21. Savio
21
SAVIO
E very few minutes, on the drive up to the cabin, I look over to make sure that Nicci hasn’t fallen asleep. I tell myself that it’s only that I don’t want to lose something that cost me so much to something as foolish as a concussion—but deep down, I know I’m protesting too much.
I’m exhausted from today. It feels like it’s been three days in one—the meeting with Yashkov and Gallagher, finding the guard in Nicci’s room, her confession, and the hit on Vince. I’m bone-tired, and it’s all I can do to stay awake as we head upstate, but worrying about her keeps my eyes open. I’m prepared to shake her awake if I see her fall asleep for even a second, until we get to the cabin and I can check her for a concussion.
I have the urge to tell her that she won’t be going on any other jobs with me. The sight of that brute of a man slamming her head into the floor made me feel rage like I’ve seldom ever felt in my life.
And every other moment that I’ve felt it has been connected to her. Just about. The only other time I ever recall feeling that angry was when Barca took Sophie from me. When he ran his hands through her hair, knotting it in his fingers, and kissed her in front of me, shoving his tongue down her throat just to make a point. When I heard her fucking moan in response.
I flex my hand as if I can still feel the sting of my fist hitting his face afterward. I can still hear Sophie’s scream. Hear all of it—the fight that came after, the sound of my father ordering me to leave. Me telling him I’d be glad to, if only so that I didn’t have to watch his blood run red once Gallo figured out his plans.
I was right about all of it. They’re all dead now—all three of them. But I’m not faring any better. My head is on the chopping block, too, if I don’t leave on the timetable that Yashkov and Gallagher gave me. And I don’t know what my options are otherwise. I haven’t had a chance to figure it out yet, because every fucking time I start to try to think about it, something happens that puts Nicci front and center—and I forget about everything else.
I turn to look at her. Her eyes are closed, but I can see from the fidgety movement of her hands that she’s not asleep. Her delicate face is in profile, barely visible in the dark interior of the car—but it doesn’t stop me from thinking how beautiful she is. Not classically beautiful, with her narrow, fox-like features and delicate bones. But beautiful, all the same. She’s so slender and fragile-looking that she seems breakable—but I, of all people, am aware of just how untrue that is.
I haven’t been able to break her. No one has. And I no longer want to. In the quiet darkness of the car, with her not looking at me and no one to hear the thought but me, I admit to myself that that’s true, at least. I have no desire to hurt her any longer. I’m not hurting Barca by punishing her. I’m not even punishing someone who deserves it. After what I learned today, I know she’s not the villain I thought she was—not the femme fatale that I imagined plotting with my brother to kill the fiancee of the man who spurned her.
She was forced into all of it—if she’s telling the truth. And if all of that today was a lie, then she’s a better actress than I could possibly have imagined.
So there’s nothing to punish. I’ve been in the wrong, thinking that I was meting out some kind of twisted justice, punishing the bitch who worked with my brother and fucking her to get back at him. Instead, I’ve only blackened my own soul a little more—and found that I’m more like him than I ever wanted to think I could be.
I don’t know how I can make it up to her. I’m not sure that she wants me to. I don’t think she wants my apology or my penance, and I can’t blame her for it. But taking her somewhere safe while we figure out what to do next is the least I can do.
It’s nearly three in the morning when the car pulls up to the tiny cabin, nestled well away in the middle of nowhere. I get out of the car and open Nicci’s door for her as the driver gets the bags I had him put in the trunk. I touch the small of her back as she steps out.
“Can you walk?”
“I’m fine,” she says groggily. “Things aren’t spinning any longer.”
“I still want to check you for a concussion when we get inside.” I steer her towards the door—and I notice that she doesn’t shrug me off.
I unlock the door, and we step into the cabin. It smells of cedar, slightly musty from having been unused for years, and I flick on the lights, looking around to see if everything is still as it was the last time I was here. It’s been a long time, and everything looks a bit dusty—no housekeeper to keep this place up—but it’s all basically the same.
Nicci looks around, blinking in the light, and I can see her taking it all in. It’s very small—just the living room downstairs, with a worn plaid couch, a coffee table, several bookshelves, and a fireplace, with a door going to the downstairs bathroom and another leading to the kitchen. There’s a set of wooden stairs that lead up to the upstairs bedroom, and something tightens in my stomach as I remember that there’s only one bedroom here.
“Come on,” I tap my fingers against the small of her back, resisting the heat that flickers through my body at the thought of sharing a bed with her. I could give her the bed and sleep downstairs on the couch, of course, but I’m not that much of a gentleman. I’m exhausted too, and the couch looks as if it’s seen better days.
Nicci sucks in a breath, but walks with me to the kitchen. It has an old-fashioned range and slightly worn appliances, a breakfast nook near a large window overlooking the backyard. And a large wooden dining table with several seats at one end of the room, near the entrance to the mudroom. I gesture for her to sit down, and she does—narrowing her eyes at me.
