Chapter 23
TWENTY-THREE
Nico
“—how different milks make coffee taste better,” I say towards the phone that’s propped up on the counter.
Annie sits cross-legged on the floor, munching a piece of bacon. She blinks.
I gesture to the containers of milk. “Beginning with dairy: cow’s milk contains both lipids and casein proteins.
These molecules act as binding agents with bitter compounds—specifically chlorogenic acid lactones and phenylindanes—found in medium to dark roasted coffees.
This binding action counteracts the bitterness.
Whole milk provides superior mouthfeel and flavor longevity because of its higher fat content. Skim milk provides minimal effect.”
“So does this video,” I think I hear Annie mutter.
I move on to the oat milk. “Now, with plant-based alternatives, oat milk has the most favorable emulsification characteristics because of its beta-glucan content. The viscosity creates a mouth-coating texture that simulates dairy while adding a toasted, carby sweetness.”
Annie is now lying on the floor and staring at the ceiling.
“Soy milk contains a higher percentage of protein relative to other non-dairy options, theoretically enabling similar binding reactions. However, its interaction with acidity at high temperatures results in a higher likelihood of precipitation, which is curdling.”
“Are you being punished? Blink twice if this is a hostage situation,” she whispers.
“I’m sorry,” I can’t help but cut in. “Is something wrong, dear sous-chef of mine?”
“This isn’t working for me the way I thought it would,” she mutters.
“Hundreds of thousands of my fuckin’ followers might disagree with you,” I shoot back.
“Well, it sucks,” she declares.
“Not according to the paycheck.”
She stands up suddenly.
Strolls over to me, swaying her hips. Strokes the skin under my belly button on her way past.
I cough.
I don’t know what the hell I was expecting, but I am not prepared for this: the sight of her standing naked in my kitchen, light slanting through the blinds and catching on her tattooed skin like she’s been shellacked in gold.
She dips those two fingers into the jar on the counter. Love and a little bit of chaos. Brings them to her mouth and licks.
My neurons fire. All of them. At once. I can practically feel the synaptic overload—dopamine, norepinephrine, complete hormonal cascade. It's not fair.
“Tell me more about this,” she says, licking a second slow spiral off her finger, like she doesn’t already know she’s short-circuiting my prefrontal cortex.
“Honey?” I croak.
“You said it’s super-something?”
Right. Supersaturated. Focus, Nico.
“Supersaturated solution,” I manage, voice automatically slipping into my practiced academic cadence. Safe ground. “Primarily glucose and fructose. Hygroscopic. Antimicrobial. It doesn't spoil because it—”
She sighs, loud and dramatic. Leans against the counter and casual as anything, drags a slow, gleaming smear of honey across her collarbone.
I freeze.
My mouth opens, but nothing comes out. I have a fuckin’ doctorate in this shit—these words are supposed to be my thing.
But right now? Nothing in my brain works except the primal throb of want.
I blink. Swallow. Try to remember the bullet points I had queued up in my head—viscosity, hygroscopicity, aromatic stability—but they all dissolve in the heat of watching the sticky shimmer spread on her skin.
She raises an eyebrow, challenging. Playful and powerful.
And just like that, something clicks.
Annie reads it, too, ‘cause that’s what she’s fuckin’ good at. So she presses on, dipping her fingers in the jar again, this time rubbing a stripe of honey over one pierced nipple—slow, deliberate, ‘cause she knows I’m already two seconds from losing it. Then the other.
My jaw clenches so hard it aches. So does my dick.
She leans back just a little as she drizzles the last of it lower. Between her legs. Just a hint of amber sheen disappearing into the heat between her thighs.
My control snaps like brittle sugar glass.
I step toward her, slow and deliberate, until her back hits the edge of the counter. Her breath catches, barely, but I feel it. Her body knows before her brain does—she’s mine.
“I was gonna talk about how honey retains volatile aromatics,” I say, voice low, words dragging like molasses. “How its glucose-to-fructose ratio affects mouthfeel. How it coats everything it touches.”
I skim a finger across the line she’s drawn on her collarbone and lift it to my lips. Suck it clean, eyes never leaving hers.
“But now?” I murmur, dropping my mouth to her throat, my breath hot and humid against her pulse. “Now I’m thinking about how I’m going to taste it off your perfect skin, inch by inch.”
She exhales, shaky. Sweet fuckin’ music.
