“You could train your entire life for something and still not be good enough to go pro. I guess I wasn’t good enough.”
“Sorry, little one, but I’ve seen you dance, and you not being good enough isn’t even a question. Are you auditioning for roles?”
“Parts, and I was. I went to a few auditions but never got any calls back. They always found something wrong with me. After a while, it all summed up to the fact that I’m not good enough.”
When the waitress came over they gave her their order of a medium pizza. Ice waited until she walked away before he started again. “Everyone at the bar think’s you’re great. Hell, Lou can’t stop talking about you.”
Her smile, even small, lit up their small booth. Were compliments really that few and far between?
“What about your parents? Where are they?”
“Most likely on the north end of town where they live. My father’s an attorney, and my mother stays at home waiting hand and foot on my father.”
“Wow. That’s quite the job.” A job like that meant two things. Money and power. Two things he only dreamt of having one day.
“Those are his accomplishments, not mine.” Her voice was tainted a little with bitterness as she talked about her father. Anyone else would see that as a sign that the subject of her father was a touchy subject for her. That only made Ice want to dig up more.
“There’s something different about you. I told you the other night, I felt you didn’t belong working at Big Dogs.” Her face fell with his words, and he couldn’t help but feel he had caused her some pain.
“Do you get along with your parents?”
“I always thought I did. Here lately, I’m learning we are completely different people. I’m finding out my parents and I have different views on family and where my life should go. I guess you could say we want different things in life.”
“Like what?”
The waitress chose that moment to drop the beers off at the table. Ice took a long pull from his Bud Light before setting it in front of him again. He watched as Nicole sipped at hers, wrinkling her nose as she swallowed down a taste. The corners of his lips curled up in a grin. Why would she continue to torture herself drinking a beer if she didn’t want it in the first place?
“What is it that you and your parents feel so differently about?”
She avoided his eyes by keeping hers were glued to the beer bottle in front of her. “You know, all the same things that most parents and children argue about. Where I should go to school, where to work, who to marry. My father thought he could control my life, and for the most part I let him. When he all but demanded I married a guy I didn’t love…that’s when it hit me. I’m done letting him control my life.”
“He wanted to pick your husband? Are you talking an arranged marriage?”
“No. Mark and I had been dating for six months. He works with my father at the law firm. Mark’s on a mission to quickly work his way up in my father’s favors. I only started dating him because my father introduced us at a dinner party and thought we would make a good couple. Again, I was trying to please my father.
“When I first started seeing Mark, he was nice and sweet and everything I thought I wanted in a guy and possible future husband. About a month after going on dates with him, I saw the dull and boring man who cared more about what my father thought than about what I did. It started to feel like I was dating a clone of my father.”
“Dull and boring, huh?” Ice felt pretty sure those were two words she would never use to describe him.
She nodded and took another drink from the bottle in front of her. Her face scrunching up as she swallowed the bitterness. “I promised myself I would never live the life my mother had. I would never be the silent, obedient wife.”
His blood run hot at the thought of her living the life she had described. Nicole was too vibrant and free to live the dutiful life her father and ex-boyfriend wanted her too. She didn’t strike him as the obedient type. Submissive, maybe.
Turning her body over to a man for pleasure and throwing your dreams away to please another were two completely different situations. He would love to see her bow her head and except his commands in the bedroom, but could never see her strip herself of who she was entirely.
“Where is Mark now? Have you heard from him?” His heart thumped in his chest as he waited for her to answer. Even though it shouldn’t, it bothered him a lot to think she still talked with her ex-boyfriend. He should be grateful if she were still pursuing a relationship with him, confirming her unavailability for him to pursue. Not that he wanted to.
“If I had to guess, I would say he’s buttering up next to my father somewhere, hoping to find another way into my father’s pocket. I haven’t heard from him since the night he proposed. I knew Mark didn’t love me like he said he did. He’s in love with the idea of being my father’s only son. The last night I saw him, Mark, my father, and I had an ugly fight. My father told me if I didn’t accept Mark’s proposal then he would cut me off all his financial support.”
“So, that’s how the daughter of a big-shot attorney ends up working at a bar like Big Dogs.” It all started to make sense.
“My father gave me the choice, marry Mark and be financially secure, or choose not to marry him and be on my own. There’s not much out there in the line of jobs for someone who spent their life pursing an art they don’t seem to have the talent for.”
The waitress brought their pizza out, placing it on the table between them. As she walked away, Ice picked up a knife and cut them both off a piece, sliding hers over on a small plate. She took a bite from the slice of pepperoni, swallowing it down before she turned her gaze back to his.
“So I told you my story, now what’s yours?”
“We’re not here to talk about me.” He devoured a slice of pepperoni pizza. His life story wasn’t suitable conversation for the table.
“When did you start fighting?”
Now that question, he could answer. “I seriously started about three years ago. I came across Maverick as a coach by chance. After getting a job behind the bar, Lou decided to sponsor me as his in-house fighter. It’s great publicity and a great way to get a fan base started. No sponsors are going to pay a fighter top dollar when there’s no fans lining up to buy tickets to watch him fight. Fan base drives up the interest.”
