“I’m feeling a little sick from last night, and all the excitement this morning. I think I might need to lie down. Or maybe take a shower and then lie down. Would that be okay?”
“Of course.” He was concerned. “Do you need anything?”
A hammer. A flamethrower. A gun. I really wanted to destroy that stupid picture. Maybe even taser the fucking thing, and then destroy it.
“No. Just a couple hours’ rest. I’m sure I’ll feel better later. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be silly,” he said softly, taking my hand. He pressed a kiss to my forehead, then led me into the gleaming marble bathroom and showed me how to work the shower, and where the fresh towels were. Then he kissed me again, on the lips this time, gently and so sweetly it shaved an edge off my anger.
“Need someone to help you wash your hair?” he murmured, nudging his nose against mine.
In return, I could only offer a weak smile. “I’m good. Rain check?”
The pause before he spoke was longer than I was comfortable with. I glanced at his eyes, regretting it instantly when I did. The darkness from downstairs had crept back into them, shadowing the normally crystalline blue with a deep, ominous ultramarine, the color of the sea before a storm.
“Okay, baby. Whatever you say.”
His voice was shadowed, too, but with what emotion, I couldn’t tell. His gaze drifted to the necklace around my throat. He picked up the trust charm between his thumb and forefinger, and stroked it contemplatively. Then his lashes lifted, and he pierced me with his stare.
Without another word, without a smile, Nico turned and walked slowly from the room.
I sank to the edge of the enormous Jacuzzi tub, dropped my throbbing head into my hands, and sighed. I hated jealousy. It was such a petty, spiteful, insecure emotion. Unfortunately, being with a man like Nico—a man who women literally threw their panties at—practically guaranteed the green-eyed monster would become a permanent resident in my brain. If I wanted to explore this thing between us, if I didn’t want to ruin it before it had even really begun, I’d have to find a way to manage it.
But how?
That question bothered me the entire time I was in the shower. I soaped my body, shampooed my hair, shaved everything that needed shaving, letting the hot water coax the tension from my muscles, half expecting Nico to walk in any minute and join me. Half hoping he would, and also half dreading it.
He never did.
When I finally finished showering, dried off, and padded barefoot into his bedroom to get the clothes from my duffel, the picture of Avery was gone.
When I awoke, the sun had shifted low on the horizon, bathing the room in a soft golden glow.
It was late afternoon, or early evening. I blinked, squinting against the light. I remembered sitting on the edge of the bed, worrying about the picture of Avery, and then . . .
Oh. Right. I’d lain down, thinking it would be only for a moment and then I’d get up and change. Apparently the moment had turned into hours. For the second time today, I was waking up on top of the covers on a bed.
Also for the second time today, someone was beside me.
I turned my head to find Nico staring up at the ceiling, hands behind his head. He’d changed into a pair of loose black sweatpants, slung low on his hips. He was barefoot, and bare chested. When he turned his head and looked at me, he was so breathtaking I longed for a camera. That jaw of his could cut glass.
“Hey.”
“Hey.” He rolled to his side, lifted to his elbow, propped his head on his hand. He stared down at me with hooded eyes, his expression unreadable. Our bodies were mere inches apart, so close I felt the heat radiating from him.
I became acutely aware that the two of us were half naked. Beneath the thick white towel wrapped around me, I wore nothing at all.
I swallowed around the lump in my throat. “How long have you been there?”
“A while.” He reached up and brushed a strand of damp hair from my forehead. “Feelin’ any better?”
I inhaled and stretched my legs, assessing, then nodded. “Yeah. Headache’s gone.”
“Good.” He trailed his fingers over my brow, across my cheek, down my neck. His hand lingered over my collarbone. He began to toy with the chain around my neck. Watching it instead of me, he asked, “And how ’bout that nasty urge to bury a knife in my chest? That gone, too?”
Busted. I sighed, embarrassed and annoyed all over again. “Was I that obvious?”
Nico traced his fingers over my chest, moving from my neck to my shoulders, along the top of my cleavage where the towel was cinched, up the line of my throat. Everywhere he touched, it felt like he left a trail of sparks. My breath hitched at the sensation.