“Messy girl,” I say, dragging my tongue along the curve of her collarbone, chasing the trail she left. “I can’t wait to clean you up.”
I shove the jar aside, grip her hips, and hoist her up onto the counter in one movement. Her legs fall open like an invitation.
I lean in and lick across one sticky nipple, slow and firm, tasting sugar and salt and her skin beneath. She arches into me, lets out this gasping whimper that shoots straight to my cock.
“You know honey is antibacterial?” I murmur against her gorgeous tits before sucking one into my mouth. I make sure to tongue every last drop from her piercing. “It preserves everything it touches. Lucky me.”
She tries to pull me in, greedy now, but I don’t let her. Hell no. I want her begging.
“Wanna learn something else?” I say, grinning against her sternum as I trail kisses lower. I press her thighs wider, hooking one over my shoulder. My breath ghosts over her slick skin. Beautiful. Mine.
She stares down at me, a glorious, sweet angel of wrath. “Yes, Chef.”
That does something to me. A shock of power that would have brought me to my knees if I weren’t already on them. “Honey is hygroscopic,” I growl. “Means it draws moisture to it. Makes everything wet as fuck.”
“Nico, plea—”
I dive in, tongue first, chasing every trace of honey she’s left on her body—every inch she’s tried to turn into a challenge. She moans, high and ragged, clutching my hair as I lick into her with meticulous precision.
“So sweet, baby,” I mutter, relishing in her taste, dragging my mouth up her inner thigh.
“Jesus fucking Christ,” she breathes.
“Was he the one who called this the land of milk and honey?” I taste her again, deeper this time, getting all the way in there, sucking and lashing and letting her grind against my face like I was made for it. Because I was. I fuckin’ was.
When she finally shatters, when her whole body jerks and writhes and she moans my name like it’s the only word she knows, it’s then that I yank her to the edge of the counter and plunge myself in hard and deep, start fucking her in the rough, brutal rutting she likes, licking honied Annie from my lips like the feral fuck I’ve become, the one she’s made me.
Annie screams again. It’s my new favorite sound after “Nico” and “please.”
“And on the sixth day, they made a sex tape,” Annie says in the car hours later, fiddling with my phone. “What do you think is the best way to get this from your phone to mine?”
We were a little late leaving the house. Lots of cleanup.
Now we’re hauling ass to Miami. This is our last stretch in the small space of this car, this car that we’ve filled with truth and lies and more truth, hugs and words and more hugs. And sex tapes.
“Dunno, sweetheart. Try the drop thing.”
She fiddles some more. “Done.”
“Just make sure no one sees it,” I remind her. After very little consideration, I decided not to post the video to NakedReactions.
Annie’s silent.
I look over, and she’s vibrating with tension. Her eyes brighten again. Hello, Impulsive Annie Li.
“What if we posted it?” she exclaims.
“Huh?”
“We could post it to your page and make people pay more for special access!”
I frown at her. “I don’t want that.”
“Why not?” she demands to know.
“Why do you want it?” I push. “This seems like something Sister Annie would douse with holy water.”
She flinches. But then she breathes in, slow and steady, like she’s trying something on.
“Sister Annie is tired,” she says quietly. “She’s been tired for a long time. And she’s not wrong, she just… never lets me want anything.”
I stay quiet. Let her speak.
“She thinks she’s protecting me,” Annie goes on, staring out the windshield.
“Every bad decision I’ve ever made, she shows up after like the fucking angel of regret.
No sex, no shame, no ridiculous ideas allowed.
She doesn’t trust me. She doesn’t think I know what I’m doing with my own life.
She thinks I should be ashamed of everything I’ve done.
And maybe for a while, and maybe for some things, she was right. I didn’t. But…”
Her voice falters. Then steadies.
“I don’t think this is a mistake. It’s fun.”
I swallow hard.
Annie glances over, eyes sharp but vulnerable. “You know what’s different? I don’t want to post a sex tape to blow my life up or get someone back or prove I’m hot. I just… You make me feel—”
There’s a beat of silence. The kind that hums in your spine.
“Maybe Sister Annie needs to die,” she finally says, not finishing the rest of that damn sentence, even if I’m dying to hear it. “Because real Annie wants to live a little.”
I grin, deciding to let it go for now. “You want to make a sex tape and a point.”
She flashes a smile, crooked and reckless and soft. “Exactly.”
