Chapter 25
TWENTY-FIVE
Annie
The air in Miami is thick with heat and salt and the promise of trouble.
I step out of the car and take a deep breath, the warm wind curling through my hair like a dare.
I adjust my sunglasses and throw Nico a look over my shoulder that says, What now?
He just smiles, slow and knowing, as he rounds the car to meet me on the sidewalk.
We don’t have a plan. That’s the point.
I used to live without plans. That was my whole thing—chasing the thrill, making wild decisions, doing whatever the hell I wanted, never thinking past the next hour.
And it got me into some serious shit. But it also gave me some of the best stories of my life, and today I find myself feeling…
proud of them. And now, here, with Nico’s hand warm and steady at the small of my back, it doesn’t feel reckless.
It doesn’t feel like I’m bracing for fallout.
It feels like balance, or like maybe spontaneity isn’t dangerous when it’s built on trust.
And it’s not that my brain has gone quiet. It still zings and sparks with all the old ridiculousness. But with him beside me, grinning like mad, I can finally hear the part of me that says, You’re okay. This is good. You’re not screwing it up.
He takes me shopping. Not like a weird sugar daddy—or, you know what, maybe just like that. I think he likes paying for me or taking care of me. But he says, “Let’s go get some clothes for dinner.”
The boutique we stumble upon is sleek and intimidating in that minimalist, art-gallery way, but Nico makes it easy by giving each mannequin ridiculous names and fake backstories in his fake academic voice.
I try on dresses I’d never normally pick.
Soft, muted colors. Conservative necklines.
But also something gauzy and gold that moves like water when I walk.
He waits outside the dressing room like a carved statue, impossibly gorgeous and annoyingly relaxed, his eyes locked on me with something that makes my stomach dip and my heart ache.
When I step out in the gold dress, he doesn’t say a word.
He just stands, takes my hand, and twirls me slowly in front of the mirror.
And for a second—I see it. What he sees. Not “nothing” or a mess or a problem or a mistake waiting to happen. But someone beautiful. There is someone there in the mirror.
That dress goes into the bag.
I buy him a shirt, too. Crisp white, fitted just right across his shoulders. He grumbles, but he lets me, and there’s something so warm in his smile I want to wrap myself in it.
Dinner is at some candlelit spot with oysters on ice and soft jazz playing somewhere just out of sight.
We sit outside under tall, lazy palm trees, my bare leg brushing his beneath the table.
I order something just because I like the name.
He watches me lick aioli off my finger and doesn't bother pretending it’s not doing things to him.
We don’t talk about anything heavy. Not tonight. I laugh too loudly. My heels pinch, but I don’t care. I feel buoyant, like I could float all the way down the block.
We find the club by accident. Music bleeds out into the street, low and hot and magnetic. Inside, it’s all hips and rhythm, lights flickering like heartbeat. I hover at the edge of the dance floor, hesitating—until Nico takes my hand.
He doesn’t ask. Just pulls me in.
I still don’t fucking know bachata. I barely know how to sway with rhythm. But I know the way his hand fits against the small of my back, the way his thigh presses between mine, the way his breath curls against my cheek as we move.
And I let go.
I let myself be led. Let myself be seen.
Let myself be the girl who gets spun and dipped and kissed in the middle of a dance floor.
I let myself be the kind of girl who dances too close in a hot club in a city she doesn’t know, wearing a dress that shimmers and clings and makes her feel golden.
And yes, I’ve done that before, countless times, but never with a man so good. So safe.
There are moments—tiny stabs—where the self-doubt claws back in. You’re too much. He’s not going to stay. You’re making another impulsive mistake, and you’ll regret it, just like always. But then Nico’s lips brush the curve of my shoulder, and that noise quiets down.
I’m not disappearing this time. I’m not shrinking to fit someone else’s version of lovable. I’m expanding. Becoming.
I’m having fun.
I trust myself to hold this joy without breaking it.
We dance until our clothes are damp and my feet ache and our mouths are pressed so close together that words aren’t necessary.
And when we step back out into the night, the Miami air clinging to our skin, I think:
This.
This is what equilibrium feels like.
The hotel where we’re staying, where May is getting married, is absurd.
All sleek marble, soaring ceilings, and enough velvet to make a burlesque dancer blush.
The suite Nico booked has a balcony with a view of the ocean and a bed that looks like it belongs in a music video.
I don’t even want to know what this cost.
Nico doesn’t brag, though. He just opens a chilled bottle of champagne and pours two flutes like this is something we do all the time.
We’re still dressed from the club. I kick off my heels and sink my toes into the plush carpet with a groan. He sits on the edge of the bed, hair a perfect mess, his shirt half unbuttoned, pants unbuttoned and unzipped, skin golden from the dance floor heat.
He pats his lap.
“Come here, sweetheart.”
I sit on his lap and notice the giant mirror that spans the opposite wall.
He moves each of my legs on either side of his thighs, my dress riding up as he settles his hands on my hips.
"Look at that," he murmurs, voice thick. "Look how fuckin’ good we look together."
I see it. My gold dress glinting in the dim light. His strong hands sliding up my sides. My flushed skin, his blown eyes.
He pulls the straps of my dress down, exposes my breasts. He dips a finger into his glass of champagne and drips it down my neck. The cold shocks me, and then his tongue is there, lapping it up.
"Could live off this," he groans. "Sweet, fizzy, and fuckin’ mine."
I can feel the hard steel of him beneath me.
“Watch,” he says, indicating to the mirror with his chin.
He peels my panties to the side and takes himself out of his pants, cock angrily hard.
“Watch,” he repeats, and he slides in, and I watch as every inch of him disappears inside me.
He doesn’t give me time to adjust. Just rocks us both in front of the mirror, gripping my hips, fucking me slow but deep, in and out, each thrust purposeful in the mirror and bouncing my tits like he wants it burned into memory.
"Look," he says again, voice rough now. “This is us. You see that? Look how perfectly we fit together.”
I do. Every inch of him, coated in my arousal.
He makes sure I come first and watches my face in the mirror before finishing in me with a growl, pulling me tight to his chest. But he doesn’t stop. He slides down and lays me back on the bed, peeling my dress off, throwing it somewhere behind us.
Then he reaches for something.
I don’t even see it coming until I hear the soft glug-glug-glug of liquid being poured. Cold champagne streams over my belly, down my thighs, pooling in the softest, most sensitive parts of me. I yelp at the shock.
He disappears between my thighs like a man starved.
Lapping, groaning, drinking our combined release in like it’s all nectar and indulgence. Like we’re something decadent, meant to be consumed.
His voice is hoarse when he finally lifts his head, lips slick with the both of us.
"We taste good together, too."
I break apart in his mouth.
When he tucks me into his arms in a bed sticky with champagne and come, I realize I’m wrong. I am afraid.
This is what fear feels like.
Real fear.
Because this is love.