“Told you the first day I met you, baby: you lie for shit.”
He began to work the seam of the towel open where it was folded over on my chest. His fingers deftly pulled the two ends apart until the space between my breasts was exposed. He left it like that, open but not revealing more than a narrow strip of skin, and trailed his fingers lower. I was sure he’d be able to feel the jackhammer wreaking havoc inside my chest.
When I spoke, my voice was shaky. “I’m sorry for getting mad—”
“Don’t be.”
Nico’s hand moved lower, then lower still, pushing the opposite sides of the towel aside to gain access to my bare stomach. My breasts were still mostly covered, as were my girly bits down below, but the rest of my skin was now exposed from my neck to beneath my belly button.
Several parts of my body began to tingle in the most fantastic way. When Nico swirled his fingertip around and around my belly button, then dipped it gently in, I had to bite my lip to stop from moaning.
“Don’t be sorry for gettin’ mad, Kat.” His gaze flashed to mine. “Be sorry for lyin’ to me. And don’t ever do it again.” He leaned in and rubbed his cheek against mine, nosing aside my hair to breathe into my ear. “You hear me?”
My unsteady exhalation would have to serve as an affirmative, because I found myself not fully in command of my ability to speak.
Warm and wet and wonderful, his tongue skimmed the rim of my ear. His teeth lightly pressed down on my earlobe, and he sucked it into his mouth. On my stomach, his big hand spread open. More tingling and sparks spread in its wake.
Lost in sensation, I closed my eyes.
Nico pushed the towel over the slope of my hips. Cool air brushed over my breasts and thighs, and I knew I was fully exposed to him. Curiously, I didn’t feel shy. In fact, I was strongly fighting the urge to wantonly spread my legs and point to my crotch, shouting, “Eat that goddamn cookie!”
What a slut.
And—far worse—what a pushover. You’d think I’d been living in a convent for the last ten years, I was so horny. What the hell had he done with my resolve?
“Say it, baby,” he whispered in my ear. His hand drifted south over my belly. “Tell me you won’t ever lie to your man again.”
Was it ridiculous, the sheer thrill I felt at Nico calling himself my man? I didn’t know. I didn’t care. All I knew was where I wanted his clever fingers to go. And that I’d do pretty much anything to get them there.
“Yes. Yes. I mean, no. Both. Whichever. I won’t.”
God, I was pathetic.
He pinched the flesh of my upper thigh, then stroked the sting away. His fingers drifted dangerously close to home base. “You won’t what?”
His voice had grown hard. He leaned into me and sucked one of my nipples into his mouth. I gasped, arching against him. His tongue swirled around and around my nipple as his finger had around my belly button. Feeling as liquid as a tub of butter left out under the summer sun, I shuddered. “Ah . . . I sort of . . . forgot the question.”
“C’mon, now, baby, you can do better than that,” he chided, chuckling. He moved to my other nipple, lavished it with the same attention the first had received, laughing softly again when I squirmed, no longer able to hold back my groan of pleasure.
“I won’t lie to you. I won’t. I won’t . . . oh, God. Please don’t stop doing that!”
His teeth skimmed my nipple. He bit down, harder than before. I jerked, my hands clenched in the sheets. Feather light, his fingers brushed over my sex, and I whimpered his name.
Of their own will, my hips flexed up into his hand. I knew I was wet. I knew he felt it, as soon as I heard the low grumble of desire go through his chest. His thumb drew the softest of circles over my clit, and I sucked in a breath, my legs parting.
“Beautiful,” he murmured against my breast. “Fuck. Kat. You’re so beautiful.”
The arm he was leaning on slipped beneath my back, dragging me closer to him, pinning me against his hard body. I sank my fingers into the thick softness of his hair, and pulled his head down, desperate to get as close as I could. His chest felt burning hot. His lips on my skin were even hotter.
“You make me feel beautiful, Nico,” I whispered, my eyes shut, my body singing from his touch. “You make me feel like the most beautiful woman in the world.”
