And I’d never see it.
Nina examined the collection of framed photographs on my bureau. “You’re very fastidious, aren’t you?”
I shrugged. “I suppose I am.”
“Not a sock on the floor. Not a speck of dust anywhere.” Her lashes cast a long shadow against her impossibly sharp cheeks.
“There’s a basket right over there,” I said, nodding toward the hamper in the corner. “No reason not to use it.”
“You do better than my housekeeper.”
“Maybe you should hire me instead.”
Nina snorted. As always, it was fuckin’ adorable.
She turned back to the pictures and picked up the box at the end of the bureau.
“What’s this?” she asked as she looked into the glass.
“A medal.” I frowned, a bit embarrassed. Shit, I’d almost forgotten about the stupid thing; a curio box Frankie had made for my birthday a few years ago.
“Navy Cross,” Nina read off the certificate in the back. “Is it an important one?”
I shrugged. “Not really.” I wasn’t surprised by her unfamiliarity. People outside the military generally knew the Purple Heart, the Medal of Honor, and that was it.
But Nina was already on her phone, looking it up. “Matthew, tell the truth. This is quite the honor.”
I shrugged again, then moved to stand next to her. “It was nothing.”
Her eyes shone again with that same expression as when she called me “Captain Zola.” For some reason, I hated it. She didn’t know what it really meant. What I was really capable of.
“May I take it out?”
I sighed. “Sure, I guess. There’s a latch on the back.”
I sank to the bed while she brought the box over to me. I undid the latch in the front and opened the glass so Nina could reach in and gingerly remove the medal.
“For acts of extraordinary valor,” she recited, holding it by the pin on the back of the blue and white ribbon while she turned the cross back and forth. She held it up to my chest. “Is that where you would normally wear it? Very handsome.”
Suddenly, I felt ridiculous. Like I was a doll, she was toying with me, dressing me up to meet the make-believe princess.
“You want me to role play with you?” I sneered. “Play a little dress up?”
Nina lowered the pin, all amusement gone. “What? Of course not.”
“Good, because I’m not doing that. Not for you. Not for fuckin’ anyone.”
I couldn’t help the anger that infected my words. She wouldn’t be the only woman who’s ever wanted me to put on my uniform in the bedroom. Hell, she wouldn’t even be the only one from her neighborhood. There was a reason I didn’t actually tell people about this sort of thing.
It was the only role I wouldn’t play.
“Matthew, I really didn’t mean to offend you.”
“Good,” I snapped. “Because I’m not interested in playing into people’s convoluted sense of hero worship when it comes to this shitty war.”
Nina pulled the medal back. “I don’t understand. Why are you so upset?”
I yanked off my hat and shoved a hand through my hair. Wine and limoncello had loosened my tongue. And, it appeared, my memories. “Because it’s bullshit. It’s all bullshit.”
“I sincerely doubt that.”
“That medal? That was for getting three men out of a burning building in Fallujah.”
“I—I don’t understand.” Nina turned the metal piece back and forth between her hands. “That sounds like heroism to me, Matthew.”
“Yeah, but what you don’t know is that they were in there on my orders,” I said. “I made a bad call. Sent my platoon into the wrong building, straight into an ambush. And two of them died for it. Just like fifteen other Iraqis died after I gave the order to torch the place once I got the others out.” It was coming back. Years and years later, these were the memories I could never totally banish. “Some of them were just kids, Nina. They weren’t even old enough to grow beards. We killed them anyway.”
I bent over and rubbed my hands over my face. Hard. I hadn’t talked about this shit for years. Not since that terrible VA shrink pronounced me “cured” and sent me on my way so she could deal with the “real” PTSD cases. The ones whose tours sent them on a long road of substance abuse and self-harm, or suicidal thoughts.
I wasn’t lying when I told her my family wouldn’t let me go there. If it hadn’t been for the sheer will of my sisters, I don’t know that I ever would have truly come back from Iraq. And as hard as it had been, I was one of the lucky ones.
When I sat back up, I found Nina still as stone, the cross still cradled in one palm.
“Matthew…” She reached out.
I scowled. “Don’t look at me like that, Nina.”
But her hand didn’t stop moving toward my face.
I leaned away. “I said don’t.”
“Matthew, please.”
“Goddammit, Nina, I said don’t!”
I pushed her hand away roughly, and she jerked.
“Ouch!”
The cross fell to the rug. Nina clutched her fingers, wincing.
“I seem to have stuck myself,” she said grimly, opening her hand. One fingertip was stained with blood where the needle had poked her.
Remorse flooded me. My fault. Again.
“Fuck.” I grabbed her hand, and without another thought, put her finger in my mouth and sucked.
Electricity filled the room.
Nina froze. Her eyes met mine. Neither of us blinked.
And yet, I kept her finger in my mouth, sucking gently on its tip. Both loving and hating the way the salty flavor flowered on my tongue. It was its own kind of worship. Idolatry of the worst kind. Blood of my blood, said the priest, every damn Sunday. Just like he would tomorrow, whether I was there or not.
