Chapter 44 – Rae
The McKim courtyard was packed with guests enjoying the heat of the summer evening.
An iconic Boston venue, the Public Library hosted the three-hundred guests easily.
The crème de la crème turned out in force to publicly wish Arabella happy birthday and gain favor with the powerful businessman, her godfather.
I lingered behind a column, looking over the garden, and shook my head.
They were going to try to suck up to Nico the same way.
It was going to be so freaking entertaining to watch them fail.
My monster prowled through the crowd, ducking back into the historic Bates Hall.
He’d told me his plans. They didn’t involve pomp or flashy press opportunities.
Nico would focus on business. Hell, he was even going to appoint someone else to be the CEO of his grandfather’s enterprises, so he could work from the shadows.
Where I would stand by his side.
Our time was coming.
Turning away from the miserable-looking birthday girl and her throng of admirers—because if I didn’t, I was going to do something dumb, like intervene—I wandered into a quieter space.
The tomb-like silence welcomed me with a cool kiss of ancient air.
Some of these books were hundreds of years old, their words and wisdom forgotten.
The guests likely thought these rooms were musty, but I liked the dusty invitation of the delicate yellow pages.
I wandered deeper into the library, past the posh parts that had good optics.
A more modern layout was on the backside, and I thought I remembered someone saying this was a separate building entirely.
I couldn’t remember, and I didn’t care. Books were better than people.
Reading was one of those hobbies I had to be in the mood for. It wasn’t like working on a car. There wasn’t a physical outcome to show off my hard work. But I missed it. I missed how a book made me feel.
Wandering into an alcove, I plucked the first book I spied off a shelf.
Curling up on a bench, my dress spread in a wave of sparkles.
The moonlight caught the material and made it dance.
I took off my mask to see the print easier and set the beautiful, silvery disguise carefully beside me.
No one was going to find me here. The book was a biography on some old timer named Thomas Aquinas. After the first page, I groaned.
This wasn’t the type of book my heart was craving.
“You are going to sit here and read the first chapter,” I ordered myself.
Maybe then I would be calmer. I could return to the party without making a scene. I didn’t want Nico to think I was some uncivilized hellcat. But the way his grandparents acted really stuck in my craw.
As it turned out, that Aquinas guy had a fascinating upbringing. Who knew that eight hundred years ago politics were mob-like? This prince ruled here, that duke ruled there. They fought. The old timer’s mom had her family kidnap her own son and tried to make him sleep with a prostitute—
An amused voice broke the stillness. “This is a magical ball, and you’re over here in the corner…reading.”
I screamed.
My terror echoed through the vaulted halls. Adrenaline spiked my veins with a turbulent fever.
That reaction only made the monster laugh. “Cazzo, my sweet cherry, the noises you make.” Nico stepped out from the shadows. He wasn’t wearing his mask. “We haven’t had the chance to really see what music those sweet lips are capable of making.”
Breathing hard, the reality returned to focus. I must have jumped to my feet, because I was standing in front of the dark prince. He tipped my chin with his knuckles.
“You scared the livin’ daylights out of me!” I wheezed as he brushed the pad of his thumb under my lip.
“My apologies, baby,” he murmured, continuing to touch me. “But I was done watching you.”
I bit back a gasp as a wicked thrill raced through me at the thought of being watched by this monster.
Nico grasped my wrists and pulled me toward the bookshelf. “Hold this. Tightly.”
I swallowed past the heartbeat in my throat. The fright he’d given me, and the fact that my veins still burned from the scare, made my skin tingle.
“Tighter, Rae,” Nico murmured as his touch grazed my sides.
My knuckles turned white as I gripped the metal shelf.
“Good….” The tip of his knuckle brushed over the smooth skin of my belly.
Bless the birthday girl and her idea to make this dress a two-piece.
“When I saw you gliding down the stairs, my heart stopped,” Nico confessed, slipping the tip of his finger under the edge of the skirt.
