Текст книги "My sweetest oblivion"

Автор книги: Danielle Lori

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Текущая страница: 18 (всего у книги 25 страниц)

I hated to admit it, but my body loved his voice and responded by growing warm everywhere. I was such a pushover. “Nico—”

“Platonic.”

I faltered. “What?”

A sigh escaped me as he ran his calloused palms down my thighs, spreading them. “You want me to stop, you say Platonic.”

The word only reminded me of how very un-platonic I wanted to be with him.

His fingers tightened on my inner thighs as two tense seconds passed between us. And when I didn’t say a word, his eyes grew so dark I could see his blackened soul. He lowered to his stomach, and anticipation fluttered and flared in every nerve ending.

I sighed a half-hearted “Wait,” but I should have saved my breath. It wasn’t the right word, and while I didn’t want to come off as a pushover, I didn’t want to say Platonic more. I leaned on my hands watching him, and as he pressed his face between my thighs and inhaled, my head fell back.

I once said that whatever Nico did, he did it with his all.

And God, did he ever.

His arms wrapped around my thighs, lifting them slightly, and then he licked me all the way from ass to clit. Steam crawled through my blood, lighting me on fire. I gasped, my fingers fisting the sheets.

It was so dirty, so wrong, so inappropriate, but God, maybe that’s why it felt so good.

A deep sound of satisfaction came from his throat.

“You’re disturbed,” I breathed. “Do that again.”

For the first time ever, Nico listened to me.

The hot sweep of his tongue sent a violent shiver through me. A mindless haze brushed my thoughts away, leaving lust and insanity behind. I was so hot, burning up like a comet falling from space. My hips rolled beneath his mouth as he licked me everywhere he could reach.

Each fiery wave coalesced into an empty ache between my thighs, until I could only feel empty.

I needed him. In a mindless, archaic, bordering madness kind of way.

And if it made me a slut, I didn’t give a damn.

“Nico . . . stop.” I learned his compliance was a one-time thing, because as I tried to pull away, he did nothing but tighten his arms around my thighs. However, I then lost track of my end goal for a moment, my eyes rolling back into my head.

So empty.

I yanked his hair as hard as I could, and he finally deigned to give me his attention. The gold in his eyes had burned up, leaving nothing but char. They narrowed around the edges. I didn’t say a word, but he must have read what I needed on my face.

He crawled over me, licking and nipping my stomach and breasts as he did. His body covered mine. He was so heavy. A warm, blissful heavy that made my skin sing with satisfaction. He kissed my neck, while bracing his hands on either side of my head.

I realized he’d licked every part of my body and I’d barely touched him. Tension rolled through him as my hands slid down his back, his sides, and when they settled on his abs, he closed his eyes, his jaw tightening.

My fingers trailed the line of hair below his navel, but as they reached the waistband of his briefs, I hesitated. I’d been with a man, but that didn’t mean I knew everything about touching one.

“Lower,” he gritted.

My heartbeat fluttered with expectation and uncertainty, but I slid my hand down until I cupped his erection through his briefs. His forehead fell to rest on mine and a rumble escaped his chest. He pressed himself further into my palm.

I felt how hot he was through the fabric, how thick, how big and hard and utterly masculine. Any hesitation was pushed away by a rush of longing, and I slipped my fingers beneath his waistband and wrapped my hand around his length.

“Ah fuck,” he groaned.

So hot and smooth. Holding it in my palm filled my lower stomach with warmth. I could taste the anticipation of how it would feel inside me. A pulse bloomed between my legs. I ran my hand down to the base and then all the way back up.

“I want it,” I breathed.

His hand cupped the side of my face.

“Ask me nicely,” he rasped, nipping my jaw.

When I squeezed, he hissed and shot me a narrowed gaze. I gave him a slow, gentle tug and whispered in his ear, “Please.”

His eyes were lazy and dark as he dropped to his back beside me and pulled off his briefs. My face burned as I watched him grab his erection at the base and reach for a condom on the side table.

The action was so primal, so surprisingly hot, something burned to life inside of me. Before I knew what I was doing, I straddled his hips. Resting my hands on either side of him, I leaned forward and kissed his throat like I would his mouth.

“Fuck.” His hand cupped the back of my head, his fingers lacing through the strands.

He tasted like he smelled, and I couldn’t get enough. I was all over him, running my hands over his biceps, pecs, and into his hair. I kissed his throat with tongue, nipped at his earlobe, and sucked on his neck.

“Enough,” he growled with frustration, and fisted the hair at my nape to make me stop.

I pulled back with half-lidded eyes. My breasts brushed his chest, sending sizzles of pleasure lower and making me ache for friction. I ground down on his erection. It spread a fire through me that made me drop my head and dig my fingers into the sheets.

