by Kiki Leach
"No... You've already asked me that."
"I was looking for the goddamn truth this time." His fingers lowered to the base of her towel. She pressed her thighs together even more than before, and parted her lips to inhale the warm air between them. "Fuckin' sweet." She curled her toes against the floor and lifted a hand to his cheek as a distraction. His eyes shut almost immediately; his hand dropped from her as he wrapped it around her wrist. "Jesus... just what the fuck I needed from you; a warm goddamn touch."
"You need to put some ice on your face," she told him, the heat between each word coating their skin. "The bruises from what happened on the court are still too visible." She brushed his cheek with her thumb, inhaling as he swallowed.
"You wanna help me out with that?" He grinned. "Put the ice on my face for me?"
"I think you're fully capable--"
"Don't think I am. Don't think I fuckin' want it without your help, Cheyenne." He dragged her hand from his face, down the side of his throat and to his chest, resting her fingers on top of his heart as it beat out of sync. "You feel that shit?" She nodded. "Every fuckin' time. Makes me feel as if I'm going outta my entire goddamn mind being near you like this."
"That's not my problem--"
"You're my goddamn problem, baby; and the motherfuckin' solution I need for solving each one." He lifted her hand to his mouth, kissing the tip of each finger. She sucked her bottom lip as he rolled his tongue across her skin, then loosened from his grip and tightened the towel around herself. "Just like I thought," he told her. "Fuckin' sweet."
"I need to get dressed while I can."
"Go ahead."
"Alone." She bit back a smirk. "I don't need you seeing me outside of my towel just yet."
"Fuckin' shit." He laughed. "The coded language you keep throwing at me has gotta stop."
"What are you talking about?"
"Just yet -- not now? You're fuckin' teasing me with the idea of finally tasting you, baby. Either I'm gonna do it or--"
"What?"
"Not... But I know it's what you want from me -- been wanting since we first locked hands and even before it; the second I saw you staring at me from the courtyard. I don't need anything outside of your eyes telling me that shit. And that sweet fuckin' pussy--"
"It's not..." She stopped to swallow back the words hanging from the tip of her tongue and stepped out of the room, leaving her scent to linger in the space left behind. He inhaled and licked his lips, imagining the feeling of that taste on his tongue. "I'm not wet for you, Nikko."
"Yeah." He bobbed his head despite knowing she was full of shit, then nodded toward the guest room. "You get dressed and I'll be downstairs waiting once you're finished."
"What if I plan to go to bed right after?"
"You won't."
He winked before bypassing her and headed for the bathroom.
She leaned against the wall nearly breathless, then fell into the room next door and slammed it shut.
Chapter Seventeen
Missing the Moonlight
After sliding on a black tank and matching pair of leggings, I moved downstairs and into the library where I found Nikko in front of the window with a glass of bourbon in one hand while the other was hidden inside his front pocket. I leaned against the frame, admiring him from behind for a few seconds, then cleared my throat to let him know I was there and stepped inside as soon as he looked over his shoulder.
"Didn't take you as long as I thought it would up there." He gulped back the bourbon before placing his glass on top of the table, then turned to me with hooded eyelids and stepped forward while rolling up the sleeves of his shirt. "Goddamn, you look sexy as fuck tonight, baby. You dress that way for me?"
"No. It's just a tank and pair of leggings--"
"It's sexy as fuck, Cheyenne. Comm'ere." I remained in place as he continued moving forward, then folded my hands behind my back as he slid his hands around my waist. I could taste the bourbon on his breath as soon as he was near; I parted my lips, allowing the scent to dance across my tongue. "You're so fuckin' soft, baby." He dragged his fingers across the skin of my stomach before lowering them to my hips. "I want you on top of me right fuckin' now."
"Nikko--"
"Just... comm'ere with me, baby." He reached for my hand and walked us to the center of his couch. After taking a seat, he pulled me on top of him, adjusting his hips to make sure that I could feel the hardness of his dick pressing directly against my sex.
