22. Nico
22
Nico
In a casual, sit-down sushi joint, I figure it’ll take about forty minutes to order, get our food, and eat. Just forty minutes. I can resist killing this man for forty minutes. I toss a napkin over the steak knife on the table to help resist the temptation.
It wasn’t supposed to go down like this.
I was going to swing by the house late, surprise her and sneak her out her window like two freshmen dodging their parents, and take her out tonight. Just us. But when I checked the tracker on her phone—that compulsive, muscle memory swipe to the app that I check over and over throughout the day, just to see the dot barely moving—tonight, the GPS ping wasn’t in the house.
I came running.
She’s made it easy on me, staying in and playing babysitter. She only goes out with Salvatore’s wife and baby. That might be the safest place for her, surrounded by security and Mrs. Salvatore Mori herself. Nobody is stupid enough to hurt Contessa just to catch Ava in the crossfire. The city would burn.
But tonight, this late, I knew Ava had to be out on her own. Unprotected, unsuspecting. Hell, even I don’t know what the family might do at this rate. There’s tension running through the ranks now, little games of who-trusts-who playing out. Some men are quitting, some men are rioting as the blood family and the sworn family go against each other. It’s all money, rank, and respect—but mostly just money. It’s always money for men like that.
Money’s alright, but I’ve always had it. Short of getting locked up in prison again, I always will. There are other things I want. Other things, like the girl under my arm right now.
Sal’s been on my ass all day about it. He tried to set me up on a date with some socialite chick from our Caruso allies out in the city. The way he put it, connecting with her would give me “bigger and better opportunities.” He insisted it was just to talk business, but I knew what he was playing at.
What he really wants is for me to leave Ava alone and go fuck things up in their family instead of this one. As if the Caruso family isn’t fucked up enough on its own. I played it off, and I didn’t rise to the bait. I feigned not being interested in anyone, Ava or otherwise. Really, all I could think about while sitting there was her. What I would do when I got my hands on her tonight. How I wanted to spoil her sick for her birthday.
I knew it was Ava’s birthday, because it’s my job to know.
But how the fuck did he ?
My thoughts simmer as Thaddeus takes the seat opposite Ava. They sit facing each other, like two proper adults sharing a dinner date. I’m not so courteous. I plant myself right next to her, thigh to thigh, stretching my arm over the back of the booth. Ava keeps her pretty head down and pretends not to notice how close I am, or how my fingers hang against the curve of her shoulder and barely stroke her skin.
A gentle, constant reminder:
Don’t forget that I fucking own you .
“If I’d known who you were with, I would have gotten you some better company as a present.”
She barely keeps a straight face when she says,
“Don’t talk badly about my fiancé, Nico. It’s not polite.”
Our eyes lock across the table. I can smell the alcohol on him. It makes his face ruddy and wet, his frustration visible in the lines on his forehead.
“What’s the problem, Nico?” Thaddeus finally asks, straightforward. “I don’t want any trouble, and I don’t want to cause any for Ava, but I’ve made an agreement with Salvatore. This is his business. He won’t be happy that you’re interfering with it.”
I grin like a shark when Thaddeus immediately resorts to running to tell teacher. He better keep his nose clean. That kind of knee-jerk reaction doesn’t play well in prison.
“..Is that what this is?” I ask. “Interfering with your business?” I have all of Thaddeus Mori’s greedy little dreams and dollar signs tucked under my arm, and it makes his teeth grind.
“You’re interfering with Ava’s birthday.”
“Oh, yeah? Did I crash her party in a room full of old-money geriatrics?” I turn to her. “Hell, next year, I’ll take you to an authentic nursing home. The real deal. Diapers and bedpans as far as the eye can see—”
“We’re about to eat,” she complains, and for a second, I see her almost smack me on the arm with the menu. But she catches herself and doesn’t go through with the gesture that would be just a little too casual, too familiar. She buries her attention behind the laminated paper again. Even if Ava won’t play a side, I can tell she’s enjoying watching me torment Thaddeus.
I have the waitress bring a bottle of sake and three glasses to the table. Ava knocks hers away, uninterested.
“You want to know my problem, Thaddeus? I’m protective of my reputation. Of our family’s reputation. You get this close to me and Sal on the totem pole, you better prove you can play with the big boys.”
