14. Ava
14
Ava
Nico is a problem and a solution. The cure and the disease. Like medication, he has a hundred disastrous side effects labeled on the bottle of pills that I have to take just to stay alive. Even when his days start being spent in the city, getting back into family business, he makes me take selfies to prove I am being a good girl and keeping busy. No sleeping in or doomscrolling for hours on end.
Whenever I lapse, he will drive straight back to the house and chase me out of the room himself. Sometimes, he says I do it on purpose, just to get his attention. Sometimes, he’s right.
Nico and I haven’t slept together again, but that hasn’t dissuaded him any.
If sleeping with him made me crazy, then not sleeping with me is making him crazy. I feel it between us, the sense that eventually, something will have to give. I rub my thumb against my bare ring finger and tell myself that it’s him. He’s the one who will have to either give me up or give in to my demands and leave Marcel alone. I gave my word, and I will not go back on it.
On a rainy Thursday morning, Nico finds me sleeping on one of the couches in the house. The walls of my room crept in on me all night, one of the little songs Vinny was always humming stuck in my head, and by 3 A.M., I dragged a pillow and a blanket to the sitting room just to sleep somewhere impersonal and a little uncomfortable.
Nico drags me out of the house, but this time, we head into the city’s shopping districts. He gives me his card on the way there, dark and heavier than any credit card I’ve ever felt, the front textured in a way that makes my fingertips bristle.
“Nico, I have money.”
“You have an allowance. I have money.”
My mouth opens and closes, unsure if I should be offended when he’s probably right.
“Okay, whatever. What do you want me to spend your money on? Besides the panties that you owe me.”
“A new room,” he says, no smile in his voice. It’s not a suggestion, not a spur-of-the-moment idea. He says it like he’s giving an order. “Whatever you like, you buy it. Everything new, top to bottom. We’ll have it delivered, and I’ll drag out what’s in there now. Hell, you want the whole thing renovated, fuck it, we’ll do that, too.”
My heart pounds.
“Nico, no,” I whisper, on the verge of a panic attack. “My room’s fine, really. It’s not the problem, it was just one night—”
“You think I don’t see the dust on all that shit?” he asks, not looking away from the road. “You don’t have a car, so those are his keys on the nightstand, aren’t they? They never move.”
My throat is too tight to answer.
“There’s a man’s shirt always crumpled up by the dresser. You never touch the mug next to the bed, and it’s never got anything in it.” I want to plug my ears like a child as Nico goes on. “That’s all his stuff, isn’t it? Just fucking rotting there. For God’s sake, girl, have some mercy on him and let the man rest. He has a headstone. He doesn’t need another shrine.”
When I don’t answer in anything more than a sharp sniffle, Nico sighs, bristling.
“I warned you, Ava, I told you I wouldn’t just sit by and do nothing .”
“It’s okay,” I whisper, still unable to look at him. “It’s okay. We can…we can change it. But can you…can you be the one to take out...”
“Yes.”
He agrees before I even have to ask.
For the rest of the ride, Nico makes me look through pictures of what I might want my new bedroom to look like. It hurts, like setting a bone, but maybe that’s the only way it can mend.
Nico spends the rest of the day buying furniture to bring my vision to life. I don’t know what kind of agreement Nico has with Sal, or if it’s his own bank account, but he doesn’t mention the price even once. Whatever catches my attention, Nico buys without question. He schedules all of it to be delivered to the house the next day.
By the late afternoon, Nico is in an A-shirt and paint-speckled denim. He tears my old room apart with his bare hands. He drags all the old furniture out himself, not even letting me watch, much less help.
When I am allowed back inside, a fresh shade of Bungalow Breeze glistens on the walls, creamy and warm. The room feels massive with no furniture. Hollow. My heart clenches hard as I look for all those little signs of Vinny and find that each one of them is gone. My pulse beats hard, my throat closing quietly as I try to swallow any urge to cry.
Nico takes a box from the floor and shows it to me.
“I’m putting this up in the closet. Top shelf. If you need it.”
My breath skips. All of Vinny’s things sit neatly arranged inside, and I nearly knock the box out of his hands in my rush to hug him, to throw my arms around him in the dust and chaos.
