Nico

by Sarah Castille

  Tremors of excitement rippled through her body. The silence of their encounter, secret, forbidden, stoked a fire inside her. She gave herself over to the sensation of his hot, wet mouth on hers, the rock and grind of his pelvis, the grip of his hand on the soft cheeks of her ass.

  If he wanted to share his pain, she would welcome it. If he wanted to give her his body, she would open herself up and let him in.

  With a low groan, he rolled until she lay on her back beneath him. Nico knelt between her parted legs, drank in her body like he was dying of thirst. His big hand cupped her wrists and pinned them to the bed above her head. She writhed in his grasp, fighting the pull of desire, his powerful grip. But he would not yield. He had bared himself to her, but he was still firmly in control.

  With one leg between her thighs he leaned over and closed his mouth over her nipple, sucking with hard pulls of his mouth. She felt each exquisite tug low in her belly and arched her back, savoring the connection she felt when she was with him, that sense of rightness she’d experienced the first time they met.

  He pressed her breasts together, licked one nipple and then the other, teasing them both until dampness trickled between her legs. Just when she thought she couldn’t take anymore, he slid down, nibbling and kissing her stomach until she bucked her hips, trying to get him to the place she wanted to go.

  With one hand still holding her wrists, Nico knelt between her legs and ran his thumb between the seam of her lips.

  She licked his thumb, drew it into her mouth, sucked it deep to show him what she wanted to do, how she could take away his pain.

  A low, husky growl rumbled through his chest. He stepped off the bed, and stripped off his clothes with quick efficiency. But when she sat up, moved to the edge of the bed, intending to make good the promise of her mouth, he pressed her back on the soft covers and positioned himself between her parted thighs.

  Yield to me, his body silently demanded.

  She yielded with a sigh, lay back, and opened herself to the most feared mobster in Vegas.

  With gentle fingers he stroked along the sides of her labia, slicking her moisture up and around her clit. Her hips shifted restlessly on the bed, and she moaned, urging him toward her entrance. Nico settled between her thighs, his broad shoulders pushing her legs apart, his breath hot with promise. Mia threaded her fingers through his hair pushing him down with a silent plea.

  He kissed her deeply, intimately, his tongue pushing inside her. She gasped and bucked against him, giving herself over to the pleasure of his sensual mouth. Lifting her hips, he took her to the brink as he licked and sucked, alternating deep thrusts of his tongue in her center, with butterfly touches over her clit. Her every muscle trembled with anticipation, her stomach tied in knots.

  She felt his thick finger open her, sliding in slowly, torturing her with pleasure. Her legs shook uncontrollably and he added a second finger, drove into her hard and fast. Her ass pushed off the bed, and she strained toward him, hunger driving her out of control.

  He pressed her back down, holding her in place. His fingers plunged in and out; his tongue rubbed hard and fast, sending her higher and higher, her arousal peaking just as he sucked her clit into his mouth.

  She broke the silence with his name on her lips, undulating against him as pulse after pulse of pleasure sparked through her body, draining her of tension, stripping her of need, drugging her with passion.

  He was up and on his knees before she had a chance to come down, reaching for a condom. Mia lay panting beneath him, drenched in sweat, her heart pounding beneath her ribs. She loved how he made her feel vulnerable and strong at the same time. Loved the silence of this encounter where he told her with his body what he couldn’t say in words.

  Sheathing himself quickly, he leaned over and took her mouth in a fierce kiss—tongues clashing, teething banging, hunger raging out of control—as he positioned himself on the bed. Lifting her legs easily to his shoulders, he thrust hard and fast into the wetness of her folds. Mia’s pussy clenched at the intimate invasion, and a groan came from deep within her at the renewed rush of sensation as his thick cock pushed through her sensitive tissue.

  With slow, measured strokes, Nico withdrew and thrust again, his muscles taut, chest slick with sweat, biceps straining as if he were struggling for control. Her head rolled from side to side, hips lifting, her body trembling as he gave her his power with the lightest of touch.

