Chapter 23
Chapter twenty-three
Nicky
The shower feels like heaven. Hot water cascading from the rainfall head, steam rising around the white marble walls, the satisfying ache in my muscles from this morning’s workout starting to ease. I let the heat soak into my shoulders and think about how perfect everything feels right now.
Liam has a job. An actual career path that plays to his strengths and gives him purpose beyond just surviving each day.
Dr. Torrino was genuinely impressed. I could see it in his eyes, the way he watched Liam work with quiet approval.
It’s not just make-work or charity. It’s a real opportunity for someone with real skills.
And it’s perfect for him. This new Liam that I am getting to know.
Medical work suits his gentle nature, his careful attention to detail, and his genuine desire to help people.
It’s a way for him to be part of my world without having to engage with the violence and moral ambiguity that defines so much of what I do.
He can save lives instead of taking them, heal instead of hurt.
It’s a perfect fit.
I loved the old Liam with all my heart and soul, but he could be a bit of an ass. Perhaps simply because he was eighteen. That side of him could have always been destined to fade.
Whatever the reason, I used to think Liam was destined to be something like a pop star. I never would have imagined him content in an unglamorous, nurturing role. But now, it is right in every single way. Stumbling upon it feels as if some unknown benign deity is finally smiling on us.
I grin along as I douse my body with shower gel. As I wash, a sudden thought strikes me. I could teach Liam Italian. It’s a wonderful idea, and I can’t believe I only just thought of it.
It would be useful for his new role because I imagine many of Dr. Torrino’s patients are more comfortable speaking their native language, especially when they’re hurt or scared. But more than that, I love the idea of sharing that part of myself with Liam.
I was born in London. I grew up here, truly bilingual in the way that happens when you live between two cultures.
English is the language of school and friends and the outside world, but Italian will always be the language of family, of home, of love.
It’s the language my nonna used for bedtime stories and my mother used for lullabies and Uncle Vinnie used when he wanted to make sure his affection was understood beyond any doubt.
The idea of speaking Italian with Liam, of hearing my childhood language in his voice, makes something warm and possessive unfurl in my chest. Like another way of claiming him, making him mine in a way that goes deeper than just love or desire.
Ti amo, Nicky. The imagined sound of those words in his voice makes me grin like an idiot as I reach for the shampoo.
I’m actually humming. Some half-remembered song from childhood that my nonna used to sing while she cooked, when I hear footsteps outside the shower. The bathroom door opening and closing, the soft sound of clothes being removed.
I turn toward the glass door of the shower cubicle, and my heart nearly stops.
Liam is standing just outside, completely naked, with a grin that’s equal parts nervous and mischievous.
“Room for two in there?” he asks, and his voice is steady despite the slight pink in his cheeks.
“Hell yeah!” I exclaim, yanking the shower door open so quickly I nearly rip it off its hinges.
Liam laughs at my enthusiasm, actually laughs, bright and genuine and full of joy, and steps into the shower with me. The sound of his laughter mixing with the splash of water is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever heard.
And then I get my first proper look at grown-up Liam naked, and my mind goes completely blank.
He’s beautiful. Different from the teenager I remember, leaner now, carrying less muscle but with a kind of refined elegance that takes my breath away. Prison hasn’t destroyed him. It’s stripped him down to something essential and lovely and entirely himself.
There are scars I don’t recognize, marks that tell stories I’m not sure I want to know. But there’s also strength in the line of his shoulders, grace in the way he moves, and a new confidence in the way he looks at me looking at him.
“You’re staring,” he says, but he’s smiling.
“You’re gorgeous,” I reply honestly.
He steps closer, water running down both our bodies now, and the heat between us has nothing to do with the temperature of the shower.
This is everything I’ve wanted, everything I’ve hoped for.
Liam choosing intimacy, choosing me, choosing to be vulnerable in a way that’s about love rather than desperation.
When he kisses me, it’s passionate and sweet and full of promise. His hands find my shoulders, my back, exploring the territory of my body with the same careful attention he brought to cleaning my wound. Like he’s memorizing me, mapping my body, making this moment into something worth keeping.
I kiss him back with everything I have, pouring years of want and love and relief into the connection between us. This is what it’s supposed to feel like, mutual and joyful and right in every possible way.