His expression shifts. Now I’m talking his language, dangling raw steak in front of the nose of a hungry dog. He licks his chops.
“Sal trusts me, Nico. Give it time, and you’ll trust me, too.”
I slide the shot glass to him.
“Yeah? Let’s do a little exercise then. Let’s say I trust you for the night. Hell, let’s be generous and say that I even like you. For Ava’s birthday.”
“Alright.” He watches as I fill our drinks for us. He mimics me, taking the shot glass.
“You and I have a lot to celebrate,” I say. “To your upcoming marriage. I never formally gave you my congratulations.”
He forces a smile, and we both down the drink.
His face twists as both of us swallow down the shot. While he chokes back a cough, the waitress comes by.
“I’ll go first,” Ava volunteers, offering up her order. She asks me if I want something. Never breaking the death stare I have on Thaddeus, I shake my head. Chopsticks and murderous intent are just an awkward combination. Ava primly folds up her menu and hands it over. “That’s all for our table then, thank you.” Without questioning it, the waitress walks away with only Ava’s order.
Thaddeus looks unsure of himself.
“I was going to order...”
“Why?” Ava smiles. “You’re drinking your calories.”
She reaches over the both of us and fills up his shot glass again. He stares at it, his mouth twisting. Suddenly, Ava and I are on the same team, though I’m not sure why. I don’t know what he did to deserve it, but I can see that little vengeful streak in her, and I’m sure whatever it was, he had it coming.
I back her play.
“To Ava’s birthday,” I say, lifting another glass. Thaddeus goes pale. He sees the game now, and how it’s going to end. His fingers tremble as he picks up his shot glass, lifts it with mine, and drinks.
Ava puts down a sushi roll and some maki like she’s never tasted food before. It feeds some primal instinct in me, watching the girl finally eat. She didn’t weigh anything when we first met, and would always pick at her food or shove it away. Now, she could put me to shame as she tears through her birthday meal like she’s remembered how to enjoy eating.
Meanwhile, Thaddeus has suddenly taken a strong dislike to alcohol. The past forty minutes, I have found various bullshit to toast to—the family, his future children, the business. His only aim right now is to sit there and not vomit on himself. If he does, he’s done for, and he knows it.
He’s drunk enough that he doesn’t notice that I scoot even closer to Ava, that my hand hangs between her legs and then inches up her thighs. I stroke my fingers up her skin without breaking eye contact with her fiancé. Ava goes still, frozen mid-bite, her chopsticks hovering near her lips. Finally, slowly, she finishes the bite and pretends nothing is happening as I drag my touch up toward her cunt.
She breathes out softly through her nose.
“Maybe you should order something to eat after all,” she suggests to me, through clenched teeth. “You’re drinking an awful lot.”
“I’ll have dessert.”
She swallows hard, her eyes roaming without seeing. I nudge her thighs apart. Ava complies, her legs drawn open as I work my hand under her. My fingers go still. I feel the subtle design of something lacey, and a satiny strap that hugs around her thigh. My touch stills as I piece together what it is I’m feeling.
Lingerie.
“Dessert sounds like a good idea,” Thaddeus is saying, unaware that there is a nuclear warhead going off inside my head.
Why the fuck is she wearing lingerie with him?
“Here’s your fucking dessert, Thad,” I cut across, not even being subtle now as I pour him another drink with my free hand, all the way to the brim, until he can’t even touch it without spilling it over the sides. “Don’t spoil the fun, Thaddeus. We’re not fucking done yet.”
He laughs, but it sounds desperate and panicked, trapped in this scenario with no way out.
Anger keeps me grounded, and burns up the alcohol as it hits my system. The world should be swimming like a fish tank, even for me, and I’ve got body weight on Thaddeus and less alcohol in my bloodstream. If the man makes it home tonight, it’ll be an act of God. Me and that fucker never really got along, so he probably will.
But Thaddeus isn’t the only one who needs to be punished.
Ava goes pink as I swallow my shot and take out the burn on her cunt, moving my fingers between her legs. Her breathing stills and her fingers loosen around her chopsticks. She stares into her plate with her eyes almost crossed as I force her to hold her expression, like I’m not rubbing the paint off that little clit right here under the table. Her thighs shake and clench around my hand, her expression vacant.
