19. Savannah
nineteen
Savannah
Nico surprises the heck out of me when he opens the door to what is clearly his bedroom and leads me to his ensuite bathroom.
My jaw hits the floor as I step inside the bathroom. It’s every woman’s dream.
Various shades of gray slate cover the floors and walls.
There’s a double sink with a white and gray quartz countertop, and plenty of storage for personal products.
An enormous soaking tub, big enough for four people, sits in front of the wall of floor-to-ceiling glass windows.
But the shower takes the cake. It’s gorgeous, and whoever designed it did an amazing job encasing it in glass and putting in the double rain shower. It looks big enough to host a party.
A naked party.
Thoughts of him with other women flip my stomach upside down, making me nauseous.
For the life of me, I don’t understand why I keep getting jealous over a man who’s not mine and never will be. I can’t ever go there with Nico. It would be way too weird. He was with my sister, and that’s just icky, right?
It doesn’t matter that I’m incredibly attracted to him. It doesn’t matter that he’s become the person I envision when I pull out my vibrator and get myself off.
“Take your time and use whatever you need. Those are clean,” Nico grunts, cutting off my brain spiral.
His voice is thick, almost strained, and the rough timbre caresses my skin like calloused fingers, making my nipples harden.
He points to the set of towels on the rack near the shower. “I’ll be in the kitchen.”
Nico brushes awkwardly past me, his salty leather scent trailing behind him, as he leaves me to shower. Alone.
“Well, okay then.” I sigh.
A part of me expected, and was even ready to receive, some sort of flirty comment from the brazen man. Instead, he zipped past me, with an invisible cloud of dust trailing behind him.
Eyes on the door, I contemplate not locking it, but change my mind at the last minute and turn the lock.
I need to keep Nico firmly on the other side. Physically, mentally, metaphorically. I cannot cross that line.
Ever.
I pull my phone out of the pocket of my robe, snap a picture, and send it to my besties.
Guess where I’m at?
Xanthe: You better not be at some boogie spa without us. *sad face emoji*
Hollis: Girl, you better start talking.
Something went wrong with the pipes at my place, so I’m showering next door.
As soon as I hit send, my phone rings in my hand. I answer Hollis’s call. She is squealing as she starts rapid-firing questions at me.
“Calm your tits, woman,” I whisper-yell.
“Breathe, Hollis,” Xanthe says in the background.
“I’m trying. I’m just so excited. It happened. She fucked the baseball hottie.” Hollis sounds giddy, practically foaming at the mouth.
“Relax. Nothing happened. I just thought you’d appreciate the double shower and steamer.” That’s not entirely true. A small part of me wanted them to know where I was.
“Aww, man. Seriously?” Hollis whines like a kid whose Christmas got canceled.
“Yes, seriously.”
“Is this still because he had sex with your sister over a decade ago?” I bristle at Hollis’s remark.
Nico and Charlotte’s shared history shouldn’t bug me, but it does.
My silence speaks volumes to my friends.
“I love you, Sav, but get the fuck over it. They were in college. Who didn’t fuck everyone in college? ”
Xanthe chuckles in the background. “She’s not wrong, Savy. I remember quite a few one-night stands leaving your dorm room back in the day.”
“Shut up.” I’m going to have to hire someone to unalive my best friends, because they know way too much and are prepared to use that information against me.
“All we’re saying is you should be open. Don’t just count him out because of Charlotte. Have you even spoken to her about him?”
“It doesn’t matter. Charlotte isn’t the only reason,” I admit.
“And the other reasons?” Xanthe asks.
“I work with his sister.”
“So?” Hollis says.
“Umm, how about the fact that he’s probably slept with half of the women in LA? And—and this is a big ‘and’—he just fucked some girl this afternoon. I saw her leaving his place all happy and bubbly. You only look like that after sex. He’s basically a walking red flag.”
Holli snorts. “Who knew you were such a judgy prude.”
I gasp. “Am not.”
“You are. And you know what?” Hollis takes on a haughty tone.
I have a feeling I’m not going to like what Hollis has to say. “What?”
“You were totally jealous.” She sounds so damn smug that I hate her. I also hate that she’s right.
“I’m hanging up on you now,” I groan.
“Hot damn! You are. You are totally a jealous little whore,” Hollis teases as Xanthe barks a laugh in the background.
