Facing West

by Lucy Lennox

  Either way, my body was sending me every message that I wanted this man. And my brain was nodding its fool head like an idiot. It was only my heart hiding over in a corner by itself whispering, Please don’t do it—you know I can’t take it again.

  In the end, the vote was two to one in favor of allowing Weston Wilde to do whatever the fuck he wanted to me. So when he put me down in what I quickly realized was his kitchen, I was all in.

  But just because I was all in, didn’t mean for one minute I intended to make it easy for him.

  Chapter 14

  West

  Now that I had Nico Salerno in my kitchen, what exactly was I expecting to do with him?

  I stared at him, feeling a powerful urge to dominate the man. The urge was unlike anything I’d ever felt before. Had you asked me a few hours before what I was like in bed, I would have said I was pretty much plain vanilla. Boring as hell—give, take, whatever. Little bit of both, mostly and always done with manners and polite respect.

  But with Nico? I didn’t want to give, I wanted to assault. I didn’t want to take, I wanted to command. My muscles thrummed with the need to overtake him. To grab his shoulders and force him to his knees in service of my raging hard-on. My teeth wanted to bite and nip every last inch of him, and my tongue wanted to slide into places on Nico’s body I’d never even laid eyes on before.

  I didn’t want to sleep with the man.

  I wanted to own him.

  While my head had been swirling with thoughts of taking him, my body had been stalking forward slowly until my chest bumped his body back against the kitchen wall. Nico’s eyes were wide and his pupils blown. He wanted me as much as I wanted him. I could feel it as easily as I could feel the warm breath of his exhales against the skin of my neck.

  “Take off your coat,” I said gruffly.

  His eyes narrowed, but he did as I said. I watched the twin hoops in his bottom lip and knew they were my first target as soon as I had the green light to put my mouth on him.

  “What are we—” Nico began, but I cut him off.

  “Shoes next.”

  “What?”

  I stepped back, crossed my arms in front of my chest, and looked down at him. “Take off your shoes.”

  Nico’s nostrils flared. “Like hell I will.”

  Very slowly, almost in slow motion, I moved my hands to the wall on either side of him and my lips to his ear. Our cheeks brushed lightly against each other, and my nose felt the cold metal of his multiple ear piercings. I breathed hotly into his ear. “Take. Off. Your. Shoes.”

  His entire body shuddered against me, and I felt him kick his shoes off to the side with the movement of his body’s tremor. Something about his following my orders made my cock even harder, and I knew I was playing with fire.

  I kept our cheeks together and nuzzled my nose under his ear before whispering again. “Now take off my coat.”

  He bristled but did as I commanded, muttering the whole time about what a bossy motherfucker I was. It took all my self-control not to snicker.

  I could tell he was trying to decide whether or not to fight me. It was like there were two Nicos there—the one who wanted to fight me and the one who wanted to fuck me.

  And I was fine with fighting and fucking. In fact, if I was being honest, I wanted him to struggle. I wanted him to want it of course, but I was okay with him being angry about wanting it. I was a little angry about wanting it too. I wasn’t supposed to want Nico Salerno—punk-ass tattoo artist from California who wasn’t all that keen on babies. But we didn’t always get to choose who pushed our buttons. And he sure as hell was pushing all mine.

  Hard.

  I kicked off my own shoes and ran my hands from his shoulders down to his wrists. “What do you want, Nico?” I asked in a low voice. “Tell me.”

  He looked up at me in surprise, unable to believe I’d ask for his feelings on the matter. I could see his thoughts jamming up in his brain as if he was unable to decide what he wanted, much less how to answer me.

  I leaned forward again until our foreheads were pressed together.

  “Let me tell you what I want then. I want to fuck you. I want to dominate you. God help me, I even want to throw you around a little. You drive me up the fucking wall, but I want you more than I’ve wanted anyone in a very long time, if ever. Let me have you.”

  His aquamarine eyes were huge and dark, and his breathing was coming faster and faster.

