“Feel better?” I ask after she’s done with the second.
Looking a lot more alert and a lot less drunk, she throws the second bottle in the recycling bin and straightens up.
“Yes,” she says. “Thank you.”
“So,” I say.
“So.”
I cross my arms. “What the fuck, Layla?”
She jerks her head up, blue eyes blazing. Ah, there’s that anger again. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means what it means.” I yank off my hat and shove it into my coat pocket, then run a hand through my hair, not caring if it stands up. “Let’s see. I bring you food, and you ignore it like I don’t fucking exist. You kiss me, then run off. So I leave you alone, just like you want. But knowing how I feel about you, you still decide to show up at my fucking place of work, blitzed out of your mind, and proceed to let some dude molest you on the dance floor right fuckin’ in front of me!”
The memory is too much, and a torrent of Spanish escapes my mouth, causing Layla’s eyes to widen and her mouth to drop, even though I doubt she knows what I’m saying. Sometimes English cuss words aren’t enough.
Finally, I stop, out of breath. I glare at her. “I think that about covers it.”
She shuts her mouth, then glares right back. “So?”
I gape, about to lose it all over again. “So? So, I don’t deserve to see you being dry-humped right in front of me by some Opie-lookin’ motherfucker who doesn’t know when to stop! You shouldn’t be doing that kind of shit with other guys, Layla!”
“You have no right to say that!” she retorts, finally starting to yell just as loudly as I am. “I don’t know if you’re dense or something, because you obviously haven’t noticed the most obvious fucking thing! I don’t give a shit about other guys, whether it’s on the street or at a party or at a fucking bar. The only person I am currently interested in fucking or loving or doing anything else with right now, is you! And you don’t want me like that!”
We stare at each other across the kitchen, chests heaving, both of us out of breath. Suddenly, I can’t take it anymore. It’s too hard. All of this with her is too fuckin’ hard. Without thinking twice, I hurl my half-empty beer bottle into the sink, where it breaks with a nasty crash.
“Fuck!” I shout. “Do you ever fuckin’ listen? Don’t want you, Layla? I want you more than anything in the fuckin’ world!”
I take two big steps across the kitchen so I’m all up in her space, nose to nose, surrounded by her scent of coconut and liquor while I back her against the counter.
“Don’t want you?” I repeat through gritted teeth. Fuck, she smells good. I’m angry and hard all at once. How can I want someone who makes me this crazy? I take a long inhale. “One breath, and it’s like I’ve never had oxygen. One look at your blue eyes, and water never existed. Fuck, Layla, I don’t just want you. I need you.”
We stand like this for a moment, nose to nose, just staring at each other, breathing the same air and each other’s intoxicating scents. She gulps, frozen in place, even while her eyes start to water. What is she thinking? Was it too much? Should I have kept it to myself?
Too late. I’m all in now, for better or for worse. Because the second I saw this girl, I knew on some level she was it. Finally, I raise my hand slowly and run it through her hair, caressing the silky strands meditatively. She closes her eyes as if in pain and leans into my touch.
Stay. The word echoes through my head. That’s all I have to do to fix this.
“You want me to stay, Layla?” I ask softly.
Her eyes blink open at my words, like she’s unsure if I actually said them.
“I wouldn’t do it for anyone else,” I continue, my voice shaking with the effort of reining in my emotions. Something in my stomach drops, even while my heart thumps in my chest harder than it ever does at the gym. “You’re killing me here, baby. Tell me what to do. You tell me to stay…I’ll stay.”
“Nico…” she says, staring like she’s hypnotized.
And then I can’t take it anymore. I can’t stand being this close to her and not touch her everywhere. If she can’t understand what I’m trying to say with my words, then I’ll have to show her, any other way I know how.
“Come with me,” I breathe, taking her hand in mine. It’s strange. My hands are so much bigger than hers, but they still seem to fit. “Right now.”