“I just want to check and see that your eyes are alright.” I go to a drawer, fishing around in it, and find a small flashlight that, surprisingly, still works. I walk back over to her, gently tipping her chin up. I can see the marks on her face where that bastard grabbed her—and I’ve never been more glad that a man is dead.
I’ll be even more glad, I expect, when her father and brother join him.
I flick the light into her eyes, checking her pupils. When I’m satisfied that she’s not concussed, I take a step back. “I can show you upstairs to the bathroom,” I tell her, seeing the blood still splattered over her face and clothes. “I’m guessing you want a shower. I could use one, too.”
Something flickers over Nicci’s face, but she hides it quickly. “What am I going to wear after that shower?” she asks crossly. I have half a mind to say something to her about her tone—but I bite it back. I don’t really have the heart to reprimand her. She’s just as exhausted as I am, and I think we’re past all of that now. It doesn’t feel right any longer. It hasn’t for a while now, and I just didn’t want to admit it.
“I had some of your things packed before we left,” I tell her. “The driver just brought in our bags before he left.”
“He left?” Nicci looks at me curiously, and I nod.
“It’s just the two of us out here. It’s safe,” I reassure her. “This place is about as tucked away as it gets. No one will find it. It belonged to my father, and he didn’t tell many people about it. I think anyone who knew about it is probably dead now.”
Nicci swallows hard, wrapping her arms around herself. “I don’t know if that’s a relief or not,” she says with a small laugh. “But okay. I do want a shower.”
She gets up slowly, although I can see she’s not as wobbly as she was before. I reach out to steady her, and she shakes me off, a look of annoyance crossing her face.
“I told you, I’m fine.” Her mouth thins. “I don’t need help. I’ve been fine for a while now.”
“I’m going to go up with you, anyway.” I ignore her attitude, too worried about the lingering possibility of her being injured to let it get under my skin. I lead her to the stairs and up to the second floor, where there’s just the bedroom and the adjoining bathroom. I crack open the door, and she steps into the small space, looking around. “I’ll go see if there are any clean towels.”
By the time I get towels and washcloths out of the linen closet and go back to the bathroom, I can hear the sound of the shower. When I step inside, the small room is already warm and steamy, and I see the pile of Nicci’s bloodied clothes on the tile floor. It hits me that she’s naked on the other side of that curtain. Water streaming down her pale skin. Her hair darkened and clinging to her. My cock instantly stiffens.
It’s been days since I fucked her last—and only a couple since she snuck into my bed and I stopped her mid-blowjob and threw her out. Right now, with my cock suddenly straining against my zipper, iron-hard, it’s difficult for me to remember why I told her to stop sucking it. At the moment, there’s nothing I can think of that I’d like more than to have her plush mouth wrapped around my length.
I grit my teeth, rubbing my hand against the stiff ridge as I set the towels down. “Here’s something to dry off with,” I tell her, hoping she doesn’t hear the lust in my voice. Then I back out of the room, shutting the door firmly behind me. Whether I own her or not—aching cock or not—the last thing I’m going to do after the events of the day is try to come on to her.
Maybe I’m not as much of a monster as I thought earlier. But I still have a great deal to atone for—not that I think she cares. I imagine she wants nothing to do with me, and never has.
Except for that night in the car. And the night I made her make herself come on top of me. My cock jerks again, throbbing, and I force the image out of my head—Nicci grinding herself against me to her first orgasm in God knows how long—as I go downstairs to collect the bags with our clothes.
I deposit them on the bed, getting my own things out and putting them away in the pine dresser in the bedroom. I check the bedding, making sure the room feels comfortable—as a distraction. By the time I hear the water shut off in the adjoining bathroom, my erection has just about gone away. Until the door opens—and I turn to see Nicci walking in, a towel wrapped around her body and nothing else.
She pauses in the doorway, and I can hear my heartbeat pounding in my ears. Her gaze sweeps around the room, and I see her bite her lip. In an instant, my erection is back, worse than before.
“Is this the only place to sleep?” She looks around again, looking a bit unsettled, and I can’t tell if it’s because of the single bedroom or because, for the first time in weeks, she’s not isolated in her own room with the door locked on the outside. Her gaze flicks to the bed, and I grit my teeth against the pounding throb of my arousal.
“It is.” My voice sounds tight. Nicci pauses, then walks through the room to the other side of the bed, her hand clutching the towel at her chest.
“Do you have to stand there and watch me get dressed?” Her voice is sharp, defensive, and I see the way she looks at me—warily, like I might bite. Like I’m a predator, and she’s prey. She has been all along, but she’s never looked at me quite that way before.
“No.” I clear my throat. “I’m going to go shower, too. I’ll get rid of your old clothes. I don’t think there’s any salvaging them.”