  Wanton hunger burned through her, her lower body tight with need as her arousal shot higher and harder than before. Finally, he increased his speed, his balls slapping against her pussy with each hard thrust. Her legs quivered. Her body shuddered. She couldn’t move and yet she felt empowered. Her mob boss had come to her. He needed her. And she wanted to give him the pleasure of her body, as she took her own pleasure from him.

  With each merciless thrust, his powerful muscles bunched, his breathing labored, and yet his gaze never left hers.

  Her climax came in an explosion of sensation, all the more intense for the connection she felt as he watched her come apart around him.

  “Mine.” With a growling roar of pleasure, he hammered into her until he released, his cock throbbing inside her, pulsing as he came.

  He collapsed on top of her, taking his weight on his arms as he feathered kisses along her jaw. She wrapped her arms around his body, desperate to keep the deep connection between them—the one she thought they had lost but now she hoped could be saved.

  With one last soft kiss, he eased away to dispose of the condom. He returned to the bed moments later, pulling her against him to lie just as they had before.

  “Ti adoro,” he murmured. “Il mio cuore è solo tua—My heart is yours.”

  “Ti amo, Nico.” Mia drifted off to sleep soothed by the gentle rise and fall of his chest, the strength of his arms, the warmth of his body, and the soft murmur of his voice as he told her how he felt in the language of love.

  When she woke the next morning, he was gone. Only the dent in the pillow beside her showed he’d been there at all. But his words stayed warm in her heart. She just wished it could be forever.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  Mia knocked on her father’s office door. She hadn’t been surprised to receive the summons after teaching her class at the community center. After all, she had brought her new husband home when her father wasn’t around.

  “I’ll be right outside.” Kat gave her a hug. She had returned home with Mia, worried about their mother being left alone. “If anything happens, I’ll call Big Joe and he’ll send Nico.”

  “Big Joe?” Mia gave her sister a puzzled glance.

  Kat blushed. “He was so nice when I was at his place. It wasn’t like being guarded. It was like finding a new friend. When I left, he gave me his number and he told me to call if I needed him.”

  “He has a little girl,” Mia warned her. “And some messy ex drama going on. He’s also a lot older than you. And in the mob. And there’s also something else about him you should know.”

  “You’re beginning to sound like Mama.” Kat gave an exasperated sigh. “I’m nineteen, Mia. I understand the danger. But sometimes you can’t help who you fall for, and when you do, the baggage doesn’t matter.”

  “Come.”

  Mia swallowed hard at the sound of her father’s voice. “Wish me luck.”

  “You don’t need luck,” Kat said. “You have strength. You have me. And now, you have Nico.”

  Heart pounding, Mia opened the door and walked into her father’s office. This time there was no fire in the fireplace, although the curtains were still drawn. He had two guards with him she didn’t recognize, and he was seated, as usual, behind his desk.

  “I hear you married Nico Toscani.” His dark eyes blazed as anger crept over his face.

  “Yes.”

  “I’m not a fool, Mia. I know you did it to get out of the marriage to his cousin. You’re a stupid girl if you thought you could defy me.” He scrawled on a piece of paper in front of
him, as if their conversation was nothing more than an idle chat.

  “You’re partly right.” She straightened her shoulders. “At first, I did it so I didn’t have to marry Tony, and to save Kat from any more of your abuse, but I cared for him when I married him, and now I love him. So if you think I’m going to agree to have the marriage annulled, think again. As with all Cosa Nostra marriages, it is forever.”

  “Forever only lasts until one of you is dead.” He looked up and held her frozen with the cruel smile on his lips. “That gives you about one hour to enjoy your marital bliss.”

  Dread crept over her, leaving goose bumps in its wake. “What are you going to do?”

  He gave her a haughty smirk. “The question is not what I am going to do, it’s what have I done? I’ve sent someone to deal with the problem. I can’t run a business when Dante is being chased around the city by that Toscani bastard who just can’t give up the pathetic vendetta that he’s clung to for ten fucking years.” His calm facade slipped and he pounded his fist on the desk. “Nor will I tolerate being disrespected by my own daughter who is determined to dishonor the family.”

