Beauty and the Barracuda

by Winter, Nikki

  Luciano cleared his throat and mumbled, “Yes sir.”

  “Good. Good. I rather like it when it’s silent. It keeps me calm.”

  Sansone met his brother’s eyes in the rearview and mouthed, “What. Is. Happening?”

  Luciano shrugged, waving his hands. “I dunno!”

  Nyssa was missing in action, Samara was pregnant, and Sansone had the feeling his brother’s personal assistant might have a criminal record they weren’t aware of.

  ***

  Mother of God…she’d actually done it. Samara’s pregnancy had beenannounced on air. Nyssa couldn’t thrash her like she wanted to, but there would be finger pointing and a possible slap fight, goddammit!

  She lugged out of the elevator on her sister’s floor and used her key. Nyssa strode in and stopped after stepping over the threshold. “Okay,” she started, dropping overstuffed shopping bags onto the floor. “When you said you were going to announce your pregnancy on air, I thought you were joking.”

  That particular statement sent them snowballing into an argument. And her sister could and would always be mouthy enough to push her buttons.

  Eyes narrowing, Nyssa shoved one of Samara’s shoulders. Samara shoved back. They were good and deep into a lovely slap fight when the knocking on her door interrupted it.

  Pushing her away, Samara headed toward the hardwood. “I suggest you thank either Paz or Trip for saving your sorry ass from my fists of...” The moment she opened the door, her words seemed to die on the tip of her tongue.

  Sansone stood there, Luciano behind him, but instead of Sansone’s eyes focusing on Samara, they were directed toward Nyssa.

  “And where have you been?” he demanded, stepping past Samara.

  She didn’t like his tone, she didn’t like that he was invading her space, and she didn’t like the fact that he’d found her. Nyssa did the only thing that came naturally. She threw up her hands and said, “Fucking the New York Giants. The linebackers have some really good techniques.”

  They got into a shouting match from there that was interrupted by the booming voice of Samara’s current problem.

  “Yo!” Luciano suddenly snapped, causing Samara to visibly jump as he pointed toward Nyssa and Sansone. “You two shut it.” He looked back to Samara. “You. Bedroom. Now.” Stepping past her, he strode toward the back as if he owned every square foot not only of her condo but her.

  They all stood by, watching his every step.

  “Now, Sammie,” Luciano demanded again without turning around, his voice casual.

  Samara bit down on her lip before following, leaving Sansone and Nyssa alone with no more than a soft click of her bedroom door. Nyssa’s single buffer between herself and her own issues was now gone, and here Sansone was standing inches away, his stare leaving her immobile.

  “You ran from me…again.”

  The quiet accusation made her open her mouth to point out that she hadn’t set this separation snowball into motion but she stopped. “Why do you have a bruise on your jaw?”

  Sansone tucked his lips in and shrugged like a little boy. “I fell.”

  “Bullshit.” She reached up and turned his head, staring at the angry-looking mark. “Someone hit you.”

  “I ran into a wall.”

  Nyssa’s eyes narrowed. “You just told me you fell.”

  “I fell after I ran into a wall?”

  “You’re lying to me.” Jabbing in him in the bruised area and ignoring his yelp, she said, “You were fighting with Luc again.”

  “I don’t think I appreciate your allegations.”

  “I don’t think I appreciate your breathing the same air as me, and yet I tolerate it.” She went to pull her hand away and he held fast. “Sansone—”

  “You. Left,” he growled, walking forward and backing her into the arm of the couch. “You left and you’ve been hiding from me.”

  Her lips parted and Sansone interrupted with, “I advise that you choose your next words carefully because I can pretty much swear that anything spoken from this point on will thoroughly incriminate you and every punishment I’ve plotted will be the consequence.”

  There was something wrong with her. There had to be something wrong with her. Why? Because she suddenly found herself wanting to taunt him with a softly whispered, “Punish me.” Instead she chewed the inside of her cheek and mulled over her next response. It needed to be something reasonable; something that wouldn’t result in her being face-down on Sansone’s lap.