“Were you born in Ireland?”
“Yes.”
“Do you miss it?”
He took a moment to think about it. “There are things I miss. It’s my home, but there’s no one left there that requires missing.”
“Out of all the countries, why choose here? Chasing the American dream?” She smiled in her way of ensuring he knew she only teased.
“I moved here to the States four years ago to be with my grandfather. He was dying and didn’t have any other family to be here for him.”
“I’m sorry.” The sincere look in her eyes made it a little easier to cope with the memory.
“He was a shit of an old man anyway. I guess I would be too if I lost all my family and didn’t have anyone when it came time to say my final goodbyes.”
“But he wasn’t alone. You were there with him.”
He nodded, picking up a napkin and wiping his fingers off on it. “I might have been there, but I was an asshole to him. When I first came here, I ended up getting involved with the first Americans I met. They reminded me of the people I had back in Rosslare Harbour, my home in Ireland. They were real shits. Drugs were a big part of life there, and it’s what I knew. I felt comfortable falling back into the same old crowds.”
“You got into drugs?” She took another drink from the beer and winced as the liquid made it down her throat.
He smiled at her submissive behavior. She would rather suffer through the taste than not drink it at all because he had ordered it for her. “You know you don’t have to drink that.”
“I know.”
He grinned as he finished his own bottle of beer
. “I got into a lot of drugs, heading down the same road I was on back home. That’s when I met Maverick for the first time. He told me if I got back into using or selling he would be done with me. He would never have a user associated with the name he had built for himself. I started fighting, got clean, and never looked back.” Strangely enough, it felt good opening up to another person. Besides Maverick and Johnny, no one knew about his past. It wasn’t something he was proud of.
The silence dragged on between them as they finished eating. Nicole broke the quiet first. “I’m sorry I ran that girl out of your apartment tonight. I just…” She stopped herself from saying more which pushed his curiosity further.
“What?”
“You keep turning me down. And you wouldn’t even let me into your apartment, not even as a friend. When I came home tonight and heard her laughing and then I saw her sitting there…it kind of pissed me off. Made me question what she had that I didn’t.” She shook her head with a nervous laugh. “Sorry. I let my ego get the better of me tonight. I’ll try harder. Still friends?”
His gaze roamed over her face, watching as it lit up with another one of her breathtaking smiles. If she only knew what those little smiles of hers did to his body, she probably wouldn’t give them out so freely.
What the hell was he thinking? The last thing he needed to be doing, sitting across from her, was thinking about how beautiful she was. Thoughts like that only got him deeper into shit he didn’t need to be in.
“Let’s get out of here. I want to show you something.” He pushed out of his chair and paid the bill as she waited for him before stepping out into the summer night air. Seattle was known for its rain, but in the summer they were graced with great evenings. Not too moist, leaving it warm enough to enjoy. Nicole turned in the direction of his truck, but they weren’t leaving yet.
“This way. We can walk to where we need to go. It’s a block up here.” He nodded in the opposite direction. They walked to the edge of the block and turned.
As their destination came into view, she took in a sharp breath. “Oh wow. Look at that sunset.”
He looked out toward the yellow, pinks, and blues that were splashed across the sky from the sun’s departing light as they stopped at the wooden rail at the water’s edge. The colors from the sky reflected on the surface of the dark sea water.
“This is breathtaking. I’ve never been down here before.”
“And you have lived here how long?”
She frowned. “All my life. My parents were never the type to make family fun moments. In the past, the only vacations I can remember going on were to places my father needed to go to anyway for business.”
“I saw this for the first time, the day I arrived here. I left the airport, hopped into a cab, and told the driver I wanted to see the waterfront. This is what I saw.”
Nicole leaned forward crossing her arms in front of her, bracing her elbows on the wooden railing. “It’s beautiful.”
He watched her peer across the water. Nicole might have come from money and power, but she never said or did anything that would make someone feel as if they were not her equal.
“You’re beautiful.” The words slipped from him without a moment to think about them. He immediately wanted to take them back, but he couldn’t without fear of causing her pain.
Her head snapped around toward him with shock. After a brief second, her face grew hard, and she looked away. “See. This is what I’m talking about.” Her body suddenly circled around to face him head on. He turned his body to meet hers, waiting for the verbal lashing he deserved. Their chests were separated by mere inches.
“You say all the right things, and you make me think these looks and touches could evolve into something between us, and then you push me away. I don’t understand what kind of game you like to play, but it’s starting to piss…”
Ice grabbed her face between his hands and crushed her mouth under his. He swallowed her words. In the moment of her telling him off, he had never seen a more beautiful woman in all his life. The lustful animal inside him clawed at his insides to get to her. To make her his.
His heart raced, his breathing grew heavy, and the need to bury his cock inside her made him want to scream in frustration.