"Oh my God." I gasped and rolled against him as he twitched, my skin burning at the thought of him pushing inside me. "Nikko..." My mouth fell open as he groaned. I lifted my hands to his shoulders while my knees sank into the cushions alongside him and my tongue became dry.
"Yeah, baby?" He dipped his head back to stare up into my face; I lifted my eyes to the ceiling to catch my breath. He swallowed while raising his hands back to my waist, and slid his fingers beneath the back of my tank, sinking them into my skin. "What is it, Cheyenne?" I lowered my eyes back to his and shook my head, unable to say another word of coherence; unable to say another word at all. "You want me keeping you on top of me like this?" I nodded. "You like the feeling of my cock against that sweet fuckin' pussy?"
"...Yes." I pinched my lips in disbelief of my own answer; in disbelief that I had bothered to answer him at all.
"You gonna let me taste...?" He grinned. "Are you wet for me now, Cheyenne?"
I moved my eyes across the room as the question rolled between us and anxiously wagged my head. "Have you actually read every book on these shelves?" I asked. He leaned back with a smile parting his lips while keeping his fingers pressed against my skin, and gradually nodded. "Green mentioned..." I trailed off, hoping to gather what was left of my thoughts. "You built them yourself?"
"Yeah. Realized with the help of my mother that I needed to do something with my hands outside of what I'd always been taught by my old man."
"What exactly did Chino teach you to do with your hands, Nikko?"
"Nothing of what the fuck I'm doing with 'em, right now."
"And what is that?"
"Using 'em to help make you come." He pressed himself even harder against my sex, forcing my fingers to curl around his shoulders as my nails clawed his shirt. "If I rolled my fingers against you like I wanted, baby... against the sweetest fuckin' spot a motherfucker like me would be lucky enough to know for himself... slipped 'em inside you 'til I reached a point of no motherfuckin' return... would you fuckin' let me?" I lifted my hands to either side of his throat as he rolled his hips against me. "Being all up inside you right now is what I fuckin' need."
"What you still need is a bag of ice for your face," I told him.
"That shit can fuckin' wait--"
"No it can't. Unless you don't care if it continues to swell."
"Not the only goddamn thing swelling on me tonight. Or on you for that matter."
"Don't."
"You don't want me telling the goddamn truth?" I swallowed as he bent forward and pressed his lips against the center of my throat. "Fuckin' soft... what I would've given to taste you in that shower tonight; slick and fuckin' wet across my tongue." He parted his lips to suck my skin between his teeth; I slipped my fingers into his hair as my eyes closed and my head fell back. "You gonna put that ice on me, baby?" He rolled his tongue against me, swirling it across my skin; I damn near came on command. "Never fuckin' said one way or another if you would."
"I can..." I shifted without even thinking of what the hell I was doing or why, and dropped my hands to his chest; he fell back into the couch and clinched his teeth. "Only because you'll never stop asking for me to do it."
"You might be fuckin' right. But that ain't the only goddamn reason, and we both know that shit." He snickered; I slid off his lap and dropped my feet back down to the floor, then showed him my hand. He smiled while reaching out for me with ease and lifted himself from the couch.
As we headed into his kitchen, he moved straight to the freezer and ya
nked on the door. I traipsed to a counter near the stove, grabbing a fresh towel while he reached for a handful of ice cubes. After taking what he needed, I stepped back over and held the towel open for him to drop each cube inside.
"Do you mind if I ask you something personal this time?" I said.
"What is it, baby?"
"What happened to your mother?" His eyes returned to mine as his brows came together. "You've yet to really mention her in any of this outside of the bookcases--?"
"What happened to yours, Cheyenne?"
"She died. The club and their actions all but killed her on a night she had hoped to leave it for something better; for good."
"Sounds like what the fuck happened to Rebecca..." He muttered without much elaboration, then removed the towel from my hands and tied the edges into a small knot; he swallowed hard while attempting to straighten his face. "I'm sorry for that shit--"
"Me too... What happened to your mother, Nikko?"