She lets me lead her out of the kitchen and down the hall, and I walk us into my bedroom at the end. I kick the door shut behind us, closing us in darkness lit only by the snow and the moonlight shining through my fire-escaped window. I yank her to me without another word.
Her lips find mine in the dark, and she devours my mouth, like I’m also the air she needs to live. I don’t fight it. I can’t anymore. I’ve got my hands around her waist, our bodies flush together, opening my mouth as wide as I can, urging her as deep as she can go. I also can’t seem to get anywhere near as close as I need to be.
With a few quick yanks, I get her dress unzipped and over her head, leaving her standing in just her underwear and her boots, those boots that should be illegal. I want to take a moment to enjoy the beauty in front of me, this girl who looks like a piece of art to me. But I need her more than that, and so I pull her back against me, grinding anxiously while my tongue licks and twists, my teeth occasionally biting her lower lip, sucking on it like candy. I should leave her alone, I know. But she tastes better than anything in the world, and I’m a starving man.
“Don’t think I want you?” I breathe in between kisses that are so sweet, yet still almost painful.
She’s already wrenched off my coat and is pawing at my t-shirt. My hands grab at her ass, and I rub my cock into her through my jeans. “Can you feel how I want you, baby? Can you feel that?”
She groans into my mouth, and the feel of it travels straight to my dick. I can’t wait anymore. I need her, yesterday. And by the way she’s ripping off my belt buckle and my jeans, she can’t wait either.
I toss her roughly onto the bed so I can unzip her boots and drop them on the floor with the rest of her clothes. I tear off my clothes too, enjoying the way her gaze follows the lines of my muscles, the tattoos on my arms and chest. Yeah, you like that, baby, I think with a smirk before I tackle her back onto the bed.
“I don’t want to be nice anymore,” I say against her throat, and I realize it isn’t true. “You want me to fuck you, baby?”
A soft moan erupts from her throat as I move down her body, burying my nose in between her breasts, and inhale in their soft fullness. Does she ache like I ache? I want her so bad it hurts.
“Tell me,” I demand, dragging my teeth over one nipple and then the other. I pull one into my mouth deeply, using my teeth enough that she arches with another excited moan.
“You like that?” I ask, performing the same savage suck on the other side.
But she’s lost her words, like she can’t answer in anything but whimpers as I continue to torture each hardened nipple, using my free hand to massage one breast as I suckle the other. I’m torturing myself too. Because I know the minute I’m inside her, I’m not going to last more than a minute––that’s how turned on I am right now.
“Tell me what you want,” I order as I sit up. I need to slow down, otherwise I’m going to lose it all over her.
I trace my palms down the sides of her body to finger the edges of her panties. I tug the sides part-way down her legs before pulling them back into place. One finger draws over the fabric down the center of her pussy, just over her clit before toying through the damp fabric with the place I really want to be. She wriggles against my touch. Fuck me, I’m still about to explode.
“You’re wet again, baby,” I whisper, entranced by what I’m doing as her hips writhe up to meet my finger, trying to pull it inside her, panties be damned. “Always so wet for me. Do you want me to touch you here?”
I brush again over that sensitive spot, and she moans again, louder this time.
>
“Yessss,” she whimpers. “Please, Nico, I want you.”
“I need to taste you first,” I decide as I pull my hand away.
So I get rid of her underwear completely, leaving her naked. I graze my lips up her legs, twirling my tongue over the soft skin of her inner thighs before covering that hot, dark space between them. She shudders as my tongue touches her entrance, the tip of it flicking against the edges before dipping inside.
Jesus Christ Almighty. If heaven has a taste, this is it.
“Oh Jesus!” she cries out, reaching down to clasp my head. Her fingernails dig into my scalp. My tongue dives deeper.
Her insistence only turns me on more. I don’t just want to make her come; I want to make her fucking shatter the same way she shatters me, inside and out. With a free hand, I pinch her clit softly and massage the sensitive nub, causing her to writhe even more as I continue to lap at her like I can’t get enough. She’s a flavor I’ve never had and craved all my life. I’ll never get enough of her. Never.