“Wait,” he gritted, tearing the condom open with his teeth.

I had a fever. A hot and itchy and empty one, and it wasn’t possible to stop. I rolled my hips against him, using his chest for leverage and rubbing my wetness up and down his length.

Just as he got the condom out, he froze, and then groaned so deeply I could feel it vibrate through his chest. I’d ground down hard enough the head of his erection had slipped inside of me. He was so big it stung. A tremble rolled through me, my exhales heavy and uneven. My fingers curled on his abs as I sank onto him another inch. As the pain faded into a delicious fullness, a throaty sigh escaped me.

His body was pulled taut beneath my hands. The condom wrapper crinkled as it disappeared into a clenched fist.

“No. Condom,” he ground out.

It might have been the stupidest, most impulsive thing I’d ever done, but I didn’t want to use a condom from his nightstand that he reserved for all his randoms, or, even worse—a regular. I wanted to be different, needed to be.

My response was a whimper as I slid further down until half of his length disappeared inside me. We both watched it happen, my breaths coming out erratic. I was so filled it burned. As I held myself there, my thighs ached like I’d run a mile.

He stared at where we were joined with a dark look rivaling madness. And then, with a growl, he tossed me onto my back and thrust all the way inside of me.

I cried out, my back arching off the bed. So full, too full. I pushed on his chest to get him to ease out, but he remained so deep I could feel him in my stomach. His body was so heavy as he lay on top of me, one hand braced on the bed and the other cradling my head.

We stayed like that for a moment, his chest panting for air against mine. His ragged breaths fanned my neck while he remained still.

His lips pressed against my ear. “You want to know a secret?”

I shivered at the deep voice, but I didn’t answer because I was still trying to figure out how to breathe with him inside me.

“I’ve never fucked a woman without a condom.” He nuzzled my neck. His voice was warm and smooth, but his teeth were clenched. “And I’m afraid you’ve just created a monster.”

He held me by a fistful of hair at my nape and then he fucked me.

Skin against skin. A scrape of teeth. The heavy weight of him. Unrelenting. It was so intense I fought to find air to breathe, to find anything that wasn’t harsh and him. Soon, the intensity softened, my body warming and molding to his. Every thrust began to kindle a spark inside of me that only the next thrust could sate. My nails dug into his biceps, and a small shudder rolled under his skin.

He talked while he screwed, right against my ear in a deep rasp, and it made me crazy.

“You take it so good,” he praised.

“So fucking tight.”

“So wet for me.”

The words sank into my skin and filled every space in my body with warm satisfaction.

Every time his pelvis ground against mine, molten heat spread from my clit outward. A throaty moan escaped my lips with every thrust, as though he pushed each one out of me.

I was nothing but heat and flame and pleasure.

“Fuck, you’ve got to be quiet,” he groaned in my ear. “Or this is going to be over before I’m ready.”

I tried to stop, but I couldn’t. It was like trying to stop breathing.

He covered my mouth with his palm, while the other hand remained fisted in my hair. It was rough and restrictive and so addictive.

And I suddenly knew this was what had drawn me to Nicolas Russo. What fascinated me. Maybe the Cosa Nostra had tainted me from the start, like a poison in the water supply, because I needed this: restraint, domination, to feel him everywhere. I’d known it would be like this, so intense, but it felt so much better than I’d ever envisioned.

The orgasm was immediate and so violent it sent a shudder through me that chattered my teeth. Heat pulsed in my lower stomach before branching out in tingles and dazzles of the best feeling ever.

When I came down, it was to him motionless inside of me, watching me with a gaze dark as night. He pulled his hand from my mouth, and by the teeth marks I realized I’d bitten down on it when I came.

“Who fucks you?” he growled.

I shivered. “You do.”

“Who else?”

“Just you,” I breathed.

A rumble of satisfaction came from his chest, and he rested his forehead against mine. “I’m going to come inside you and then I’m going to fuck you again.” His lips hovered above my own. They were so close that with a slow thrust and a tense breath, they brushed mine so lightly it was like it never happened.

I could almost feel his lips pressed against mine, sliding and licking and biting. Wet and messy and rough. Because that’s how Nico would kiss. I wanted to experience it violently enough it was a war between my head and my mouth.

He’d taste like whiskey and bad decisions.

This time, my head won.

He stayed like that, our lips inches apart, as he thrust inside of me, deep and slow, and with an intimacy that made me feel like someone had rubbed my skin with sandpaper until I was raw and exposed.

But I couldn’t escape it, not with his fist in my hair and his body on mine. Not with his dirty words still resounding in my ears. Not with the warmth that blossomed in my chest at the mere mention of his name.

I’d let him inside of me.

And now I’d never get him out.

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“Love is like a virus. It can happen to anybody at any time.”

