“What?” he asks. “What are you looking at?”
I sit up, and then, on a naughty impulse, I do something I’ve been wanting to do for the last fifteen minutes. I lick him. On the shoulder. Around the dip of his triceps and up to where I nip at the curve of his deltoid.
“What the…” He looks at his shoulder, then back at me, his dark eyes dancing. “You nasty, NYU.” This time, there’s not a hint of resentment in the name. It’s a tease, a taunt. Playful.
So I do it again, this time on his neck, then tracing my tongue around the other side of his jaw. The taste is salty, and his skin is warm. It’s divine.
“Layla.” His voice is low as I suck a little on that right-angled corner of his jaw.
“You taste good,” I whisper against his cheek. “I want to…” I look down his body, the way it glistens from our workout, and I linger on the two, muscled ridges that disappear under the waistband of his pants
I bite my lip and look back up. Tiny lines have erupted over his forehead. He looks like he’s almost in pain.
“I want to taste you,” I say as I reach out and slide my hand across the zipper of his jeans. “Here.”
His body lurches slightly as I unzip his pants and reach under his boxers to take him firmly in my hand. My breath hitches right along with his. He’s so hard. So ready for me. And I’ve barely even touched him.
“Are you—” He gulps. “Are you serious?”
“Nico?”
“Yeah?”
“Take off your damn pants so I can give you a blow job you’ll never forget, okay?”
If he’d been eating anything, he’d have choked on it right then. But then another wide grin spreads on his handsome face.
“Fair’s fair,” he says with a smirk. “Take yours off too, baby. Spread those beautiful legs for me.”
I balk, even though I’m already shimmying out of my leggings. “You want to…do that…right here?”
Nico tips his head back and laughs, a booming, joyful sound that ricochets off the high metal pipes hanging from the ceiling.
“Baby,” he says in between wheezes. “You just offered to suck my cock in the middle of the gym. What does it matter if I’m eating your pussy at the same time? Now you wanna be coy?”
My mouth drops. He’s been so gentle, so cautious with me. All summer. When he got back. And now he’s talking like a dirty magazine and I…love it. Should I love it? What does that say about me?
“Hey. Mami.” His deep, curt voice pulls me out of my spiral. He raises one black brow. “I didn’t say no, did I?”
I open my mouth, then close it. Then I grin. “No. You didn’t.”
One side of Nico’s full mouth pulls wide in that sly half smile I love. “Then lie back down, baby. And spread your legs. Don’t make me ask again.”
Slowly, I do as I’m told. I lie down on my side, curled inward with my knees together. Nico reclines on his side and kisses my ankles, up my legs, tracing his soft lips over my thighs until he reaches my underwear.
“We’re not going to need these,” he says as he tugs them off and tosses them across the ring.
He presses a hand between my thighs, nudging them apart again. His tongue slips out and licks the sensitive skin on either side, his tongue flickering between that slight gap. I shudder.
“I said”—Nico wrenches my legs apart—“spread ’em.”
And before I can answer, he dives between my thighs, his warm, urgent mouth immediately finding my clit. With closed eyes, I lounge on the floor, opening more as I grind into his mouth—oh, that magical mouth. He hums a little while he licks, sucks, even bites lightly, both of his hands palming the backs of my legs and kneading every so often.
My eyes fly open as his teeth lightly close over my clit, and I’m confronted with his own very strong desire. Thick. Perfect. Pointing right at me.
I lick my lips. Would he be shocked if I did it? Maybe that’s what I want. I don’t want to be cautious. I want to taste him, all of him. I want to do it while he’s tasting me.
So I don’t say anything, just take him in my mouth, relax my jaw so he can slide in nearly all the way.
“JESUS!” Nico shouts.
