Chapter Thirty-Two Nico
Chapter Thirty-Two
Nico
There’s no use pretending anymore, and in a way it’s a relief.
What happened last night can’t be waved away as a misunderstanding or played off as part of our charade.
It’s pretty damn clear that what exists between Lee and me is a lot more than friendship.
Tonight, when I get home from work we’re going to have to talk about it, and I’m experiencing a confusing mix of anxiety and anticipation over that.
Last night I pinned Lee to a wall and watched her climax and it was without question the hottest fucking thing I’ve ever witnessed.
Seeing those blue eyes flutter closed, the pink that spilled across her cheeks, the way that perfect rosy mouth of hers opened as the orgasm hit her.
Every detail of it is imprinted on my memory, and will be for ever.
It was a moment that there was no coming back from, and when I realised that, instead of panic all I felt was… satisfaction. The kind of overwhelming, primal satisfaction I’ve never experienced before, swiftly followed by something else: need.
The way I need her is like a disaster. Something violent, painful, thundering through my body like a hurricane, obliterating me and testing the very fragile hold I have on my own control to its limits.
In that moment I wanted to touch her so badly that I had to leave the room before I did something we’d both regret. Unfortunately, that noble gesture meant that I spent a long uncomfortable night alone, followed – if I’m honest – by a long, uncomfortable morning at work.
As I wasn’t sleeping anyway, I came in ridiculously early. I’m so close to finishing up this renovation at the inn that there isn’t even anything for me to smash up. What I wouldn’t give for a good demolition job right now.
Instead, I’ve been carefully reassembling the desk in reception at the base of the stairs.
A hundred years old, this desk has greeted guests upon arrival through the front door, since the inn first opened.
I couldn’t leave it in situ when we were hauling all the building materials in and out and using this space as a holding area, so I took it apart and it’s been in storage for months.
Putting it back together in its rightful place was supposed to be a milestone, a sign that the renovation was almost at an end.
It was supposed to give me a sense of satisfaction.
The irony is not lost on me. The last thing I feel right now is satisfied.
I’m almost done, on the floor, screwing one of the doors to the desk’s cupboards into place when it hits me: the scent of honey and smoke that’s haunted me for almost two weeks now, that lingers in my house, on my clothes, chasing me around town reminding me of her presence twenty-four, fucking seven.
When I look up, Lee is already inside the front door.
‘Hi,’ she says, tucking a strand of hair that has come loose from her braid behind her ear in a nervous gesture. She smiles.
I lever myself up from the floor.
‘Hi.’ My voice is little more than a growl.
‘I know you said in your note that we’d talk later, but I couldn’t wait.’ She takes a step forward. ‘There are some things I need to say.’
Thankfully the desk is between us so she can’t see that the sound of her voice already has me hard. I am so gone for this woman it’s humiliating.
‘Are you okay?’ I ask carefully.
She nods, takes a deep breath. ‘I’m feeling confused about last night,’ she blurts. ‘I thought you were rejecting me… and then you…’ She flushes. ‘So I thought maybe… but then you left.’
My stomach swoops as I parse these half sentences and understand exactly what she’s saying. Shit.
‘I wasn’t,’ I say quickly. ‘Rejecting you, I mean. Not at all.’ I rub the back of my neck. ‘Fuck. I’ve made a mess of this.’
I was trying to do the right thing and all I did was make her feel bad about herself.
‘Maybe.’ She tilts her head, considering me. Something is going on with her, her cheeks are still flushed. Her eyes keep dipping to my chest and my arms. ‘Why don’t you explain it to me?’
‘You’d been drinking,’ I say, a desperate edge to my words.
‘I didn’t want you to do anything you’d regret.
I didn’t want anything else to happen until we’d talked about it, about what it would mean.
There are a lot of things to consider before you and I…
before we take any steps that change what we have. ’
She thinks about this for a moment, and her expression softens. ‘I knew what I was doing last night. You didn’t take advantage of the situation. I wanted it. I wanted more. I still do.’ She lifts her chin as if daring me to disagree.
I can’t pretend I’m not relieved. A tiny part of me worried that we’d taken things too far, whatever I convinced myself of in the moment. Still, the rest of her words hit me like a sledgehammer.
‘More?’ I manage eloquently.
She takes another step forward, and there’s a light in her eye I’ve never seen before. It looks like I’m not the only one confronting my baser nature this morning.
‘We should… talk,’ I say.