  “You put a contract on him?”

  Her father laughed. “I didn’t just put a contract on him; I baited him. I’ve turned his fucking quest for revenge against him. I’ve sent him around the city hunting down false leads on Dante, and tonight I’ll put him out of his misery. He knows where Dante is, and he’s on his way to whack him. Except Dante isn’t the one who’s going to be whacked. And just to be sure nothing goes wrong, I’ve enlisted some help. I’m not the only one who benefits if Nico Toscani is dead. The rest of his family wants rid of him, too.”

  She stared at him aghast. “You’re working with Tony?”

  “Soon to be my new son-in-law, and a man who shares my vision for how to make Cosa Nostra great again in Vegas.”

  Fury rose up in her chest like a fireball. “If you hurt him, I will destroy you. Everything you’ve built, everything you have, I’ll take it away. I won’t rest until you are nothing.”

  “Another vendetta.” Her father raised an idle hand. “I am not afraid of you, Mia. You’re a woman, and for some reason you’ve never been able to accept that. You are no threat to me. I am bigger than you, stronger than you, and more powerful than you can ever imagine. I’ve known you since the day you were born, and although you were desperate to prove yourself to me, your compassion was a fatal flaw. You would never be able to pull a trigger and take a man’s life. And until you do, you will never be enough; you will never be worthy of my respect; you will never be as good as a son.”

  For some reason, his words didn’t hurt her like they usually did. Yes, she was a woman. And she had never realized just how strong a woman could be until she met Nico again. In the last few weeks, she had learned how to embrace what it meant to be a woman, and she had found a man who accepted her and loved her for who she was.

  “I don’t want your respect,” she spat out. “And especially not if you measure a man’s worth by his ability to take a life.” Her hands balled into fists so tight her nails dug into her palms. “Character makes a man, not the circumstances of his birth or the power he holds or his ability to shoot a gun. It’s about the choices you make and how you treat people around you; it’s about the mercy you show when you’ve been wronged and the things you do when no one is around to see. You have no character. There is nothing about you I respect or admire. I don’t care what you think of me anymore, because I think nothing of you.”

  She moved to leave, and one of the guards grabbed her arms. Before she could stop him, he snapped a pair of handcuffs around her wrists.

  “What is this? What are you doing?” She tried to run but the guard grabbed her and forced her back down into the chair.

  “You’ll stay here until I get word that our little problem has been solved,” her father said. Then you’ll get ready for your wedding tomorrow. Tony and I didn’t see any reason to waste time.” He gestured to the guards. “Tie her to the chair. One of you comes with me. The other stays outside the door and guards her.” He looked over at Mia and smiled. “I can honestly say nothing will please me more than giving you the fuck away at your wedding.”

  *

  “We’ve got a location on Dante.” Luca burst into Nico’s casino office, uncharacteristically breathless, with Vito on his heels.

  “I told everyone to stand down.” Nico had stopped the hunt after spending the night with Mia, resolved to find a way to fulfill the family honor without spilling her brother’s blood.

  “We did. But Frankie got a tip and he called Vito to check it out. Dante’s here. In the high stakes gaming room. Frankie’s on his way.”

  Nico leaned back in his chair. Out of habit, he reached for his pen, but he had put it away last night as a statement to himself that he was letting his father go and moving on with a life that was more than a quest for revenge. “Is he fucking crazy? Why would he take such a risk when he knows there’s a contract on him? I thought he’d hit the mattresses.”

  “He’s got a gambling problem,” Vito said, smoothing down his silvery suit jacket and crisp gray tie. “All the casino managers in the city know about him. There aren’t many bookies who will deal with him because when he runs up the debts too high Don Cordano sends out one of his enforcers to clear them off, if you know what I mean.”

  “That’s bad business.”

  Luca shrugged. “He’s only got one son. What’s he gonna do?”

  Nico’s father only had one son, and he’d expected him to fill his shoes by following the family traditions, as his father had followed before him. But now Nico had found the other half of his soul, the missing piece of his life. He was forging his own path—maybe even his own faction of the Toscani family—and he had resolved to find another way to make Dante pay for his crime.

