Chapter 26
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Kristen
Sleep won't come.
I lie in Nico's bed, staring at the ceiling while his arm rests heavy across my stomach. His breathing has slowed, deep and steady, but my body hums like a live wire. Every nerve ending still tingles from what we did. From what he did to me.
More.
The word pulses through me like a heartbeat. I want more.
This is new. This hungry, restless ache that won't quiet down.
I don't know what to do with it.
Nico shifts beside me, and I hold my breath. His hand slides up my ribcage, fingers trailing heat across my skin.
"You're not sleeping." His voice is rough with drowsiness.
"Neither are you."
He props himself up on one elbow. "What's wrong?"
Nothing's wrong. Everything's wrong. I want you again and that terrifies me.
"I'm fine."
He brushes hair from my face. "Tell me."
I bite my lip. The old Kristen would deflect. Make a joke. Change the subject. But the old Kristen never had a man look at her like she was worth knowing.
"I can't turn my brain off."
"About?"
About wanting to climb you like a tree. About the fact that I've never actually enjoyed sex before tonight and now I'm lying here like an addict craving another hit.
"Nothing specific."
Nico's jaw tightens. He doesn't believe me—his bullshit detector is annoyingly accurate. But instead of pushing, he leans down and presses his mouth to mine.
The kiss starts soft. Almost gentle.
I kiss him back. All that restless energy finds a direction. I push against his shoulder, and he lets me roll him onto his back so I can climb on top of him.
"There she is." His voice drops, dark and amused. "Knew you weren't tired."
"Shut up."
"Make me."
I grind down against him. He's already hard. Or maybe he never stopped being hard. His hands grip my hips, fingers digging in just shy of bruising.
"You want something, Kristen." Not a question. "Ask for it."
I lean down, pressing my mouth to his jaw, his throat, the hard plane of his chest. My tongue traces the edge of a scar near his collarbone.
"I want to taste you."
His grip on my hips tightens. "Yeah?"
I slide lower, kissing down his stomach. The muscles jump beneath my lips. When I reach the waistband of his boxers, I hesitate.
"If you're going to do that," Nico says, voice strained, "bring your ass up here."
I look up at him. "What?"
"You heard me." His eyes are nearly black in the low light. "Turn around. I want to taste you while you taste me."
Oh.
Oh.
Heat floods my face, my chest, lower. The image his words paint makes my thighs clench.
"Kristen." Nico's hand cups my jaw, thumb brushing my cheekbone. "You don't have to. But I want your pussy on my face while your mouth is on my cock. Understood?"
I'm climbing over him, positioning myself so my knees bracket his head and his length is right there, thick and hard and waiting.
"Good girl." His breath ghosts over my inner thigh.
I wrap my hand around him. He's big. I knew that from before, but it's different now, up close, with my mouth inches away. I lick a stripe up the underside, and his hips jerk.
"Cazzo."
His hands grip my thighs, pulling me down, and then his tongue is on me.
I take him in my mouth. Too fast, too deep. I gag, eyes watering, but the growl that vibrates against my core makes it worth it. He licks me harder, his tongue finding that spot that makes my vision blur.
I try again. Slower this time. Hollowing my cheeks, taking as much as I can. Tears leak from the corners of my eyes but every sound he makes feeds something hungry inside me.
His tongue circles my clit. I moan around his cock.
"That's it." His voice is muffled, rough. "Just like that."
I find a rhythm. Mouth and hand working together while he devours me from below. His grip on my thighs is bruising now, holding me exactly where he wants me. Every time I gag, he growls and licks harder, like my struggle turns him on.
The pressure builds, coiling tighter with every stroke of his tongue. I'm close and I can feel him tensing beneath me too, his hips rocking up to meet my mouth.
"Don't stop," he commands against my flesh.
I couldn't stop if I wanted to.
The orgasm crashes through me like a wave, and I cry out around him, the sound vibrating through his length. He follows seconds later, spilling into my mouth while his fingers dig crescents into my skin.
For a long moment, neither of us moves.
Then he's pulling me down beside him, tucking me against his chest like I belong there. His heart pounds against my cheek.
"Better?" he asks.
I laugh. It's breathless, almost giddy. "Yeah."
"Good."
Nico
I don't sleep.
Not because I can't, though insomnia and I are old friends, but because watching Kristen breathe feels more important than rest. Her chest rises and falls in a steady rhythm, lips slightly parted, one hand tucked beneath her cheek like a child.
I've been lying here for thirty minutes, looking the curve of her jaw, the scatter of freckles across her nose I never noticed before, the way her eyelashes cast tiny shadows on her cheekbones.
What the fuck is wrong with me?
I don't do this. I've never done this. Women don't stay in my bed long enough to fall asleep. That's the rule. Sex, shower, goodbye. Clean. Efficient. No complications.
The last woman who tried to stay—Amelia, maybe six months ago—got a car service and a firm suggestion that her own bed would be more comfortable. She called me cold. Called me a lot of things, actually, none of them flattering.
She wasn't wrong.