“Thank you,” I say, those long overdue words from that first night that we reunited.
He just nods, as if this is all just nothing. Routine.
“These, too,” I admit, picking up the pair of stuffed animals from the floor and putting them in the box. “Vinny won them for me at a fair upstate. Well, he didn’t ‘win’ them. He tried to win them, and then he just paid off the guy running the booth.”
Nico grins.
“He was one of us,” he says warmly.
For the first time, speaking his name doesn’t hurt. The memory feels warm, but not as painful. I can almost hold it in my hands without it burning me. I put the stuffed animals back into the box with his other things, and there’s a strange comfort in knowing they’re still within reach.
“What’s going on?”
The voice makes me jolt back. Marcel stands in the doorway, his apprehensive gaze wandering over the empty room and then, more critically, the two of us. Nico turns statue-still next to me.
“I’m…I’m changing up my bedroom,” I tell him.
But Marcel isn’t looking at me. His eyes have paused on Nico, digging in, burning as the two stare each other down.
“I can see that,” Marcel answers softly. “And yet it doesn’t really answer the question, does it?”
“Nico offered to help.”
“Who knew Nico had such a generous spirit?” Marcel smiles unkindly. It sets Nico off like a wind-up toy, as predictable as anything.
“You got a fucking problem, maybe you should be in here doing this shit for your sister.”
“She never asked—”
“You think she asked me? Sometimes, people just need shit done. Sometimes, you have to take charge . You think you’d know that, sitting there at Sal’s side all day. You can’t man up for your own family, how the fuck do you think you can do it for mine?”
“ Shut up , both of you,” I say, trying to get in between them before this can spill into something much bigger than it actually is. “Do you need something, Marcel?” I ask forcefully, wedging myself in the doorway between them.
“I wanted to ask if you’d come to dinner with the family tomorrow evening. Thaddeus will be there. If…you’re still interested in that deal,” he says, very carefully. I know what that means. Somehow, Marcel is sidestepping Salvatore’s rules. Even with all his hatred for Nico, I can tell Marcel is at least a little hopeful that I’ve changed my mind about the engagement. That somehow in all the chaos of furniture and fresh paint around us, perhaps I’ve turned over a new leaf, and I’ll rethink my deal with Salvatore.
If only.
I just heard how Nico talked to him, how quick he was to gun for Marcel’s place in the food chain. Nothing has changed. No matter what Nico does for me, no matter how he refuses to leave me alone, he won’t let his rivalry with Marcel go. Not for anything. Not even for me. I am standing between Nico and Marcel in more ways than one, and I can’t back down from that.
“Of course I’m still interested,” I say, feeling as though I’m speaking to both men in the room. “I gave my word.”
Marcel’s jaw twitches with displeasure.
“Right. Tomorrow, then,” he says curtly. “Try to be there if you can. I look forward to meeting him.”
He says meeting, but I know my brother, and his tone says judging .
“I’d invite you, Nico, but I’m sure you have your obligations at the fighting ring.”
There’s no way the scheduling wasn’t intentional—a family dinner on the night Nico is always predictably out of the house, just so he can’t come mess it up.
“Where are you sleeping tonight?” Marcel asks me, so pointedly that it feels like an accusation. My mattress stands propped against the wall behind him.
“It’s not like we don’t have spare bedrooms, Marcel.”
“Agreed,” Marcel says shortly, his glare going over my head and focusing on Nico. “I’ll make sure there’s one ready for you tonight.”
Once Marcel is decently far down the hall, dodging all my piled-up furniture, I inch the door shut. I turn back around slowly. The silence is cold.
“Nico, you don’t have to do all this,” I sigh. “You shouldn’t be.”
“Too late to change your mind now,” Nico says, gesturing to the wet walls.
“No, that’s not…I just can’t reward you with anything. I can’t give you anything for all this. When it’s all done, what…what do you think is going to happen? I spend one night on a couch, and you go and spend thousands of dollars and put in all this time, and…”
Nico’s face darkens. He drops the paint roller, stepping up to me.
“And you think I’ll make you spread your legs for me as a thank you ?” he asks. “We both know I wouldn’t have to put in half this fucking effort to get you on your back for me, Ava. It never takes much. The right tone and a firm touch, and I’d have you trembling for me.”