She shakes her head. “No, I don’t think there is.”
Everything in me aches to stay—to watch her drop that towel, to take in her naked body. It’s not as if I haven’t seen it already, many, many times, but something about right now feels different. I haven’t demanded that she be naked. I’m not keeping her here that way. It doesn’t feel as if I’m her captor any longer. And something has blatantly shifted between us, whether I like it or not.
I retreat to the shower instead, feeling her eyes on me as I leave. I’m so hard that my cock slaps against my abdomen when I undress, the tip brushing the taut skin just below my navel. I groan as I wrap my hand around it, squeezing.
I’m never going to get anything done if I don’t take the edge off. I give myself one long, slow stroke as I reach over and turn on the water for the shower, bracing myself against the sink as I wait for the water to warm up. I can faintly hear Nicci moving around in the next room, and I can’t help but picture her naked body, long and lithe and slender, now lightly muscled from all the training we’ve been doing together. I rub my thumb over the swollen tip, and I’m aching for her lips around me, to tangle my hand in her silky hair while I thrust into her throat.
Right now, I’m not sure that I’ll ever get to fuck her again. I’ve lost the taste for commanding her, for punishing her, and what I want now is not her submission, but her willingness. I want what I woke up to the other morning when she was in my bed—but not as a favor for something I did for her. I want her to want me .
When the fuck did that happen? I let go of my cock abruptly, my jaw tightening. Somewhere along the way, as I grew to admire her, as I saw all the things about her that I hadn’t known until I was confronted with them—her resilience, her wit, her steely spine—culminating in the truths that I’ve only just found out about her. Somewhere in all of that, I stopped wanting to own her. And I started wanting her to give herself to me instead.
Fuck . I run my hand through my hair and step into the shower. I’m still aching—my cock demanding attention—and I tip my head back under the water, trying to ignore it. It’s easier said than done.
What the fuck am I going to do? I could just tell her to leave, but her association with me puts her in danger, too. If I go ahead with my plans to remove Gallo and take over his mafia, Nicci will be made a target by anyone wanting to strike out at me. If I cut and run, leaving the city the way I’ve been told to—a prospect that still sends a hot jolt of anger through me—then leaving her behind leaves her vulnerable to anyone who still might want to hurt her. Her father and brother will be dead, if I have anything to say about it, but there might be others. Associates of theirs. Nicci and I are cutting a swath of violence across the city, and that always comes with consequences, in time. I can’t leave her to face those alone.
If I keep her with me, then what? My cock throbs, reminding me that there’s no way I can keep her and not fuck her. It’s been proven over and over again that I’m not strong enough to resist whatever this thing between us is—call it chemistry, lust, or something else altogether, but it’s made me lose control time and again. But I feel sure that given a choice, a true choice, Nicci wouldn’t touch me. And I’ve lost my taste for imposing my will on her.
“ Cazzo!” I curse aloud, bracing one hand against the tile as I reach down to grip my cock again. Three hard strokes and the memory of her mouth wrapped around me, and I’m coming hard, cum spraying against the tiles of the shower as I groan aloud. My cock pulses in my fist, pleasure coursing through me as I grit my teeth, and I’m panting by the time the orgasm recedes.
I press my forehead against the shower wall. Fuck .
It wasn’t all that long ago that I thought my plan to take Nicci for myself was brilliant. The first step in my grand plot for revenge.
Instead, I’ve caught myself in a web of my own making.
—
When I walk back into the bedroom, Nicci is curled up on one side of the bed, in a pair of silky pink pajama pants and a matching camisole made of thin pink silk with a lace edging. I can see the tight peaks of her nipples pressing against the silk, and despite the fact that I came all over the shower not fifteen minutes ago, my cock twitches back to life.
Fuck . That one word seems to have become my new mantra. I grit my teeth, feeling my jaw ache from how tense I’ve been, and cross the room to where I’d put my clothes away earlier. I know I’m playing dirty, but I’m beyond caring as I drop the towel to the floor, standing next to the dresser completely naked as I rummage around for a pair of pajama pants of my own.
I can feel the air in the room shift. I can feel her go still from across the room, feel her eyes on me. My cock thickens and swells, and I draw in a slow breath.
I turn towards her. She’s looking at me—and she doesn’t quickly look away. Instead, her mouth twitches, and she lets her gaze slide over me—starting at the taut muscles of my shoulders, all the way down my chest to the ridges of my abs, and the v-cut of muscle at my hips that leads down to my cock—now once again thick, long and rock-hard under her gaze.
She lingers on my cock for just a moment and then shrugs, her gaze flicking back to the book in her hand.