Running his tongue along the crease of her lips, he waited for her to respond. To open for him. Once she did, he slid inside, drinking in her taste. This is what he needed. Nicole was what he craved. Why deny himself or her what they both clearly wanted from each other? She was already buried deep in his thoughts and absorbed in his mind all day and night. There was no getting her out from under his skin. It was far too late for that.
He slowly pulled away, just enough to end the kiss, but he didn’t step away. His hand slipped from the side of her cheeks to dive finger first into her auburn hair. His voice when it came, brushed across her lips like a whisper. “I’ve tried to stay away from you, little one. I told myself it’s the right thing to do, but I can’t avoid it anymore. I want you, Nikki. I want you more than I can remember ever wanting another. I don’t want to hurt you.” He stared down into her face as fear prickled his insides. He didn’t want to see any more disappointment in her eyes.
“Then don’t.”
“Nikki…?” She didn’t let him finish. Instead she wrapped her arms around his neck pulling his lips to settle back on hers.
In that moment, he lost the fight. He got knocked the hell out. Ice pulled her closer, wrapping his arms around her waist sinking deeper into the sweet taste of her mouth.
This had been a fight he wasn’t going to win from the start. He knew that the day he first met her. He hoped like hell he was still in one piece when she was finished with him.
Chapter Seven
Nicole followed Ice back to his truck where they spent the next ten minutes in a heated game of who could touch bare skin the fastest. Locked in a kiss, they struggled to get under and around each other’s clothing. No matter how much her body ached for him, there wasn’t a chance in hell she was going to let their first time together be inside his truck.
They ended the kiss long enough to get them back to the bar and upstairs to her apartment. She would have liked for him to have invited her to his apartment, but she didn’t want to push her luck. He was slowly opening up to her, making her proud of his progress.
Before the door to her apartment closed behind them, he pushed her back against the door covering her mouth with his. His enormous hands moved to the bottom hem of her T-shirt, and with one quick movement, he ripped the garment over her head and tossed it to the floor to be forgotten. Their mouths hungrily ate at each other like two starving animals unable to get enough.
His fingers tugged the cups of her bra down, tucking the fabric under the weight of her breast, exposing the round globes to him while forcing the tips high in the cool air. Heat raged through her blood, and her pink nipples throbbed in their erect state.
Ice pulled away from her lips but not away from her body. His hot tongue left a path of moisture along the skin on her neck as his lips moved down the side of her throat and trailed his kisses to the sides of her breasts. He sucked one of her hardened tips into his mouth. Arching her back, she tried to get farther inside his warmth. The fire in her body screamed at her to get closer to him.
He swallowed her deeper as his hot mouth dragged a moan from deep inside her chest. Her hands dropped into his hair, and she ran her fingers between the short lengths. Moving his mouth to her other breast, he used his fingers to pluck and play with the stiff wet peak his mouth left behind.
She wanted to feel him against her burning skin. The muscles inside her pussy clenched with her growing need for him. Her hips thrust against his waist, brushing her aching mound along the hard erection at the seam of his jeans. He drove her crazy.
Ice licked his way back up the valley between her breasts. “I can’t keep my hands off you.” He kissed the edge of her chin and placed another hard caress upon her lips. “I need to know what every inch
of this body feels like.” Grabbing her hands in his, he backed away walking them down the narrow hallway that led to her bedroom.
“Remember, when I told you I have a different taste in sex?” His question sent a thrill through her body.
She swallowed the lump of nerves that bundled in a knot in her throat. “Yes.”
He paused at her bedroom door. “If you don’t want to do this, Nikki, tell me now. I would never ask you to do anything you aren’t comfortable doing. I have never forced or begged a woman to endure my likes or wishes. And as much as I want you right now, I’m not going to start.”
He left the ball in her court. If she said no right now, it would end their playing and end their chances of being together. Not knowing what he would ask of her made her nervous, yet eager to find out. The fact that she had wanted this man since the moment she laid eyes on him helped seal her fate. She had a small taste of him and now she craved more. There was no turning back.
Her nerves were more on alert tonight than they were the night she had lost her virginity. Her first time had been quick and to the point. Sex with Mark had been the same way. The two of them had sex only twice. Mark was always too busy working on cases to take any real kind of notice in her. When they had slept together, it had been a lot like her first time, quickly performed and left her feeling unsatisfied. After Mark came, he would roll to his side, forcing her to take matters into her own hands.
She had a strong feeling that sex with Ice would be nothing like anything she had experienced before. He told her he liked things different, leaving her unsure if that meant there would be pain involved. She knew some people got off on sexual pain, but she wasn’t a masochist. Pain and agony wasn’t a turn on for her. Those thoughts left her hoping she could be what Ice expected her to be.
Taking in a deep breath, it was time she let go, push her fears aside, and test the waters. “I want this. I want to see what this side of you is like. I want to know this part of you.”
“Baby girl, I can’t tell you what it does to me to hear you say those words. We’ll start off slow. Take our time. Do you know what having a safe word means?”
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