And oh, he tastes so good—a salty essence mixed with his own unnamable flavor. I close my eyes, relishing in the feel, the utter control we have over each other’s pleasure at exactly the same time. As his mouth works intensively at that most sensitive of places, and I savor every dimension of his, I forget that I’m in the middle of a freaking boxing ring, laid out on a mat, where anyone could see us if they just walked in the door. I forget about all of my worries, frustrations, anger. All of it fades away as we feast on each other’s bodies and lose ourselves to the animalism of the moment.
“Mmmm,” Nico groans, then slams a hand to the mat. But this time, I don’t freeze. In my mouth, he grows just a bit bigger, and the knowledge makes me shake. Oh, fuck. He’s going to come. He’s going to come in my mouth, and I’m going to take it, and I’m going to come in his, and together we’re going to—
Suddenly, every thought, the thrill of what we are doing is too much, and without warning, my entire body seizes up as my orgasm hits. It crashes through me, tossing me around, tightening every muscle I have. Nico grabs my thighs roughly, keeping them apart so he can finish me off, not letting up for a second as wave after wave of tension ripples through my limbs. I moan around his cock, my body quaking as his hips thrust forward lightly as he comes as well. We grasp, claw at each other, eager to get closer, yet somehow unable to take it all completely. I savor every bit until I’m completely sure he’s finished. And then, just as my legs fall limp, forcing him to roll out from between my thighs, I release him too, and flop onto my back, completely out of breath.
“Holy. Shit.” Nico’s deep voice is raw, like he’s been shouting. His chest rises and falls visibly. “Holy shit.”
I loll to the side, curling against the mat. “Good?”
“Fuckin’…” He sorts through a few strings of unintelligible Spanish, then blows out a long breath. “No words, baby. No fuckin’ words for what you do to me.”
“Mmmm, good.” I close my eyes. “Do you think…” The adrenaline starts to fall, and immediately, I miss it, along with the strange high that accompanied my earlier exhaustion. “Do you think we could do this again?”
When my eyes open, Nico’s twisted around so we’re lying face-to-face. His dark eyes sparkle, and his mouth is spread in a peaceful grin. I grin back.
“The boxing or the sixty-nine?” he asks cheekily, and his dimple on one side comes out to play. He strokes my face, and even through his joke, there is tenderness in his expression.
I blush, and immediately he laughs. It’s infectious, simmering through me. I shove him playfully in the shoulder, which only makes him laugh louder.
“Why not both?” I tease.
Before he answers, Nico scoots in closer for a kiss. His tongue gently seeks entry, looking to mingle in a delicate dance that still carries the lust of the moment, but is mostly made of something deeper: contentment.
“Any time you want, sweetie,” he says as he breaks away. “It’s a date.”
Chapter Eleven
Layla
Nico drops me at the train station with a kiss and a promise of more boxing later in the week. I’m disappointed—I had hoped we might continue things at my apartment. But aside from the fact that he has to be up early to get to Randall’s Island on time for the academy, we both know we can’t push it. I’m just not ready for what we both want to do.
Still, I feel lighter than I have in months. I never knew how much I wanted to hit something, maybe even someone like that, until the pop of glove on mitt cracked through the air. Nico has said before that learning to box saved him. It was the one good thing that came out of his time in a detention facility, and it kept him from going down some really bad paths. I feel like I get it now, just a little. If he’d been carrying this kind of pent-up anger and frustration for most
of his childhood, an outlet like that must have changed his entire life.
But it’s not just that. Wrapped up in each other like that on the mat, a sticky, sweaty, pheromone-soaked mess of desire, only made me want more. We were animals, diving into one another, wanting only to be closer, get closer. That wall, the familiar block on my senses didn’t rise when things got too heated. A veil has lifted, and even though I’m not totally at the point where I feel open and free again, I feel like I can imagine it.
Dr. Parker would call that progress, I think.
Once I’m home, I sit at my desk, fingering the bottle of pills, which I’ve been taking at night, if only to calm my anxiety enough to sleep. Shama’s still out with our—her?—friends. The apartment is empty, with the streetlights outside casting shadows through the fire escape outside of my window. For the first time in months, my heart beats at a regular pace at the thought of being alone. Maybe I can sleep by myself tonight.
