by Lucy Lennox
“Huh?” I asked.
“Why are you asking about single parenting? If it’s not about Adriana, is it your mom?”
“No, not at all. Although, now that you mention my mom… she did an amazing job raising us on her own,” I admitted, remembering how I’d never once felt as though I was missing out after my father died and it was just the three of us. Maybe that was my answer.
I continued thinking out loud. “I just assumed Pippa was better off with the Warners than with me, you know? I mean, what kid would rather be raised by a perma-bachelor who lives above a tattoo shop in an urban commercial district? But then I think about family… biology. And it’s hard. The idea of the last living person connected to me by blood going to live with strangers… Never seeing her again…”
West reached out and pulled me into his lap again, wrapping his arms around me and running his hands up and down my back. “I know it’s hard, Nico. I mean, I can’t imagine what this is like for you. Losing your mom, Adriana, and Pippa all at the same time. But you have to think about what’s best for her and what all is involved in raising a child.”
“I know that.”
“It’s expensive, exhausting, heartbreaking,” he began.
I joined in. “Messy, loud, and stifling. Plus it would crimp my style in the clubbing and hookup scene,” I joked pathetically. “Not sure anyone would want to play with a man who has a kid.”
I felt West’s body stiffen and wondered if he had a problem with the club scene. He was probably a snob about people who didn’t meet at the fucking golf club or whatever.
“When you have a kid, Nico, your entire life revolves around them. It’s a massive sacrifice. Very different from the life you live now.”
“True,” I said, deciding he was right. Maybe I wasn’t cut out to be a parent. It had been a silly daydream anyway. I knew the reality of parenting was nothing like the fantasy.
“I’ve learned from watching families at my practice that being a single parent is lonely as hell too,” West cautioned.
I glanced at him, wondering why he was trying to talk me out of the idea. Little did he know, those last words weren’t an argument against parenting in my mind, because he didn’t know the truth.
There was absolutely no way raising Pippa on my own could be lonelier than the life I’d already been living before she came into it.
Chapter 24
West
Before we had a chance to discuss it further, Pippa began to make her morning noises. Nico rolled his eyes and muttered. “Jesusfuckingchrist, I was just up with her before you got here.”
He got up and slid some pajama pants on before pulling a T-shirt over his head. “Get some sleep,” he said before turning to leave the room. I reached out to grab his wrist before he walked out of range.
“Just give me a couple of hours, then I’ll be good, okay?” I asked. He nodded, looking adorably sleepy with his crazy Troll hair sticking up everywhere. I couldn’t help but pull him in for a kiss on the lips before letting him go. “Good morning, cutie.”
He smiled shyly back at me, the stress from our previous conversation melting away. “Good night, sexy doctor,” he said before turning to leave and closing the door behind him.
I rolled over to settle in and reveled in the smell of him on the bedsheets. Was it possible to hyperventilate from sucking in that smell as much as I did? It was to that comforting scent and the soft, familiar sounds of him cooing to the baby that I was able to drift into a dreamless sleep.
When I came awake a couple of hours later, I was surprised to find myself wrapped around him again, our naked bodies as close as possible under the bedding. My stiff cock was throbbing against the cleft of Nico’s ass, and the hunger for him in my belly was overwhelming.
I arched my cock into him, hard, and felt his responding thrust backward. Both of us groaned, and I murmured into his ear, asking for supplies.
“Over there. Your side,” he said in a groggy voice.
“How long has Pippa been—”
“Not long; we have plenty of time,” he responded, reading my mind. I left my legs tangled up with his while I twisted to reach for the supplies in the bedside table. I tried to ignore the other items in the drawer but couldn’t help but laugh.
“Shut up. Don’t you dare mention my sister’s sex crap if you want to get laid,” he grumbled.
“But—”
“No. My sister, West. My sister. Gross. Fuck, I lost my hard-on,” he complained, slapping at my thigh in frustration. “Goddammit.”
I turned back around, stashing the condom and lube under the pillow before taking Nico’s chin in my hand. “Dude, if you think I can’t find the hard-on you just lost, you have zero faith in my abilities in the bedroom.”
My eyes stayed locked on his while I moved my hand down to his throat and clasped it firmly but gently. Nico swallowed and widened his eyes before I continued teasing him.
“Now, you are going to turn over onto your hands and knees like a good little Nico, and I am going to blow your fucking mind—among other things. Capiche?”
“Si, signore,” he murmured as he scrambled over onto his belly and pulled his knees in. I couldn’t help but run my hands appreciatively over the coil of snakes and the plume of peacock feathers.
“God, you’re the hottest fucking thing I’ve ever seen,” I said under my breath. Nico arched his back and pressed his ass closer to me, naturally opening himself up until I was looking at exactly what I wanted. “Oh, and will you look at that?”