  “Please,” I whispered against his lips. “Please, Nico, let me take you.”

  The moan that came out of him was full of want and need and desperation. But most of all, it was one hundred percent capitulation and acceptance. The minute I heard it, I sprang into action.

  My hands were still holding his wrists, and I brought them up above his head on the wall where I took both of them into one hand and held them tightly. My mouth landed on his in a crush, and I swallowed his whimper while stamping down one of my own.

  His mouth tasted like strawberries, and I licked into him to find more sweetness. I used my free hand to cage his throat so I could devour that mouth as long as I wanted to without him moving. Nico’s hips tried to thrust into mine, but I pulled my lower body away. Lord only knew why I refused him the satisfaction of rutting against me, but I did.

  I spent full minutes exploring his mouth and then softening the kisses to toy with the little hoops in his bottom lip. I licked and pulled and fiddled until Nico was panting short breaths against my mouth.

  By the time I had to pull away from the kiss to catch my own breath, he made a sound of frustrated disappointment.

  “Let me touch you,” Nico said, arms still pinned above him.

  “No thanks,” I teased, mimicking his response at the bonfire.

  I saw his nostrils flare again and knew that angry Nico was getting ready to come out to play.

  Game on. I fucking loved angry Nico.

  “Let me touch you goddammit,” he snarled, pulling at my grip to get his hands free.

  “Nope,” I mocked again. This time I leaned forward and licked along the edge of one of his ears before speaking into it. “You didn’t really think I was going to let you control this, did you?”

  He made a quick attempt to knee me in the groin, but I anticipated it. I spun him around quickly until he was facing the wall and I was plastered along his back, one hand holding his wrists above our heads again and my lips against the back of his neck. My knees were bent a little on either side of his legs so I could stay pressed against him while I kissed his nape. My cock settled perfectly against the crease of his jeans.

  “Say the word ‘stop’ and all this ends, okay?” I promised him, flexing my hips into him. “I have no interest in fucking around with someone who doesn’t want me.”

  Nico didn’t say a word but nodded. Good, we were on the same page.

  There was some kind of tribal tattoo along the side of his neck, and I traced it with my tongue. I slowly moved my free arm under the hem of his shirt and around to his abdomen.

  All his muscles clenched in anticipation of my next move.

  “God, you feel so good, Nico,” I murmured. “I want to touch you everywhere. Lick you everywhere. Shove my cock so deep inside you all I can hear is your voice screaming my name.”

  “Jesus, fuck,” he moaned. “Please.”

  I moved my hand down his stomach to his waistband and flicked the button open before sliding just my fingertips under the very edge of his underwear band.

  “You want me to touch you, Nico?” The sound of his name on my tongue tasted like the carrot that had been dangled in front of me since he’d waltzed into town the week before.

  “Yes,” he breathed.

  “Mm-hm?” I nuzzled into his hair, smelling a mix of bonfire smoke and the shampoo smell I’d noticed earlier. My fingers lowered farther, and I felt the wet tip of his cock against them. I groaned against his skin. “So fucking sexy. You’re already leaking for me?”

  I heard a sharp inta
ke of breath and felt his cock jump out and lightly slap the back of my hand.

  “Please, West… I want to touch you,” he asked again—only this time I felt like I was hearing the real Nico behind the words. So I let his hands go and moved my hand from his wrists down into his pants to grasp his erection.

  Chapter 15

  Nico

  It was quite possible I was going to come the minute I felt those warm fingers wrap around my stiff cock. I gasped and quickly dropped my own hand down to squeeze the base of it just as he reached for my shaft.

  “Stop!” I barked before I could stop myself.

  Within a split second, West was gone and I almost fell on the floor from the loss of him. I reached out to grab the wall for support. There were no longer hands in my boxer briefs. No longer a strong body pressing me against the wall. No hot breath on the back of my neck raising goose bumps all along my skin.

  “W-West?” I asked, turning around to look for him.

