by Cassie Wild
By the time the water was boiling, I had something of a list, mostly out of a desire for a real meal that had nothing to do with packaged food and everything to do with a need for a homecooked meal. I wanted a steak, mac and cheese, and green beans. Maybe even corn on the cob. Cooking for one could be a bummer, but right now, the need for comfort food was strong.
Dumping the noodles into the water, I blanked my mind on just why I was craving comfort food.
I’d brooded over that enough for the day, hadn’t I?
Thoughts of Nicco weren’t far away at all, and I couldn’t rid my memories of the expression that had been on his face just before he’d walked away. Self-disgust churned inside me, and I couldn’t make it go away.
I just didn’t let myself think about it.
Once the noodles were done, I finished the rest of the prep and grabbed a pair of chopsticks from the drawer. I ate standing up, with a diet soda open by my side as I stared off into nothing.
I wasn’t getting anything serious accomplished, so once I was done eating, I was going to shower and head to the grocery store. Tonight, I’d have real food.
Maybe watch a movie. Or read a book. Something that required little to no thought sounded ideal, so it was probably going to be a movie.
Just as I was finishing up the noodles, somebody knocked on the door. Lowering the bowl to the counter, I went to check and see who it was.
The second I looked through the little peephole, my heart started to race.
It was Nicco.
He knocked again, head bowed, with one hand braced on the doorjamb.
My breath hitched in my lungs, and I backed away a step, looking down at myself.
I was dressed in a sloppy, beat up pair of jeans and one of my rattiest old t-shirts. It fell a little short of my navel, leaving a strip of my midriff bare.
What was he doing here?
He knocked again, and I had to decide…do I open the door?
Hurriedly, I shoved a hand through my hair then reached for the doorknob. If he’d waited twenty minutes, I would have been showered, at least.
He looked up at the sound of the door opening, and our eyes met. Self-consciously, I slid a hand down over my clothes, smoothing the worn, old shirt down at my waist.
His eyes slid down over my torso, then back up to meet mine.
“Nicco.”
He blinked slowly, his lashes shielding that magnificent blue from me for a second before looking back at me. Inclining his head, he asked softly, “Can I come in?”
“I…um…”
“Are you busy?”
“I was getting ready to shower. I need to…” I was babbling and putting him off, afraid of what he might want to say to me. Straightening my shoulders, I met his gaze squarely. “I’ve got errands to run, but they can wait. Come on in.”
I’d never been a coward. I wasn’t about to start now.
And there was some small, foolish part of me that was dancing in delight to see him again. I wanted to grab that small, foolish piece and hide it, tuck it away before she could slip out and make a bigger fool of us both by doing something humiliating…like throwing my arms around him.
I curled my fingers into my fists because they itched to touch him.
Nicco eyed me strangely, and I realized I’d yet to step out of the way to let him in.
Forcing myself to back up, I let him in, and once he’d passed by – man, he smelled so good – I closed the door.
Crossing my arms over my exposed midriff, I met his eyes as he turned to face me.
“How are you?” he asked, his voice polite. Oddly formal.
“I’m good. And you?”
He nodded in lieu of answering and looked around my apartment. “Do you mind if I sit?”
I shrugged. But he wasn’t looking at me, so out loud, I said, “Feel free.”
He took a seat in the broken-down armchair my dad had passed on to me when I’d moved into this place.
I settled in the middle of the couch, my hands tucked between my legs.
“I shouldn’t have talked to your sister,” I said, forcing the words out of a tight throat. His eyes swung in my direction, and he arched a black brow. “It was over the line, and I’m sorry.”
Nicco nodded. “You’re right. It was over the line.” He cleared his throat, then added, “But I do understand you’re dealing with something that was pretty hard on you. I know what Gabriel Marks did had an impact on you.”
“An impact,” I echoed. My voice sounded hollow, even to my own ears. Rising from the couch, I paced over to the window and pushed the curtains aside, staring out over the little terraced space that served as my backyard. “I don’t think you realize just what an impact it had, Nicco.”