  “I just thought—”

  “What?” he cut in. “You thought one disagreement meant I was completely done with you? You thought I wouldn’t be back? You thought I wanted to spend the last few nights alone? Tell me, Nyssa. What is it you thought?”

  This wasn’t going the way she needed it to. The predatory gaze he was currently giving her seared right through her, and Nyssa tried to swallow, tried to get rid of the sudden dryness in her throat. “Sometimes being apart for a little while helps.”

  Sansone gave her a sharp smile. “Did it?”

  “Did it what?”

  “Help?” He leaned in, the tip of his nose nearly brushing her own. “Do I look well? Do I look happy? Do I look helped?”

  Clearly she’d underestimated just how furious he’d be.

  “I didn’t go out of the country, Sunny. I was just a few hours away.”

  “That’s not the point!” His hand slammed down near her hip. “You did what you always do when you panic, you ran. We had one fight—one—and you undoubtedly used it as an excuse to feed yourself more shit about how hard this is, how difficult you are to be with, how badly things could end.” A muscle leaped in his jaw and his voice dropped when he added, “You don’t get to decide for me anymore.”

  Her heart dropped to her stomach. “What does that mean?”

  “It means I’m done playing the catch and release game with you, Nyssa.”

  Inexplicably, she felt her throat thicken and she could no longer hold his stare. Focusing just over his shoulder, she replied, “I understand.” This was to be expected, right? There was only so much a person could take before they were tired, and Sansone was obviously exhausted. Her indecisiveness had cost her, and Nyssa had no one to blame but herself. She’d allowed one incident, one heartbreaking moment, to overshadow what was standing in front of her.

  “No, cara,” Sansone whispered, bringing his forehead flush with hers. “You don’t but you will.” Nyssa’s eyes flicked back to his own and he gave her the sweetest half smile. “I’m done releasing you. The next time you want to panic about us, you’re going to have to do so with me calmly reading the paper beside you.”

  She sucked in a deep breath as he placed a kiss just over her brow. “I made things worse by walking out on you, and for that I’m sorry.” Sansone trailed a finger down her cheek. “But I’m still going to punish you, baby.”

  Relief washed over her so strongly that the backs of her eyes stung. “I’m sorry about James and I’m sorry if I made you feel like—”

  “Shh,” he soothed. “Don’t apologize for him. He’s insignificant. You’re trying. I see you trying. I’ve waited for eight years. I can wait a few months.”

  She smoothed her lips over his jaw. “I know I’m difficult. I just want to be sure. I want you to be sure.” Wrapping an arm around his waist, she buried her face in the crook of his neck. “This part of us, what I experience with you, scares me. Not because I don’t trust you, but because I can’t be sure I trust myself. I need to know I won’t get in my own way. I need to know I’m not the common denominator in every relationship that’s crashed.” His grip tightened on her and she added, “I know you’re not James, Sunny, but I’m still Nyssa—which means I have a greater chance of fucking everything up than you do.”

  “Cara—”

  “No, Sunny,” Nyssa interrupted. “I was determined to remain in control from the moment I became truly aware of how the world views me. I’m black and I’m female in a male-dominated profession.
My success came from literal tears. I’ve cried so many times before and after interviews, before and after scouting, before and after dinner meetings that there were days I wanted to simply hand in my letter of resignation and start all over. When I fell for James it was because I saw him as an escape from the discrimination I experienced. I thought—I felt—that he looked at me and saw value, saw his equal. I never blinked in his direction in public, I was casual, always cool, and any smile I gave him held nothing outside of respect for my superior. My career was everything to me, and the thought of losing the respect of my colleagues, my clients, because they believed I hit my knees on a regular basis to achieve it literally terrified me. So I distanced myself. I remained aloof and inconspicuous, but I did everything I could behind closed doors to show him what he meant to me. What I didn’t see was how very little I meant to him in the grand scheme of his pride. As I found myself gaining a reputation in our business for all the right reasons, he suddenly wasn’t the man I’d loved anymore. He was resentful—bitter—about my success because I’d done it without him. He tried to force my hand by asking me to marry him.” She felt him stiffen. “I knew that if I said yes he’d take out his dick and piss all over everything so I told him no.”