I continue to tease her, rubbing her clit and fucking her with my tongue until all at once, her entire body convulses, her thighs clenching around my head as the waves of one orgasm and then another match the rhythm of my fingers.
“Nico,” she whimpers as the waves have passed. I sit up and wipe my mouth with my arm, but she pulls me back down to her.
“Fuck me, please!” she begs. “Fuck me hard, now!”
I kiss her roughly, and she moans again in my mouth. I can still taste her on my lips––can she taste herself? The fuck if it doesn’t turn me on even more.
“I need you,” she whimpers as her teeth nip at my tongue and she sucks roughly on my lips.
Without speaking, I scramble out of my underwear. I grab a condom from the bedside table and rip it open with a fever while Layla watches, blue eyes blazing in the striped light of the moon through the blinds.
“That’s right, baby,” I mutter as I slide on the latex. “Beg for it. You want it bad, don’t you?”
She stares up at me, completely enthralled as I cover her with my body. She’s soaking wet and ready for me.
“You want it, Layla?” I ask again before pulling her lower lip in between mine. I bite down just a bit. I can tell it hurts a little, but I can also tell she likes it.
“Yes,” she mumbles when I finally release her lip.
I slide in just an inch or so, then pull back out. Looks like I’m feeling masochistic tonight. This is as much torture for me as it is for her.
But I can’t stop. She wanted to toy with me. Now I want to toy with her.
“What was that, baby? I couldn’t quite hear you.”
In again, just a little, and right back out.
“I want it,” she says louder, trying in vain to lift her hips to pull me inside. But I don’t let her, I just keep making enough friction to get her even wetter, even more ready for me. Because when I take her, I know I won’t be gentle. When I take her, it’s going to rock both of us to the core.
“What was that?” I ask again. “Tell me, Layla! I need to hear it!”
“Fine, fine, fine! I want you, okay! I lo––I want you so fucking bad!”
“FUCK!” I shout.
With both hands, I flip her onto her stomach and haul her hips up so I can slam into her with everything I have. With one harsh thrust, I enter with enough force that she barks at the intrusion. She’s tight. I’m hard. Together we’re dynamite.
“God, Nico,” she groans as I pound into her, picking up the pace to generate that incredible friction we make together.
Fuuuuck me, it’s too much, it’s just too fucking much. I can feel her tightening around me as the tension inside her rises again. Twice in a row is not something that happens a lot, at least not to most of the girls I’ve known. But I know I’m rubbing the right spot, particularly as she angles her hips down to receive me deeper, feel me more intensely.
“You wanna come again, baby?” I ask, dipping my head down to nip at the edge of her ear.
She likes it––she likes my animal side, the side that bites and nips at her like the dog I am. I’m following my instincts now, and as I sit up, taking a handful of her full, luscious ass, watching my cock moving ferociously between her legs, my hand reaches back and then lands with a crack on her cheek.
“Ah!” She jumps while I take handfuls of her flesh as I pound away. I want her to feel me everywhere. I want her to know without a doubt that no one else will ever do this to her like this. That nothing else compares to what we are together. And fuck if I don’t want to punish her––and myself––for trying to forget it.
“Goddamn, baby,” I grunt. I’m starting to lose control.
I spank her again––I can’t help it––just enough to make her cry out for more. But I’m not going to last much longer. This is too much, even for me.
So I slide my hand under her stomach to play with her clit again, to help push her over the edge so I can fall right with her. Every part of my body feels like it’s expanding as she grips the edges of the mattress, taking every slap of our bodies, every twitch of my fingers, all driving us closer, closer.
“Shit, Nico, I think I’m going to come,” she cries over her shoulder. Her words are barely understandable. She’s so close; I just need to hold on...come on, hold on, Nico.
“Wait for me, baby,” I order, my breath and voice obviously ragged, like I’m running a marathon. “Just. A. Little. Bit. More!”