I leaned over and put my lips against his lower back before reaching through his legs to grasp his cock.
“Seems I may have just found that erection you lost.”
The whimpering sounds he made into the pillow revved my heart rate up to the stratosphere. I leaned in to lick a stripe from his balls up the bumpy piercings, across his hole to his lower back and heard him suck in a breath.
“Like that?” I asked before taking a soft bite of the flesh of his ass and running my tongue along the captured skin.
“West… fuck, yes. Like that.”
I loved the way his voice changed when I gave him pleasure. It was the only time I felt like Nico truly let himself be vulnerable to me. And I was beginning to think that the man wasn’t used to making himself vulnerable to anyone. He seemed desperate to keep up a prickly outer shell, and I wondered if that was just here in Hobie or elsewhere in his everyday life back home too.
I wanted to know more—learn more about who the real Nico Salerno was behind the purple hair and the spiked earrings and the tatts. Was he happy in his life? Did he miss anything about his hometown? Did he have someone special back in San Francisco? What had made him start to think about keeping Pippa and raising her on his own?
My mouth was teasing his opening while my brain circled around thoughts of the man himself. I realized I wasn’t giving his pleasure my full attention and forced myself to push those thoughts away. Once I did, I speared him with my tongue and reached again for his cock.
By the time I was ready to enter him, I was afraid I’d blow on the first stroke. I popped open the lube before sliding cool fingers into his hot body. His sudden intake of breath accompanied his body’s clench, and I felt all the air leave my lungs.
I couldn’t wait any longer.
“Turn over,” I told him. “Want you on your back.”
He did as I said and moved onto his back in the center of the bed. Colorful hair went every which way, his chest was heaving from rapid intake of breaths, his hand had reached down to stroke his cock as he waited for me, and his eyes were shining like flecks of obsidian—all pupil and very little color.
I maneuvered between his legs and leaned down over him, dragging my lips up his chest to his neck to his studded ear. His hand moved from his cock to my hair, fingers threading through it before pulling my head back enough to meet his eyes.
Something was there between us—something unspoken and important. But I couldn’t grasp what it
was, only that it made my heart hurt when I looked at him all flushed and wide-eyed, panting and desperate. Whatever it was, it settled over us for a moment, causing our eye contact to go on longer than normal, like an acknowledgment that something was off or something was waiting just out of reach that needed to be claimed.
“West,” he breathed.
“Mmm?” I responded, lips unable to keep from brushing against his. His cock jumped against my abdomen, and mine pressed hard into the bedding beneath me.
He didn’t say anything else, so I met his eyes again. There was still something in there I couldn’t name.
“What is it?” I murmured. “You okay?”
His eyes searched mine some more before he blew out a short breath and gave a small nod. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m okay.”
I bent my knees up under his legs so I could lean in farther and hook my arms under his shoulders. “Talk to me,” I asked softly, leaning in to flick one of his lip piercings with my tongue. “Something’s on your mind.”
“I never asked if you were seeing anyone,” he admitted with furrowed brows.
The comment was so mundane compared to what I’d thought was happening between us I couldn’t help but bark out a laugh, causing his eyes to widen further.
“What’s so funny? I don’t want to be some kind of home wrecker,” Nico explained defensively.
“I’m laughing because I wondered the same thing about you a few minutes ago. You’ve been to my house, Nico. You know I live alone. Believe me, you would have had many, many tongue-lashings in town by now if there was someone in my life. After the way I claimed you at the bonfire, are you kidding?”
His face relaxed, and I felt his fingers begin to move slowly up my spine. “Okay, well… I mean, it’s not like I’m looking for a boyfriend or anything. I just don’t want to fuck up someone else’s relationship if I can help it.”
“That’s very kind. And what about you? Is there a Mr. Salerno back home in the Bay Area? Someone covered in ink and matching scrotal hoops, perhaps?”
I was teasing, but the idea of it made my stomach sour nonetheless.
He seemed to hesitate, which only caused my stomach to knot even more and my heart to stutter. No. No. It didn’t matter. Why did it matter? It was just sex. If he was cheating, that was his problem, not mine.
“I’m married to—”
I was scrambling away from him before I knew what I was doing. I tripped over my ass and fell halfway onto the floor. His mouth froze open for a split second before he finished his sentence.
“To my job, Weston. Jesus. I’m married to my tattoo shop. What the fuck?”
Nico was on his knees peering down at me in shock.
“I…” What the hell was I supposed to say? “I, ah, sorry. I just thought…” I stopped spluttering and started laughing.
His face turned to surprise. “Wait, you seriously thought I was married?”
