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“Oh,” I breathe. God, it’s almost too easy for him to own every part of me, body and soul. Maybe I need something a little more…impenetrable.
Eh, what kind of fun would that be?
Nico leads me into his massive kitchen, and I sit on one of the stools surrounding his granite island. I trace a finger over the shiny stone where the dim, overhead light reflects off of the flecks of gold in the pattern. “New pots?” I point a finger to the set of copper pots hanging from the center of the ceiling.
“Yeah.” He shrugs and puts a kettle on the Wolf cooktop, flicking the bright red knob on high to heat the milk since that’s the only way I’d ever drink hot chocolate and Nico knows that all too well. He snickers and collapses onto the stool next to me. “Remember the first time I made you hot chocolate?”
A giggle escapes my lips. “I was just thinking about that. I still feel kinda bad about it.”
“I just wanted to see you smile. I felt really bad when you tripped over my bike and scraped up your knees, but you didn’t even appreciate the gesture. You just spit it out and cried. It was pretty brutal. I didn’t know anyone could fuck up hot chocolate that badly.” He shakes his head.
“Well, I was only eight, so you know, you could cut me some slack. Especially all these years later.”
“It was then that I realized how high maintenance women could be.”
“Really? It took you that long, huh?”
“I never paid much attention before that. Never really had to, you know? There was only one girl I wanted to please.”
I swallow hard, the growing lump in my throat making it increasingly difficult to breathe. “She was lucky to have had all of your attention back then.”
“I was lucky to have had hers.” Nico drums his fingertips on the countertop and looks at the stove where the kettle whistles a happier tune than the one inside my heart. All of this reminiscing can only lead to one thing, the same thing that drove me away from here, and I don’t know if I can relive that. I was doing fine in Florida where the bright sunshine artificially gave my life the light it’s been missing for so long. I’d been trying to heal instead of lamenting. Now, I’m back in the center of the chaos I’d long forgotten, and the stitches I’d carefully sewn, attempting to stem the heartache, are carelessly being torn out. It hurts, and hot chocolate won’t make it better.
“But you didn’t want it, Nico.” I’m shocked that my voice isn’t quivering like my knees are right now. Somehow, by the grace of God, it’s calm, strong, and assured. I show no signs of crumbling. Yet.
“I was stupid. It was stupid.” He turns away from me and pours the hot liquid into a pink mug. My pink mug, the one he’d bought for me when he got this house. It has my name on it. I wonder what his overnight guests think of that when they go to grab a mug for morning-after coffee. I nibble at a stray cuticle. Actually, on second thought, I’ll bet there’s no morning-after anything, knowing Nico. His shoulders sag with a deep sigh as he walks toward me with the steaming hot cocoa.
“I don’t understand,” I say, gripping the handle when I really want to claw his eyes out for that last statement.
He scrubs a hand down the front of his face, his expression pained and pinched. “Nothing about this works, Shaye. It never did, and I knew that. But I still managed to hurt you because I couldn’t walk away. I still can’t.”
I leap off the stool. A sob builds deep in my chest, and it’s only a matter of time before it explodes out of my mouth. But no fucking way will I let that happen before I get these next words out, the ones I’ve been harboring for so long. “Then why am I even here? You should have just told me all of this the night in the hospital and been done with it! Instead, you’ve been trying to convince me that this can happen, that you want it to happen!” I spin around, searching for something, anything to hurl at him. I can’t even find a goddamn pen to stab him with. Sadistic asshole. “Do you enjoy treating me like a damn yo-yo? Is this how you entertain yourself? Or is it really just about the chase for you? You get what you want from me and then you put it out with the trash when you’re done?”
He stands up and puts his hands on my shoulders. “Stop,” he murmurs, pulling me close. “You don’t understand. I do want this to happen, Shaye. That’s why I called you. I made such a mistake letting you go. But the pressure…it’s so fucking stifling. I never know who’s staking me out. I don’t know who’s got my back anymore. I don’t know if everything I’ve worked so hard to build is going to crash and burn because one of my associates fucks me over. I’ve seen all of this happen to my dad. I know what he’s battling now, and I know it’s only a matter of time before it happens to me.”
“But…”
“But I don’t care. Right now, at this second, I don’t give a flying fuck about anything except you.” He runs a hand down my spine, pressing the small of my back into him. “And for all of that, I’m a selfish bastard, Shaye. I need to care about all of this shit because you mean everything to me. I can’t put you in danger, and I can’t say you’ll ever be completely safe under my care. I’d do anything to make it so, but I can’t.”
Tears pool in my eyes. “I’ll never be safe, Nico. You know that. As long as I’m Tony Oriani’s daughter—"
He nods, swiping away the lone tear that trickles from my eye. “But this is different. I’d be responsible for you, and if anything ever fucking happened to you, to our family, our kids…it would kill me, Shaye. Kill me.”
Our kids. Our kids? I’m so freaking confused right now. I feel like this is one long therapy session and the couple of classes I’ve taken haven’t exactly prepared me for this kind of emotional outpouring, especially from the guy I’ve cursed for the better part of the past four months. “Nico,” I whisper. “This is our life. It’s all we have ever known. It has its good parts and bad parts, but we both know that nobody is ever truly safe in it, regardless of what side of the family tree they stand on. Why should we fight something we both want because of the fear of what might happen?” I reach upward, my hand snaking around the back of his neck, gently grazing the skin with my fingernails.
He lets out a little moan. “That’s not fair. You know I can’t think when you do that.”
“I think it’s time to stop thinking.” I stroke his neck harder, and he pulls me against his chest, a low growl tumbling from his lips. “Just feel, Nico. I want you to feel me, and I need to feel you. Please. Tell me everything I need to know about what we are doing by not saying another word, okay?”
He nods, dipping his head so that our foreheads touch. When his lips crash against mine, I swear I can feel the panties evaporate from my body. His mouth is just that freaking powerful.
His tongue coils with mine…hot, hungry, and intense. It knows exactly what it wants and sets on a path to take it. And I am oh so ready to give it all and then some.
He runs his hands up and down my back, his fingertips pressing into my spine, claiming every inch of my body as his own. My head falls back as I fall into him, beckoning his lips to jump on a scorching hot path to the areas begging for some attention. I’m limp in his arms and all conscious thoughts are eradicated from my body with each nip and tug of his teeth on my earlobe.
A quivering breath escapes my mouth, and the tingling sensation that I’d thought had only been reserved for certain areas now seems to have enveloped my entire being. I feel him everywhere, his hot breath fluttering against my bare skin, the pure, carnal energy coursing through my veins, the warmth generated by his very determined lips consuming my insides.
He stands me upright from my previous position hanging over his arms and grips the hem of my shirt, pulling it over my head. His eyes are dark with lust and crazed with a greedy need I am all too excited to satisfy. My breasts heave in the hot pink lace that barely covers them. I grip the edges of the island behind me until my fingertips lose blood flow. Small sacrifice, though. Every second Nico spends unbuttoning my jeans and peeling them from my wobbly legs is one less moment I have to wait for him to plunge inside of me and blast me back to that place where I’m the center of his world and nothing exists but us. I want to go back there, never to return again.