  Still, the man who had killed his father was sitting downstairs in his casino and it was too great a temptation to ignore.

  “It’s got to be a trap.” Nico twisted his lips to the side. “Is he alone?”

  “Yes, sir,” Vito said. “I checked the security cameras after Frankie called. He came in alone and went straight to the high-stakes room where’s he’s been playing blackjack for the last hour. The other players at the table are regulars. I know them well.”

  “What about the facial-recognition database? Did it pick up any known Cordano associates?”

  Vito shook his head. “No, sir. Nothing. We comped him the usual drinks, and he’s almost made his way through a bottle of bourbon. He wasn’t interested in food or the girls we sent over. Is it possible he doesn’t know you own the casino?”

  “Possible, but unlikely.” Nico clicked to the live security feed on his computer and zoomed in on the high-stakes room. His eye-in-the-sky was so high-tech, he could watch the movements of the dealers’ hands. The dealers were often the biggest cheaters in the casino, lured by the easy access to money and the distraction of the crowds.

  He recognized Dante right away, studied his bloodshot eyes, the stubble on his chin. He looked like a man on self-destruct. If he really wanted to die, he had come to the right place.

  Nico checked the weapon in his holster and pulled on his jacket. “Let’s go.”

  “Maybe we should wait for Frankie.” Luca checked his phone. “He texted to say he’s on his way. Should be only twenty minutes.”

  “Dante might be gone in twenty minutes.” Nico still hadn’t decided what he was going to do when he met Dante face to face, this time knowing he had killed Nico’s father. “Vito, call downstairs and make sure we have extra security in the high-stakes room. Get them to clear everyone out except the players at Dante’s table.”

  “Yes, sir. I’ll go ahead and make sure everything is ready for you. Do you want the cameras off in that room?”

  “Yes, turn them off. Louis is in charge of the control room tonight. Let him know what’s going on.”

  “Very good, sir.” Vito patted down his fluff of
silver hair as he hurried from Nico’s office.

  “Luca, you’ve got my back.” He stood, a brief image of Mia flickering through his mind. He still wanted her on this desk. Maybe when all this was done, he’d make every goddamned fantasy he’d had the first time she walked into his office come true.

  “I always have your back.” Luca followed him out of the office. “I might not be able to stop you from making stupid mistakes, but I can promise you won’t face the consequences alone.”

  “That’s fucking beautiful,” Nico said dryly, looking over his shoulder.

  Luca grinned. “Kinda like me.”

  TWENTY-SIX

  “Jesus Christ, what a mess.” Jack stepped to the side of the porch as the paramedics carried Ginger’s body from the house. The forensics team had left a short while ago, and Ben had just been given clearance to go back inside.

  Ben glanced over at the vehicle where Daisy was huddled in the backseat with her blanket. He’d made her promise to look at her storybook until he told her to lift her head. He didn’t want her last memory of her mother to be of the ambulance attendants wheeling a body bag out on a stretcher.

  “I’m sorry, Ben.” Jack gave Ben an awkward pat on the back as they walked into the living room, where he’d found Ginger dead on the couch. Although they would have to wait for the autopsy results, the forensics team had been pretty certain she’d overdosed on the same tainted product that had recently flooded the streets.

  “I feel bad that she’s gone and Daisy’s got no mom, but other than that she wasn’t anything to me. And I’m fucking pissed at Rev for giving her that tainted shit.” Ben shrugged Jack away. “Christ, Jack. If I’d put a bullet through him when I had the chance, this wouldn’t have happened. I still think something was going on with him and Daisy. The bastard deserved to die.”

  “Don’t say that.” Jack stared out the window as the ambulance drove away. “You did the right thing. He wasn’t a threat to you or anyone else at that moment. And, he probably didn’t even know the drugs he’d bought Ginger were tainted. We’ve had a surge of calls about overdoses in the last few weeks from a lethal batch of drugs that came into the city—a toxic cocktail of fentanyl and other opiates. We had twenty-four overdoses in the first twenty-four hours, and the numbers are climbing.”