She tries to speak, but she can’t, her hand curling around the edge of the table as she almost bends over. She tries to close her thighs, but I’m not going anywhere, and she sits back sharply as I change the angle on her.
My hand cuts through her composure, while the alcohol cuts through Thaddeus’s.
At this rate, the fucker wouldn’t notice if Ava had an orgasm right in front of him. His tongue loosens up and his temper flares like a cornered animal’s.
“Do you want to fuck her? Is that it?” he asks, drunk and despairing as his words slur out of his mouth. “Or is this about Marcel? About Sal? What the fuck do you want from me, Nico?” he asks, half begging as he sways pitifully in his seat.
Ava bites back a whimper as Thaddeus asks if I want to fuck her, while my hand is already on her cunt.
“I want to toast to your health, Thaddeus.”
“Nico, that’s enough,” Ava says, begging me on two fronts. Her knuckles are white. “You’re going to send him to the hospital.”
“I wouldn’t waste their time. I’m going to send him to the morgue.”
Her eyelids flutter beautifully.
Thaddeus lurches to his feet. Bad idea. He sways hard, almost going down in the middle of the crowded room. I slide my hand away from Ava as the attention shifts to our table. Conversation lulls as Thaddeus stumbles around on his feet. His face gleams red and his eyes glimmer. He’s well and truly fucked up. Just as he almost gets those spindly legs under him, taking that first brave, wobbling step toward the bathroom, I rise and block his path.
“Wrong way, Thaddeus. Exit’s over there.” I nod over his shoulder to the entryway. He’s not too drunk to catch my meaning. His bleary gaze shifts from the toilets to the street. With a tiny nod of my head, I kick him out of the restaurant, out of our company, out of my sight.
He’s too drunk to fight me on it, too desperate to go somewhere and puke his guts out. He turns, veering clumsily, not sober enough to even argue as he tries to get out, to get anywhere private. He hits the door like an insect on a windshield before he manages to push it open.
I join Ava again, sliding into the same booth with her even when there are only two of us. She sighs, her relief double-sided. Her cheeks are still pink, and she’s the only one at this table who hasn’t drunk a drop.
“Jesus Christ, Nico,” she breathes, annoyed and flustered all at once. “If you’re not careful, you’re going to make me feel sorry for him.”
“Pity him all you want. Nobody’s ever gotten married because they feel sorry for somebody. Besides, you started it.”
She smiles guiltily at that.
“I guess I did,” she admits. “But this was never going to end well for him.”
“It was never going to end well for either of you.”
Ava’s tiny smile fades, her eyes crinkling with confusion and then blowing wide when my hand slides right back between her legs. She stares at me, shocked as the game continues now that Thaddeus is gone.
“He isn’t the only one who fucked up tonight,” I say lowly, scraping the words against her ear. “You know what you did.”
“I invited my fiancé to my birthday dinner,” she says through her teeth.
“You lied to me. By omission.”
“That’s not lying,” she snips. “Especially since you apparently know everything anyway.”
I snap the garter belt on her thigh. We meet eye to eye, my thoughts the color red and the consistency of ash as we both realize I know what she has under that dress.
“He bought it for me,” she says defensively. “Along with the dress. For my birthday, I guess.”
A familiar calm washes over me. No panic, no rush. I stand up and straighten out my tie, casually tossing enough cash onto the table to cover the bill and then some. In the state he’s in, chasing Thaddeus down and beating him to death on the sidewalk won’t require any urgency. Much like his place in life, he can’t have gotten too far. Sensing the change in mood, Ava grabs me by the wrist and holds me in place.
“Nico, no. ” She’s not afraid of me, meeting my stare even when she knows exactly what I want to do. I almost pull away when she pleads, “It’s my birthday.”
That little technicality reaches out and snags me around the ankle, holding me in place until my anger has nowhere to go except back at her. “Only for the next couple of hours. Maybe I’ll take my time with him. Really let him suffer before I kill him. And you... ”
I lean down, my angry whisper at her ear,
“ You’re in trouble, little girl .”
For a few weeks now, I’ve had keys to a tiny apartment in the family territory. There’s not much in it, only what needs to be—a bed in the corner and a semi-automatic in the closet. It’s some place to crash when the work runs long, a hideout when tensions are high.
I bring Ava there after dinner, all those little birthday plans gone up in smoke.