"She killed herself."
I blinked once and wagged my head. "Oh my God."
"My old man fucked her up by screwing around with everything walking out here with two sets of lips. Shit got to a point where she couldn't take much more and decided that was the only way out."
"I'm sorry. How old were you when it happened?"
"Fifteen; found her hanging from the goddamn shower rod inside her bathroom upstairs..."
"Nikko." When I reached for his face, he turned from me before we could touch and moved back into the library. I followed, watching as he returned to the couch and placed the ice against his face. "I'm sorry." I rested my hands in front of myself while leaning against the frame. "I shouldn't have asked you what happened to her."
"You needed to know, baby, and the shit wasn't a secret," he muttered. "Just been a long goddamn time since I've told anybody else about it."
"I'm glad you told me, and not just because I needed to know."
He bobbed his head, then rolled his eyes to look me in the face and arched his brow. "You plan on doing the same for me anytime soon?"
"What do you mean?"
"That asshole you were with the first time; the one that made you feel a way no man who gives a damn about you ever should, Cheyenne."
"I don't want to talk about him--"
"You should; and not just 'cause I wanna know how to make it better for you, baby, but for yourself." He paused, allowing a beat to pass as he lowered the ice from his face. "You ever tell anybody else about being with him?"
"No." I stepped back into the room and took a seat beside him on the couch. I removed the towel from his hands and pressed the ice against his face for myself, holding my breath as he flinched. "This should help the swelling go down a lot faster than it would've otherwise."
"Maybe I should put it somewhere else before heading outta here." I dropped the ice and guffawed. He chuckled while lifting my hand back to his face and slipped his fingers between my own, then lifted his other hand and dragged his index beneath my chin. I slightly lifted my head as his skin electrified me straight to the bone. "I wanna know about this asshole, Cheyenne."
My shoulders dropped as I lowered my eyes; remembering the hurt I felt during that time was enough to swallow me whole. "It was my freshman year of college, and he was my English professor."
"Baby--" I leaned away from him and rested the ice inside my other hand, fearing the vulnerability of my words. He made a face and leaned forward, slightly turning his knees in my direction and grinding his teeth. "How the fuck old was he?"
"Old enough to know better than I did; better than what I thought I knew at the time." I swallowed hard as water dripped between my fingers, soaking the edge of my tank and leggings.
"You fell in love with him and all that?"
"Not exactly. I thought so at the time because he was my first with so much; but the fact is that my feelings for him were more lust and fear of being alone." He dropped back and threw his arms along the back of his couch, then turned his eyes straight ahead. "What about you and Rebecca?"
"I told you about her already."
"Not everything... I found a picture of her in your bedroom upstairs; or a picture of what I assume to be her?"
He whipped his head back around to me and glowered. "Where'd you find it?"
"On top of the dresser. It was still there when you walked in, but--"
"I saw your clothes on the goddamn floor and stopped paying attention to much of anything else 'til you came in." His face relaxed as a small grin arched the corners of his lips.
I nodded and got up from the couch, then stepped to the table near his window and exhaled.
After dumping the ice inside an empty glass, I draped the towel along the corner to dry, then spun back around to Nikko and crossed my arms. "When we were in the kitchen, you said something about Rebecca going out in the same way as my mother. I remember you telling me when we met that she was 'gone', but you refused to be specific."
"Yeah."
"What happened to her, Nikko?" He shut his eyes and deeply inhaled, flaring his nostrils as he clawed the cushions and shook his head. "You can't question me about who I was with while remaining mum on her," I said. "It's not fair to either one of us -- for me to give and you to take."
He reopened his eyes to my face, and frowned. "I don't wanna talk about this shit right now, Cheyenne."
"I don't care. I mean, I do care, obviously, but you can't keep what happened to her bottled up for the rest of your life -- much like your mother." I walked back over to the couch and sat back down beside him, close enough to press my knee against his thigh as I lifted my leg to the cushion. "Please talk to me, Nikko."