Take this, all of you, and drink from it:
For this is the chalice of my blood,
The blood of the new and eternal covenant,
Which will be poured out for you and for many
For the forgiveness of sins.
Do this in memory of me.
I never understood the craze for vampires, the idea of a man drinking a woman’s blood. My sisters went gaga for them. Frankie alone consumed a library’s worth of those books a year.
Similarly, I’d never understood the whole concept of transubstantiation, though technically as a Catholic, I supposed I believed that I was literally ingesting the body and blood of my savior every time I went to Mass. But here, with one small part of Nina’s body in my mouth, one small bit of her salting my tongue, some of that ancient ritual made sense. And for the first time in my life, I understood why marriage was a covenant.
The union of two bodies? That’s as holy as it gets.
I released her finger with a pop. Slowly, she pulled her hand back and touched her lips with the finger. The moisture from my mouth wet hers, creating a sheen that was fucking hypnotic.
“This is fucked up,” I whispered as I stared. “So fucked up. You know that?”
Her breathing chuffed, like she had just emerged from water. “I—yes. It is. It is fu—fucked up.”
I groaned. Something about the word being spoken in Nina’s prim voice. It had the same effect as a bit of sauce lingering on her lip. The snort when she laughed. Her perfection marred, and somehow made even more beautiful…because of me.
So fuckin’ strange, I thought, somewhat outside the moment. In the rest of my life, I craved order. Cleanliness. But when I was with this woman, I just wanted to make a fuckin’ mess.
Was it sabotage?
Or was it that here, with her, was the only place I felt comfortable to be messy at all?
Maybe, another thought occurred to me, with Nina was the only place I could really be myself.
The idea paralyzed me. Because if it were true, it was the worst kind of penance. Fall in lust, in need, in love…with the one woman I could never truly have.
“Matthew…” This time she sounded less concerned. More breathy. Fighting for control, just like I was.
I pressed my nose to her ankle.
“Matthew…”
Still keeping my nose to her skin, I peered up her leg. Nina was looking back at me, bleary-eyed, beautiful, and a bit entertained.
“Matthew,” she said gently. “What are you doing?”
I closed my eyes and nuzzled back into her leg as my hand slipped under the hem of her pants. Her skin was so smooth, so soft. Even her ankle smelled good. “Nothing. Just give me a second.”
“Matthew…”
“Nina.”
“You’re…” She sucked in a breath when I wrapped my hand around her limb, testing its circumference with my palm and fingers. “Touching me.”
“You act like I’m copping a feel down here. It’s your ankle, doll, not your pussy.”
Her shoe slipped, dangling for a moment from her toes before falling to the carpet. I watched, hypnotized, as my hand slowly made its way down to cup her heel, then wrapped around her foot completely while I examined her neatly pedicured toes. Christ. Even her feet were beautiful. I understood now why people worshipped at the feet of their idols. I could adore this woman—every part of her—just like this for the rest of my life.
And so, because I could, because I might never have gotten another chance, I kissed her foot. First on the ball, then again on the pad of her biggest toe.
Above me, there was a sharp intake of breath. But I didn’t stop. Instead, eager for more, I slipped my tongue lightly over her toes, biting the tips of each, sucking on the smaller one, then the next, one by one until I got to the end of the row. One, two, three, four, five. Then I turned her foot slightly and pressed a long kiss into her elegant arch. It was funny. I’d never had a foot fetish before. But right now I was fucking entranced.
When my teeth closed lightly over her smallest toe, Nina jerked with a moan.
“Matthew!”
I chuckled, then dropped my hand and with an effort that was the real heroism of the night, managed to separate myself from her and stand up.
“It’s just a couple of kisses,” I said lamely as I pushed my hands through my hair. “A harmless little kiss. Everyone knows that kissing isn’t really cheating, baby.”
It was a bullshit excuse, right down to the generic nickname. But I had to say something, didn’t I? If only to wipe that guilt off her face.
“Oh, really? And if the shoe were on the other…foot?”
I couldn’t help it. I laughed.
“Matthew!” Nina was trying to be imperious, but by this point, she was laughing too. “I’m serious! If I were your wife, would you be all right if I kissed another man? Even on the—the foot?”
At just the thought, all humor evaporated.
“If you were my wife,” I growled before I could help myself, “you wouldn’t be able to walk most days. Much less find another man to kiss. On any body part.”
Nina shied, but then made the mistake of licking her lips as her eyes dropped—only for a half-second—to my waist, where just how turned on I was at the moment was no doubt on display. It was taking everything I had not to throw her across the bed like I initially imagined. Show her exactly what I meant. Remind her exactly what I was capable of.
I kissed her again. I could have kissed her forever. Except I was ready to do so much more.
Nina shrieked when I suddenly flipped her onto her back, a shriek I quickly covered with my mouth.
“Hush,” I told her as I picked the rose back off the bed. “Just tell me when I’m doing things right, okay? Or if you want something else.”
She nodded, then remained still, only shaking slightly as I started to tickle her body with the rose again. That color. That white. I was addicted to the sight of them together.
