Nico turns to me, “You ready?” He stands and offers me his hand.

“Sure, if you’re done.” My response comes out more sarcastic than I intended, but I give him my hand nevertheless.

Nico’s eyebrows arch in surprise at my tone and he looks at me at first in confusion, and then it quickly turns to amusement. He pulls me to him and crushes my mouth to his. He doesn’t care that we’re standing in the middle of a crowded restaurant, and he makes it so that I don’t either.

***

We no longer invite each other in at the end of the night, it’s just a given. I spent years dating William and we never moved past the invite stage to where Nico and I have gone in only a few weeks. I don’t know when it changed, but I think we’ve left dating and moved into relationship. It just happened. Something slipped by me and it was too late before I noticed. Not that I would have stopped it anyway. But I find it intriguing when I look back to where things stayed with others. This man does something to me that’s different. It’s like breathing. I don’t think about it, my body and brain just work together of their own accord to take care of my need for air. Nico’s become a need.

We settle into my apartment and Nico sits in the loveseat facing the couch. It looks more like a big chair with his large frame filling up so much space. I kick off my heels and walk towards the couch.

“Come here.” His voice is gruff and sends a chill up my spine. He extends his arm up and pulls me down to him so that I’m sitting facing him, straddling his muscular thighs. I squirm a bit to find a comfortable place, but I feel his thick bulge beneath me and there is no place to hide with my legs spread so widely over him. He looks amused watching me, so I settle on a spot even though he’s pressed up against me in my most intimate of areas. I feel an ache almost immediately.

“You have a jealous streak in you.” His eyes light up as he pushes my hair back off of my face with his calloused fingers. He leans in ever so slightly and kisses me gently on the lips before he speaks, his lips still so close to mine I can feel the vibration of his words. “I like it.”

“And you, what was that little thing you did with William?” My words come out breathless from his sweet kiss, but his body tenses underneath me at the mention of William.

Nico pulls his face back to look at me and he grips my hips tightly. “I told you I’m not sharing you.” His voice is serious and rough.

I don’t know how to respond to that, so I’m honest. “William and I have been friends since law school. He’s a good friend.”

Nico looks at me, waiting for more.

“We sort of, you know, added to the friendship a few years back.” I blush and bite my lower lip unconsciously.

Nico’s jaw flexes and his green eyes go dark, cloudy gray. “And now?”

“Now we’re friends again. I guess. I haven’t seen him since I told him that I didn’t want to see him anymore, in that way. Tonight was the first time I’ve seen him since you and I started seeing each other.”

Nico nods. His face tells me he understands that he wasn’t my first, but it’s difficult for him to hear. Difficult to accept the thought of me with another man. I want him to forget about William, put all thoughts of our pasts out of his mind and focus on me. Us. Now.

I lean forward and press my body up against his, the slight shift lines the length of him up against me. I can’t help but let out a small moan as I feel him hardening underneath me.

“You’re mine now.” He groans as I push my weight down on him, the outline of him pushing up against me firmly through our clothes.

“Does that mean I get to do whatever I want with you then?” I flirt in a suggestive tone and raise one eyebrow in question.

“Only if that means I’m buried inside of you within the next few minutes.”

His words ratchet up my arousal and I can’t get to his bare skin fast enough. I begin to unbutton his shirt, my fingers frantic to unwrap the prize underneath. I make it two buttons when Nico reaches behind him and grabs the back of his shirt and pulls it over his head in one muscular yank.

I take in the sight of his bare chest, all defined and bulging. The plentiful ink woven on his arms looks like art on the most beautiful canvas I’ve ever laid eyes on. Lucky ink. I trace the lines on his chest, the crevices separating one muscle from another, allowing my fingernail to scrape lightly against his beautiful tanned skin.

His chest heaves up and down as he watches me touch him. I circle a trail around his taut nipple and then slowly reach down and flick it with my tongue before I gently bite down. Nico groans and his grip on my hips tightens and his head falls back as he takes a deep breath, struggling to maintain his control.

His neck exposed, I lean in and kiss gently once at the base of his neck, then move up slightly and bite gently. I alternate between gentle kisses and nipping as I work my way up his neck. When I reach his ear, I stop and whisper, allowing the hot breath from my words to float as I speak. “I’m on the pill and I’m clean, if…”

Nico doesn’t give me a chance to even finish my sentence. My shirt is up and off of my head before I even realize he’s taken over. Raw need floods through me in reaction to the intensity of his movement, and my body shivers when he roughly pushes down the cup to my bra and takes my nipple into his mouth. I whimper when he bites down and sucks hard while his hands lift me to take off my skirt.

He takes my mouth hungrily and I rub myself up against him, my swollen clit desperate for friction. A throaty moan escapes when I feel how hard he is and begin to ride him up and down through what remains of our clothes. With one strong arm, Nico lifts my ass and his other hand unzips his pants, freeing himself. “I’ve wanted to come inside of you so badly it hurts. Feel that clenching little pu**y slide up and down my bare cock. I need in. Now.”

