He seemed to consider his words. “I like this place better than the apartment in the city.”
“Really?”
“It’s more personal.”
“Like your business with my father.”
“Yes. Like that.”
Another crack of thunder sounded, followed by a flash of lightning that lit up the sky in a wicked zig-zag. The lights flickered, then went out.
Nico stood. “I’ll get some candles.”
She heard him moving around in the kitchen, and a moment later he appeared with two candles. He put them on the table and sat down.
She pushed her salad around with her fork before letting it fall to her plate with a clatter. “Why can’t you tell me what you want from him?”
At first he didn’t say anything. Just looked at her across the candle lit table. Then his gaze seemed to soften. “Because I don’t want to hurt you.”
“You don’t want to hurt me?” She choked out a laugh. “Right. That’s why you kidnapped me, threatened my brother, brought me to the middle of nowhere where no one will ever be able to find me.”
“I’m sorry about that,” he said. “All of it.”
She was feeling belligerent now, annoyed by her attraction to him in spite of everything he’d done, angered that he sometimes made her like him. It was all a lie. He was a criminal. The polished exterior was all artifice.
“I don’t believe you.”
“I understand,” he said evenly.
It only made her more angry.
“I think it’s all a lie,” she said. “Every bit of it. I think you’re just like every other criminal. You want money from my father, but you don’t want to cop to it, so you’re going to make it seem like he did something horrible, something that would make what you’ve done to me all right when there’s nothing my father could have done that—”
He pounded the table with his fist. “He killed my parents!”
Everything ceased to exist in the vacuum left by his words. There was only the rain beating against the windows, the waves seeming to crash right against the house as another bolt of thunder shook the ground.
She stared at him. “You’re a liar.”
“I’m not.”
There was none of his usual bravado, none of the satisfaction she would have expected from such a revelation.
He took a deep breath. “My parents were killed in an execution style hit two years ago. You’re father is one of the men who pulled the trigger.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“But he wasn’t alone,” Nico continued. “Someone helped him. Someone inside my organization.”
“I feel sorry for you,” she said.
“Your father has the security tape from outside the restaurant that night,” he said as if she hadn’t spoken.
“You want to kill him, and you’re making this up to justify it.”
The Nico who’d kissed her in his apartment, who’d made her come on the bench at the garden, disappeared behind cold eyes. “You’re right; I do want to kill him. But that’s not what this is about. I need that tape. Need to know who’s a traitor in my family. I’ll let the Syndicate deal with your father.”
“My father…” She started off strong, but the words seemed to leave her. She tried again. “My father is not a perfect man, but he’s no murderer.”
“I’m afraid he is, Angel.”
“Stop calling me that!” she shouted. She stood, pacing to the window. “It’s not my name.”
She felt him behind her—his chest against her back, his hands on her shoulders. “I’m sorry. I didn’t expect…”
She spun to face him, forgetting that he was so close, that if she turned she would be facing him, forced to look into his eyes, to feel the chiseled planes of his body.
“You didn’t expect what? That I wouldn’t believe my father is a cold blooded killer?” She shoved him away, but he only stepped forward again.
“I knew you wouldn’t believe it. I just didn’t expect to care.”
She turned her face from him as another bolt of lightning ripped the sky in two. “Another lie.”
“I care, Angel.” He put his hands on either side of her face, forcing her to look into his eyes. “So much more than I wish I did.”
She wanted to walk away. To block out the words that had to be lies. To ignore the feelings rushing through her like a tidal wave. But she couldn’t. His eyes bound her as sure as any chain.
“I hate you.” She’d meant for it to come out with some force, but it sounded more like resignation.
He stepped closer. He was only inches away, close enough that she could see the rise and fall of his chest. “I know.”
“I really, really hate you.”
He slid a hand into the hair at the back of her neck. “I know.”
“Nothing that happens between us will change that.”
He lowered his head, stopping when she could feel his breath on her lips. “I know, I know.”
The moment seemed to freeze, the air crackling with electricity to rival the storm outside. They were both breathing too fast, the tension between them rising like an unstoppable tide. She barely had time to register him closing the distance before his mouth was on hers.
Then there was no room for doubt or regrets. There was just his tongue sparring with her own, pillaging her mouth as his hands tipped her head so he could taste more of her. She molded herself to his body, wanting to feel every inch of him against her while he claimed her with his mouth.
He kissed the corner of her lips, continuing along her jaw until he reached the tender spot near her ear. She gasped as his hot tongue flicked against her skin. He took her earlobe in his mouth and sucked, then nipped at it with his teeth while his hands slid across her shoulders and down to her breasts.
She gasped. “I still hate you.”
“I know.”
She was pressed against the glass now, her legs weak and rubbery as he left a trail of kisses down her neck and across her collarbone. Her body was hot and wet, already screaming for him.
He cupped her breasts through her T-shirt, then growled as he raised his head. “Not this way. Not this time.”