"Shit." He dropped one hand to his lap while using the other to roll his fingers through his hair. I swallowed hard and reached for him, pressing the palm of my hand against his cheek before lowering it to the side of his neck. I brushed my thumb along his jawline, and held my breath as he groaned. "Thought I'd gotten rid of that picture before being locked up."
"Well, you didn't."
"I'm sorry about that shit."
"You don't need to be. This is your home and she was someone you were with long before any of this happened between us..."
He brought his hand to mine and lowered it to his chest. "What happened to her, the shit I did after..." He pressed his palm against the back of my hand and gulped. "Her old man was the reason I got locked up."
"Was he...?" My eyes drifted as my mouth fell open in wonder. "He's the one that you ran over?"
"Yeah."
"Why?"
"'Cause the prick was a prick. She had planned to come out here and see me, but he was determined to keep the shit from happening at all cost."
"Why did she want to see you?"
"To talk about leaving the city for good, about wanting me to be with her when she did." He paused. "She wanted to get married, start a family, all that shit."
"And with no one else but you?"
"She wanted to stop the on/off shit we'd been doing; to get away from her old man and be 'on' with me 'til we were both in the goddamn ground."
"And he flipped on her because of that?"
"He flipped 'cause I was a motherfucker he couldn't stand for his girl to be around, Cheyenne. My old man and his connections scared the shit outta him; motherfucker was a goddamn mechanic selling moonshine on the side for extra cash."
"He must have been making enough to drive that Hummer," I said. "What did he do to his child?"
His hand tightened around me as his breathing nearly skyrocketed. "Had the brakes on her car clipped before she could even get outta the goddamn driveway."
"He did this to his child--? His own flesh and blood?"
"He thought she'd only skid after pulling off," he said, "but she sped down the goddamn street and out the neighborhood with never a motherfuckin' thought of looking back to him. When he realized she hadn't planned to slow down, he jumped in his Hummer and went after her... motherfucker tried scaring her into staying
behind with him, but scared the shit outta himself when he couldn't find her on the roads."
"Oh my God."
"It started raining not long after -- he called the cops... Three days later they found her car in a ditch; she had gotten out after sliding off the road and slamming through a guardrail on the way out here, but couldn't walk..." He stopped to swallow and took in a breath. "They said she passed out at some point and the wheels rolled on top of her." I dropped my other hand to his leg and stared into his eyes as soon as they met mine. He locked his jaw and grimaced. "I was never aiming for that assholes head when I got behind the wheel of his truck. But after my old man told me what the fuck happened to her and why, and that piece of shit confirmed it, I lost who the fuck I was, Cheyenne. Lost all sense of everything I knew I should've done in the moment; that wasn't it, but it was all the fuck I had at the time, baby."
"I understand," I told him. "But you seem to have a pattern of solving problems with violence." He nodded and lowered my other hand to his thigh, keeping his grip around my fingers. "Why did you attack that guard back at Rikers? The barb wire incident that put you in solitary before we met?"
"Personal shit beyond all the other that you don't need to be involved with right now, baby."
"What if I do?"
"You don't." He kissed the back of my hand, then stood from the couch and looked to the door. "I need a shower of my own tonight."
"I'm not taking one with you."
"Nah, baby, I know." He chortled. "At least not tonight. But I want us in the same bed."
"Why?"
"'Cause I wanna know what the fuck it feels like to sleep next to you at night, Cheyenne. What the fuck it'd feel like to wake up to you the next morning pressed against my cock."
"I don't..." I pushed myself to stand directly in front of him and folded my hands. "I don't think that we should go there just yet. Your first night out, it might be best to have the entire bed for yourself; remember what it's like to have all of that room."
"I don't mind having the space taken up in my bed if it's by nobody else but you." When his sexy grin returned, I damn near melted straight into the floor like butter. "Wait for me while I'm in the shower, baby -- in my bedroom. You wanna leave once I'm out and go back into the guestroom, I'm good with that."