21. Olivia
Olivia
The walk back to the suite was friction and heat and locked hands and the particular electricity of two people who had been honest with each other over dinner and were now done with words.
From the moment she'd seen him at the bar—the way he'd looked at her when she walked in, the way he'd held her hand across the table through every raw and difficult thing she'd said—the pull had been building.
This wasn't the urgency of the first time or the hunger of the second.
This felt different. Deeper. Like something that had finally been given permission to exist.
The suite door was still swinging closed when he reached for her.
He pulled her in and kissed her—not a greeting, not a prelude, but a claim.
Deep and certain and unhurried all at once.
She made a sound against his mouth that surprised her.
When he pulled back, his eyes were steady and dark on hers, and he took her hand and walked her to the bedroom without a word.
They stood at the edge of the bed. City lights moved behind the glass.
"Olivia," he said quietly, his breath warm at her ear. "I can't wait to feel your whole body against mine."
Her zipper hissed in the quiet. The dress slipped and pooled at her feet. She stepped out of it—bare except for the black thong and the heels—and he stepped back and looked at her the way he always did, like she was something worth taking the time to actually admire.
She felt it move through her entirely. Wanted. Worshipped. Like a woman who had finally been found by someone looking specifically for her.
She reached for his buttons, her fingers clumsy with urgency. His shirt fell beside her dress.
He lifted her onto the bed and laid her back gently, and they kissed—slow and deep, building from warmth into something that had its own momentum.
His mouth moved to her neck, then lower, and his hands found her breasts with a focused, deliberate attention that felt different from anything that had come before.
Not rushed. Not mechanical. Like a man who genuinely wanted to know what she was capable of feeling.
He worked between them—mouth and fingers, switching, teasing, giving, and then pulling back just enough—until her moans had sharpened into something she barely recognized as her own voice.
The pressure built in a way she hadn't expected, hadn't planned for, hadn't known was available to her through this alone.
Then it broke.
The orgasm rolled through her hard and complete, and she gasped with the shock of it—not performing, not pretending, genuinely surprised by her own body.
When she could speak, she pulled him up and kissed him, and broke away breathless. "Oh my God, Nicholas—I can't believe you made me do that without the stimulation between my legs. I didn't think that was possible."
He smiled against her mouth and said nothing. Just started again.
His hand drifted to her thigh, fingers brushing the soaked fabric of her thong.
She arched toward him involuntarily. He slid it down her legs, and his mouth traveled south—slow and thorough, unhurried and precise, the kind of attention that made her feel like the only thing in the world worth paying attention to.
"Nicholas," she whispered. "I want you inside me."
"Patience," he said softly.
He stayed where he was until she was desperate—until her hands were in his hair and her hips were moving against him and the sounds she was making had gone somewhere beyond words. He brought her there again, held her through it, stayed with her until the last of the tremors faded.
She pulled him up. Kissed him deeply, tasting herself on his lips—a heat that sent a new shiver through her immediately.
She slid his briefs down and took him in her hands and then her mouth, moving over him slowly, feeling him thicken and throb, listening to the way his breathing changed and knowing she was the reason.
After several minutes, he stopped her. "I can't last like this," he said, his voice rough. "You'll make me explode."
He reached for the nightstand.
"Nicholas." Her voice was soft but certain. "Don't. I'm on the pill. I started it again after the first time we were together." A beat. "I want to feel you. Just you."
He went still for a moment.
The stillness felt significant—like he understood what she was offering and wasn't taking it lightly.
Then he pulled her close, rolled her onto her back, and positioned himself between her legs. She was more than ready. He pressed against her entrance, and she cried out as he began to slide inside—slow and deliberate, filling her completely, giving her every inch of it.
"Oh my God, Nicholas." Her voice came out broken and reverent. "You fill me so perfectly."
He began to move. Slow at first, a steady rhythm that built its own gravity.
She felt it gathering immediately—different from before, rawer without anything between them, every sensation sharpened into something almost unbearable.
He lifted her leg, going deeper, and she stopped trying to stay quiet.
"Oh God—don't stop. Please don't stop."
He didn't.
The orgasm hit her deep and was consuming. She felt herself contracting around him and heard his breath fracture and felt him reach his own edge and release inside her—hot and deep and shockingly intimate, a closeness she hadn't anticipated and couldn't have prepared for.
She surrendered to every second of it.
They lay tangled together afterward in a silence that needed nothing added to it. Content in a way that went past the physical into something she didn't have words for yet. Something that felt quietly and terrifyingly like it mattered.
They rested until nearly midnight, then gave in to each other again. And again after that. Sleep came eventually—deep and unguarded, their bodies pressed together until the alarm pulled them back before dawn.
"We need more sleep," she murmured into his shoulder.
He didn't disagree.
She freshened up and stepped into the shower, and two minutes later, he was behind her—his hands finding her in the steam, spinning her around, his mouth on hers before she'd finished turning.
What had begun in the bedroom ignited again quickly and completely, the way it always did between them, like a current that didn't need permission to flow.
