~ Chapter 2 ~
Nico
This meeting needs to fucking end.
I need to get back to the city. Being in this town, in the same one as her, is making me itch with the need to find her. To touch her soft skin and run my fingers through her hair.
Fuck…
I shift in my chair and rub my jaw.
Images fill my mind of me wrapping her silken rope of fire around my fist and yanking her head back so I can hear her moan as I kiss her neck and she rides my dick.
Fuck me.
I wipe my hands down my face and keep my expression neutral.
She’s the best I’ve ever had. No competition. No comparison.
Three days with her wasn’t enough. I agreed to her terms of no-strings-attached fun for a weekend while I was visiting my brother in January, thinking I’d have no problem going back to New York and back to reality. But Cassandra fucking Connelly has snuck into my thoughts every chance she could.
Time hasn’t lessened her presence in my mind. It’s been over a month and I can still hear her soft moans and mewls for more when I close my eyes at night from when I woke her in the early morning with my tongue sliding through her pussy. But it’s not even just my waking thoughts. She haunts my fucking dreams, too, and I wake up with my hand around my cock, aching for her.
Jesus, Nico, get a fucking grip.
She’s busy with school. Plus, I doubt she’s as delusional as I am and stuck on me like I am her.
I reach for the bottle of water in front of me and gulp down half of it, trying to calm the fire in me before I go fucking crazy.
Yeah, too fucking late.
“If no one has anything else they want to discuss?” Leo asks, letting his words hang in the air for a few seconds before nodding and pushing his chair away from the table.
Thank fucking God.
We moved our monthly meeting to Atlantic City this month instead of holding it in our Manhattan office like usual. With Tessa being pregnant, Alec can’t be away from her for even a day. We learned that the hard way last month when he found out she wasn’t feeling well during our meeting and went off on us for being so far from her when she needed him.
Alec before Tessa was an asshole. Alec after Tessa was a tolerable asshole. But Alec with a pregnant Tessa? He’s a crazy motherfucker who’s taken his overprotective ass to a new level of crazy. Which is why this month, we’re meeting in Atlantic City at our family’s casino, The Aces, so that he’s close to Tessa if she needs him.
Being here is fucking with my head, though.
I met Cassandra in our club, Royals, here at The Aces.
I told myself to stay away from her. Nothing good can come to her life with me in it aside from amazing fucking sex, and I’m not fucking up the good shit she has going for her by asking her for more of anything.
“Vin, you want to grab something to eat?” I ask my brother, which has Saverio and Matteo, our cousins who run our Miami club, turning back as they’re leaving.
“Were you not going to invite us?” Sav asks sarcastically.
“You’re the one walking out the door.”
“Because you’ve had a pissed-off look on your face this entire meeting.”
“And?” I question.
“And I thought that was a sign to tell us all to leave you alone.”
“I’m fine,” I clip.
Sav raises his eyebrows, knowing I’m lying. “Okay.”
Vinny slaps my back and grips my shoulder. “Let’s get some food.”
The four of us, plus Gabriel, Marco, and Stefano, go to dinner while Alec goes back to Tessa, Leo to Abri, and Luca to Angela. I’m surprised Vinny doesn’t say he needs to get home to Lexi, but I’m not going to question it. Mostly because I think his answer would involve pitying me somehow, and I don’t want his fucking pity.
Vinny had a front row seat to Cassie and I meeting. It was the night he met Lexi, too. I never told him I spent the weekend with Cassie, but I’m sure Lexi told him. He knew she was something to me when he asked me for her number when Lexi was in trouble, but he knows better than to ask me about her or I’ll kick his ass.
I didn’t understand the instant obsession and need my cousins had when they met their women, but I do now. Cassandra fucking Connelly has had me captivated from the moment she locked eyes with me and told me to dance with her. There was absolutely no hesitation on my part. I pulled her close and let her rock her sexy ass against me, driving me so wild, I was about ready to drag her to a dark corner and slide my hand up under her short little dress to see if she was as affected as I was.
I found out just how much she was later that night.
And all weekend.
She’s beautiful, confident, sexy, freaky, and got under my skin unlike any woman I’ve ever met or been with.
I shake my head and free myself from the vivid memories that still haunt me, and try and stay present at dinner.
When we’re done eating, Stef says he’s going back to the hotel to work on something, but my other cousins aren’t ready to let the night end like I wish it would.
“Let’s hit up the club or something,” Sav says. “I know you have Lexi, Vin, but you can be our wingman.”