I stare at her, her dismissal hanging in the air between us—and I almost burst out laughing. For weeks now, I’ve kept this woman locked in a room, dictated her day, deprived her of clothing, and punished her ruthlessly. And now, when that dynamic has been removed—the two of us secluded away in this cabin after the most grueling day either of us has had in a long time—her first means of getting back at me is to blatantly stare at my body on display for her, and then dismiss me out of hand.
I would have thought I’d be angry. That I’d order her from the bed and onto her knees, telling her to show me the respect I deserve. That I’d ask her how dare she leave me hard and wanting, instead of begging to pleasure me like a submissive should. But I’m not sure any longer that I do deserve that respect—and I’m not angry.
I want to laugh. I want to cross the room and kiss her. I want to tug the book out of her hands, roll her onto her back, and tease her with my fingers and tongue and cock—until she’s begging for it. And then deny her, until she admits that she liked what she saw all along. I don’t want to hurt her or humiliate her. I want…
My chest tightens, and I turn away abruptly, dragging the pair of pajama pants on and roughly shoving my aching erection down with the palm of my hand. Nothing that just went through my head is possible between us. None of it was ever supposed to be. Barca took my first love from me—so I took the only woman I knew of that he’d ever had and made her mine. I can’t fucking fall in love with her.
It’s too ridiculous to even consider.
I stride over to the bed, and Nicci looks up again, a crease forming between her brows. “What are you doing?” she asks, her tone suddenly sharp.
I frown. “I’m coming to bed. It’s after four in the morning. We’re both exhausted.”
“There’s only one bed.” Her eyes narrow. “You’re not sleeping in it with me.”
Just like that, the urge to laugh and tease her disappears. “Like fuck I’m not,” I growl. “The couch downstairs is shit. And I’m sure as hell not sleeping on the floor. This is already roughing it, compared to the penthouse.” I don’t actually mind it. I’ve lived in luxury for the last several years, and my father kept us comfortably before that, but I don’t mind roughing it a little— as long as I get to sleep in the bed. The couch is a step too far.
“Fine.” Nicci snaps the book shut. “I’ll sleep on the couch.”
“Like hell you will. That man beat the shit out of you. You need as much rest as I do.”
Her eyebrow rises. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you sound like you actually care about me right now. But that’s not possible, is it? Although, I suppose even a pet dog gets to sleep in the bed once in a while.”
“Oh for fuck’s sake, Nicci?—”
“What?” She sits up a little straighter. “Did I hit a nerve?”
I rub a hand over my face. “I could punish you for the way you’re talking to me right now.”
“But you won’t.” She looks at me, daring me to tell her otherwise. “Don’t act like nothing’s changed, Savio. We both know it has.”
Yes, but what, exactly? I pinch the bridge of my nose, exhaustion sweeping over me in a heavy wave. “Just sleep in the bed, principessa . We both need the rest. Don’t worry, I won’t touch you. I don’t think either of us has the energy for that right now.”
Nicci drops her gaze, and I know she’s looking at what I can viscerally feel right now—my throbbing erection that’s tenting the front of my sleep pants, entirely unabated.
“It might be awake right now, but I’m not.” I yank the covers back, sliding into the bed—which is surprisingly more comfortable than I’d expected. “Stop fighting me for once, principessa . There’s been enough fighting for one day.”
Nicci lets out a slow breath, and I can feel her struggling with herself. She doesn’t want to give in to me, doesn’t want to acquiesce on any point, and after learning what I did today, I can understand why. She’s been abused and hurt and dominated by most of the men in her life, and for the first time since we met, she can push back against me without repercussions.
But I can also tell that she’s exhausted, too. She lets out another long breath and turns her back to me, sliding under the covers as she flicks off the light.
We lay there like that, in the darkness and silence. I can tell from her unsteady breathing that despite the late hour and how tired she must be, that she’s not asleep yet. And sleep suddenly feels a million miles away for me. I can feel how close she is—feel the warmth of her body next to mine—and I’m struck with the sudden realization that I haven’t slept next to a woman in years. Not since Sophie.
I never thought about it, really. Never missed it. But now the intimacy of the moment feels palpable, and I swallow hard, lying very still as I grapple with the sudden tightness in my chest—and my body’s reaction to being so close to her. It would be so easy to roll over, to pull her back against my chest, to slide into her and take what I’m aching for. But for the first time in longer than I can remember, I feel the faint flicker of desire for something else, too.
The desire to simply be closer to her. To hold her in my arms—and know that she wants to be there.
Before I can stop myself, I reach over, brushing a piece of her hair away from her face. My fingertip traces the shell of her ear, and I can feel the part of me that hopes that she’ll turn towards me—that I’ll see the expression on her face that I’m suddenly imagining: warm and open and desirous.
Instead, she stiffens, and I can feel that she wants no part of what I’m thinking.
I pull my hand away, the ache in my chest intensifying. I have someone else in my bed for the first time in years, but in this moment, I’ve never felt lonelier.