Chapter 15 #2
“I had to live without you. Serenity, you don’t know what that’s like.”
“Nico, I do. Every night I dreamed about you touching me, fucking me, telling me I’m yours.”
“I talked to your father after you left. He told me where you were.”
My heart lurches in my chest. Even though Nana told me Nico met with Dad, it still rattles me knowing he could’ve come after me.
“He said I needed to let you go. Said if I dragged you back, you’d only disappear forever. So I waited until I had something to bargain with.”
Nico pushes the unused cigar back into his inner pocket before peeling off the tuxedo jacket. “You’ll get punished later. I need to taste you first, then I want to get you pregnant with my child.”
My legs squeeze together. He wants me to have his child. Not knowing he already has one. We’re to make baby number two. Once I get Madden settled in New Jersey, I’ll tell Nico about his firstborn.
“Get out of your head, Serenity. Don’t worry about what will happen once you’re pregnant. Let’s enjoy making a baby.” He winks.
I slide my fingers over his wet face, removing the leftover tears. My hands land on his strong pecs. “Be gentle with me starting out. It’s been a long time.”
His brow raises. “You didn’t fuck Colby Jack?”
I shake my head. “No. The night of my welcome home party, he cupped my pussy in my office and I wanted to cut his hand off.”
“I thought he was your boyfriend?” He questions through gritted teeth.
“No, we were just dating. I kissed him, but I never let things go further. I felt creeped out when he touched me. I don’t know why. Deep down I know it’s all to do with you.”
Nico takes my hand, leads me inside. I know Nico wants to murder Kobi even more now. He tosses his jacket on the hunter green chaise lounge chair in the corner.
Nico turns to face me. He brings my ring to his lips and kisses it.
“Get me out of this dress,” I whisper.
He steps behind me and unzips the gown. His lips trail down my back.
“You’re the only man for me. Not sure why I tried to be with anyone else.”
Nico pushes the straps down my arms, then helps me step out of the beautiful gown.
“Fuck, look at all that ass.”
He drops to his knees and presses kisses along my indented skin.
My head falls back because having his lips on my skin is the best fucking feeling.
“You didn’t have to wear the dress so tight.”
I glance over my shoulder at him. “Luckily, this is our last wedding.”
“Better fucking believe that,” he growls.
“And don’t ever wear clothes that will indent your skin again. I love you the way you are.”
His true words warm my heart.
He picks up the gown and places it on the chair. He returns and I start unbuttoning his shirt.
“Mr. Wolf, I miss your hairy body.” I smirk.
He smiles. “I knew you loved the hair.”
I chuckle as I push the shirt over his muscled shoulders. It falls to the floor, and I stop breathing.
My eyes move across his abdomen slowly. Too slowly, like my mind is refusing to process what my eyes are already reading. The scars. The wounds. Four of them, angry and permanent, mapped across skin I once knew by heart.
And above them, in ink so deliberate it steals what’s left of my breath.
Serenity.
My name. Tattooed above every place a bullet tried to take him from this world.
My knees hit the floor before I make the decision to kneel.
The sob that tears out of me doesn’t feel like mine — it’s too raw, too wrecked, pulled from somewhere I didn’t know I still had access to. My hands fly to my mouth, but they don’t stop anything. Nothing could stop this.
My fingers reach for him, shaking, tracing the raised edges of the largest wound. Beneath it, curved like a prayer, two words I will never recover from:
For Serenity.
“You were shot four times?”
The words crack apart in my mouth. I already know the answer. I just need to hear the air hold it for a second — need it to be real and spoken and not just something I’m kneeling in front of on the floor.
He doesn’t answer. He doesn’t have to.
Because it’s all here. Written in scar tissue and ink. He walked into my family’s war. Faced the mafia, faced the Bratva, and he did it without asking me to say thank you. Without asking me for anything at all.
How did I not see it? How did I stand across from this man, year after year, and mistake devotion for danger? Read love as manipulation? He gave me every reason, and I catalogued every one of them as a reason to run.
The guilt moves through me like a current, sharp and consuming, tangled up with something that feels unbearably close to grief. For the time lost. For the version of me that was so buried under her own wounds that she couldn’t recognize when someone was bleeding for her.
My lips press against the largest scar. Softly. The way you touch something sacred.
“Nico.” His name comes out as barely a sound. “I love you. I love you so much.”
His hands find my face, cradling me like I’m something he almost lost too. He tilts me up toward him.
“I know, baby.”
Quiet.
Certain.
Like he always knew, even when I didn’t say it. Especially then.
