’t get it. There’s more than one reason I’ve gotta follow your father’s rules. You’re a big one.”

“It’s only five freakin’ min—”

Nico kissed her again, his pointer finger and thumb pinching her chin gently as he pulled away. She tried not to pout as he reached for his black hoodie. “You need to get some furniture in here,” he told her.

“Hey, I have a box spring and a mattress.”

“And a lamp without a shade,” he added, jerking his head toward the offending item in question sitting on a cardboard box. “I’m bringing you sheets the next time I show up.”

She swallowed hard. “When’s that gonna be?”

Lately, it’d been every night. Sometime after dinner. She’d venture into the city to go thrifting for things she didn’t buy and wasted her late afternoons in cafés just because, but come back to find him with cinnamon buns and iced coffee when he showed up in the mornings.

“I don’t know,” Nico eventually replied, fixing the hood around his head and then staring at her. “If I can, I’ll be around like usual.”

“What are you doing all day, anyway?”

He gave her a look she couldn’t decipher. “What do you mean?”

“You’re working, right?”