This time, however, I followed the rose with my lips, my tongue, my teeth. When it touched her neck, I kissed her there, enjoying the quiver of her body when I left a mark. I paid more attention to her breasts, taking the time to tease her nipples until she was hissing like a teakettle. I followed the petals over her stomach and tickled her inner thighs. And then, with a glance at her eager, openmouthed face, pressed my nose into that sweet, sensitive spot covered only by a thin bit of silk.
“Oh!” Nina’s voice floated through the air.
I chuckled. “Baby, I haven’t done anything yet.”
“But you will, won’t you?” She sighed at the ceiling, falling back onto the bed.
I rubbed my nose back and forth, teasing her clit through the silk.
Nina jerked in response. Her desire was clear through the damp material. Good fucking God. Just the heady scent of her called me home.
“I will, baby,” I said as I peeled her panties down her long legs. “Right fucking now.”
She was as much a lady beneath her clothes as she was with them on. Trimmed, but not totally bare. I used my tongue, my lips, gently at first. Testing how various places, various pressures affected her. Every woman is different. Every body responds uniquely. And Nina’s in particular deserved the best I could give.
I discovered more about this woman in twenty minutes between her thighs than I had in an hour of conversation. Here she was splayed out for me, naked, unguarded. With each moan, each subtle shake, I learned how she enjoyed pleasure.
We stared at each other for a good long time. Were we both thinking of the same thing? Those unguarded moments? The way we had both come completely undone for each other?
Seconds passed. Maybe minutes. Both of our chests rose and fell in time with the clock on the nightstand. And then, when my heartbeat dropped to a halfway normal pace again, I finally managed to pick the medal off the bed and put it back on the bureau. When I turned back around, Nina sat with her hands clasped in her lap, eyes closed, almost like she was praying.
“Come on, doll,” I said, offering her my hand. “Cary and Grace await. And there’s a couch, not a bed. But for both our sakes, we should probably sit on separate sides.”
Her eyes opened, once again full of a humor. “Of the room?”
I smirked. “It’s a small house, baby. But I’ll see what we can do.”
Chapter Seventeen
Stalking. Sure. You could call it that. I wouldn’t, but you could. Was I going to sneak into Nina’s apartment and stab her? Absolutely not. Was I making my way up to Ninety-Second and Lexington nearly every day to check on her?
Maybe. Okay, yeah.
The worst part about it? I was already trained for it—first as a reconnaissance officer, then as an investigative prosecutor. So it wasn’t my fault, really. This was practically second nature. And I couldn’t walk away now. Not when my instincts were screaming at me to watch. Something was going to happen.
It started on the couch after Cary and Grace lulled us to sleep. I woke up the next morning with Nina burrowed into my chest, my arms wrapped around her thin frame like I thought she might float away. She snored quietly, her body rising and falling with her breath and mine.
I lay exactly like that for an hour, listening to her slight purr. Savoring the way her scent mingled with mine.
Every morning.
It was all I could think, and the word ached in my chest for the rest of the day.
I wanted to do this every morning.
Her left hand, the one with the rings, lay flat over my heart. But that wasn’t what I found myself staring at. Sometime in the night, she had removed the big flashy watch that previously covered up the ring of still-yellowed bruising around her wrist.
I stared at that for another hour. The horse. Petrosinella. It was a good story, but something was still bothering me.
Before I could figure it out, Nina yawned adorably, then started as she realized where she was.
“Oh,” she said
as she scrambled off me, grabbing her watch before I could examine her wrist more. “I must have—I’m so sorry, I—”
“Relax, doll.” I stood and stretched, pretending not to notice how she eyed the way my undershirt rode up. Something told me she wouldn’t appreciate being teased with the six-pack she had seen once up close. Not now. Not after last night. Maybe not ever.
I sighed.
We pulled ourselves together, then grabbed coffee at the art studio around the corner. After that, I rode with Nina back to the city. I said I needed to see Jane and Eric and then go back up to help Nonna with some things after I took a run around Central Park. Completely false, but she didn’t know that.
“Dinner later this week?” I asked as we both stepped out of the Uber on the far side of Lexington, under the shadow of the scaffolding. I jogged in place, like I was intent on warming up. “Without my family this time, I promise.”
Nina looked toward her building, as if she expected her traveling husband to appear from its gleaming brass doors. I took the moment to admire her openly. She was a mess. Her pants and blouse were wrinkled from a night on the couch, her hair was tied back, but bedraggled wisps fluttered around her face.
Still the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen.
Maybe even more now.
Something had changed. Something subtle. But here, on this corner, with the city up and about for the day around us…walking away from her felt even more like the most wrong thing in the world.
“I…” Nina turned back to me, looking adorably sheepish. “We’ll see. Calvin comes home this week, but I’m not sure when. We have an event this weekend too, so things will be busy.”
“Ah.”
Nothing like that name to serve as a bucket of cold water.
I might have wanted forever, but I was only going to get scraps. The sooner I came to terms with that, the better.
I brushed her cheek with a kiss, fighting the urge to linger. “All right, then, doll. You have a good day. I’ll see you soon.”
The Other Man (Rose Gold Book 1) Page 19