He said, “That’s because you are,” and slid his fingers deep inside me.
I moaned. My head tipped back into the pillow. My knees drew up. My pelvis rocked against his hand.
What a way to wake up.
Nico’s voice was a low rasp in my ear. “You’re gonna come for me. And when you do, you’re gonna be mine, baby. No other man can touch you. No other man gets that smile, those eyes, that laugh. You’re gonna give it all to me, and me alone.”
Oh, his fingers. And his words. Magic. I turned my face to his neck and sucked on his throat, desperate to taste him, desperate to get as close as I could. My body was arching in time to the slow, deliberate thrusts of his fingers inside me. I was shivering. I was flying. I was losing myself in him, and damn if I didn’t want to get lost.
Naturally, Fate thought it would be funny to interrupt this beautiful interlude with a noise I was quickly starting to hate: the doorbell.
It rang with a chime that seemed to echo through the house like gunfire. My eyes flew open. Nico and I both froze. The doorbell chimed mockingly on and on, as if stuck on repeat.
Without removing his hand from its possessive, intimate position, Nico looked over his shoulder, to the clock on the opposite wall. He growled, and I don’t think I’d ever heard a sound so frustrated. Not that I was thinking, really. I was teetering, caught on the razor’s edge of release.
My voice was a croak. “What’s happening?”
He turned to me. Those dark sea-storm eyes were back, along with a scowl. “Band’s here. Forgot they were comin’.”
Oh. Great. The band was here. What a wonderful end to a perfectly wonderful day.
I wanted to scream in disappointment. Or maybe pull the covers over my head and hide until the morning came and I could put today behind me, like a bad dream. Hungover, mobbed, jealous, jealousy exposed, and now sexually frustrated.
The last thing I expected to hear at that moment was a soft, satisfied laugh.
Damn. The man could read me like an open book. “Do not laugh at me.”
Nico’s scowl had faded, replaced with a look of amusement. The twinkle in his eyes was even more satisfied than his laugh. He slowly withdrew his fingers, making me shudder, then stroked them up and down my sex, focusing on the aching nub on top. He pinched it between his fingers and tugged. I gasped, stiffening, my eyes wide, staring up into his.
The doorbell rang on and on.
Nico ignored it. “You gonna hide your feelings from me again, Kat?”
Stroke. Tug. Stroke.
“I—I can’t . . . okay yes probably.” The last part came out in a breathless rush as the coil of pleasure deep in my belly wound tight.
Nico kissed me softly on the lips. “The correct response to that question is ‘no,’ baby.”
Stroke. Pinch. Stroke. I couldn’t help the soft, pleading whine I made. More stroking, firmer, quicker, as Nico intently watched my face. His own was hard with desire. My lips parted wordlessly when I felt a tiny contraction.
And then, bastard that he was, Nico stopped.
“No! Nico!”
Without breaking eye contact, he lifted his hand to his mouth and sucked on the two fingers that had just been inside me. He really made a meal of it, too, running his tongue all the way down to the base of his fingers, sucking all the way back to the tips. It was sexy as hell. Then he crushed his lips against mine and fucked my mouth with his tongue.
He wrapped an arm around my back, hard as an iron bar, and held me against him, kissing me with so much passion and possessiveness it took my breath away. He rolled on top of me, gripped both my wrists in his hands, and pinned them to the pillow above my head.
The doorbell fell silent. With all my heart, I hoped the band had decided to take a hike down the canyon and would never be seen again.
Panting, Nico pulled away and stared down at me. His eyes were wild. He looked even more undone than I was. He looked about to explode.
So, brat that I am, I laughed.
I flexed my pelvis against his, feeling the hard length of his erection through his sweats. “Aw, what’s the matter big boy? Feeling a little frustrated?”
Fast as lightning, he sat up, pulled me along with him, flipped me over, and had me across his knees. Then he leaned down and sank his teeth into my bare ass.
I cried out, mostly from surprise. It stung, but didn’t really hurt. I think my ego was more hurt that he could flip me around like a pancake and I could do nothing to stop it.
Or could I?