But Kristen's here. In my sheets. Her vanilla shampoo mixing with the scent of sex and sweat on my pillows. And I told her to stay. Insisted she stay.
I reach out before I can stop myself, brushing a strand of chestnut hair from her face. She doesn't stir. Just keeps breathing, trusting me enough to be unconscious and vulnerable.
Kristen shifts, rolling onto her back, the sheet slipping down to reveal the swell of her breasts. My body responds immediately but I don't move to touch her. Not yet. She needs sleep more than I need another round.
When did I start thinking about what she needs?
The question rattles around my skull like a bullet in an empty chamber.
Kristen's hand finds mine in her sleep, fingers curling around my palm like it's the most natural thing in the world. Like we've done this a thousand times. Like she belongs here.
Fuck.
Kristen makes a soft sound and presses closer. Her bare leg slides between mine. Her breath warms my shoulder.
I've negotiated with cartel leaders. Stared down federal agents. Watched men beg for their lives without blinking.
This woman, asleep and drooling slightly on my sheets, terrifies me more than all of them combined.
Because I want this. The quiet. The warmth. The feeling of someone choosing to be here instead of running.
I want it, and that wanting makes me weak.
But maybe...
I shut the thought down before it can finish. Maybe nothing. This is temporary. She's temporary. Everything good is temporary.
Kristen's eyes flutter open, catching me staring. For a moment, she looks confused and then recognition softens her features.
"Hey," she whispers, voice thick with sleep.
"Hey."
"Were you watching me sleep?"
"No."
She smiles, slow and knowing. "Liar."
"You snore."
"I do not."
"Like a dying chainsaw."
"You're terrible," she says, but she's smiling. Still holding my hand.
Yes, I think. I am.
And I kiss her anyway.
Kristen pulls back from the kiss, her palm pressing flat against my chest. "You need sleep."
"I'm fine."
"You're a terrible liar." She shifts, rolling away from me until her back faces my direction. The sheet pools at her waist, leaving the elegant curve of her spine exposed in the dim light filtering through the curtains.
I prop myself up on one elbow, tracing the line of her shoulder blade with my gaze. "You have a pretty hot back."
She snorts. "That's the weirdest compliment anyone's ever given me."
"I'm a weird guy."
"No argument here."
For a moment, we just exist in the silence. Her breathing. The distant hum of the compound's security system. The rustle of expensive sheets.
Then Kristen sighs and sits up, swinging her legs over the edge of the mattress.
My hand shoots out before my brain catches up, fingers wrapping around her wrist. "Stay."
She turns, and in the half-dark, I catch the curve of her smile. "Relax, Sartori. I was just going to grab a sweater or something."
I frown. "Why?"
"Because apparently you won't let us sleep with me being naked." She gestures vaguely at herself, at me, at the rumpled evidence of what we've been doing instead of resting. "Every time I close my eyes, you start... looking at me. And then the looking turns into touching. And then—"
"I get it."
"Do you? Because my body needs recovery time, Nico. I'm not a machine."
Could've fooled me, I think, remembering the sounds she made an hour ago. The way she arched into my mouth like she'd been starving for it.
Kristen must read something in my expression because she laughs and tries to stand again. "See? That face. That's exactly what I'm talking about. Sweater. Now."
"Hell no."
She blinks. "Excuse me?"
"You're not wearing clothes in my bed."
"That's... incredibly presumptuous of you."
"It's my bed."
"And I'm the one in it."
"Exactly." I tug her wrist gently, pulling her back toward me. She doesn't resist, which tells me everything I need to know. "No clothes. I'll behave."
Kristen raises one eyebrow, skepticism written across every line of her face. "You'll behave?"
"I promise."
"You promise," she repeats flatly. "Nico Sartori, who has grabbed me approximately seventeen times in the last three hours, is going to keep his hands to himself."
"Seventeen is a slight exaggeration."
"Is it?"
I consider. "Fine. Fifteen."
She laughs again.
"Come here." I pull her down beside me, arranging her body against mine with her back pressed to my front. Skin to skin. Warmth bleeding between us. "See? Behaving."
"Your hand is on my hip."
"That's just... positioning."
"Your other hand is—"
"Also positioning." I spread my palm flat against her stomach, holding her steady. "This is practical. Efficient. Keeps you from rolling away."
"Uh-huh."
"Go to sleep, Kristen."
She's quiet for a long moment. I feel her muscles slowly unknot, her body melting into mine by degrees. Her breathing evens out.
I count the seconds between each exhale.
One. Two. Three.
"Nico?"
"Yeah?"
"This is nice." Her voice is soft. Drowsy. "I forgot what this felt like."
What what felt like? I want to ask. Being held? Being wanted?
But I don't ask.
I tighten my arm around her waist.
"Go to sleep," I say again, quieter this time.
And she does.
I don't.
Instead, I lie awake in the dark, listening to her breathe, feeling her heartbeat pulse against my palm.
This is dangerous, the logical part of my brain warns.
But Kristen shifts in her sleep, pressing closer, and I realize with a sick sort of certainty that I don't care.
Let it be dangerous.
Let it destroy me.