I let out a low whistle. “You’re wild.”
“I’m getting better,” she says, too quickly. “And maybe it’s not a bad thing.”
I reach across the console, hook my pinky through hers. “Yeah,” I murmur. “I’m trying to, too.”
She grins down at our hands. “So… we post it?”
I laugh, loud and startled, because of course she circles right back to insanity. “Annie. I’m not ready.”
“Fine,” she says. “I’ll wait.” She drums on the door with her fingers. “Why don’t you show your face or tell anyone who you are or use your real voice?”
“Isn’t it obvious?”
Annie shakes her head.
“Well… a bunch of reasons,” I admit. “Didn’t want to lose my PhD or postdoc spot, although that’s over in a month.
Didn’t want my mom knowing that I paid her bills by showing my dick for money.
And I guess… It’s just embarrassing. I mean, I’m embarrassed.
” I shrug. “Plenty of adult entertainers own it. I don’t. ”
“So no one knows?” Annie is incredulous.
“Except for you.”
“Except for me,” she breathes. “Not your sister, best friends, exes? No one?”
“No one, Annie. That’s why I’ve had such short-lived relationships.
I could never be completely honest with any of my partners about what I do.
I would keep waiting and waiting for the day they would somehow stumble across a video and be like—I know that body, that tattoo, that kitchen.
It was just constant deception and anxiety on my end, so I would end it.
It wasn’t fair to them.” I wasn’t being fair to myself, in a way, either.
I can tell that she has the beginning of that look in her eyes, so I choose my next words carefully. “You’re the only one in the entire world who knows, Annie, because you’re the only one I’ve ever felt comfortable telling.” I give her this.
I didn’t choose carefully enough, because Annie’s little body locks up.
“Nuh uh,” I tell her, reaching over and grabbing the strings of my hoodie and tugging. “Don’t you dare kick me out. I just got here. Just take that at face value, Annie. Don’t overthink it. But we’re gonna have to talk about it. ‘Cause something is happening here, and you fuckin’ know it.”
She tries to pull away, and I think the only way to keep her is to give her more of myself.
“I just can’t help but think of my dad,” I give her, and the tension leaves her body.
She peers over at me with new concern in her eyes. “He’d be proud of you,” she says firmly, and this right here is why I’m doomed.
I shake my head. “I loved the fuck out of him. He was never shy with his support. Constantly telling me how proud he was of me and my sister, of how smart we were, how successful we would be. Valentina didn’t always do too hot in school, but she still got the same sort of praise any time she improved her grades.
He was such a good guy, and I really did love making him proud. But he was… a pretty traditional guy.”
“In what way?”
“In like a… go to Mass every Sunday way. Pretty socially conservative. FDNY.” I shrug. “And the worst part is, if he ever did find out I had a porn channel, he would never reprimand me about it. He’d just be quietly disappointed.” Which would be worse.
Annie drums her fingers on the door again, digesting this.
When she speaks, it’s with conviction. “I don’t think I ever met your dad, but if he’s anything like your mom, or what I remember of your mom twenty years ago, then he’d be proud as hell.
Your mom got sick, you didn’t follow your dreams to go to Cornell or whatever, you settled for somewhere at home because your mom needed you.
What dad wouldn’t be proud of that? And then you paid for her medical bills, Nico.
What was that, like tens of thousands of dollars? ”
My mouth is a flat line.
“Wow, okay. More. But it doesn’t matter. What if you hadn’t done that? What would your mom be doing now?”
“We’d figure it out another way.”
“Yeah, and she’d be stressed as hell and maybe that would lead to another medical issue.”
I mull this over. “Yeah. Maybe.”
“I’ve already told you this, but I think what you’re doing is cool as fuck. And I think you should own it. When do you finish with your postdoc?”
“In a month.”
“Would you consider putting your name on the cookbook then?”
“Nope.”
Annie glares at me. I feel it in the side of my skull. “You can’t tell me you want my name on the book without yours. It’s our book, Nico.”
I search for her hand and bring it to my face, kiss her knuckles. “I’ll think about it.” But definitely not.
“You’re not gonna think about it,” she pouts.
“How do you know?”
“Because I know you.”
I nod. “You do. You do know me. More than anyone else. And vice versa. And that’s what we’re gonna have to talk about at some point between here and Miami.”
She doesn’t answer.
“You have me, Annie. All of me.”