It sure as fuck isn’t some five-star penthouse suite. It’s not her prettied-up fairytale bedroom. It’s a thin, springy mattress on a twin-size bedframe, with a single burnt-out lightbulb overhead.
Shadows stretch into the room. A flickering neon sign across the street casts a red haze over the darkness that lays over everything before us. Ava enters, the only pretty thing in a bare, ugly landscape. Her eyes pass over the empty walls and the narrow, barred windows.
“What is this place? My timeout?” she asks.
I shut the door and slide the chain on the lock.
There’s something off about Ava tonight, something in the way she looks at me. I can’t read it. She tosses her bag aside and marches fearlessly into the only bedroom. She sits on the mattress and bounces, testing how uncomfortable it is. The springs squeak. My pampered brat has probably never laid on a bed like that in her whole life.
“How old are you?” I ask, sliding my hands into my pockets.
“Isn’t that something you’re supposed to know before you start fucking me?”
She drops her high heels onto the floor one at a time. The girl is really going to test me tonight.
“You think I won’t make you cry just because it’s your birthday, Ava?”
“How did you even know that?” she finally demands, heated. “I never told you that!”
Is that what has her on edge? Her birthday?
“Why should you have to tell me?” I step closer, dragging the backs of my fingers up the side of her knee. “Knowing everything about you is my pleasure.” Ava glares like there’s some big riddle in all this, but there isn’t. It’s so simple, I don’t know how to make it sound complicated enough for her. I lift my hand and catch her by the jaw.
“Now, why don’t you explain why the fuck you were spending your birthday with another man?”
Her expression flickers at being called out. “You mean my fiancé ?”
“Yes. Why was my wife spending time with her so-called fiancé?”
Between last Friday and now, I don’t know where this caginess and distrust came from. The words my wife don’t have the same effect tonight as they did then. She holds her ground, and if she blushes, I think it’s only with frustration and not butterflies.
“Because this is the real world, Nico. You and I can sneak off to places like this and play pretend together as much as we want, but that’s all it is. A fantasy. It’s not real, and it’s never going to be, no matter how many cars you buy me or dinners you crash. I can’t do this. I’m engaged, and I have to start acting like it whether you like it or not.”
“Were you going to fuck him?” I demand.
“Are you still trying to fuck over my brother?” she counters, just as quick. The silence stretches, the tension palpable as it simmers between us. I taste it on the air between us, electric, ready to snap, and even I don’t know if we’re going to fight or fuck.
“It’s not like I wanted to!” she finally snaps. “You and I aren’t together, Nico! We’re not a couple; I don’t even know if we’re friends . We’re just—just fucked up!”
“There’s no question about what we are, Ava,” I cut across, before she can make it all twisted and complicated. “You’re my woman, and I’m your man. And that’s all there is. Marriage laws and family deals and labels, none of that shit matters. Not for us. Now, tell me why you’ve been bad.”
My hands tear into that fucking dress in one simple motion, the seams popping apart. Ava’s breath hitches. Glitzy fabric rips apart in my hands, goes spilling down her chest. The lingerie bodice underneath is a strapless lace corset. It pushes Ava’s tits up, makes them tight and high, as if it can barely hold them back. The whole thing looks too innocent for that wild look in her eyes.
“I wasn’t —”
“Tell me what you did.”
Her teeth sink into that lower lip, and even if she tells herself not to play into the game, she can’t resist.
“I went to dinner with someone else.”
“And?”
I drag my finger up the sheer fabric of the corset.
“And I wore the lingerie he bought me.”
“This doesn’t even suit you,” I whisper furiously. “He doesn’t fucking know you at all. He thinks you’re something delicate and fragile.” She gasps sharply as I push her legs apart and tear a hole into the lacy garment with my hands, leaving her bare pussy unguarded and exposed as I swirl my hand around it.
“Oh, fuck,” she mews softly, as I pick right back up where I left off in the restaurant. The last time we fucked, the girl had the upper hand on me. Not anymore. I flip Ava around and bend her over the edge of the mattress. I trace the little bumps outlined on her spine as I stretch her out beneath me, then push my hips up against her from behind. I let her feel the weight of my erection straining against the inseam of my trousers, pressing it against the curve of her hot, bare pussy. She grinds back gently.