And at that, my heart thumps loudly. My hands grow cold. A shiver passes through my body.
Okay, maybe not.
My phone buzzes in my pocket. I pull it out.
Nico: I forgot to say te amo, baby.
I smile at the text. When he’s not smiling, he looks like he could mess up your face if you looked at him wrong, but underneath it all, Nico is really just a big softie.
Me: I love you too. Thanks for a great night. ALL of it.
The phone buzzes again almost immediately.
Nico: Anytime. Can’t wait for more.
I stare at the words for a few minutes, ignoring the way my heart continues to beat a little too fast, and instead focusing on the warmth that grows through my belly when I think of him. I close my eyes and imagine the feel of his hands on my skin, his mouth between my legs, his skin pressed to mine. One of my hands creeps down and slides under the waistband of my pants, toying a little bit with the sensitive spot his tongue worried into a frenzy earlier.
A few moments later, I get up to take a shower, and finish what I’ve started. While the hot water runs over my body that aches for just one person, I’ll think of Nico the entire time.
It doesn’t take long to find my release, though my body wants more, wants the other part of me who is sleeping on a couch uptown. But when I come back, I slide into bed and fall asleep quickly and peacefully. I leave my pills where they are.
* * *
I tap my watch. The hands don’t move. I’m sure Nico’s late, but the watch has been stuck at ten o’clock for what seems like forever. It’s lonely on this street corner, this part of the city so desolate it doesn’t even have street signs. Over the tops of grimy brick buildings, I can see the glow of Manhattan, a halo over the jagged lines of skyscrapers and high-rises, the dips where the apartment buildings only reach five or six stories. Even from this far away, the city hums. But I’m here, waiting in one of the pockets that never make it into movies or the news.
“Come on, Nico,” I mutter to myself. A shiver passes through my body. I hug myself, but stop when bruises appear on both shoulders. “Dammit. I’m out of makeup.”
Heavy footsteps echo down the empty street. I look up, eager when I see the outline of a dark male form striding toward me.
“You’re late!” I call out, though I’m already running toward him. My anchor. My everything.
“I would have been here earlier if you hadn’t called the cops.”
The voice, low and heavily accented, stops me in my tracks. The man’s deep voice curves around me like a snail’s shell. You can practically hear his lips curl as he speaks. He steps under a streetlight, revealing a long body dressed entirely in black, a mop of thick black curls that have been tamed with wax, and a thin, brooding face with eyes like obsidian, framed with Wayfarer glasses.
Giancarlo.
“Mi joya,” he whispers, extending a hand while he pronounces that name he loves to use for me. Joya. Jewel. “I have been waiting for you.”
I take a step back, then another. “Where’s Nico?”
“Nico? Who? He left you. He went back to California. But it’s you and me, joya. It always was, no? No one else matters.”
I scramble back another few steps. Giancarlo looms in the dark, like he just grew another few inches. Only a few steps bring him close.
“Say it,” he demands as he grabs for my hand. “Say you’re mine.”
I shake my head. “No.”
His face, always long and gaunt, grows longer, gaunter. He stretches taller, nearly as tall as one of the buildings, until he blocks out all the lights—the stars, the moon, the lights of New York. The world is black, except his pale, hollow face.
I take a step back into an unknown street, yet another darkness in this city.
“No,” I whisper, even as I turn to run.
“Say it!” Giancarlo shouts.
From an impossible distance away, he grabs me by the neck and yanks me into his chest, his long arms seeming to wrap multiple times around my body. He grows, one, two more feet, picking me up off the ground,
“Stop it!” I flail. “I don’t love you! I never did!”
A hand claps over my face to shut me up. I can’t breathe, struggling to move until I manage to stick my nose through a crack in the giant’s hands.
“Let her go!”
I look up, barely able to see. But I do catch a glimpse of white: the stitching on a Yankees hat glows as a man charges through an alley. Nico.