  “And to hurt you, he called me in,” Sansone finished.

  Nyssa nodded. “I know the difference between the two of you. I know what kind of man you are. I know who it is that remembers my favorite sandwich and holds my hand under the table. I. Know. You.” She closed her eyes. “But I’m not so sure if I know me. I’ve thrown myself into everything and everyone else for as long as I can remember; I love what I do, and yet it scares me to think that there’s nothing distinctive about me aside from that. When James and I parted ways, he told me I should enjoy my career, my image, because that’s all I’d ever have, all I’d ever truly be.” Something wet rolled down the bridge of her nose. “I don’t run from you because I want to hide from you, Sansone. I run because I’m fucking petrified that one day you’ll look up and see what he saw; that one day you’ll believe I’m expendable.” She fisted the back of his shirt. “What James did burned me…but you leaving, you saying good-bye would damage me in a way I don’t think could ever truly be repaired. I don’t take comfort in the fact that you fuck me. I take comfort in the fact that if I roll over in the middle of the night, I feel you there. When I reach for you, you reach back. When I need you behind me, I don’t have to look over my shoulder because I know. When you touch me, you own me.”

  He was silent for so long that she started to move away, but he gripped her tighter and asked, “Do you love me?”

  She couldn’t have said anything aside from, “Yes.”

  His sigh was so deep that she felt it. “Ti amo più di quanto tu possa mai veramente sapere.” He rubbed a hand down her back. “The moment you smiled at me I was yours. You didn’t even have to speak a word. You may feel like you’ve lost control but you haven’t. I’m volatile with you, sporadic because I have no rational thought where you’re concerned. All I know, all I understand, is that I belong to you. You own me. Signed, sealed, and delivered. You control me.”

  For the briefest moment, she couldn’t breathe.

  “You’re not breathing, baby. I need you to breathe.”

  She sucked in a lungful of air.

  “Cara?”

  “Yes?”

  “You also think entirely too much.”

  Nyssa lifted her head to glare up at him. “Is now the time to discuss my neurosis?”

  “Yes.” Sansone smirked. “You also obsess too much, and by God and the might of my pelvis, I will end that.”

  “What…why…” She exhaled. “How am I supposed to even respond to that?”

  “Easy, baby,” he murmured. “Just say you believe in the might of my pelvis too.”

  Nyssa smacked him on the chest as he laughed. She searched his face. “And James?”

  “I’m less concerned about your inconsequential fuck-face of an ex and more concerned about the fact that you won’t quit that bad habit you have.”

  “Which would be…?”

  “Refusing to carry out my very reasonable requests when asked.”

  “Sunny, texting me in the middle of a meeting and asking me to let you fuck me up against the bathroom door in your office—because you want to see if we can manage to break the frame—is not a reasonable request, and I’m fairly certain it would be considered sexual harassment in a court of law. Whispering in my ear before dawn that you want to fuck me so hard the sun goes back down is not a reasonable request, and if I’m not mistaken, it goes against every basic principle of science. Pulling at the straps of my bra and bellowing, ‘Release the Kraken!’ whenever the mood strikes you is not only lacking in being an actual request, but it also defies the very laws of reason.”

  “I feel like you’re attempting to tell me that my behavior is both inappropriate and illogical,” he murmured.

  “That’s exactly what I’m trying to tell you.”

  “Heh,” Sansone said. He then shrugged nonchalantly and asked, “Are you wearing panties right now?”

  “Sansone!”

  He leered. “You can either answer me or I can find out on my own.”

  “And this just got ridiculous.” Nyssa sighed, pushing at his chest.

  Standing firm, he ran his hands down her sides to her hips.

  “Sunny…”

  “Quiet, female. I’m conducting an investigation, and if I’m going to get accurate information I need to concentrate.” He played with the hem of her knee-length ribbed skirt. Nyssa’s breath shuddered out on a sigh as he rubbed a fingertip just over her inner thigh. The fleeting touch left her core convulsing and her nipples beaded “You know what I think, cara?”