I rolled my eyes. “It did not.”
Reaching up, Nico brushed the curls over one side of my shoulder. He leaned down and blew a hot breath over my skin. “Are you calling me a liar?”
“Hearts don’t work like that,” I muttered.
“Then explain why mine only seems to beat for you?”
A shiver rattled down my spine. I couldn’t help it. His words were knives, and he wielded them with delicious precision.
I relished the sweet pleasure as they cut away the walls around my heart.
Gently, Nico tugged the invisible zipper open and drew the skirt down my bare legs. He let out a soft whistle of appreciation when he noticed my little secret.
“Did you do this for me, cherry-bomb?” he mused.
Turning my head, I caught the hungry way he studied me. “For your eyes only.”
He bent. The prince of the underworld, on his knees…for me. Each hand rested on my outer thighs, and he pressed a kiss against the sensitive skin on the back of my legs.
I made a mental note to regularly forgo wearing underwear.
Nice pushed my thighs wider and cupped my pussy possessively. “Mine.”
My insides clenched, and liquid heat pooled between my legs. Nico stroked me, making me whimper when he slipped a finger inside.
“Yours,” I breathed.
Nico added a second finger and pumped them in and out. With each stroke, the tips of the others rubbed against my clit. He reached around to hold my lower stomach firmly as he finger-fucked me.
“You drive me insane.” Before I could respond, his teeth sank into my ass. I yelped, which only made the monster chuckle. “I’m going to mark this beautiful ass, so when you sit, you’ll know who it belongs to.”
The sharp sting of his teeth made me jolt, but the thrum of his fingers working my pussy edged the pain with pleasure. He worried the flesh between his teeth, not doubt leaving the promised bruise. The pinch and tug on my clit made me see stars.
Rising, Nico captured my jaw. “Hold that shelf, baby.”
And then, he kissed me.
There was no air in my lungs. There was only the breath he gave me. It was hot. Intense. His hunger burned through me until I slumped against the shelf.
Inside me, Nico’s fingers curled.
My pussy clenched tightly, pleasure coiling into a blissful knot.
I should have known this wasn’t his plan. Removing his fingers, he slapped my pussy.
I growled against his smile.
Breaking the kiss, Nico tugged the zipper down my spine and peeled the bodice off me. I had to let go of the shelf for him to remove it and realized with a flush of embarrassment how much I was already shaking.
I grabbed the shelf again, my lifeline.
Holding my waist, Nico pushed the tip of his cock against my entrance. Slowly, inch by torturous inch, he filled me. This was far from being our first time, but my pussy still stretched with a delicious little sting to fit him.
“You take me so well,” he groaned and reached around to cup one of my breasts. He pinched my nipple.
I bit back the whimper.
“No,” he growled, leaning down to graze his teeth over my shoulder. “Don’t fight it. Don’t hold back. Tonight, I need to hear you in all your glory.”
“Nico!” I hissed.
He tweaked my nipple, tugging the sensitive peak, as he withdrew and slammed into me. “Scream for me, baby.”
My sharp gasp filled the silent hall of books.
“Better.” Nico pulled back and teased me with just the end of his cock.
I writhed against him as he pushed back into me. It took too many seconds for him to fill me. But the moment he bottomed out, he was already retreating. My hips jerked in frustration.
A strangled mewl escaped my throat.
It would have been embarrassing…if I had any oxygen in my brain to care.
“Fuck me, Nico,” I begged. “Please, please fuck me.”
He pinched my nipple once more, making me hiss, before he dropped his hand. His touch found my clit and he pinched that too.
“I said, fucking scream for me!” With that, he snapped his hips and thrust deep into my core.
My exhale was a scream.
My body clenched around him, forbidding him from leaving. But the monster had what he wanted. He set a punishing pace, fucking me hard. His rough touch held my hip, while his other hand rubbed my pussy.
“Just like that, let me hear you,” he growled, voice full of possession. “Give it to me, Rae. Give me your music.”
