Sweet As Sin

52

“f**k, baby. I can feel that beautiful p***y milkin’ my cock.” He groaned as I continued to come, harder than I ever had, every nerve ending in my body honed to an exclamation point, my heart cracked wide open.

“Look at me!”

Though my mind had spun far away, my eyes obeyed his husky command. He hovered there above me, face strained, looking exactly as ruined as I felt. I took his face between my hands. He said my name, his eyes locked to mine. Then he fell apart in my arms.

He throbbed and twitched, deep inside me. His breathing stalled. All his muscles clenched. With an animal sound, he came, his fingers digging so hard into my hips I felt the bruises forming. Then he collapsed on top of me, panting.

I don’t know how long we stayed like that. Long enough for our breathing to slow, for our hearts to resume a more normal beat. He pressed kisses along my jaw, to the corner of my mouth. He slid his arms beneath me, then rolled me over so he was on his back and I was on his chest, my head resting on his shoulder. He cradled me like that, stroking my hair, caressing my back, calming me.

Outside, the sky was lifting to a clear, blinding blue. Another perfect day in LA.

Watching that beautiful sky, I knew, to the marrow of my bones, I’d just signed my own death warrant. I’d just handed over the keys to my happiness to a man I knew almost nothing about. Except that he was volatile and came with more baggage than even the Titanic held.

And, if our ship was destined to sink, I was too smart to be so stupid. I had to buy myself a life preserver.

“Promise me something,” I whispered.

Nico answered without hesitation. “Anything.”

I swallowed, watching a lone seagull sail across the sky. “If I ever need to walk away . . . if I ever tell you it’s over, let me go. Don’t try to convince me to stay. Don’t follow me. Just let me go.”

He was silent so long I glanced up at his face. I’d wounded him. I saw it in his eyes as he studied me. “If I say ‘yes,’ are you gonna tell me you’re walkin’ away right now?”

Sniffling, I shook my head.

He brushed the hair off my forehead. “You need that so we can move forward? Me givin’ you my word that I’ll let you walk away if you want to?”

I nodded.

“All right. I promise.”

I felt relief tinged with sadness, mixed up with elation and fear. Until Nico spoke again, and then I just felt frozen.

“If you admit you don’t hate me and tell me the truth about how you really feel.”

My lips parted, but nothing came out. I looked away, but he held my chin in his hand and forced me to look at him. “Tell me, baby,” he whispered.

I moistened my lips, closed my eyes, and told him the truth.

“I’m scared. I’m scared as s**t. I’ve never felt anything like this before, and I’m pretty sure you could break me. And . . . and . . . ” I faltered, my voice shaking. “I’m falling in love with you. And it’s way too soon. Way too much. All I know is that you make me crazy and happy and miserable and insecure, and . . . fuck.” My chest got tight. “I need a few days to figure this out.”

He froze. His voice dropped to a dangerous level. “You did not just come all over my c**k, give me everything I been wantin’ you to give, tell me you’re fallin’ in love with me, and then say you need space. Tell me I didn’t just hear that.”

I opened my eyes, only to be pinned by Nico’s burning stare. It was hard to swallow around the rock in my throat. “Can’t you understand how hard this is for me? You, those girls, Avery . . . everything? If the shoe was on the other foot, how would you feel?”

He didn’t answer. But his nostrils flared and his lips thinned, and I knew he knew he wouldn’t like it one little bit.

Time to go for broke.

“Why did she come here?”

He knew who I meant, of course. A muscle worked in his jaw. “She’s got nowhere else to go.”

“And the next time? And the time after that? Are you always going to have to rescue her? Are you always going to drop whatever’s going on in your life to take care of Avery?”

Into his eyes came a look of pure torture. He inhaled deeply before he spoke, as if he knew the effect his words would have on me beforehand, and was steeling himself for the blowback.

Nico whispered, “Yes.”

That was it. There it was, in black and white. Funny, I never knew a heart could break more than once in the span of a single hour.

Then, with horror, I realized the man I’d just laid myself bare to, body and soul, had reciprocated by telling me that another woman would always be his first priority while he was still inside me.

Ice formed in crackling long fingers along the length of my spine. It became almost impossible to breathe. “You . . . you . . . ”

I couldn’t find the word. “Bastard” was too nice. “Son of a b***h” didn’t cover it. “No good, lying, untrustworthy, piece of philandering s**t” didn’t even begin to make a dent.