‘Yes,’ Lee agrees distantly, her eyes sliding over my torso again. ‘That’s why I came here. To talk. Only now…’
‘Now, what?’
‘Now I really want you to kiss me.’
The confession hangs in the air between us.
She’s blushing and I don’t think she’s as calm and confident as she sounds.
I think she probably spent all morning psyching herself up for this.
I think last night she really did believe I was turning her down, and she made herself drive over here and talk to me anyway.
I need to handle this the right way, but as there is no blood left in my head it seems unlikely that I’m going to be able to work through the subtle nuances of our current situation. All I want to do is touch her.
I watch her as she rounds the desk, her fingers trailing over the surface.
‘This is beautiful work,’ she says, and her voice is breathy. Static electricity buzzes across my skin. There’s nothing I can do but stand here, my heart pounding, as she comes closer.
‘I think it’s very impressive… what you can do with your hands.’ Her pupils are enormous, she looks high but I’m sure I do, too. I’m absolutely off my face on lust.
She reaches out and runs a finger down my forearm, until she finds my hand. She strokes over my palm. ‘Such good hands,’ she says.
‘Yeah?’ I take a step towards her, meeting her where she is, seeing the relief light her eyes at my movement, feeling it as if it were my own. ‘Where would you like them?’
‘All over me.’ The answer is instant, no hesitation. She wants me to hear how certain she is. She tips her head back to look up at my face, her gaze steady.
‘I’m sure that can be arranged.’ Hooking my finger into the belt of that ridiculous cream coat she’s wearing, I tug her flush against my body. Then I wrap one hand around the side of her throat and pull her mouth to mine.
I don’t just kiss her. I devour her. I let some of that savage need out from the place I’ve been holding it back, let her feel what she does to me.
I bite down on that full lower lip, until she moans.
There’s nothing gentle about it, we don’t ease in, we kiss like we’re fucking, like we’re picking up exactly where we left off last night.
When I tug at the knot, the belt of her coat falls apart and I push it off her shoulders to the floor. Underneath it she wears one of those silky buttoned-up shirts that drive me crazy, tucked into a pair of dark, high-waisted trousers. It’s like the outfit she was wearing that night in Vegas.
I stop for a moment, taking her in. My gaze drops to her feet. Deadly-looking black stilettos. ‘You’re wearing your armour,’ I murmur.
‘I thought I might need it.’ Her teeth sink into her bottom lip.
I run my thumb across her mouth, gently tugging her lip free. ‘You don’t.’
Then I kiss her again, my fingers going to the button at the base of her throat, popping it open. Her pulse skips under my thumb. I dip my head, already desperate for that extra inch of skin.
‘Fuck, Daisy,’ I groan. ‘Why do you always smell so good?’
‘It’s my perfume,’ she manages, sounding dazed. ‘It’s honey and tobacco.’
I hum in appreciation as I undo another two buttons, biting down on the tender curve between her neck and her shoulder.
She’s unbuttoning my shirt too, her movements quick and neat. When her fingers hit the bare skin on my chest we both exhale in relief. I want her touch everywhere. I need her hands on me the same way I need oxygen.
I pull the bottom of her shirt out of her trousers and make quick work of her remaining buttons, running my knuckles down the narrow strip of skin I’ve revealed, over the pale pink lace between her breasts. I watch her nipples pebble through the thin fabric of her open shirt.
‘I thought you might not like this as much as the cowgirl outfit,’ she admits, and when I look up, there’s uncertainty in her eyes.
‘Do you know how wild you drive me in your fancy clothes?’ I say against her lips. ‘Do you know how obsessed I am with the idea of messing you up, tidy girl?’
Breathless, she shakes her head.
‘Why don’t I show you?’ I flick open the button at the top of her trousers, ease down the zip. She mirrors my movements and when her fingers graze my cock through my boxers I hiss out a curse.
I kiss her again, pushing her shirt from her shoulders, and down her arms, but the tight cuffs catch around her wrists. Taking advantage of this situation, I twist the fabric behind her, tugging her arms with it so they’re pinned, her hands in the small of her back, and her body arched towards me.
The bra she’s wearing is one of those low cut balcony ones, a barely there scrap of silk and lace that has my mouth watering.
I lean forward, pressing kisses to her soft flesh, running my tongue over that silk, sucking gently on her nipple through her bra while she moans, restrained by the shirt that I fist tight behind her.
‘Oh god, Nico,’ she pants. ‘That’s…’ She loses her train of thought as I tease her with my teeth.