I swallow hard as he calls me out so plainly.
“But if you need me to have some selfish ulterior motive to make you feel better about this, then fine, I’ve got one for you.”
“Nico, that’s not...”
He keeps approaching.
“There won’t be a single place you can look in this room where you won’t think about me. I’m in the fucking walls, Ava. I’ll make the bed you lay in, I bought the pillow where you rest your head. You think Vinny left a mark on this room; I am the room. And I want you to lie in here and think about me .”
He tilts my chin up, his gaze boring into mine.
“Does that do it for you, gorgeous? Or can it just be that I want you to feel better?”
We stare at each other, burning up in each other’s atmospheres as we plummet through the tension.
Nico curses softly under his breath. I see the way he wants me, the way he’s even starting to question his own good intentions. He swipes a dab of paint onto my nose, then steps around me, throwing his shirt onto the floor and marching toward my shower in an angry huff. I sigh in his absence, scrubbing away the paint and finally breathing in the cool air drifting in from the window, as if it can help clear my head. I try to tell myself it’s the paint fumes making me lightheaded, but it isn’t.
I sit down on the floor of my gutted room, listening to the water running. My imagination spins, picturing him just a few feet away, all those muscles and faint scars glistening under running water.
Through the drum of water on the shower floor, the faintest sound rises—the rhythmic meeting of skin on skin. My breath catches as I strain to hear. I crawl to the door, pressing my ear against it. Nico’s soft, elevated breathing and the working of his hand mingle with the rush of the water. My body rushes with chills as I hear him taking care of himself, knowing what those thoughts are spiraling into.
Does he know I can hear him? Does he want me to?
My pussy clenches tight, jealous of Nico’s hand.
I bring myself to my feet and slip into the bathroom. Behind the glass, Nico is an abstract blur of a thousand different water droplets, his powerful shape leaning forward, one hand moving steadily at his waist. He sees me there, his posture changing, but he doesn’t stop. The heat in my belly roars to life as he keeps going, staring at me through the haze of glass, his hand working hard at his cock. The soft, pleasureful breaths are so delicious, like he just can’t help himself.
I drop my clothes to the floor and slide open the door, stepping into the steam with him. For the first time, Nico pauses, unsure. I reach out, running my hand along his stiff cock slowly, keeping him hard.
“A man goes on and on about how much he owns me , and then uses his own hand,” I say, daring to glance up into his gaze. “I should be offended.”
“Clearly not too offended.”
“You better hope not,” I say, pushing him to the back of the shower and dropping to my knees, where I put my mouth on Nico’s cock for the first time. He goes still, sensing the threat and the suggestion, his hand gripping my hair. The tension runs through his body, caught between urging me to go on and pulling me off him. I lean forward and press my lips to the tip of Nico’s cock, the softest and most delicate kiss. His grip lessens, his breath coming through his teeth as I’m slowly allowed to work my lips around the huge girth. I take my time, getting to know him. My tongue swirls slowly around his tip.
I never dared to play with Nico like this before, but there’s a thrill of power that comes with having a man’s most possible pain and most profound pleasure in my complete control. I wonder if this is how Nico feels when he takes charge of me, playing god just to hear the other person worship and pray with every breath.
“I’ve never done this before,” I tell him, giving him a teasing little frown, “and take it from me, first times can hurt .”
Nico’s breath shudders as I fully wrap my lips around his cock, but he still doesn’t stop me. With water dripping through my hair, I take his cock into my mouth. I like making Nico sweat, like having him on edge just a little—bracing for the worst—but I’m careful with him. I ease off, licking a slow stripe from base to tip, tracing the thick vein pulsing up the underside of his cock. I can’t imagine actually hurting him after he went through all that trouble for me today, and I try my best to imitate what I think a man would like. I branch off to follow the shape of his head and get my mouth around him again, this time trying to take him into my mouth and suck him off.
Nico’s cock doesn’t make it easy. It’s big and unwieldy, and it hurts my jaw just to get my mouth all the way around it and keep it open like that. I fight back the flush of embarrassment as I struggle. Nico’s hand comes to rest on the back of my head, his low voice uttering instructions.