I crash into her two, three, four more times before I can feel her seize around me. On the fifth thrust, she starts to shake, unable to keep herself together any longer. She cries out a long stream of insensible words. And then we both fall completely apart, careening loudly into a void where neither of us knows our names. We only know each other.
~
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Layla
Sharp rays of light shine directly in my eyes through cheap blinds over the single window in the bedroom. It takes me a second to remember where I am. To take in the unfamiliar sights, unfamiliar smells. But I have no problem remembering this very familiar touch.
Nico himself is wrapped completely around me, one big arm draped across my waist and one muscled leg thrown over both of mine. He holds me tightly as he sleeps, head burrowed into the crook between my shoulder and neck. I’m his own personal teddy bear. A quick glance at the alarm clock on the nightstand tells me it’s just after six-thirty in the morning.
I’m in his apartment. Not his friend’s fancy digs, but where he actually lives. Sleep and hangover fade away, and curiosity immediately takes over. Without moving, I look around the room, absorbing the place that Nico calls home.
It’s a small, simple room painted white. It smells like dust and, well, sex, obviously from last night. A beat-up wood wardrobe stands next to the door, with a small green armchair in the corner next to it. The futon bed we’re lying on is shoved in the opposite corner. It occurs to me that Nico has spent most of his life on futons or couches. I wonder if he’s ever owned a real mattress.
The single window looks out to the side of a neighboring building with a peekaboo view of the Hudson, and under it is a small desk on which are scattered a few bills, a smaller pamphlet for the California State Driver’s Test, and a large black sketchbook that has seen better days. The white walls of the room are bare except for a couple of tribal masks hanging above the bed and a framed picture on the window sill of what looks like Nico and his family members.
There are a few pieces of laundry strewn around the floor—a pair of shoes kicked off under the desk, a t-shirt or pair of shorts crumpled in the corner—but for the most part, Nico seems to keep his things in order, primarily by not having much to order in the first place. It’s an austere existence, and I find myself wondering if he’s been living in this place long. I’m also somewhat comforted by the fact that there appear to be absolutely no remnants of female visitors in the room—not a spare hairband lying on the desk, no random bobby pins that hav
e fallen to the corners. It’s the room of a man who spends his time alone, at least when he’s here.
It’s then that the memories of the night before come flooding back, enhanced by a distinct soreness between my legs and on my ass. He’s insatiable, and he brings it out in me too. There’s a faint throb as I recall just how Nico’s mouth felt down there, how hard he claimed me as his own.
So much for getting over him. So much for a clean break. Now I’m right back to where I was with him a week ago, and my heart sinks down to the lobby at the realization. No. I’m not going to let this happen again. I’m not going to pretend to myself that everything is going to be all right when I know that he’ll just break my heart all over again.
Very, very slowly, I unwind his arm and leg. He snorts and rolls to the other side of his bed, freeing me to look for my underwear, which was tossed somewhere at some point during the night. I find them slung over the small lamp sitting on the nightstand beside the bed.
My fingers brush the edge of the sketchbook, and I’m tempted to look inside. But I don’t want to snoop, and I’m sure whatever he’s drawn in there is intensely personal. Not to mention, it would only make me that much more invested when I’m trying to detach all over again.
There are five text messages from my roommates and four missed calls from Quinn alone. Apparently, I set my cell phone on silent when I was sick and forgot to take it off. I scroll through the text messages to see what terror I’ve caused.
Quinn (1:31 AM): We r going home. U ok?
Jamie (1:53 AM): Home now. U all right? Pls call quinn shes worried.
Quinn (2:44 AM): Layla where r u?? alan said blake left w o u!!
Quinn (3:05 AM): trying 2 call pls pick up girl!!
Shama: (3:30 AM): Srsly u need 2 call Quinn she is going insane. What happened last night?
Quinn (3:45 AM): OMG LAYLA IF I DON’T HEAR FROM U BY 2MORROW MORNING IM GOING 2 CALL THE COPS!
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