He was quiet, but only for a few seconds. When he spoke again, his voice was closer. “Maybe you should tell me.”
I turned and saw that he’d risen from the chair and moved until he was only a couple of feet away.
“It destroyed their family. Mr. Mike…that was Mary Jo’s dad. He was such a fun guy. He loved everybody. But he was…proud. He always thought he could handle everything, do everything. Then this thing comes up that’s bigger than him and when he messes up…he lost everything, Nicco. He had his own business, and he was looking at the possibility of losing not just that, but their home. Their cars…” I shook my head. Tears burned my eyes, but I blinked them away.
Nicco cleared his throat. “You don’t–”
I held up a hand and looked back outside, focusing on the anger that burned just under the grief. “Yes. I do. One day after school, I was walking home with Mary Jo. We were going to study. We go inside and…” My voice hitched. Giving myself a second, I took a deep breath, waited until I knew I could speak without the words trembling, then I forced myself to go on. “The house was quiet. It wasn’t ever quiet like that. Mary Jo’s mom had yoga on Wednesdays, so we weren’t expecting her to be there. But it was still just so, so quiet. And we’d seen her dad’s car in the driveway. We didn’t know why he was home. But we went to go say hi…” The tears threatened again, memories of the girl I’d been rising to taunt me. I turned to face Nicco. “We found him in his office. He’d killed himself. He had a handgun and he…” Shaking my head, I looked away again.
Nicco muttered something under his breath. After a second, he said, “So you, the two of you found him.”
“Yes,” I said, my voice already raw. From the corner of my eye, I saw him lifting a hand toward me, but I backed away. “Don’t, okay? I’m…I just need a minute.”
He nodded. “Take your time.”
Easing away from him, I slid away from the window, paced a few times back and forth in front of the couch. “He couldn’t handle it, so he just left them. I know all the trite phrases about suicide – both the shit people say about how he should have been stronger, and the shit people say that he was suffering and the depression got to be too much. I know all of that.” I stopped and looked back at Nicco. “And I also know that if he’d never met Gabriel Marks, there’s a damn good chance he’d still be alive.” Mouth dry, I turned away from him once more. “Excuse me. I need a drink.”
I made my way into the kitchen and grabbed the diet soda I’d left sitting on the counter. I wished it wasn’t so early so I wouldn’t feel bad cutting it with some Jack Daniels. Then I remembered…I didn’t have any.
“What the hell.” Grabbing my pencil, I added whiskey to the list just as Nicco came into the kitchen behind me.
Eleven
Nicco
“I’m sorry,” I said behind her.
She stood bent over the counter, scrawling something down.
Her shoulders stiffened at the sound of my voice but relaxed in the next breath. “Thank you,” she murmured.
She dropped the pencil she’d been holding then turned to look at me. Her pale green eyes were turbulent with emotion, the tears she hadn’t allowed to fall spiking on her lashes. “It’s why I became a cop, you know. I’m going
to focus on fraud. I don’t want anybody to go through what Mary Jo and her parents went through.”
“You went through it too,” I said softly.
She swallowed hard. “I didn’t lose my dad.”
“But you were close.”
She opened her mouth, then closed it, giving me a jerky nod. “They were like another set of parents. My mom died when I was so young…Mary Jo’s mom…” She sniffed and laughed, the sound watery. “Half the time, I called her Mom too. They moved not long after the funeral. Needed a new start. Mary Jo and I, we tried to keep in touch for a while, but eventually, she stopped calling, stopped writing. When I’d call her, she wouldn’t stay on the phone long. She needed a clean break. I understand that.”
She’d lost all of them.
Something in my chest ached, and I wanted to reach out, pull her against me.
But she looked so fragile.
Shit, no wonder her brother had come to talk to me.
“I’m sorry,” I said again, uncertain what else I could offer.