  He was standing several feet away with a look of regret on his face. Was that because of me? Had I done something to make him change his mind about this?

  “Nico, I—” he began.

  “What the hell just happened, West?” I asked. “Where did you go?”

  “What?” he asked incredulously. “You said stop! Dude, you said to stop so I stopped, just like I said I would. What did you expect me to do?”

  I played back the past few moments in my head and burst out laughing. “West, I said stop because you were gonna make me come. Jesus. I only said stop for you to let go for a minute and let me stave off my goddamned orgasm.”

  The corner of his lip quirked up on one side. “Really? You didn’t really want me to stop?”

  “Hell no, I didn’t want you to stop. Are you fucking kidding?” I stalked closer to him and brought my hands to the hem of my shirt. “I thought we were just getting started. I simply wanted it to last longer than five seconds.” I yanked the shirt over my head and threw it to the side.

  West grinned at me then, and it was the cutest fucking thing I’d ever seen. My heart did a stupid little flip-flop deal, and I resisted the urge to hug the man. Instead, I leaned in and let my mouth trail kisses along his jaw, his neck, and down into the open collar of his shirt.

  “Take off your shirt.” Now I was the one commanding, and he was the one whimpering in response.

  The turnabout only made me hotter because I realized he didn’t mind. He hadn’t been interested in proving a power dynamic between us, and he was clearly willing for the rules to change so long as it suited both of us.

  His fingers scrambled to his buttons and began undoing them as fast as he could. As soon as the last one was undone and the shirt was on the ground, I leaned in to whisper against his ear. “Put your hands on the counter behind you.”

  “Fuck you,” he said with a grin in what I supposed was his “mocking Nico” voice as my hand found the bulge of his cock in the front of his pants and grabbed ahold of it. His hands quickly went behind him to grip the edge of the counter so he could thrust his hips into my hand. “Don’t stop.”

  “Not gonna stop. Gonna drive you fucking crazy. Just watch.”

  His eyelids were at half-mast, and his breaths were coming in ragged pulls. I placed my right index finger on the hollow at the base of his throat and slowly ran it down the center of his chest to his abdomen, his belly button, his blond happy trail. All the while, his throat made little noises of pleasure and his muscles contracted in waves.

  “Nico,” he panted.

  I smiled to myself as I opened his pants and ran my open palms down into the back of them, cupping the round globes of his ass.

  “Nico, oh my god,” he groaned again. His voice was beginning to come out rough and the broken sound caressing me like a hand on my cock. My own pants were still open, my hard-on pressing against West’s belly. A clear, glistening string of precome ran between my tip and his abdomen.

  My lips went to his muscled chest, and I licked, nipped, and kissed my way down until I got to his open fly. As I knelt on the floor, I looked up and met his wide eyes while my hands shucked down his pants and underwear.

  “I’m negative,” I said softly. “I need to know if—”

  “Yes, same.” He breathed quickly, making clear eye contact with me.

  I nodded, knowing he, as a doctor, understood the dangers but needing to put it out there regardless. It was something I took seriously, and I needed to make sure he did too.

  When I finally ripped my eyes away from his intense gaze and looked at his cock, I barely refrained from an audible gulp. It was a nice fucking cock, but it was thick enough to intimidate me just a little.

  I looked up at West again and saw a completely different look on his face. It was less intense lust and more… I wasn’t sure. Softness? Sweetness? It was enough to make me pause and wonder what had changed. Whatever it was, I wasn’t sure I liked it.

  He quickly pulled his pants back up, crouched down in front of me, and slid his hands onto either side of my face to cup my jaw.

  “Nico, will you let me take you to bed, please?”

  His voice was velvety smooth, and something about the situation made me feel like there was suddenly a boulder sitting on my chest.

  I’d never in my life had someone sink to the floor to stop me from sucking them off because they wanted… more?