The kiss heats and heats. I can taste his hunger. My own senses are burning with an intense need. I have been yearning for this man my entire life. Now, I need him with an intensity that is rewriting my DNA. I am no longer Nicky or Nicolo. I am something far purer.
I am a soul, blazing with pure love.
Our bodies are calling to each other. We are two halves of a whole. Two stars locked in never ending orbit.
My hands run over his skin, slick under the shower, and the only thing I can think is, finally. Finally, I am getting to touch my Liam.
His hands lower to my ass, and he pulls me closer to him with a confidence and a dominance that pulls a strangled moan from me.
His lips leave mine. They pepper over my neck, causing my head to fall back. There is nothing tentative or unsure about the way he is caressing me.
Then Liam is sliding down my body. Dropping to his knees in front of me. I grunt and nearly cum right there and then.
Liam shows me no mercy. He gives me no time to recover or to brace myself. He licks me all the way from root to tip. His tongue is fire and ecstasy. My cry echoes around the shower stall.
His soft lips brush over my cockhead. They roll down my length. My cock eases into the wet heat of Liam’s mouth. He takes me inside himself. Enveloping my cock with his body.
He moves slowly, carefully, tenderly. He isn’t simply blowing me, he is worshipping me.
It is the most incredible feeling I have ever felt.
Pleasure more profound than I ever knew existed.
Part of me wants to open my eyes to look, but other parts of me know if I see Liam on his knees before me, the shower spray running over his face, my cock bulging his cheek, I’ll cum so hard I will probably die.
And I don’t want this to end yet. Not now, not ever. Heaven is this moment stretched to eternity. Liam in the shower, sucking my cock as if it is something holy.
My slippery palms try to find purchase on the wet shower walls. I’m scrambling for something to hold on to before my knees give out. Before I drift far away from reality and never return.
Liam hums. A low sound of pleasure and lust. The vibrations tingle along my cock and curl my toes. I gasp helplessly.
Liam moves. His head bobs. He lowers, taking even more of me. My cockhead bumps against the smooth flesh of his throat. I see stars.
The bottle of shampoo chooses that exact moment to slide off its shelf and hit the marble floor with a sharp, echoing thud.
Liam jerks away from me like he’s been electrocuted, his eyes going wide with panic. For a split second, he’s not in the shower with me anymore. He’s somewhere else entirely, somewhere dark and confined where sudden noises mean danger.
“Liam…” I start, but he’s already moving.
He stumbles backward, slips slightly on the wet marble, catches himself against the shower door. Then he’s out, dripping and naked and breathing too fast, backing away from the shower like it’s suddenly become a threat.
“I’m sorry,” he gasps, his voice high and thin. “I’m sorry, I thought I could…I thought I was ready…”
“Hey, it’s okay,” I say, turning off the water and following him out of the shower. “It’s okay, Liam. You’re safe.”
But he’s already retreating further, with that awful dissociated look starting to creep into his eyes. I grab two towels from the heated rack and approach him slowly, the way you’d approach a frightened animal.
“Liam. Look at me. You’re in our bathroom. You’re safe. It was just a shampoo bottle.”
He blinks, seems to see me properly for the first time since the bottle fell. “Nicky?”
“Yeah, it’s me. Come here.”
I wrap one of the towels around his shoulders, then pull the other around my own waist. He’s shivering now. Not from cold but from adrenaline, from the shock of being pulled out of intimacy and into panic without warning.
My raging erection has deflated like a forgotten party balloon. Concern and alarm for Liam has driven out all the lust that was pounding in my veins.
“Come on,” I say gently, leading him toward the living room. “Let’s sit down.”
We end up on the sofa, both of us wrapped in Egyptian cotton towels that cost more than our parents ever earned in a month. Liam is curled into the corner, knees drawn up, looking impossibly young and fragile.
“I’m sorry,” he says again, his voice muffled against his knees. “I ruined it. We were having such a perfect moment, and I ruined it.”
“You didn’t ruin anything,” I tell him firmly. “There’s nothing to apologize for.”