It’s a testament to our desperation that we don’t even remove my panties or take down Nico’s pants. He just pushes them aside to make enough room for us to connect before he lifts me high and positions the tip of him at my opening. I think he’s just about to pull me down, spearing himself into me and I can’t wait. But then he stills…he’s shaking. “Shit. I don’t want to hurt you. You take me as slowly as you need.”

I need him. I don’t care if it hurts or if my body isn’t ready to take him all in at once. I have to have him inside of me. Filling me. All of me. Now. I surprise him when I force the weight of me down and take him in fully in one long, agonizingly blissful stroke. Nico closes his eyes for a second and groans loudly. I’m flush against the base of him and give my body only a few seconds to adjust to accommodate the length of him.

Nico takes my earlobe in his teeth and bites down, sending a burst of pain-pleasure down to the tips of my toes. “Ride me. You’re so tight and wet. I’m going to fill up that sexy little pu**y and make it mine. I want my smell on you. In you. So that the whole god damn world knows you’re mine.”

I gasp at his dirty words. They excite me. Fuel me. I feel my orgasm on the brink and I haven’t even moved yet. Then I begin to ride him. Fast. Hard. Wet. We’re both soaked with a sheen of sweat and our bodies slip slide up and down each other as I lift up and slam down, over and over again. Nico gyrates his hips up to meet my downward motion with each thrust and we both explode together. I feel his body harden as he releases into me and he pushes deeper and harder with each hot burst. It’s as if he wants to get all of him inside of me so deep it can never escape. I know how he feels, because I feel the exact same way.

Minutes later, my lifeless body sags on his lap but he’s still inside of me. Still hard even after such a powerful orgasm. He pushes back my dampened hair and sweetly kisses my forehead, holding me tightly to his chest for a minute. He stands, cradling my limp body in his arm and carries me to the bedroom, gently placing me down on the bed. He takes off his pants and crawls into bed, his naked body spooned behind mine, his arms wrapped tightly around me. As I drift off to sleep, I hear him say two words quietly. “Thank you.”

Neither of us has moved when I wake the next morning.

Chapter 28

Nico

“Must be nice to have a lawyer make house calls.” Preach tilts his chin toward the front desk where Sal is pointing Elle in my direction. She smiles at me and I smile back on a draw down. I’m thirty pull ups out from finishing my morning workout, but seeing Elle gives me a burst of adrenaline and it suddenly doesn’t feel like I’ve already chinned seventy.

It’s been more than a month now, and I’m still as into her as the day I met her. She has no idea how sexy she is. Her body is hot as hell when she’s naked underneath me, but she totally rocks the whole sexy librarian look when she’s dressed in those little, fitted, skirt suits for work.

“Hey, Preach.”

“Hiya, Elle. Your boy will be done in a few minutes.”

She looks at me as I pull up on the bar and I watch her take in my shirtless torso as it flexes to bring my weight up and down. Fuck, the way she looks at me like she wants to eat me, kills me sometimes.

“I kinda like him up there. Maybe you can make him do some extra for me today?” She teases Preach and he laughs.

“You hear that Nico, the woman doesn’t think you’re working hard enough.”

I finish my last pull up and jump from the bar. I sweated clear through two shirts this morning and I’m soaked again. Dripping, since I discarded the second shirt an hour ago.

Sporting a mischievous grin, I walk with purpose the few steps between Elle and me and lift her, rubbing my sweaty body all over her pretty crisp suit. “Is that so, you think I’m slacking, huh?” She screeches at me to put her down, but I hear the smile in her voice as she smacks my back in protest of my sweaty body ruining her suit.

I place her down gently on her feet and give her a kiss on the mouth. She pretends to be pissed, but she’s not and we both know it. But we’ll play anyway.

“I come all the way over here to pick up these contracts and this is the thanks I get.” She motions to the wet marks I’ve left on her suit. “Next time you’ll be sending a messenger over to deliver them to me.”

Preach walks away laughing. “Come on, I’ll take a quick shower upstairs and you can take a look at the part I don’t understand. I’ll let you watch me in the shower to make it up to you.” I wink at her and take her hand and start toward the elevator without waiting for her response.

Chapter 29

Elle

Nico comes out of the shower in a towel and I’m already sitting at the table half way done with the contract he wants me to look at. He comes up behind me and moves my hair from one side of my neck before reaching down to nuzzle me. He rubs his nose along the side of my neck and breathes deep. “You smell so good.”

“I used to.”

He chuckles and comes around the table to sit on the other side, opposite of me.

“I’m not done reading yet, but what part don’t you like. I don’t see anything too unusual so far.”

“That’s because you haven’t read my other ones.” Nico leans his elbows on the table and clasps his hands together. It’s a common every day posture, but there’s nothing common about it when Nico Hunter does it. His normally muscular biceps are huge, even more defined from his morning workout. Everything about him is just so purely, deliciously male. His square jaw, his green eyes that turn grey with desire when he comes near me, the way he looks at me like he’s a hunter and I’m his prey. He’s incredibly distracting. Even more so sitting in nothing but a towel. Lucky towel.

I bring my eyes back to his and he’s watching me with the sexy half grin that makes me melt and I know I’ve been caught looking at him.

“See something you like, Babe?” His voice is raspy and sexy as all hell.