–Maya Angelou

HEARTBEATS ARE FICKLE THINGS. BEATING one moment and then stopping the next. Raging a storm and then lying as still as a tranquil sea. But what I didn’t know is that they change. They glow and warm and expand in a chest. They ache and yearn for a reason to beep.

My heartbeats had a fondness for the romantic.

They began to skip, to multiply, to fill with a contentment as thick as honey and as warm as the sun. They did it all as my skin grew cold and while I stared at the ceiling and tried to ignore them.

I couldn’t fall in love with this man.

I would rather never fall in love at all than to experience it unrequited. I’d seen it enough times to despise the possibility.

I couldn’t love a man who treated me like a commodity, or even worse—a pretty bird in a cage, and not like a wife. If there was anything I knew with a certainty about Made Men, it was that they couldn’t grasp the concept of fidelity. Those heartbeats tied into a knot, a strangling, uncomfortable ball in the back of my throat.

I smelled like him. He was all over me, and I’d asked him nicely for it. Someone needed to save me from myself before I got on my knees and professed my inevitable love to him. Might as well make it right after he finished screwing another.

Bitterness cut through my chest, and I moved to get up and leave but an iron grip wrapped around my wrist.

Slowly, I glanced at the man who lay like a freshly fucked king next to me. I bet his heartbeats were satisfied that he’d finally laid his easy fiancée. But as soon as I looked at him, the resentment faded into a different kind of ache. When had he become so handsome it hurt? I fought not to rub at the pang in my chest.

He didn’t say a word, just watched me with a lazy stare while inhaling rough breaths. It’d been only moments since we’d had sex again. But in my head, it’d felt like an eternity as the seconds mocked me with the inevitable that he would soon hold another like he had me.

I was ruining a moment I’d wanted badly enough it felt like a need. But now I couldn’t stop myself from analyzing everything—the possibilities and outcomes—and it didn’t look to be in my favor.

When the eye contact began to burn, I tried to pull my wrist away, but he wouldn’t let me go. His expression didn’t show a hint of emotion, as though he could hold me here effortlessly. As though he might hold me here forever.

A moment later, his grip slid from my wrist, releasing me. Something dipped in my chest, though I pushed it away before I could analyze it. I got off the bed and, as I took a step toward the door, something dug into the bottom of my foot. I halted and glanced down. The ring sat there, forgotten, like the sweet boy who’d given it to me. My stomach twisted.

Without a thought, I picked it up. A wave of tension brushed my back, evoking a prickling sensation that ran down my spine. The silence was an antagonistic one, the kind that doesn’t contain words but says everything.

Nico hated this ring, and I could only ascertain he knew it was connected to a man—or believed it was. Nobody knew about the ring but Adriana, and even then, the only thing I’d told her about the incident was that he’d given it to me.

My promise remained with or without the fifty-cent piece of jewelry, but . . . I hesitated.

I would never be with another man but the one in this room. We both knew it, and that removed any type of advantage I would’ve had in the Outside world. If a man knew you’d give it up to him and no one else and that you couldn’t even leave him, what would ever encourage him to be faithful?

He had the upper hand in every aspect of this relationship. Maybe the only thing that would save face was that Nico didn’t know the man who’d given this ring to me hadn’t meant anything. I imagined believing one’s fiancée was in love with another man would cut any boss’s ego in half, especially Nico’s giant one.

I could tell him everything. Bare my soul and be honest. Be an open person and hope that good would win.

But maybe I’d always been as manipulative as him.

Maybe this was the only way I’d survive him.

I slid the ring onto my finger and walked out of the room.

I’d never hated a thing in my life.

I resented the Zanettis, who killed my father and uncle in that shooting five years ago, and while I might have shot them in the goddamn heads like they’d deserved, I hadn’t hated them.

Like regret, there wasn’t room for hate.

Hate changed someone’s make-up. It made them reckless. Hate killed its host.

I never let myself hate because I loved to live.

But right now, I could say I hated something. Two things. That goddamn ring and the man who gave it to her.

Hatred fucking burned, like inhaling mace, getting punched in the throat, and being stabbed simultaneously. That was my comparison gathered from trial and error as a Made Man. Add in a dose of poison that eats you from the inside out, and that’s hatred.

Fuck.

My chest tightened, each breath a burn in my lungs.

I stood, and before I even knew it was in my hand, I chucked a lamp at the wall. The porcelain shattered with a crash that would wake the entire fucking neighborhood. I took a deep breath and shook my head. She definitely heard that. She always did say I was a psychopath—might as well show her one.

My gaze paused on her clothes still lying on the floor. They sat there, hers, probably smelling like her and shit. I picked them up and dropped them in my top dresser drawer right next to her white bikini top. If she wanted them back she could fucking ask me nicely.