“Nope,” he says quickly, shaking his head and smiling. “You don’t need me to pick up women, and my girl’s waiting for me.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. While you’re with Lexi, we’ll be getting lap dances from the city’s finest. They’re not Miami girls, but I know our family only employs the most beautiful girls in their clubs.”
“That we do,” Vinny says, and gives everyone handshakes and one-armed hugs. “See you next month. Try to keep this one out of trouble tonight.” Vin nods towards me and I return his snarky grin with a glare of my own.
“Don’t worry. We’ll get him a dance and he’ll cheer right up,” Matteo says.
“Pussy tends to do that,” Marco adds with a crooked grin.
“And with that, I have to go.” Vinny laughs, backing away with his hands up before turning on his heel and walking quickly to his car.
“There isn’t one woman on this planet that could make me want to run home to her. The same pussy every night? It’d have to be magic and casting a spell on me for that to happen.”
“Matty, I’ll warn you once,” I tell him, looking him straight-on so I know he hears me. “Don’t ever say that in front of any of them. You’ll end up with a hole in you that wasn’t there before.”
Matteo shrugs with a shit-eating grin. “I’ll take that under advisement. Now, let’s go.” He rubs his hands together.
The drive to Dark Horse, our family’s strip club here in Atlantic City, isn’t too far. When we park, I look at the building and the red neon sign that used to signal a good night for me.
I’m not really in the mood for this, but who knows, maybe there will be a girl who will help me get over my obsession with a certain spicy redhead.
The layout of the club was carefully planned out so that right from the moment a person opens the door, they’re taken away from the reality of the outside world and immersed in another.
The bouncers give us nods of acknowledgement and open the doors for us without saying a word.
It’s dark, with red and purple lighting. Black leather wallpaper covers the walls for a textured, luxurious look and feel, and black carpet mutes our steps. The club’s music is pumped in low and subdued with high bass, until you reach the end where another bouncer pulls a curtain back to let us through.
Sam, the club’s manager, spots us and walks right up to me. “Good evening, Mr. Carfano. We have your table for you down in the pit and I’ll have a waitress sent right over to you.”
“Thanks, Sam.” He nods and walks over to talk with one of the bartenders and a waitress while we walk deeper into the club.
At the entrance to the VIP pit area where we’ll be eye-level with the dancers on the stage, a security member removes the velvet rope for us. The others take the three steps down first, and just as I’m about to, my eyes sweep the room in front of me, stopping when I catch a flash of red that’s all too familiar.
My hands fist at my sides and my eyes run down every inch of her. Her back is to me, but I know it’s her.
I can see the tattoo I traced and memorized with my tongue on the back of her upper left thigh. And I know if those tiny little panties showed the top of her ass cheeks rather than the bottom half, then I’d see the little shamrock tattoo she has above her right one.
I spent three days memorizing every inch of her body, and now it’s on display for these filthy fucking assholes who are no doubt imagining everything they could do with her. But they won’t. Over my dead fucking body will anyone get to do what I’ve already done and want to do again. And again. And fucking again.
I know all too well what her body is capable of because she’s made me use my hand more than I ever have in my goddamn life, trying to get her out of my head.
But only she will do.
No other woman. No other pussy. No other ass. No other anything.
Dammit.
Why the fuck is she here? How long has she been working here?
No.
Fuck no.
I don’t want anyone else to see or know how her body moves. Especially against them if she’s asks to give a private dance.
I can’t fucking see straight.
The lights in here are messing with my vision and all I see is red.
What the fuck is happening to me?
I’m the calm one. I’m the voice of reason in the family when decisions need to be made. But right now, I’m anything but calm. I could kill everyone in here for just looking at her. And I’m about to if I don’t do something.
Cassie tosses her hair around and rolls her body like the little tease she is. She drops down low, swirls her hips, and whips her head and body around to the front – finally letting me see her beautiful face.
Fuck. Me.
Her beauty punches me in my gut.
Her eyes sweep the tables in front of her, but like she can feel my gaze, her eyes lift and lock with mine.
Cassie freezes, gripping the railing in front of her as she takes me in from head to toe and back like she’s checking to see if it’s really me. Her eyes widen when she realizes it is.
“Get everyone out of here,” I tell the security guy still waiting for me to move.
“Excuse me, Mr. Carfano?”
“I said,” I grit out, “get everyone out of here. Now.” My voice is the only part of me that’s calm in any sense. “Everyone but her.” I lift my chin to Cassie, and I see the bouncer out of the corner of my eye press the button on the cord of his ear piece as he relays my message.
My eyes never leave Cassie’s.
She’s about to know the mistake she made.