“Please, Nico,” she gasps. “You’re all I really want for my birthday.”
“ Liar .”
I slide my palm all the way down between her legs and roughly manhandle that pussy, leveraging her weight against it as I slide my hand up and down, damn near bringing her up off the floor.
“Is this what you like, Ava? Being dressed up like a sex doll by another man? Did you get off, sitting there thinking about how he wanted you?”
“No,” she gasps, “I just thought about how jealous you would be.”
Half drunk on sake and my still cock twitches in response like a trained dog hearing a command. I ignore the urge.
“This time, you underestimated me.”
She whimpers, leaning over, grinding her hips against my palm as I work her up.
“One more chance, Ava. How old are you? Or I’m going to guess, and you’re not going to like the answer I come up with.”
“Twenty-two,” she finally admits.
I pull one bow free and unfurl it into a short ribbon. I wrap it loosely around her wrists, just enough to wrap around the bedpost.
“Look,” I tell her, making her watch. I pull her wrists down, and the ribbon unfurls easily. “You see how loose that is?”
She nods.
“I’m not going to tie you up, Ava. That would make it too easy for you. Restraints aren’t that interesting on their own. I want you to be a good girl and keep yourself tied up for me while I give you your birthday spanking. You break that ribbon, and I’m going to start all over, harder than the last time.”
Ava’s breathing changes, her teeth dragging over her lower lip.
I twist her wrists up in the loose ribbon, half-heartedly tying it to the bed. The slightest pull, and the knot will slip free. Ava is very still, leaning on her elbows, her head down with her hands clasped together and her ass in the air.
I circle around her, taking in the sight.
“Do you understand why you’re being punished?”
“Because you’re a kinky motherfucker.”
I land a jolting slap against her ass, and immediately she pulls down the ribbon, gasping hard, shocked at the intensity of it. The surprise chokes her, and she can’t decide between a painful whimper and an aroused moan.
“Nico...”
“Do you think I get angry for show, Ava?” I ask, dragging her wrists to the bedposts again and wrapping them up. She shakes her head, her breath shaking now as she gets into the mindset that I need her in. A lot aroused, and a little afraid. I take her by the hair and snarl into her ear, “Twenty-two more to go. Count them.”
I spank her again, the jolt quaking through her ass.
“One,” she gasps.
The ribbon stays on, stretched taut but still together. I land another blow, and Ava pitches out a breathy two . Her skin turns pink and hot under my touch.
“Nico, I’m sorry—”
Her ass jiggles sharply as I keep the blows coming, and Ava bows her head and tries to count them.
“Three...four!”
Her legs twist helplessly on the bedcovers, but she’s statue-still from the arms up, her chest heaving and delicious whimpers falling from her lips.
“Touch me. Please touch me.”
I knead her ass instead, dragging my fingers slowly over the blistering skin. She grits her teeth and I clap another hand against that blazing ass. She whimpers her answer; I pull her head back and make her say it into the room. She cries out in worry as it almost makes the knot slip.
“I didn’t hear you.”
“Five! I said five!”
“Good girl,” I whisper, and give her what she wants, sliding my hand under her blistering ass to cup her tight pussy and circle her clit. Her toes curl sweetly as she urges me on, begging for more and more of that.
I clap my hand against her pussy.
She bucks, the ribbon slipping from the bedpost as she pulls her hands toward herself. She cries out, a delicious mix of pleasure and pain and sheer, helpless frustration as she realizes the mistake.
“That’s not fair!”
“Good. I’m not fair.” I clap my hand against her stinging backside just as an extra helping of punishment. “ Again .”
I tie the ribbon up another time. The blows fall hard, making her ass ripple and bounce deliciously. At this rate, we’re testing the both of us. The thread holding me back just happens to be invisible, and if it slips, I’m going to abandon the bullshit, climb on top of her, and fuck the girl until she’s screaming and cross-eyed.
“One…two…ah! Three!”
“Do you know why you’re being punished, Ava?” I growl, in the middle of her counting. She rocks back and forth dangerously, her pussy slick with need and her chest heaving, but her hands stay still and the knot secure.
“B-because I— six!— because I deserve it.”
She cracks out a seven, an eight, a nine. I give her a moment to breathe, stroking my fingers along her slick folds just to fan the flames, make her burn a little hotter, sweat a little more.