Thirty minutes later, they were dressed. Olivia caught her reflection and noticed she was still in yesterday's clothes.
She didn't care. She looked well-loved, and she knew it.
"I'll go to Lauren's and change," she said. "Then head to work."
Nicholas checked his watch. "Let's have breakfast. Go change and meet me at the diner across from your office—that way we don't waste time."
She kissed him—a promise rather than a goodbye—and walked out feeling like the floor was slightly further away than usual.
Fulfilled. Whole. Like a woman who had finally stopped waiting for her life to begin.
She changed quickly at Lauren's and made it to the diner in twenty minutes.
It was a neighborhood staple—loud and warm and smelling of toast and fresh coffee. She spotted Nicholas crossing from the other side of the street, unhurried, looking impossibly put-together despite everything the night had been.
She didn't hesitate at the door. She leaned in and hugged him and kissed him without checking for coworkers, without scanning for familiar faces, without calculating the cost of being seen.
For the first time in years, she felt like she belonged somewhere.
They slid into a booth. Ordered. Settled into their coffee with the easy quiet of two people who had run out of things to prove to each other.
She wrapped both hands around her mug and felt the warmth of it and thought that this—just this, coffee and morning light and him across a table—was something she could get used to.
Then a shadow fell across them.
Cold. Heavy. Wrong.
"So you're the asshole that's fucking up her head."
Her heart lurched. She looked up. Two men stood over the table—one broad enough to block the light entirely, both with eyes that had cataloged things she didn't want to imagine. The smaller one had spoken. The larger one hadn't moved and didn't need to.
Nicholas stood. Smooth. Unhurried. He was taller than the talker, and the stillness he brought to his feet was the particular stillness of a man who had never needed to perform a threat.
"Can I help you?"
"Yeah. Stay away from Olivia. She's married to a friend of mine."
Her hands were shaking. Coffee spilled over the rim of her cup. She watched Nicholas—not a flicker, not a shift, not a single thing offered for them to use. The dangerous calm of him frightened her almost as much as the men themselves did.
"I don't know who you are," Nicholas said, his voice level and cold. "But I'm not very good at taking orders."
The big man moved his jacket.
Just enough.
The dull black grip of a gun caught the diner light, and Olivia's breath left her body entirely. Panic froze her for one second—then something else replaced it, instinctive and immediate, rising from somewhere she hadn't known existed inside her.
She stood up and tried to step between Nicholas and the gun before she had made a conscious decision to do it. Nicholas stopped her, sliding her almost behind him, but she kept talking.
"Tell Mark he won't force me to do anything."
The voice didn't feel like hers. But it came from her.
The talker sneered. "It's not Mark I take orders from. Watch yourself, little girl. Keep seeing your boyfriend, and you just might get him killed. This time I'm relaying a message." He stepped closer to Nicholas, dropping his voice to a hiss. "Next time I see you, you won't walk away."
Nicholas didn't flinch. "Who are you anyway?"
"I'm Little Frankie. Ask around—people know me."
"I'll do that," Nicholas said.
They turned and walked out. The bell above the door rang with cheerful, absurd irony.
The diner went silent.
Every person in the room was staring. The waitress looked one second from bolting.
Olivia leaned into Nicholas, and the trembling that had been building through her whole body finally broke loose—she pressed her face against his chest, and the quiet sobs came, relief and shock and the release of a body that had been running on adrenaline and had finally been given permission to stop.
"It's okay, Olivia. Everything is going to be fine."
"Let's go outside," he said.
He pulled a folded hundred from his pocket, placed it on the table without looking at the untouched food, and walked her out with his hand steady at her back.
The humid morning wrapped around them. He stopped on the sidewalk and turned her to face him, his eyes finding hers and holding them.
"I want you to do something for me. Don't worry. Go to work as if nothing happened. I'll call you tonight."
"Okay." Her voice was still unsteady. "But Nicholas—I'm worried about you. This has to be coming from Mark's brother Devon. He's crazy. I don't trust him."
"Don't worry. I need to go back to Miami now. I'll be back tonight."
She blinked. "Why don't you just stay then?"
"Because I need to handle something in person." His eyes were steady and certain on hers. "Then I'll stay with you until you're settled in your apartment."
The fear receded. Something else moved in behind it—warm and wide and a little overwhelming.
"Really?"
"Yes. Really."
He pulled her in and kissed her with a fierce, quiet intensity that felt less like desire and more like a vow. When he pulled back, he said, "Wait for me. We'll have dinner together tonight. I'll call you before you leave work."
She smiled despite everything. "Absolutely. I can't wait."
She watched him walk away until she couldn't see him anymore.
Then she turned and went inside, rode the elevator up to her floor, and tried to arrange her face into something that looked like a normal Tuesday morning.
It didn't really work.
But somewhere underneath the fear, underneath the residue of Little Frankie's dead eyes and the gun she hadn't been able to stop seeing since—underneath all of it—was the certain, quiet knowledge that Nicholas was handling it.
And that she believed him when he said everything would be fine.
She sat down at her desk, pulled up her rundown, and started her day.