I look up at him. This man who broods and commands and moves through the world like a thunderstorm. And I see it clearly for the first time without fear clouding my vision. All those years I spent keeping him at arm’s length, I thought I was protecting myself.
I was just making us both bleed slower.
My past had its hands around my throat for so long I forgot what it felt like to breathe free. And while I was suffocating in it, this man was quietly going to war.
For me.
For my name, carved into his skin above every scar.
Nico helps me to my feet. “All I want to do is have my dick buried inside my wife.” His deep voice bounces off the walls and hits my clit with hunger.
“I need that, Nico.”
Quickly, he removes the rest of his clothes. “I’ll probably come in less than five minutes the first time. But I promise to make it up to you.”
“I know you will.” Did something happen to his sex drive while he was in a coma?
I stare at his bobbing cock, then meet his cognac gaze. “I have no right asking, but did the other women say anything about your hairy chest and balls?”
My hands roam his hairy pecs, and his large hands gravitate to my round ass.
I remember asking that bitch Lucy. She said he was always shaved.
His tongue slicks across his lips as he peers down at me. “I kept my chest shaved. Lucinda never said anything about it. And I didn’t let a forest grow around my dick and balls,” he pauses. “No woman has seen my dick in five years.”
I chuckle. “What? Nico. You can be honest.”
“Serenity, I haven’t fucked another woman.”
I laugh again. “Stop playing, Nico.”
“I’m not. Once you and I had sex, I never fucked another woman.”
I step back. “Nico, are you really going back to the beginning?”
“I am.”
I tilt my head. “But you fucked the cheer team.”
“No. That was just a rumor a cheerleader started that got out of control. I didn’t shut it down because I knew you’d lose it thinking another woman touched what only ever belonged to you.” He flashes a wolfish grin.
This man drives me crazy.
Standing before my naked husband in just my matching black strapless bra and thong, I shake my head.
“What about the women leaving your dorm, your apartment, the parties? I can go on.”
“Everything was designed to look that way. They were pissed I didn’t fuck them. I’ve been celibate for five fucking years, Serenity.”
He looks pissed.
“I know you fucked that asshole. I should’ve told you sooner that I never fucked another woman. Maybe you wouldn’t have slept with him,” he says through clenched teeth.
I take a step back. “I had never been attracted to Rod. Also I understand he was in on the bet. I only kept him safe to get back at you. You were my boyfriend. You hurt me. For that reason alone, I wouldn’t allow you to kill him.”
His eyes squeeze shut for a long moment. “You trusted me with your heart. And I fucked up.”
My hand sways across his chest as I nod, accepting his apology.
“I told myself if I sleep with Rod, Nico won’t want me. He’ll finally walk away.”
His throat works as he stares at me. Anger taking over his gorgeous face.
“I went to his house, made out with him in his kitchen. Even went up to his bedroom.”
I peek at him through my long false lashes. “I chickened out. He was crushed. And I didn’t care. Guess you eventually got to him and killed him.”
He blows out a breath. “For the last time, I didn’t kill him. Why would I lie about that?”
“Maybe because he was the reason, we broke up.”
He shrugs. “I wanted to, and I tried, but I could never get to him the way I wanted to.”
Why would someone else kill Rod? Now I had to do some digging.
A smile lifts Nico’s sexy lips. “I’m the only man you’ve been with, huh?” He slides his thumb across my lower, pouty lip.
“Yes.” I wrap my hands around him, sliding up and down his shaft. Drops of precum gather at the tip. Gently, I drag my thumb over his head, spreading the slick down his length. The hunger burning in his eyes only deepens my desire.
“I love your dick and your hairy balls,” I confess.
His fingers weave into my hair. “Tonight, Serenity, we’re making a baby.”
My heart races fiercely, and tears sting the edges of my eyes, but I blink them away. “Okay.”
He keeps reminding me about the baby we’re making to help me wrap my brain around the fact that we’re making a little human.
Nico settles on the floor at the foot of the bed, slowly peeling my thong down my thighs and legs.
The scent of my arousal mixed with expensive floral perfume fills the air.
“You’re so wet for me,” he whispers.
“I’m always wet for you,” I reply, stepping out of the delicate fabric. “Over the years, I had pictures of you sent to me. I used them to get off,” I admit.
He smirks, lifting my thong to his nose, inhaling deeply before tossing it aside. Nico sits on the floor between my legs. He pulls me close, and I widen my stance. His head rests on the mattress as his hands cup my ass. His tongue darts out, flicking over my clit.
“Nico,” I cry out, clutching his curly hair.