“All right, cabrón, I tried to warn you,” he says before spilling into Spanish I seem to know, but can’t totally understand.
Giancarlo jerks at the sound. Nico pulls his fist back, ready to throw the punches, the blows he’s been practicing all of his adult life. I brace myself.
But Giancarlo grows again, seemingly unaffected as Nico rains down fury onto his legs, his calves, now his ankles, a tiny David to this giant Goliath.
“Nico!” I scream again and again, voice muted by the slippery, cigarette-stained palm.
Giancarlo picks up one long, black-soled shoe and takes aim at the Yankees hat. Then he brings it down.
“NO!”
* * *
I wake up, my heart pounding wildly. My sheets are half-soaked with sweat, twisted around me like I just traveled through a tornado.
“Lay?”
Shama’s voice calls from the other side of my door. I glance at it, but remain curled into a ball while I rock.
“You okay?” she asks.
“I…I’m fine,” I manage to call back, cursing myself as my voice quivers. “I was tossing around in my sleep, that’s all.”
There’s a pause. “Um, okay. Do you need anything?”
I shake my head, even though she can’t see me. “N-no. I’m good. Go back to sleep, Shams.”
There’s another pause before finally I hear her shuffle back to her room and shut the door. I grab my pillow, flipping it over so it’s no longer damp with sweat.
On my nightstand, my phone sits innocuously. I could call him, let his deep, soothing voice lull me back to sleep, a lullaby for my soul. He’ll never know the way he does that, the way his whole presence brings me peace the way no one else can.
But it’s three in the morning. He needs his sleep, and so do I. And he doesn’t need to know that I’m going a little crazy. I don’t need to be yet another burden on his life.
So instead, I reach for the pills on the other side of the nightstand. I clap one to my mouth and swallow tightly without any water. I’m going to spend the next twenty-four hours feeling like a zombie, but that’s better than feeling like a crazy person.
“The here and now,” I whisper to myself as I burrow back under my sheets, waiting for the numbing effect of the drug to work its way into my system. “The here and now.”
But the mantra doesn’t work. Because right here, in this small, cold, white room, I am scared. Right now, I am alone.
Chapter Twelve
Nico
“Time’s up.”
I set my pencil down
onto the table next to this week’s exam. It’s Friday, and I’m ready to get the fuck out of here for the weekend. All week I’ve been cooped up on “The Rock,” as a lot of people call the academy, trapped half the day in this cinder block of a room with fifty other dudes who smell like feet and Old Spice, and spending the other half of the day puzzling my way in and out of smoke-filled buildings. Don’t get me wrong: I love it. I love everything I’m doing, but it’s fuckin’ intense. I’m looking forward to getting to work in a real station. With real hours. And real people.
I flex my fingers and shake out the cramp in my hand. I swear to God, if I never take another test in my life, it will be too soon. I’ve got one more month until I’m assigned a station–one more month before we take our final exams and graduate. I can’t fuckin’ wait.
The sergeant collects our exams, raising his brow a little at me as he passes back the last ones.
“Nice job, Soltero,” he mutters, then keeps moving.
I flip over the packet and see the perfect score I got on the last test. I might hate doing them, but having Layla in my ear all summer, coaching me on study methods, has helped me more than she knows. I might even graduate top of my class if I’m lucky. Who would have thought?
I thought, you goon. I can see Layla looking at me, her bright eyes smiling with pride while she chases away my doubts. She hates it when I think badly about myself, and while I used to brush it away as naivety, the truth is, I’m starting to believe her faith in me. I’m starting to expect myself to succeed rather than fail. It’s a weird feeling. But a really good one.
“You doing anything fun this weekend, Soltero?”
I turn to Mike, one of the probies in my class, as we’re filing out of the classroom. He’s a nice enough kid from Staten Island who just barely managed to squeak into this class. He looks at my test score and breathes a “damn” under his breath. I roll up the paper and shove it into my backpack.
Bad Idea: The Complete Collection Page 82