Gasps and pants, squeaks and screams of pleasure tumbled from my lips. Words that didn’t make sense slipped off my tongue. The noise turned into a cacophony of want, and the beast fucking me to the edge of sanity understood.
“Who do you belong to, Rae?” The demand was a clap of thunder.
Throat dry, voice hoarse, the reply still managed to claw its way out of me in a way that should have brought down the ceiling. “Yours, Nico! I’m yours.”
The force of his thrusts made my fingers slip from the shelf.
I scrambled to catch myself, but his hard, unforgiving touch steadied me.
He wasn’t letting me fall. I squeezed the metal with all my might.
Around us, books shook off the shelves, but it didn’t faze the monster.
The rhythm of our hips meeting turned frantic.
My legs shook as the violent surge of my release built to an impossible height. His fingers on my clit sent the first sparks of the orgasm racing through me. His cock buried inside stoked the flames.
And then I exploded.
This wasn’t a blissful fall off the edge of pleasure. This was a raging inferno that consumed me, until there was nothing left but the climax. I couldn’t see anything. My body was fire. So I sang. A loud, fevered song that echoed in screams of delirium.
Through the spiral of pleasure, there was a bellow responding to my cries.
Nico thrust impossibly deep and stilled as his cock twitched inside me, spilling his release and branding me on the inside.
Floating back to reality was almost painful. No…it was pain. A delicious kind. One I wanted to feel again. My fingers were white and numb. My legs shook and wouldn’t hold me. I would have collapsed into the floor when Nico finally pulled away if he hadn’t caught me.
“That was the most beautiful fucking thing I’ve ever heard, cherry-bomb,” he rasped against my ear before placing a soft kiss on my cheek.
The next few minutes were a haze. Nico dressed me—and himself, but he kept a hold on me as I shivered and shook on the stupid, strappy heels.
I hadn’t even remembered that I was wearing them, but when Nico brushed a finger around an ankle, letting out a soft growl of appreciation, I realized that was probably part of the reason I’d felt like falling.
When he rose, he pulled me into his arms in a way that my back leaned against his stomach. My eyes fluttered closed, and I drank in his warmth. His solid presence. The very essence of him.
I’m in love.
It was both a simple and a profound revelation. But the smile fell from my lips as he whispered in my ear.
“Good, because I’m in love with you too, Magnolia Rae.”
My eyes snapped open. Embarrassment burned my cheeks. I’d said that out loud! I wanted to bolt. It was too soon. And people shouldn’t go around saying things like that after having their souls fucked right out of their body.
“I think it’s time I gave you this,” Nico continued to whisper, not letting me squirm my way out of his hold. His arm was a bar around my chest. He pressed his cheek against mine, caging me close. Meanwhile, his other hand slipped into his pocket before grabbing the fingers of my left hand.
Something tight and cool pushed over my knuckle.
I turned into stone. “Nico.”
“I told you I’d leave my mark,” he chuckled darkly.
“Nico, I can’t wear this!”
His thumb stroked the skin right under the gold band. The solitaire twisted back and forth on my finger. “Too late, it’s done.”
A spluttering protest choked me. “You didn’t even ask! And I sure as hell didn’t say yes.”
“I did, and you agreed.” He nipped my earlobe, making me squeak. “I asked who you belong to—and you screamed my name.”
He cut off my stammer with a hard kiss. His tongue slipped in my mouth, thrusting in a way that made my swollen pussy clench in memory of his cock.
I was too worked up to kiss him back right away, but when I finally melted, he turned me.
I threw my arms around his neck and let him taste my surrender.
The conversation would have picked right back up—with me pointing out that even if I said yes on a technicality, I couldn’t possibly wear his ring—if an outraged shout didn’t break the spell.
“Dominico! Che cazzo fai!”
With a cold splash of fear, I wielded around, still in Nico’s arms, to face the puffing, red-faced mafia don.