I drop my head, ashamed of myself. I was jealous. Incredibly so. I wanted to rip the woman’s pretty brown hair off her head. She appeared way too happy leaving Nico’s apartment.
“Sav, are you still there?” Xanthe asks.
“I’m here.” I never should have texted these two. My brain feels even more scrambled now that I’ve spoken to them and come to some realizations about my feelings for the bad boy next door. “What should I do?”
“Talk to him,” Xanthe suggests as Hollis proclaims for me to “bang one out”.
Thirty minutes later, I step out of the shower and grab the towel off the bar. It’s warm and fluffy, and smells like Nico’s clean masculine scent.
Let’s pretend I didn’t take a few deep whiffs before using it to dry off.
Once dressed in a pair of leggings, a baggy T-shirt, and my butterfly robe, I leave the safety of Nico’s bathroom in search of the man.
Nico’s bedroom is nothing like I expected it to be.
This room sits in the building’s corner, so two walls are floor-to-ceiling windows.
In three corners, thick charcoal curtains hang from the ceiling to the ground.
With them open, the view is sensational.
I bet that on a clear day, he could see all the way to the Pacific.
There is so much more I want to unpack as I look around his space.
There is no flat screen hanging on the wall. No trophies, jerseys, or any other baseball paraphernalia. There are no clothes lying about. Everything is tidy and meticulously put in its place. Even his bed is neatly made, showing no signs of having had a woman in it.
I roll my eyes at myself and steer my thoughts back to what this room says about him. It’s very different from the way the living room is decorated. This room seems more like Nico. Rustic and masculine. It even smells like him. Leather and salt.
The sizzling sound of food in a pan catches my ear before the scent of garlic hits my nose. My stomach grumbles, and my mouth fills with saliva at the delicious odor.
Curious about what Nico is up to, I exit his bathroom and head in the opposite direction he brought me from.
I find Nico standing behind the kitchen counter, back to me, still shirtless and stirring something in a pot. Not wanting to interrupt him, I lean against the wall and observe. He moves around the stove like he’s done it a thousand times before.
I switch focus to the tattoos covering his back.
They are fabulous pieces of art. Whoever drew them is an amazing artist and couldn’t have put them on a better subject.
The care with which each tattoo is rendered and placed on his body tells me that every inked line on Nico’s body means something to him.
I’d love to know what the inked angel wings on the back of his neck mean. They are breathtaking. One white, the other black, both look so realistic that I want to reach and touch their silky feathers with my fingertips.
“Finished gawking at me yet?” Nico says, pulling me from my thoughts of running my hands over his tattooed skin.
“I wasn’t gawking.” My face flames at being caught.
He looks over his shoulder and gives me one of his smoldering, cocky grins. “Sure you weren’t, mia gattina viziosa.”
“That’s the second time I’ve heard you call me gattina. Is that Italian?” If he’s going to keep speaking to me in another language, I’m going to need some lessons.
Nico ignores me and goes back to stirring his pot. “Would you like something to eat?”
“No, I’m good. I don’t want to bother you on your day off. I’ll just order takeout or something.”
Nico turns off the burner and turns around. He crosses his muscular arms over his thick chest and narrows his eyes at me. “You’ll stay. You worked all day and deserve a home-cooked meal.”
“You cook?” I blurt.
He looks insulted by my question. “So judgy.”
That’s the second time someone has called me out for being judgmental today. I never thought I was the type of person to jump to conclusions about someone. But here I am, continuously doing it to Nico.
“Sorry.”
“Forgiven.” Smothering a smug smirk, he rubs a thick inked hand over his stubbled jaw. I almost melt at the way his icy-gray eyes rake over my body as he says, “And of course I can cook.”
Screw it. The cocky man should be knocked down a peg or two to deflate his colossal head. And my attraction to him.
“Okay.” I pull out a stool at the island and sit down. Elbows on the counter, I prop my chin on my fists and grin. “Prove it, baseball boy.”
“That sounds an awful lot like a challenge.”
“You up for it or not?”
“Oh, gattina, I’m always up for a challenge where you’re concerned.”
I can feel my face flame at the way he says “up”. My eyes dart to his package. When I return my gaze to his, he’s grinning. He shoots me a wink and returns to cooking.
“What’s with the butterflies? I saw the same kind on your wall,” he says as he stirs something into the pot.
I tug at my robe. He’s observant. I didn’t realize he had seen the painting on my wall while trying to put out the fire in my stove.
