Chapter 19
After midnight, I hear pounding at my door. What the hell?
I open up to see Nico, hair a mess, fist still held as though he hadn’t thought to unfurl it after all that banging. He paces into my apartment before closing the door behind him. I have no idea what’s happening right now. But then he turns around and faces me.
“Please don’t go on a date with him again. Please.”
I stare at him, mouth open in confusion. That’s why he almost broke down my door?
“It wasn’t like a formal date,” I finally respond. “We just had drinks. It’s not a big deal.”
“He had his hand on you,” he rushes out. We both stare at each other for a minute, and finally I raise my eyebrows, wondering if he actually expects me to have a response to that. He winces. “I just mean . . . it looked like a date.”
“Nico . . .” I say slowly, forcing myself to take a deep inhale so I won’t let the frustration that’s prickling across my skin take hold. “Whatever tonight was, I’m not really dating. As you have pointed out to me so eloquently, I’m leaving, and therefore cannot actually date anyone.”
I’m not sure if I’m thrilled or embarrassed by the way his eyes widen, my words a straight shot that’s landed.
But I’ve never beat around the bush, and I’m sure as hell not going to do it today, when he’s barged into my apartment unannounced like I owe him something.
He rejected me. He made his feelings exceptionally clear.
I’m not going to become a nun just because it irks him unreasonably.
So I keep going. “But even if I was to think about a date seriously, you don’t have a right to share an opinion on that.”
“I know . . .” He sighs. “I know that.”
He’s looking down now, running his hands through his hair, like a man on the verge of snapping in some way.
I can’t tell if he’s annoyed or angry or something else.
It’s unnatural on him—he’s normally so calm that his mere presence usually calms me.
And now he looks like a slingshot that’s been pulled taut but without any release in sight.
“Well then, what?” I finally say, the edge still in my voice. “I’m not a toy, Nico. You can’t tell me you don’t want me and then hold me above your head and say, ‘No one else can have this.’”
“I know that,” he repeats, still not looking at me.
“But it doesn’t seem that you do!”
“I never said I don’t want you,” he mumbles, the words so soft I barely hear them. But even if he’s saying them quietly, they still ramp up my own frustration.
“Yes you did,” I counter. “And it’s fine. It’s totally fine. I get where you’re coming from. I respect it. I almost agree with you—”
“Almost?” His eyes shoot up, curiosity now winning over his discomfort.
“Well . . .” I sigh again. I’m not used to this. I never dance around uncomfortable truths.
I’ve never had something that felt precious enough not to ruin.
But maybe I need to accept that we’ve already ruined some piece of it and just be honest.
“It doesn’t matter what I think, because you made yourself clear,” I point out. “And I do want to be your friend. Of course I do. So yeah, in that way I sort of agree with you.”
He’s not looking at me again. That discomfort roiling within him doesn’t seem to be going anywhere.
I want to pull his face up and make him look at me so I can scream at him.
But of course, because he’s Nico, I don’t.
He’s the only person I’ve ever been able to stop myself from hurting when he deserved it.
“This isn’t fair to me,” I finally say, my voice surprising me by cracking. But it’s like all my confusion and frustration is beating its way out of me. And that unfairness is the only thing I know that’s true in this moment. Tears prick at the edges of my eyes, and now I’m the one looking down.
He takes a step forward and grasps my hands, always so incapable of standing idly by when he sees I’m in distress.
“I know that too,” he says with a heavy sigh, pushing his hair out of his eyes.
“So what are you doing?” I ask, my eyes trained on his hands. They’re so capable of strength but so gentle when they’re on me. He slowly rubs his thumb against mine, and just that small movement makes me want to explode ten times more than anything Beppe did earlier.
“Please don’t make me answer that,” he says, his voice strained.
“I think you have to,” I reply, opening back up the can of worms that was never closed properly.
I can practically touch the desperation radiating out of him. I can feel his eyes on me, even though I’m still looking at our clasped hands. He doesn’t want to answer. He’s clearly not going to answer.
But when I finally look up, I can read the confusion in his eyes. It makes my heart hurt, seeing him like this.
And it’s such a strange feeling to suddenly realize I’d sacrifice myself for someone else.
It’s funny, I wouldn’t have gone five steps out of my way for John. I’ve never understood that sentiment of a relationship requiring any sacrifice that matters. But looking into Nico’s eyes and seeing that abject defeat, I know I’d do anything to make it stop.
I can avoid going on dates for him. I know it’s like a misogynistic whirlpool of nonsense to even consider a self-imposed celibacy on behalf of a friend. But I can’t stand for him to look at me like that. I can’t stand to be the cause of so much confusion in his head.
“It’s okay,” I say quietly. “Let’s just . . . let’s just agree to let it go and not talk about whatever ridiculous demand you’ve stormed in here to make. I won’t go on another date.”
“You . . . what?” he says, the shock of my capitulation written across his features.
“I mean, I’m not here for long, and I work all the time. It’s not like men are beating down my door,” I scoff. “It’s not worth it.”
“Not worth what?” he asks.
I think about what he said to me earlier today when we were in the kitchen together with Emilia.
I just hate seeing you sad.
It’s exactly how I feel right now.
“Not worth what, Kit?” he repeats.
“Seeing you sad,” I whisper, echoing his words, the truth impossible to keep in.
He nods. He purses his lips and keeps nodding, as though he’s coming to terms with everything we’ve both just said. I’m not getting the sense I’ve made things any better, but at least he’s no longer staring like it hurts to look at me.
“Okay,” he finally says and then turns to leave. He hesitates for a moment, but then walks out the door and shuts it behind him.