“But I was ready. I wanted to be there with you. I chose to get in the shower, chose to kiss you, chose all of it. And then one stupid noise…”
“Liam.” I shift closer, careful not to crowd him but near enough that he can feel my warmth. “Healing isn’t linear. It’s two steps forward, one step back. Sometimes three steps forward and two steps back. That’s normal. That’s how it works.”
He lifts his head to look at me, and his eyes are bright with unshed tears. “But I wanted to be better for you. I wanted to be able to do normal things, intimate things, without falling apart.”
“You are better. Look how far you’ve come. You got a job yesterday, you chose to join me in the shower, you kissed me. You blew me. One moment of panic doesn’t erase all of that progress.”
“It feels like it does.”
“I know. But it doesn’t. Recovery isn’t a straight line from broken to fixed. It’s messy and complicated and full of setbacks that feel like starting over. But you’re not starting over, Liam. You’re exactly where you’re supposed to be.”
I reach out slowly, giving him plenty of time to pull away if he needs to, and brush a strand of wet hair back from his face. He doesn’t flinch, doesn’t recoil. Just leans slightly into the touch.
“The shower will still be there tomorrow,” I tell him. “And the day after that. We don’t have to rush anything or force anything or prove anything to anyone.”
“What if it happens again? What if every time we try to be intimate, something triggers me and I fall apart?”
The question hangs between us, heavy with all his fears about our future, about whether he’ll ever be able to give me what he thinks I need.
“Then we’ll deal with it when it happens,” I say simply. “We’ll figure out what works and what doesn’t. We’ll take breaks when you need them and try again when you’re ready. There’s no timeline, Liam. No deadline for being ‘normal’ or ‘better’ or whatever standard you think you need to meet.”
He’s quiet for a long moment, processing this. The steam from our interrupted shower is slowly dissipating, and the sunlight filtering through the living room windows is starting to take on that golden quality that means the day is already moving toward afternoon.
“I love you,” he says finally, and the words are soft but steady.
And just like every time he says it, my heart flutters, and my stomach does a cartwheel.
“I love you too. All of you. The parts that are healing and the parts that are still broken and the parts that might always be a little fragile. All of it.”
He uncurls slightly, shifting closer to me on the sofa. I think it’s not for comfort this time, but for connection. For the simple pleasure of being near someone who loves him without conditions or expectations.
“Why were you singing in the shower?” he says suddenly. “You looked happy about something.”
The change of subject catches me off guard, but I roll with it. Sometimes the best way to handle a setback is to focus on moving forward rather than dwelling on what went wrong.
“I was thinking about teaching you Italian,” I admit. “For work, but also just... because I’d love to share that with you. Italian is the language of my family, of love. I want to hear it in your voice.”
His smile is small but genuine. “I’d like that. Though you have to remember how badly I mangled French in school.”
“This will be different. This will be useful, practical. And I’ll be a much better teacher than Mrs. Brownlee.”
“Are you sure about that?” he says with a ghost of his mischievous grin on his lips.
Oh god. My chest tightens so painfully I can feel my ribs. Liam is trying so fucking hard. He is so brave, so strong. I hate that he can’t see it.
“Yes!” I answer with mock affront, because he is right.
Light-hearted humor is exactly what we need right now.
“We’ll start with medical terms, things you’ll actually need for Dr. Torrino’s patients.
Then maybe work up to the good stuff, how to swear properly, how to sweet-talk nonnas, how to tell me you love me in the language I learned it in first.”
The prospect seems to lift his spirits, giving him something to look forward to rather than dwelling on what just went wrong in the shower.
“When do we start?” he asks.
“Whenever you want. Tomorrow, next week, right now if you feel like it.”
“Right now sounds good.”
So I teach him his first Italian phrase, sitting on our sofa in towels, still damp from our disrupted shower. It’s not the afternoon I’d imagined an hour ago, but it’s perfect in its own way.
“Ti amo, Nicky,” he says carefully, testing the unfamiliar sounds.
And hearing those words in his voice, in the language of my childhood and my heart, is worth every setback, every moment of panic, every step backward in this complicated dance of healing we’re learning together.
“Ti amo anch’io,” I reply. I love you too.
Because sometimes love isn’t about the moments when everything goes perfectly. Sometimes it’s about the moments when everything falls apart, and you choose to stay anyway.