“You can take a little more,” he urges, the single sentence setting off a fire inside me as Nico takes charge. He pushes me down another inch, and suddenly, he’s right. My jaw opens wider, lips dragging along the skin as I catch on to the pace. He wraps my hand around the base of his cock, guiding me to move it in rhythm with my head. It’s the only real way I can pleasure all of him, moving in one steady motion, hand and mouth in tandem.
“That’s it.” He shudders. The hand on the back of my head urges me faster but not too deeply, even when his fingers knot into my hair and his thighs tense. He groans, leaning back slightly as I hit my stride.
“You think you’re so big and bad, don’t you?” he asks, his thumb scrubbing against my jaw as he gazes down at me with my mouth already stuffed full. “Like I couldn’t take you by the hair and fuck your throat if I wanted. You’d never really resist me. You can’t. You’d choke on my cock just to please me. Look how pretty you look, on your knees with my cock in your mouth.”
The fantasy lets me take him a little deeper, ignoring my urge to gag as I get used to him filling up my mouth and gliding along the back of my tongue. I move faster, greedier, wanting more of him than I can take. My breaths shudder through my nose, lungs burning and jaw aching.
His grip tightens, his breathing changing.
He curses lowly. “Fuck. Just like that. You take me so well baby.”
That tiny thread of restraint in him finally snaps, after so long barely tethering him. Nico pushes me off him, just to heft me up into his arms. A surprised yelp slips from my lips. He flips us around. My hands slide on those broad shoulders as he takes me up against the shower wall, messy and fast and spur-of-the-moment. My voice cracks, bouncing off the tile as he fills me up.
I fling my arms around his neck, my back sliding against the cold tile.
“I should have known you wouldn’t waste it in my mouth,” I whisper.
It nearly sets him off.
“You’re such a fucking masochist,” he tells me in a furious growl, the jerk of his hips pounding up hard and fast.
“Oh, God ,” I gasp, mouth opening at the sudden surge of pleasure drilling up into me.
“That’s close, baby, but that’s not my name.”
And I want to punish him for that little remark somehow, but I can’t, because being bounced on his cock while held up in his big arms, my thighs spread open around him, feels too good to ruin. If he weren’t every inch the powerful fighter that he is, we’d never last in this position, but I feel weightless in that powerful grip, bounced on his cock until my eyes roll. I cry out so loud, I clamp a hand over my own mouth, embarrassed by the echo.
Taking him is easier now, though his sheer size makes my toes curl and my knees shake as I beg for him. I want to carry the feeling of him with me to dinner tomorrow, to feel the ghost of him between my legs.
This desire has burned low inside me, waiting for the right kindling, the perfect breeze to fan the flames. Now, the wanting burns like gunpowder, fast and hot. He drives me up the wall, my breath hitching and belly clenching. Oh, fuck, oh, fuck become the only two words in my head, on my lips, pounding over and over as that blinding heat ramps up inside me.
I’m on the edge of that deep, plummeting pleasure—I scream out for him, and there’s nothing that can stop my voice now. I shudder in his arms as I come and shake, and my orgasm is still pounding inside me like a drum when Nico grabs me roughly by the jaw, making me meet his gaze as he finishes deep inside me, both of us grunting and snarling like animals. He claims every inch of my pussy and floods it with thick seed. I groan hard as he stays buried deep, whispering for me to take it, to hold it inside myself for a long, sweltering minute. Aftershocks of pleasure pulse through my thighs and belly as he holds me, pinned in the moment.
We both climb down from the precipice slowly, carefully.
My knees shake.
We rest forehead to forehead, his breaths ragged, water dripping into his eyes and off his chin. And he’s so beautiful, I could die right here. I whimper as he sighs and slips out of me, leaving me both empty and full at the same time. Immediately, I miss him inside me.
I rest my head against his huge chest, and I don’t want him to go. I want to sprawl him out on the floor of my empty room and lay on his chest, both of us naked and spent, like lazy cats basking in a pool of sunlight.
I force myself to step back and leave him to his shower.
“Good luck at your fight tomorrow, Nico,” I mutter, sliding open the door.
“I’m not the one who needs luck,” he growls, dragging me back and kissing me again, until it strips the breath out of my lungs. “You have to sit across from Thaddeus and pretend you’re not thinking about me .”