She gave a jerky nod and turned back to the counter. I watched, feeling useless as she reached up to the cabinet over the refrigerator, then closed it without getting anything out. A hollow laugh echoed out of her, and she said, “I want a drink, but I need to get to the store and buy some damn whiskey. The only thing I’ve got here are a couple of lousy beers.”
Uncertain of my reception, I moved up behind her. She went stiff as I got closer, and I waited for her to turn, to pull away, to do something – anything – that made it clear she didn’t want me this close to her.
She turned slowly and faced me.
“Suria called,” I said, the words dragging slowly out of me. “Apparently, Joelle insisted. She wanted us both to know she thinks we were overreacting.” I thought back to how I’d laid into her, and while I still didn’t like that she’d gone to talk to my kid sister, I had to wonder what I would do in her place.
“She’s wrong,” Ravenna said, putting her hands on the counter behind her, curling her fingers around the edge. She angled her chin up, meeting my eyes levelly. “I appreciate it – she seems like a sweet kid, but I knew going in that I was crossing a line. She told me she was eighteen, but I could see in her eyes she was lying. I never really asked her anything. Once I figured out that she was a minor…” She huffed out a heavy breath and shrugged. “Anyway, that’s beside the point.”
Was it?
I had to wonder.
Learning that she hadn’t asked Joelle anything, having Joelle insisted we’d overreacted, all of it was making me rethink everything.
Unaware of my train of thought, Ravenna continued to speak. “Look, I’ve got baggage when it comes to Gabriel Marks, Nicco. Maybe you understand more about that now.”
“Yeah.” With a nod, I settled against the counter opposite her, studying her while need pulsed inside me. I’d missed her. It hadn’t been that long since I’d touched her, yet it felt like months had passed since I’d held her in my arms, since I’d touched her. “I still want to help you bring him down. Suria and I both do. We’ve got baggage of our own when it comes to him.” I hitched up a shoulder and tried not to think about the way the t-shirt she wore so lovingly outlined her breasts. “Joelle wants to help too. But we’re not letting her get close to Marks. Not after the shit he pulled with her the last time.”
Ravenna’s eyes met mine, her brow winging up, but I shook my head. It didn’t seem like the time to go into detail about everything Marks had done to his kid – what else he had been willing to do.
“She’s afraid of him,” she commented, her eyes holding mine in an unblinking stare.
I inclined my head. “Yes.”
“Why…” She stopped and shook her head, lifting her gaze to focus on the ceiling. “I don’t get it. Why would either of them want to help? Why do you?”
“Well, there’s the fact that Gabriel Marks is a first-class scum bag,” I said easily. I shrugged when that teased a faint smile out of her. “There’s no other way to put it. Unless you want me to get rude.”
“I can get plenty rude myself when it comes to him. But you’ve been out of his life for twenty years. You told me that your sisters were recently estranged. Why do you want to get pulled back into that?” she asked, her voice soft.
“Maybe none of us like knowing what kind of man he is…maybe we don’t like to think about him being out there destroying lives,” I told her. “You don’t have to be a cop to care about shit like that.”
Her cheeks flushed slightly, and she looked away. Silence stretched out between us, heavy and weighted. It was broken when she finally heaved out a hard sigh and reached up to rub at the space between her eyebrows like she was bearing the same headache I did. “I know that. I just don’t know why people would want to wade into this mess if they don’t have to.”
“You don’t have to. You just feel like you should. Maybe it’s the same way with us. He’s our father.” I had to force the word out. It left a nasty taste on my tongue, and I felt the urge to rinse my mouth out – find a toothbrush or something. Maybe that would take the bad taste away.
“You’re not responsible for the things your father did, Nicco,” she pointed out.
I wondered how she’d feel about the things Suria had done – the things she’d been raised to do. She had no plans to go back to that life, but it had been all she’d known, all she’d ever had a chance at knowing. Would Ravenna be so forgiving then?
“Do you want to talk to Suria?” I asked, almost reluctant to put the question out there.