For some unknown reason, I answer, “They remind me that transformation is a part of life. Turning into something completely different from what was expected. It’s beautiful. And poetic.”
“Interesting.” That’s all he says as we fall into a comfortable silence.
I watch him, memorizing every tattoo inked on his body, as he whistles and moves about the kitchen—stirring, chopping, sauteing.
It doesn’t take long for him to place a plate of food in front of me.
I fully expected him to make me bachelor food, like grilled cheese and soup.
Nope. The man whipped me up a freaking gourmet meal.
“This is just a little pasta primavera.” Nico sets a plate beside me for himself. “I wasn’t sure if you were a vegetarian or not.”
“I’m not.” I turn the dish from side to side, taking stock of all the ingredients inside. “This looks and smells amazing.” I dig in and moan as a burst of flavor hits my tongue. “Whoa, this is delicious.”
“I’m going to pretend that wasn’t insulting.” Nico chuckles.
My insides twinge with regret. “I’m sorry I judged you. You are an excellent cook.”
“Thank you.”
I watch him place a bite of food in his mouth. The way his pouty lips wrap around the tines of the fork makes something a little lower than my stomach twinge this time.
Ignoring the heat currently pooling between my legs, I admit, “If it makes you feel better, I’m a terrible cook. But I can bake. Brownies are my specialty.”
“I had better be on the receiving end of those brownies soon.”
“You can count on it.” It slips out of my mouth before I can stop it.
His lips slowly turn up into a sexy grin.
I need to change the subject before I get caught in his web. “Where did you learn to cook?”
The look that takes over his handsome face can only be described as loving. “My ma and zia.”
“Zia?”
“It means ‘aunt’ in Italian.” The endearing way he uses Italian words catches me off guard.
For the rest of our meal, we chat. Well, Nico chats, and I let him. He explains that his mother and aunt own a restaurant together, Belladonna. They are both single moms and together raised Nico, Talia, and his three cousins in the same home.
“If I wasn’t playing baseball, I was at the restaurant helping wherever I could.”
“That’s sweet.” I glance at my phone and notice the time. Nico and I have been talking for over an hour. It’s past nine, and I have the 5am shift. “I should go.”
“Or you can stay and have dessert with me.”
“I don’t think your girlfriend would like that very much.”
“Are you talking about the brunette who was here this afternoon?”
“Who else would I be talking about? I saw her leave your apartment looking very happy.”
Nico chuckles. “Interesting.”
“Why is that interesting?”
“You seem very concerned about how happy she was.”
I scoff. “Well, I’m not.”
Nico stands and walks over to his refrigerator. “The woman you saw was my cousin, Sofia. She brought food that my mother had made and put it in the freezer.” He tugs open the freezer door. The entire space is filled with casserole dishes of food.
“Why the hell didn’t you warm up one of those?”
He shrugs. “You didn’t believe I could cook. I had to prove you wrong.”
“So, no girlfriend?”
He slowly shakes his head.
My mouth feels drier than the desert as I stutter, “O-okay then.”
Glacial eyes pin me to my seat as Nico stalks in my direction.
He grabs the stool I’m perched on and turns it, forcing me to face him.
His muscled frame towers over me, and while his bulk should intimidate me, it has the opposite effect.
The heat of his body calms me. The scent of his skin makes me lightheaded and my heart race.
There’s a charge in the air, and it snaps like static electricity when his finger makes contact with my chin to tilt my head back.
“I’m only going to tell you this once, so listen carefully, gattina. The only brunette—the only woman—who will leave this apartment happy and completely satisfied will be you. Capiche?”
A low hum tickles the back of my throat in response. He’s a hairbreadth away. My eyes fall closed. My body screams for him to close the distance and kiss me. All while my brain is throwing the alarm, but I’m helpless under the spell Nico has me under.
With a featherlight touch, he brushes his mouth over mine, sending sparks through me like a shot. My lips tingle, and time slows down.
The sound of Tegan and Sara singing Closer is a bucket of ice water down my back.
My eyes fly open, and I rear back. Hearing my sister’s ringtone startles me and shakes me free of Nico’s heady magic.
Reaching into my robe pocket, I pull out my phone and wield it like a shield. “I need to take this. Thank you for tonight.”
Nico steps back, allowing me to run away from him like a scaredy-cat. I rush out of his apartment as if my life depends on it, but his amused yet slightly annoyed expression says it all.
Whatever just happened between us is far from over.