  She slowly shook her head.

  “I think it doesn’t matter if you’re wearing them or not because by now they’re ruined.”

  Arrogant bastard. He was so right and she hated him—absolutely hated him. Her eyes widened as he suddenly dropped to his knees before her. “What are you…?”

  “Do I need to explain the simple fundamentals of silence again?” Sansone softly asked.

  The underlying steel in his tone was enough to make her squeak, answering him with a quick “No.” The last time they’d had one of his “lessons” he’d sat her on his cock during a conference call, saying that if she was a good girl and kept quiet, he’d make her come so hard she’d dig grooves into his desk with her nails. Sansone had kept his promise.

  “Good.” His voice dropped as he stroked his palms along the backs of her calves, running then past her knees and up to her thighs. Nyssa bit the inside of her cheek and shot a glance toward Samara’s bedroom door but lost focus as cool air hit her now-bared skin. He’d pulled up her skirt. “How many times have I watched you glide past me in one of these and wondered when I’d get the chance to do this?”

  She didn’t know, and right about now she really didn’t care.

  Leaning forward, he pressed an open-mouthed kiss just above her knee and she dug her fingers into the leather of the couch. When he swirled his tongue around that same spot her lids slid closed. He placed another just a little higher and cream moistened the lips of her pussy. Breathing became a chore as her next exhale escaped on a hiss.

  His right hand left her thigh and hooked into the lacey side of her boy shorts, tugging her panties down. “Spread your legs wider.”

  Nyssa and when she went to step out of them he shook his dark head. “I want them exactly where they should always be when we’re alone—around your ankles.”

  She whimpered, and his forefinger slipped between her labia, briefly circling her clit. Slapping a hand over her mouth, she tried to stem the needy cry in the back of her throat as it rose.

  “These moments are my favorite,” he stated mildly. “And do you know why?”

  “No,” Nyssa whispered, feeling as though her heart would explode as he kept up the butterfly touch on her nubbin.

  “
Because it’s the only time I find you completely and totally open to me.”

  Opening her eyes, she gazed down at him just to find his stare focused on her face. He gave a slow blink. “When your pussy is drenched and you can’t breathe because every inhale feels as though it’ll make your lungs cave under the pressure. When your eyes are hazy with lust and your lips are swollen because I’ve spent a precious amount of time making them that way.” He took his finger away from the small bundle of nerves and palmed the halves of her buttocks. “When you’re raking your nails down my back and shrieking my name because your inner muscles are convulsing to the point of borderline pain, the sweet agony of a long-withheld orgasm finally taking over and shoving you into delirium.” Sansone gave a firm squeeze with just enough bite that she felt herself moving just that much closer to coming. “That, Nyssa, is when you’re the most open. That is when I don’t have to question what you’re thinking about because I already know.” His eyes seemed to darken. “Me.” Then he buried his face between her thighs and licked her from opening to clit. He stopped to wrap his lips around it in a gentle tug that made her grasp the strands of his hair and pull while riding his tongue when it tunneled into her cunt.

  It didn’t matter that someone could’ve walked in on them right then and there. It didn’t matter that she’d probably have to buy her sister something extremely pretty just to get rid of the guilt she’d feel for letting Sansone go down on her in the middle of her apartment. It didn’t matter that sex could quite possibly scrub already coarse emotions the wrong way. The only thing she found herself concerned with right now was the sensation of Sansone swirling his tongue over her clit in a slow figure eight while sliding three fingers into her canal and curling them upwards.

  Then he simply stopped.

  Nyssa’s eyes flew wide as he stood and smoothed her underwear back into place before doing the same for her skirt. He kissed her forehead then the corner of her mouth. “Your punishment starts now, sweetheart.”

  Her mouth dropped open, and she had every intention of calling him the first name that arrived on the tip of her tongue but the sound of Samara’s bedroom door opening froze them both.