Chapter Nineteen
I woke in a bed with no memory of how I’d gotten there.
Had Nico carried me?
It seemed possible, considering how many times we’d gone at it in the mirrored room before the drugs had finally worn off and my erection had, at long last, gone down.
I glanced around the room, hoping it might provide some clues about Nico, but it revealed little more than the mirrored room had. The decor was sparse, and the surfaces were almost bare. It felt more like a carefully maintained hideaway than a home.
Did Nico actually live here? Or was this just where he brought hookups?
Footsteps sounded outside the door, giving me only a few seconds to compose myself before he walked in. He wore black trousers, but his chest and feet were bare, and his dark hair was still damp from a shower. When he saw me sitting up, he smiled.
Not a smug smile. Not a teasing one.
A genuinely pleased smile.
Which was…
Honestly, I didn’t want to examine it too closely. I didn’t want to find his pleasure pleasing, because that opened the door to an entire conundrum I wasn’t mentally prepared to deal with.
“You’re finally awake,” he said.
“How long was I asleep?”
Nico crossed to the wardrobe and pulled the doors open. Inside hung what appeared to be identical white shirts. He sifted through several before selecting one and draping it over a nearby chair. Then he did the same with a black blazer.
Only then did he turn back toward me. His gaze traveled slowly down my bare chest to where the sheet pooled in my lap. “Six hours.”
I nodded. “So it must be afternoon. Don’t you have work?”
Nico shrugged. “My hours are somewhat flexible.”
“Somewhat?”
“I work a lot of extra hours. They can hardly complain when I take some time for myself.”
“They?”
“The Harts.”
“Right. Your employers.” I shifted against the headboard. “How long have you worked for them?”
A faint crease appeared between Nico’s brows. “You ask a lot of questions.”
“Just curious.” I let my gaze drift around the bedroom again. “Do you live here?”
“Not really.”
So I’d been right. “Do you live with them?”
“Them?” Nico repeated, amusement coloring the word.
“The Harts.”
“Mostly.”
“So they’re not just your employers?”
Nico moved to the foot of the bed. “It’s complicated.”
“Meaning shut the fuck up.”
One corner of his mouth twitched. “Meaning, shut the fuck up.” He placed one knee on the mattress.
Then the other.
When he started crawling toward me, alarm bells began ringing.
I scrambled backward.
Or at least I tried to.
Nico was faster.
He caught me easily, dragging me back before straddling my hips and pinning both my wrists to the mattress.
I lay there, breathing hard, staring up at him.
“Careful, Lysander,” he said. “You might hurt my feelings.”
The brief struggle had caused a lock of dark hair to fall across his brow. I had the absurd notion that if I could, I would have brushed it back. “I suspect your ego is robust enough to survive.”
For a split second, the ghost of a smile appeared at the corner of Nico’s mouth before he suppressed it. “You’re probably right.”
He leaned closer. Close enough that the intention to kiss me was unmistakable. I could see it in his eyes and feel it in the charged space between us.
I attempted to pull free, but his grip didn’t budge.
“Oh,” Nico said softly. “We’re playing that game, are we?”
“What game?” My voice sounded strange to my own ears, rougher than usual.
“The game where you pretend it’s okay because I’m forcing you.”
“That’s not—I’m not—I don’t know what you mean.”
“Liar!”
He studied me for a long moment. Then, very deliberately, he released my wrists.
My fingers flexed against the pillow. But I didn’t move, my arms suddenly feeling like lead weights.
“Ball’s in your court,” Nico said, the challenge clear in his voice.
His eyes were so damn blue. Like a tropical sea. I could drown in them if I wasn’t careful. The grip of his thighs had loosened too. It would take only a single movement to throw him off me.
So why couldn’t I do it?
It felt as though some demon had possessed my body. One that wanted to be nowhere else except trapped beneath Nico.
The previous night played like a series of still images in my head. I might have been drugged, but it hadn’t affected my memory.
Nico sucking my cock.
Me sucking his.
The overhead view of his perfectly muscled arse as he pounded into me.
On my knees.
On all fours.
Straddling him.
His expression when he came.
My expression, the mirrors offering no respite from seeing it.
The kissing.
So much kissing.
His tongue exploring every inch of me.
The memories alone were enough to make me hard. How was that even possible after everything that had happened only a few hours earlier?
A bizarre thought struck me. Maybe the drug wasn’t the aphrodisiac. Maybe Nico was. If it hadn’t been for the strange interlude with Drake, I might have believed it.