I sent Luca a text and got dressed. A suit as black as my mood. I had to get out of this goddamned house before I did something stupid, like demand she forget every man she’d ever met but me.

Instead of taking one cigarette from my nightstand, I grabbed the whole pack. I was going to smoke every last one of them.

Her door was shut and the light was off as I passed her room. Annoyance flared in me that she hadn’t even come out to see the damage. The last time I’d thrown something at the wall was when I was young enough to be kicked in the ribs for it. Maybe she should take responsibility for how crazy she made me.

I opened the garage door and leaned against the worktable, taking a deep drag on a cigarette. I could still smell her on my hands, and every time I brought the smoke to my mouth a memory of fucking her rushed in.

Fuck, she was the best lay I’d ever had. A chill ran down my back from the thought of it. I gritted my teeth and tried to shake the strange feeling off. Nonetheless, my body was alive like she was still touching me—her pink little fingernails digging into my biceps, her hand wrapped around my cock, her smell all over me. So damn sweet. I braced my hands on the table and hung my head.

I should have taken Salvatore’s other offer when we’d found out Adriana was pregnant—a corner of his territory that would’ve filled my pockets, and one I’d wanted for a while—because Elena fucked with my head, made me destroy the furniture and smoke more than I should. And I had a bad, bad feeling that if this girl used the word please, I would give her anything she wanted.

I’d fucked her raw, so fucking raw.

I was twenty-nine and had never been stupid enough to fuck without a condom until today. Now I was ruined—with my little fiancée, anyway. I didn’t think I’d ever slept with a woman who I hadn’t found out my cousins were fucking as well, or even better—Tony. No chance I was trusting the lot of them to be clean, so I’d always wrapped it up. My jaw tightened as I wondered about Elena’s sexual history. I wanted to know how many men there’d been, their names, and everything they did to her, so I could do it twice as hard and make her forget they existed.

I wondered if she was on the pill, and in a disturbing way kind of hoped she wasn’t. I wanted an irrevocable tie to this woman. I wanted to write my name on her skin, to do all kinds of fucked-up shit so she knew she was mine. Like lock her in my room and hand-feed her. With indifference, I finished my cigarette and contemplated the logistics of that.

Luca’s headlights pulled into the drive. He tucked his shirt in and fixed his cuffs as he got out of his car. “I’m gonna take a wild guess. It was the little pink princess that pissed you off and ruined my night.”

I shook my head at his stupid nickname for her and lit another cigarette. “Surprising you could even find someone to fuck that ugly face of yours.”

A smile pulled on his lips, and he rubbed a hand across his mouth like there might still be something on it.

“Did you have to pay her?” I asked, listening to the city in the background. Sirens, tire noise, the neighbor John’s TV playing endless ballgame highlights through an open window. He was an enforcer of mine, and I considered giving him a raise to fix his goddamn air-conditioner. If I wanted to listen to MLB all day I would’ve turned it on.

Luca walked to the fridge and grabbed a beer. “Might’ve been better if I had.” He cracked the can and took a seat in a lawn chair. “She fucking talked about you the whole time.”

“Interesting.” Inhaling deeply to get Elena’s scent out of my nose, it smelled like the end of summer. Like fresh-cut grass, motor oil, dying heat, and the urban sometimes bitter smell of the city.

A corner of his lips lifted. “Isabel.”

“Ah. If you think I know how to shut her up, you’re out of luck.”

He laughed.

I actually knew of a few ways, but I didn’t want to talk about Isabel. Agitation still rolled under my skin, and I stepped out of the garage and leaned against my Mustang in the drive.

The brief thought of Isabel reminded me that she would be here in the morning. She was just my cook and, to be honest, a shitty maid, though she used to be a regular fuck. Well, Mondays and Thursdays when she was here, anyway. She’d been a convenience, but then she fucked Tony and came with unwanted drama. I hadn’t touched her in a year and had only run into her a few times.

I considered what I should do about her. Not even a man in the Cosa Nostra would parade a mistress or ex-lover in front of his fiancée. And knowing Isabel, she would go out of her way to try and make Elena uncomfortable about our brief past. Would Elena even care? A burn radiated throughout my chest at the thought that she wouldn’t.

“Your pink princess is going to meet her tomorrow,” Luca said, though it was more a question about how he should handle it.

A movement in the window upstairs caught my attention.

I took a deep drag and met Elena’s gaze behind the glass. Soft lamp light lit her reflection. Messy black hair and soft eyes. My heart rate picked up an awkward rhythm.

I’d gotten what I wanted, what I thought I needed to end this obsession with Elena so I could stop fixating on her and get back to my life. But as I looked at her now, a throb ached in my chest, right behind the breastbone. Like her gaze had bruised me with a mere look.

My eyes narrowed on her as I blew out a breath of smoke.

“Let her.”

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