  My eyes met his, and I saw a gentle kindness in them I’d been trying so hard not to notice before. My body still wanted him, my brain was still bobbing its fool head, but my heart…

  My heart was shaking its head from side to side and muttering to itself.

  Just as I suspected. Now you’ve gone and done it. My poor heart, urging me once again not to let this man in.

  But I went ahead and did it anyway.

  Because I was a stupid motherfucker.

  Chapter 16

  West

  If I wasn’t so intent on getting Nico into my bed, I might have laughed at how mixed up my emotions were. I was two sides of a convoluted coin when it came to Nico. The horny “fuck him, fuck him now” side and the lovesick “wrap him up in your bed and hold him” side. One wanted to bark at him to strip and get on his hands and knees. The other wanted to run a bubble bath and rub his fucking feet.

  I’d never in my life felt both those things so strongly for another person.

  When I’d seen him kneel for me, it was too much. I wanted my cock in his mouth desperately, but I didn’t want him like that—a quick suck on my kitchen floor with half our clothes still on.

  So I asked if he’d let me take him to the bedroom, and he’d looked at me like I’d asked a deckhand if he’d wanted to keep the yacht for himself. Like he couldn’t believe his luck. Like he was being offered something he didn’t deserve.

  Which just made me angry. Why didn’t he think he deserved to be treated better than a blow job on the floor? What had happened to him in his life to make him think he wasn’t worth being treated with kindness and consideration?

  He slowly stood and looked at me like a skittish colt, ramping up my heart rate even more with an unfamiliar feeling. And when he reached out for my hand to help me up, I felt it even more. It was like a happy crush. As if I was truly beginning to have feelings for the man.

  And all that shit scared me stupid since I hadn’t been looking for anything like that with Nico Salerno. I’d brought him to my house to sleep with him, not to fall for him. I needed to get us back on track with the sex-only plan.

  Once I stood, I pulled him in and kissed him briefly before leading him toward my bedroom.

  In the short time it took us to get there, I’d become even more determined to shed the feelings part of what was happening between us and just focus on the physical stuff. I could worry about the deeper shit later. Or not.

  “Or not” would be better.

  I led him into my bedroom and quickly pulled him against me again for another kiss. His lip rings brushed my mouth, pulling more sounds of ple
asure from both of us while my hands made quick work of the rest of our clothes.

  Once we were completely naked, I lay him down in the center of my big bed and crawled over him. His tattoos stood out in sharp contrast from the stark white bedding, and I took a moment to run a hand over some of the images.

  “So much ink,” I murmured. “Why so many different designs?”

  A shadow passed over his face, and he looked away, turning his head to the side to take a breath. I quickly leaned down and nuzzled into his neck, trying to find the space under his ear that had seemed to make him feel good before.

  “I’m sorry,” I said quietly. “Never mind.”

  “Less conversation,” he said gruffly, exactly the way the Nico I’d met on day one would have responded. But he was right. We weren’t there to chitchat. We were there to fuck.

  I began to press kisses along the tendons of his neck, following them down to his shoulders and arms and over to the piercings in his nipples. I tentatively flicked at them with my tongue, and when Nico’s gasps of pleasure ramped back up, so did my confidence. I played with the piercings until he was sucking in breaths; his knuckles were white where he clutched handfuls of my bedding.

  Finally my mouth made its way to his cock, which was still fully hard and dripping onto his skin. My mouth watered at the sight, and I moved farther down his body until my mouth was propped right above his dick.

  We locked eyes again as my tongue came out and lapped the precome up. Nico’s long fingers threaded into my hair as he tried to keep from bucking in response to my mouth on him.

  I continued licking and softly sucking along his tip and crown until Nico began to beg.

  “West. West, please,” he gasped. “Swallow it goddammit. Please.”

  Hearing him beg made me feel bubbles of happiness in my gut, but I wouldn’t allow them out for fear of pissing him off and ruining the moment. In any nonsexual situation, I knew he’d be damned if he’d beg anyone to do anything. But that’s what made me feel so powerful right then.