At some time, all the ugly, dirty history would come out. There was no way to avoid it.
Then we’d just have to see where the chips fell.
Ravenna nodded. “Should we do it now?”
“No.” I crossed the floor and stood in front of her, wondering what she would do when I touched her.
Slowly, I reached up and cupped her cheek, her skin soft and warm against my palm. She shivered a little under my touch, her eyes widening, her lips parting.
“No…we shouldn’t talk to her now?” she asked, tipping her head back to stare into my eyes. “Why not?”
I lowered my head, rubbing my lips across hers. “I’ve got other things I want to do right now.”
She took a sharp breath of air in, sealing our mouths together. I licked my tongue over her lips, and she opened for me, a willing invitation. I was more than happy to take that invitation too. Sliding my tongue past her lips, I groaned at the taste of her. Sweet and hot. I’d never get enough of her.
Ravenna rose onto her toes and curled her arms around my neck.
Under the thin tank, I could feel her breasts crushing against my chest as she pressed herself tight to me. I skimmed my hands up her sides to cup the warm flesh in my hands.
She sucked in a harsh breath and tore her mouth from mine, her head falling back, limp, leaving the long elegant line of her neck exposed. I bent my head and dragged my mouth down the pretty curve, pressed my lips to the flutter of her pulse.
“I’ve missed you,” I whispered against her flesh.
“I missed you too.” She tangled her fingers in my hair and dragged my head back down, and a second later, she fused her lips to mine again.
It was a hungry, desperate kiss, one that fired the hunger simmering inside my blood. Not that I needed to be fired anymore. She was already in my blood, under my skin, in my soul.
“Ravenna,” I muttered against her lips, cradling the back of her skull in my hand.
She moaned against my mouth, a hungry, plaintive sound.
Half-mindless already, I deepened the kiss and pulled her even closer.
Twelve
Ravenna
My blood roared in my ears as Nicco boosted me up onto the counter, his lips trailing down my neck. He left a path of flame everywhere he touched, his lips skimming across my pulse, his fingers sliding up under my shirt and roaming along my belly where my short t-shirt left skin bared.
&nbs
p; Tendrils of heat twined through me, and I shivered as he grasped the hem of my shirt and pulled, stripping it away. He did it slowly, as if giving me a chance to resist, but there was no resistance in me. He could do whatever he wanted to me, however he wanted, and I doubt I’d even question him.
As he flicked open the catch of my bra, I shoved my hands into his hair and dragged his mouth back to mine. “Kiss me,” I demanded. “Kiss me again, Nicco.”
His lips covered mine, his tongue sliding out to dance and rub against mine in a sinuous play.
I shuddered, intoxicated by him.
He cupped my breasts and stroked his thumbs around my nipples, drawing them into tight, hot points that pulsed in time with my racing heart.
Heat arrowed down, gathering in my core.
I wiggled, straining to get closer. Wrapping my legs around his hips, I pulled him in, but when I went to rub against him, he reached back and unhooked my legs. “Slow down,” he murmured, pulling away, his mouth once more roaming down to trail along my neck. “Is there a big rush?”
“I just want you,” I said, heat scalding my cheeks as I told him.
He cupped my face in his hand, angling my head back. “You have me.” Nicco swept me up into his arms and spun around, laying me back on the kitchen island behind me. “I’m right here.”
I lay there, my back on the cool surface of the island as he reached for the waistband of my jeans, freeing the button. His fingers slid across my navel, dipped below the lacy band of my panties before retreating.
My heart thudded hard against my ribs. Pushing up onto my elbows, I watched him. He levered himself up over me and bent down until our mouths were just a breath away.
“You’re beautiful,” he whispered, lowering his head a fraction more and rubbing his nose against mine. “I see you in my sleep. I taste you in my dreams. You’re starting to haunt me, Ravenna.”
I closed the distance between us and pressed my mouth to his.
He let me kiss him for a moment, but before I could take the kiss any deeper, he broke away, urging me flat to my back.