I stand in the middle of the room, stunned. What the hell just happened.
I can’t move. It’s as though whatever hold Nico has over my mind has expanded, and now it’s rooting me to the floor.
This attempt to be friends isn’t working.
It’s getting worse by the day. It was so bad at the beach I had to move away just so I wouldn’t have to be adjacent to his torso.
When he hugged me today, I held on as long as I plausibly could.
And it’s not only me, obviously, based on tonight’s ridiculous display.
At this point it feels like slow torture we can’t seem to stop.
But before my mind can go any further down that road, the door opens and Nico walks back in.
He strides toward me, a man on a mission.
“Nico, what—”
He wraps his arms around me. “I can’t do this anymore,” he says.
He pulls me to him, his lips hard and insistent on mine, and I melt.
In an instant I open to him, and his kiss is like lightning in a bottle.
It’s fast and beautiful and a sea of sensation.
His hands are everywhere—in my hair, tracing my collarbone, wrapping around my waist, twining with my fingers—as though he’s thought about every possibility and now can’t choose where to begin.
We fumble backward. Nothing on earth would be capable of stopping the momentum of this kiss now that we’ve started, but we both seemingly have a mission to get up against something.
My bed seems too far, so I pull him onto my couch, his long frame enveloping me against the cushions. His weight is sedation after all the crackling feelings that’ve whipped through me since he first walked in the door. It’s comforting and grounding. It’s stability amid a tornado.
I can’t believe I get to touch him.
I can’t believe it’s instantly this good.
I can’t believe my urgency for him.
It’s all coursing through me, and I wonder if I had to pull him on top of me so I wouldn’t explode from all the wanting.
He sits up, and I whimper from the loss of that weight.
He takes off his shirt, and apparently that’s all I needed to stop all the madness happening in my brain.
His body is like a tranquilizer. Thank goodness I’d already seen his chest at the beach or else we might be here for hours while I simply looked at him.
But if he notices me staring, he doesn’t seem to care because he’s just as unfocused as I was a moment ago (until I had, ahem, this body in front of me to fully focus on).
He’s attempting to undo his belt; he’s pulling at my shirt to get it off; he’s running his hands through my hair, only stopping at the base of my neck, where all the strands curl at the end a bit; he’s kissing every spare inch of skin he can find.
He’s undecided and deeply targeted and then back again.
Watching him come so unbelievably undone makes a small smile curve up the side of my mouth. God, I could watch this forever.
I sit up a bit and make quick work of taking off my shirt and bra, and finally that’s what stills him. I guess I’m a little bit of a tranquilizer for him too.
I wrap my arms around his neck and pull both of us back onto the couch, wanting that exquisite pressure on me again. Our kiss is deeper this time, slower, but with no less ferocity. Skin on skin is heaven, and it makes me pull him closer to me.
But that frantic urge hasn’t stopped; it’s only burrowed in deeper.
We’re both soon pawing at each other again, pants shoddily removed, kisses more urgent, his hands on every new area that’s been unsheathed.
I can feel him hard against me, and it makes me wrap my legs around him, searching for more.
His lips are on my neck and I’m frantic with need, lifting my hips and begging for friction.
“I can’t think straight,” he says into my skin. “I’m obsessed with the way your mouth moves. The way you breathe. Everything.”
“Same,” I say, unable to get out more than a single syllable, all that want making my hands move lower to try to peel off his boxers.
That gets some sense of sanity back into his brain, because he pushes himself up onto his elbows and looks down at me, stopping himself when I’m not sure anything else could’ve.
“We have to . . .” He’s breathing so heavily, attempting to come back down from whatever stratosphere we’ve launched ourselves into.
I want to pull him back and make the rationality stop before it starts.
But he pushes a lock of hair behind my ear—as though that single gesture will get the wildness of it all to calm down—and puts his hand over my heart.
“You have to tell me what you want right now,” he says softly.
“Because I feel like I’m about to completely lose myself in you, but I’ll stop.
I promise I can stop,” he continues, almost as though he’s trying to convince himself too.
He looks gloriously rumpled—hair askew, lips kiss swollen, clothes strewn next to us—with nothing other than his boxers and my underwear between us.
Even though he’s sat up, he stays tethered, one finger gently circling my hip bone in a gesture that is somehow the sweetest and sexiest way anyone has ever touched me.
“I need you,” I hear myself say.
Those aren’t words I’ve ever let slip past my lips. I’ve never needed anything. From anyone. But in this moment, it’s palpable how much I need him. How much I need him to touch me, be inside me, whispering more nonsensical devotions into my ear.
And I need to get back to that state of not thinking, because otherwise any thoughts will terrify me.
I kiss him deeply again and pull down my underwear. The movement makes him let out a breathy curse in Italian that I don’t understand but instantly love. He plants kisses on my shoulder, a nibble, a lick, as though he just can’t decide what would be better.
“I have an IUD,” I breathe, hoping that will end the conversation portion of this evening. “What I want is for you to not stop. Please don’t stop.”
When I move my hands to take down his boxers, this time he doesn’t hesitate. He lifts up his hips until, finally, there’s nothing between us.
There’s been so much between us for so many weeks now. We’ve eroded every layer that we both wrapped ourselves in, slowly unraveling until this became impossible to stop.
When he pushes inside me, it’s as though it was always inevitable. We were always meant to be together like this. It’s too good, too close, too undeniable.
Those hands that previously were manic and without purpose are now laser focused. That pressure on top of me is now a man determined to make me only think of him.
And when I come undone, I can’t think of anything else. When he loses himself, I only want to make him crave me as much as I now crave him. And I’m not sure I’m ever going to be the same.