Her skin clamored for the feel of his mouth, his hands. “Please…”
He took her face in his hand, rubbed his thumb across her lower lip. “Tell me.”
“I… I can’t.”
She wanted his mouth on her naked skin, his body sliding against hers with nothing between them. Most of all she wanted him inside her. Needed to him to fill the empty places in her body that were meant for him. But she couldn’t make herself say any of it.
He put her hand on him, and his hard length sent another rush of moisture between her legs.
His voice was low and dangerous. “You have to tell me you want it. That you want me.”
She didn’t have the willpower to second guess it. There was only need.
Desire.
Desperation.
She wrapped her arms around his neck and pressed against him.
“I want it,” she said against his mouth. “I want you.”
He pulled back, forcing her to look at him. “Look at me when you tell me you want me.”
She couldn’t have looked away if she tried. “I want you.”
He let out another growl and swept her into his arms like she weighed no more than a feather.
He carried her across the darkened room, the candles still flickering low on the table. By the time they got to the stairs, his mouth was on hers again, his tongue moving with more force, challenging her, taking everything she would give him and more.
She was barely aware of crossing the threshold of his bedroom. He kicked the door closed even though they were the only ones in the house, then set her down next to the bed and kissed her again while he reached for the bottom of her T-shirt.
He lifted it over her head and bent his head to her neck, working his way down to the hollow of her throat, flicking his tongue over th
e sensitive skin while he unhooked her bra. Then he cupped her breasts, teasing the nipples to hard points before letting his hand continue down her stomach.
He kept his eyes on hers as he slipped one hand into her lace panties, his fingers sliding between the hot folds of her sex. Her head dropped back as a moan escaped from her lips, and his fingers retreated. He slid the lacy garment from her hips.
“Fuck, you’re beautiful, Angel.”
She could see the outline of his erection and knew that he believed it. Then she was back in his arms as he lowered her gently to the bed. He bent over her all too briefly, his tongue invading her mouth just long enough to make the throbbing start between her legs.
She reached for him. “Please…”
She watched as he stripped off his T-shirt and had to resist the urge to gasp in appreciation. His biceps were big—bigger than they looked under the expensive fabric of his suit. His pecs were muscled and defined, tapering to a narrow waist and defined abs that begged to be touched, a trail of dark hair winding its way beneath the waistband of his sweats. She pressed her legs together against the pulse of an orgasm she could already feel building there.
He slid off his sweats, and the beat between her legs grew more insistent at the sight of him standing hard and ready for her.
A perfect specimen of man. A god.
He lowered himself onto the bed and pulled her against the length of him. She gasped at their first skin to skin contact; her breasts pressed against his well-formed chest, the insistent demand of his cock on her stomach. For a moment, he held her just like that while he looked into her eyes. Then his lips found hers, his tongue invading her mouth, sending a shock of desire straight to her center.
His kisses grew deeper and deeper. She met his demands and made more of her own, arching her back, wanting to be closer to him, to make it easier for him to reach every secret crevasse of her body.
His hands roamed her breasts and arms, her back and ass, all the way down the length of her thighs to her feet. He explored her like he wanted to memorize every curve, every recess. Finally she couldn’t take it anymore, and he groaned as she closed her hand around him.
“Angel… what are you doing to me?”
He pulsed in her hand, and she felt an answering wetness between her legs. She stroked him while he kissed his way down her neck. She could almost feel him inside her, imagine the rigid length of him pressing into her hot slickness.
He moved to her breasts and was suddenly out of reach. She grasped blindly for him, desperate to feel him in her hand again.
“Not yet, baby,” he murmured. “Just lay back. Let me taste you.”
His mouth closed on one of her breasts, and she had no choice but to obey his command. His took her nipple in his mouth and sucked, gently at first, then harder. She arched her back, overcome by a storm of sensation; his hot mouth on her skin, his cock sliding against her inner thigh while he worked her nipple, the occasional brush against her already-swollen clit.
When she thought she would die from the pleasure of it, he moved lower, working his way down her stomach. He bent between her legs and spread her thighs, sighing with pleasure as he looked at her. She squirmed, and he lowered his head and licked the length of her, running his tongue back and forth over her dewy folds before working his way to her clit. He slipped a finger inside her while he closed his mouth around the tiny bundle of nerves.
“Oh my god… Nico…” She reached for his head, twining her fingers into his dark hair, pressing against his mouth.
He slipped a second finger inside her, sliding in and out while he mercilessly worked her clit, lapping and sucking until she was almost out of her mind, delirious with pleasure.
The climax had been there all along, lurking at her core from the first moment he’d kissed her downstairs. Now it built with the force of a desert wind, and she moved her hips in time to his fingers and his mouth, reaching for the cliff, letting herself go in the moment that it became inevitable, stepping off the edge as the orgasm rocked her body, clenching around his fingers as she came and came.
When the last shudder had moved through her body, he lifted his head and moved between her legs. She already wanted more. Wanted to feel him inside her, fulfilling the promise he’d made when he pressed her hand against him in the living room.