“Last night,” I said with absolutely no idea how I intended to finish the sentence, but needing to say something—anything—that might help untangle the knot of thoughts in my head.
“Last night?” Nico prompted. The bulge in his trousers made it obvious he was hard too.
“I was drugged. You could have been anyone.”
He shifted slightly and brushed a lock of hair back from my forehead in an almost tender way. Just like I’d thought of doing to him. “And now you’re not.”
The tenderness was my breaking point.
I surged upward with only one coherent thought left in my head: I needed to kiss him.
Nico offered one last test, drawing his head back before I could reach him.
It didn’t deter me. I simply kept going until our lips collided. If the previous night had accomplished anything, it was establishing a level of comfort where we instinctively understood what the other wanted—what the other needed.
After that, things escalated quickly.
Nico’s trousers didn’t stay on for long, and I was already naked beneath the sheet. There wasn’t much buildup before he rolled me over and fucked me face down with only the pillow to muffle my moans.
I had no complaints.
The remorse hit while Nico was in the shower. Or maybe it had already begun creeping into my system earlier, when he’d invited me to join him and I’d declined. Whenever it started, it was obvious enough that Nico noticed.
He gave me a strange look as he emerged from the bathroom, vigorously toweling his hair dry. “What’s wrong?”
I’d retrieved my clothes while he was showering and gotten as far as pulling my jeans on.
“What’s wrong?” I repeated. My voice came out several octaves too high. “What’s wrong?” That one could probably have shattered a mirror. Not that there were any in this room. Nico had apparently exhausted his mirror quota in his so-called special room. “How can you ask that?”
Nico regarded me for a long moment before pulling on a pair of white briefs. “I’m asking because you’re on the verge of being hysterical.”
“Hysterical?” The word tore something open inside me, words spilling out like a swarm of locusts.
“I have a boyfriend.” I ignored the slight quirk of Nico’s lips that could have meant absolutely anything.
“I came here to find him. I had one goal. Find out what happened to him and get him back. Rescue him if you like. And instead, I’ve done nothing but have sex with a string of men who aren’t him since I got here. ”
“Not true,” Nico said.
I shook my head. “You don’t even know the half of it. The thing is, there were always reasons. The first two times, someone tricked me. Then yesterday it was the drug.”
I swallowed hard. “This morning, though…” A lump formed in my throat, making it difficult to swallow. “That’s the first time I really cheated.” The admission hurt more than expected. “So yeah. If you want to know what’s wrong, I feel like shit. That’s what’s wrong.”
“You shouldn’t.”
The casual delivery of the words caused me to round on him immediately. “What the fuck do you know?”
He paused midway through fastening his trousers.
“More than you might think.” His expression remained infuriatingly neutral.
“And if you calm down for five minutes, maybe I can open your eyes about a few things.” He gave me a pointed look.
“A few things I assumed you’d already figured out, but apparently not.
I guess you’re not as astute as I thought you were. ”
“Don’t tell me to calm down.” I was shaking with anger now.
Nico crossed his arms over his still-bare chest and stared at me without blinking. “I warned you not to come here.”
I laughed. “That? That’s what you’ve got?” I shook my head. “I thought you were about to tell me something useful.”
He exhaled slowly. “Okay. Let’s start with the string of men, shall we? There was no string of men.”
“Oh, was I imagining it?” My voice dripped with sarcasm.
“There was no nightclub? No being unable to pay for a drink I never wanted and barely touched?” I took a step toward him.
“And there definitely wasn’t a situation where I had to take part in the world’s most bizarre group sex event with two lumbering thugs and some mystery pervert? ”
“Zane and Zeke aren’t really that bad,” Nico said. “As staff members in this place go, they’re on the more obedient side. At least with them, what you see is what you get.”
He paused deliberately.
“And I take exception to being referred to as a mystery pervert.”
I stared at him.
The implication took an absurdly long time to sink in. Even when it did, my first instinct was to reject it outright. I shook my head. “That wasn’t you. It couldn’t have been.”
Nico frowned. “No? Why not? Wasn’t I at the nightclub a short time before? We saw each other, remember?” His lips quirked. “While I wouldn’t say our eyes met across a crowded room because it’s a bit cliché, it was definitely something similar. Why is it so hard to believe it was me?”
“Because…”
I had nothing. My brain was too busy sorting through the two experiences and ticking off similarities.
Muscled thighs.
Check.
Big dick.
Check.
Firm grip.
Check.
Good at fucking.
Check.
“It was me,” Nico said.
“You filmed me!”