“What else?”
“Because I went out with Thaddeus?”
The next clap of my hand makes her gasp, cracking through the bedroom like a shot.
“Don’t you dare say his fucking name while you’re dripping for me.”
She moans.
“Yes, sir,” she whimpers. The words go straight to my cock. I didn’t even prompt her to say it. The girl is just sinking into the moment on her own, plunging deep into her own twisted wants.
“ Count ,” I demand, when she forgets.
“Um...t-ten,” she gasps, barely able to remember.
“Good girl,” I whisper, and spank her again. She makes it to thirteen solid hits on that pink backside—but thirteen is the unlucky number, and she unfurls the ribbon again with a twitch of her wrist.
She curses bitterly, half a sob.
“Nico, I—”
She tries to cut herself off, walk back the thought, but I order her to say it.
“I’m close,” she admits, even with tears of pain stinging in her eyes. Fuck, that’s hot.
“I don’t even have to touch your cunt, do I? That’s how badly you want me.”
I scrub my hand over her backside, where soft welts are already forming. She flinches on instinct, waiting for the next blow, but I roll her over onto her back and kiss the whimpers out of her mouth. Her bound wrists lock around my neck, keeping me on top of her as she gasps in sweet relief.
I let her ass cool off, but I keep the rest of her hot, tapping my fingers rapidly against her clit.
“Nico, please,” she gasps, the sensation rattling in her teeth. “Please, fuck me. Fuck me. That’s all I want. I want you to be my birthday present, please, please—”
“God, I love it when you beg,” I whisper, then drag my tongue between her teeth as we kiss. “But begging me isn’t going to get you out of this one, baby girl.”
Her thighs shudder, her face pinching in pleasure.
Just my words set off a tiny peak inside her.
“I need to touch my clit,” she sobs.
“Be a good girl,” I whisper. “You barely even made it halfway. You were almost close .”
Her breathing turns ragged and hungry as I push her back and fasten the ribbon again. Determination blazes in her face. We start over, this time with Ava on her back, her legs spread.
“Keep up,” I order her, and smack my hand against her pussy, fast and shallow, building the sting quickly so she has no time to adjust. Her legs flail, her ability to count briefly stuttering as she’s rendered breathless. She’s about to orgasm as I hammer my hand against her pussy.
“One, two, three, four,” Her pitch becomes a pathetic squeak. “Five, six, seven!”
“Don’t come,” I whisper.
“Eight,” she sobs, tears glistening in her eyes and her eyebrows pinched. “Nine, ten!”
Her words become pitched with yelps.
I increase the pace until she’s tripping over the numbers, shaking hard. Her arms are completely still, almost numb, as if she’s forgotten they’re there, as if she only exists from the waist down, the only sensation the pleasure popping against her abused little clit and blushing cunt.
She’s stumbling, losing count, her thighs shaking as she arches her hips up into my hand.
She reaches farther than before—fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, all in rapid-fire succession. Her head falls back, her eyes staring without seeing. She’s so fucking close, barely hanging on, the numbers a whisper on her lips.
She’s right there.
“Twenty, Twenty-one!”
I stop one short, catch the girl up in the fine print that leaves her stunned and breathless, her hands still helplessly bound in limbo. She cries out, her legs shaking and arms frozen above her. I wrench open her thighs and bury my face between her legs, reward that sweet, obedient cunt with my tongue. I greedily mouth her clit, my lips and tongue working against it, fast and feather-light after the hard, stinging slaps.
The orgasm Ava has been fighting for finally crests and breaks inside of her. It spills from her mouth in a moan, drips from her cunt in a tiny bead of wet arousal that sinks into the sheets. I land the final smack against her spent cunt and finish the count for her.
“Twenty-two.”
Her hands rip away from the ribbon and seize me, pulling me into a hungry kiss. It burns through me, eclipsing me in how hot and desperate it is.
“I’m sorry,” she gasps against my lips. “I’m so sorry.”
I don’t know what she’s apologizing for. The birthday, the lingerie, her orgasm. Whatever it is, I put her back onto the bedsheets, spread her legs, and unzip my pants. I spend the night forgiving Ava with my cock, and for the first time, she begs me to be gentle, to go easy.
She lets me make love to her until the clock strikes twelve and her birthday is over.