He reached for the nightstand and tore open a condom. She sat up between his legs and took it from his hand, kissed his satiny tip, and slid her mouth down the length of him.
“Fuck, Angel.” He pulled her head away. “I need to be inside of you.”
She rolled the condom onto his shaft and he pushed her gently back onto the bed, lifting her knees, spreading her wider for him. She could feel the tip of him balanced against her opening. All she had to do was lift her hips.
He looked into her eyes. “I’m going to own you tonight, baby.”
She gasped as he drove into her. He filled and stretched her, pushing all the way inside until she could feel him everywhere. She matched him thrust for thrust, her whole body throbbing as lightning burst through the room.
Angel looked down at their joined bodies, the sight of Nico’s olive complexion against her pale skin making her even wetter as he slid almost all the way out before pushing into her again. He pushed until there was nowhere else to go, until the continuous brushes against her clit started another climax building inside her. It was a sweet kind of torture, and she grabbed onto his rock hard ass and drove him into her.
“Come for me, baby.”
His words only made her hotter, wetter.
He was moving faster now, his shaft bigger and harder, growing with his own climax. She moved with him, and he lowered his head to hers, thrusting his tongue into her mouth while he owned her, just like he said he would. There was nothing else in the world. Just Nico inside her, his mouth claiming hers, their bodies one and the same as she rocked toward her orgasm, coming in a rush that sent a burst of white light through her brain, eclipsing every other thought, every other sensation as he came with her.
He shuddered inside her with his last few thrusts, and she reached up and ran a hand through his dark hair, her mind suspended in a kind of pleasant white noise. When their breathing returned to normal, he stretched out and pulled her into his arms, kissing her gently but passionately on the mouth before nestling her in the crook of his arm.
She lay her head on his chest, listening to the slowing of his heartbeat as waves crashed outside the bedroom.
“I still hate you,” she said softly.
He kissed the top of her head. “I know.”
25
She woke on her side, Nico’s arm flung over her waist. The rain was still lashing the windows, the light weak and gray. She lay there for awhile, listening to the waves crash under the window, feeling the soft exhalation of Nico’s breath behind her. Finally, she slid out from under his arm.
She picked her clothes off the floor and went into her bedroom where she dressed in her jeans and a sweater that had been in the stuff Luca brought to her after the altercation with Dante. Had it been less than a week earlier? She couldn’t believe it.
Creeping past Nico’s room and down the stairs, she made her way to the wall of windows where Nico had kissed her. She tipped her head against the glass, letting it cool her forehead while images from the night before filled her mind; Nico’s hands on her, his head between her legs, his body joining hers.
Stepping outside, she closed the doors quietly behind her. The storm didn’t seem to be receding, and the waves were still rolling fast and angry onto the private beach below the house. She crossed her arms over her chest and made her way down the stairs to the sand.
The wind blew her hair around, the sting of it numbing her face as she walked down to the water. She relished the cold. It drove everything else out of her mind, made it hard to think about what Nico had said about her father, what she had done with Nico afterwards. There was the vague feeling that she should feel guilty, that she might even
be crazy to sleep with the man who’d kept her prisoner for the last two weeks. But it was so distant. So easy to ignore.
The ocean stretched endless and wide in front of her, blending in with the steely sky above it. Most of the trees on the shoreline were evergreens, standing out in sharp relief against the white and gray. She imagined what it looked like in the winter, the rocky shore covered with snow, the waves rolling in just like they always did, season after season. There was a kind of comfort in the certainty of it.
She felt hands on her shoulders, and Nico pulled back her wild hair and touched his mouth to her neck. His lips were hot against her cold skin.
“You’re freezing,” he said softly.
She didn’t say anything, didn’t move. As long as she stared at the sea, as long as she didn’t take her eyes off it, she wouldn’t have to think about anything else.
He turned her to face him and wrapped his big arms around her, swallowing her in the warmth of his embrace. He looked down at her.
“We don’t have to talk about this,” he said. “Not yet.” His eyes had turned a shade darker in the gray light, and he looked out over the water before returning his gaze to her. “I just want to be with you, Angel.” He sighed. “Can we do that until this storm breaks?”
She reached up to touch his face, then nodded. There was nothing to say.
He took her face in his hands and kissed her gently. “Come on. Let’s get you warm.”
He led her inside, up the stairs and into his bathroom where he started the shower. Then he carefully peeled off her wet clothes while she stood shivering and silent. When she was naked, he stripped and led her into the shower, moving her so that she was fully under the warm spray of water.
He shampooed her hair, starting at the top just like she did, careful not to let it get too tangled. Tipping her head back into the water, he worked the shampoo from her hair, then started on her body, soaping her gently like a child. At first, she could feel nothing beyond the warmth of the water. But little by little, his hands brought her alive. They moved over her shoulders and down to her breasts, slippery with soap, Her nipples hardened of their own accord, and a fire built in her belly as he soaped her hips, washed between her legs.
Ruthless: Mob Boss Book One Page 12