I looked at him over my shoulder. When he glanced at me, kissing the flesh he’d just nipped, I lifted my butt so there was a pretty arch in my lower back. In my best phone-sex-operator voice, I breathed, “So you’re an ass man, then, Nico? Or . . . ” Slowly, I rolled over, watching as his eyes devoured the sight of my naked body. I cupped my breasts in my hands. “Are you more of a breast man?”
When he remained silent, staring down at me in molten stillness, I smiled even wider. “No? Must be a leg man, then.” I slid my hands down my ribcage, over my belly, and across my hips, then, catlike, stretched out to my full length, pointing my toes and lifting my hands over my head.
I was totally naked. Totally exposed to him. And, due to his expression of extreme desire, feeling totally fantastic.
Until he grabbed me by the ankles and dragged me across the bed, and on top of him. I wound up on his lap, legs around his hips, face in his hands, stunned by how easily he could manage my weight and get me exactly where he wanted me with minimal effort on his part.
Nico answered me in a gruff whisper. “When it comes to you, Kat, I’m all three. But make no mistake: I play to win. So if you wanna start this little teasin’ game, I’m not gonna stop until you beg me to.” He ran his tongue along my lower lip, and rocked his pelvis into mine, putting pressure in the exact right spot to make me softly gasp.
“You started it!” I might have already been begging a little. The band was a distant memory by now.
“Did I? Hmm.” Nico cupped my ass and ground me against him. My nipples skimmed his chest, sending jolts of pleasure through me, jolts that grew hotter and stronger when he moved his hands to my breasts and gently squeezed. He stroked his thumbs back and forth over my aching nipples, watching my face all the while. Watching as my lids grew heavy, my breath grew short, my pulse went haywire.
Oh God. Could he make me come . . . just like this?
I whispered his name. A small smile played over his lips.
“Yeah, baby? What is it? You got somethin’ to say?”
It was already on the tip of my tongue. Just one little word and I could fall apart in his hands. Please.
But that would be too damn easy. And if there was one thing I was determined not to be with Nico, it was easy.
Well, easier.
I smiled a little smile of my own. “Yes. Actually I do.” I reached between us, slipped my hand beneath the waistband of his s
weats, and wrapped my fingers around his stiff, swollen cock. His eyes went wide. I was more than a little satisfied to hear his sharp intake of breath. Sweetly, I said, “I play to win, too, handsome. You’re on.”
I kissed him. I stroked him as we kissed, loving the low, masculine sound he made deep in his throat, loving how hard I made him, loving how his breath was just as ragged as my own. My thumb swept over the velvet crown, and he groaned my name, fisting my hair in his hands.
At precisely that moment, the band walked in.
The first thing I did was scream. Then I dove off the bed and landed with a thud on the floor opposite the door, and hid.
Nico, on the other hand, decided that exploding in thermonuclear anger was the right way to deal with the situation.
“What the FUCK, assholes? Get the FUCK outta my bedroom!”
Amused chuckling followed his outburst. Then one of the assholes said, “Wouldn’t have had to come up here to find you in the first place if you would’ve just answered the door, bro. But I can see now you were . . . occupied. Must’ve been why you forgot to lock the door in the first place.” The voice rose, calling out to me. “Hi there, sweetheart! Kat, is it? Heard a lot about you. Don’t worry, we didn’t see much!”
I heard more amused chuckling, with a few snickers thrown in for good measure.
This day just kept getting better and better.
Suddenly the laughter was cut off cold by the sounds of surprised grunts, curses, and the unmistakable hollow thud and window rattling that occurs when a body is thrown against a wall.
“I said, GET THE FUCK OUT!”
Nico had descended once again into the unhinged zone. I peeked over the edge of the bed just in time to see him physically throw a big, muscular man with dark blond hair through the doorway, then turn and grab another man—brown haired, with a boyishly handsome face that stood in stark contrast to all the black leather he was wearing—and slam him against the wall, his forearm against the man’s throat.
“Take it easy, bro!”
I recognized this one from the video shoot. He was Brody Scott, Bad Habit’s lead guitarist, aka “Scotty.”
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