“Well, no. That’s not what I meant.” I moved back up to the bed and knelt in front of him. “I’m not surprised you’d have someone special, so when you said you were married, my stupid head grabbed on to it and I freaked.”
He rolled his eyes. “Bullshit.”
“Nico, it’s true. Fuck. I’m sorry. Please. I didn’t mean to say anything to upset you. It was just my nerves about it that caused that stupid reaction.”
His look was skeptical, and I tried to figure out how in the hell to fix the situation in which we found ourselves. I reached out to grab his hands in mine.
“Look, I know you aren’t looking for a relationship. And, honestly, neither am I. I’m married to my work too. In addition to my practice, I work those shifts at the hospital. So can we stop all this fucking talk and get back to the fucking fucking?”
I batted my eyelashes at him for good measure, and he let out a breath before cracking a smile.
“Fuck yes.”
I pounced on him with a full-body slam into the bed. He let out a grunt and grabbed my shoulders to keep from flailing. We kissed while laughing, and it was a combination of relief and joy that seemed to bubble up through me.
After that, I didn’t think about Nico with someone else. I didn’t think of him wanting more than I was prepared to give him. I just enjoyed the moment of loving on his body to the best of my ability.
Well, not love exactly. But attention, adoration, gratitude, and a healthy heap of lust. I doused him with as many kisses, licks, bites, and touches as I could possibly give the man.
By the time I was again poised to enter him, he was begging for my cock, breathing my name between shuddered gasps, and pulling at me with greedy fingers. My mouth was locked on his, and my tongue danced between us.
“Want you so badly,” I admitted into his mouth. “Need to be inside you.”
“Fuck. Fuck, yes. Same here. Please. Inside.”
I loved it when he babbled and begged—so different from his usual attitude.
After slipping on the condom and pressing into his body, I looked up to see if he needed me to slow down.
His eyes watched me, and his hands came out to hold my face. We made that crazy connection again through our eye contact—the one that had derailed us just a little while earlier. I knew I wasn’t imagining it, but whatever it was, it simply didn’t fit the casual scenario we’d agreed upon. I didn’t allow the moment to happen again. I couldn’t.
So I did the only thing I could think of. I slammed my cock into him and latched my mouth onto his, swallowing his scream and pressing his body deep down into the mattress.
Chapter 25
Nico
As much as I wanted to figure out what in the hell was developing between the two of us, all I could feel in that moment was West’s glorious fucking cock sliding in and out of my body. My brain short-circuited when the head of his dick stroked over my prostate, and I almost swallowed my tongue.
Okay, I almost swallowed his tongue. Same difference.
He pummeled into me so rhythmically I couldn’t think or feel or reciprocate. I clutched his legs where they knelt on the bed beside my hips, and I could feel the muscles moving with every thrust into me. God, his legs were amazing. His entire body was amazing.
I could smell the sleepy scent of him and taste the salty tang of his skin. My fingers could feel the rough hair on his legs, and I could hear his deep rumble of pleasure as I tightened my body around him. Once I opened my eyes to watch him, I saw his beautiful face staring down at me again with that look.
The look that told me I was something special. Something wonderful and unique, precious and rare. It was unlike anything I’d ever known before, and it scared the fucking piss out of me.
Had I managed to control my body, I might have lost my erection out of sheer stark terror. But I didn’t. Weston Wilde owned my body in that moment, and there wasn’t a damned thing I could do to order it to stand down. Every cell was lit up, every muscle was contracting in anticipation, and my cock was jackknifing against my body in preparation for coating the ceiling with my release.
“Oh god, oh god,” I blurted as West shifted so he could peg my spot again and again. “Oh god,” I choked out one more time.
“Fuck, Nico. Jesus,” West groaned before sucking a mark hard into my neck. “You’re going to make me come. Fuck.”
His voice cracked on that last curse, and that was all it took for me to explode. My hands were still on his skin, but my cock didn’t seem to notice or give a shit.
The tingles along my spine seemed to shrink to nothing before suddenly bursting out in a giant explosion that shook through me from head to foot. I cried out his name as I arched into my release and felt his mouth pressing soft kisses all over my face as his hands cupped the back of my head.
West’s hips thrust two more times before they wound up pressed so tightly against me his cock felt like it was in my throat as it twitched out his own release.
His voice was in my ear within moments of his climax. He whispered sweet words about how amazing my body was, h
ow beautiful I was, how lucky he was to be with me in that moment. Even though I knew they were stupid postorgasm words, I felt them hit my heart like traitorous Cupid arrows.
I lifted my hands from his legs to his head and ran my fingers through his thick, blond locks. Our chests were glued together with sweat and semen. Our breathing was still rapid and uneven. But my heart was steady and my mind was calm.
West’s body was curled on top of mine, his face pressed into my neck and his softening cock still inside me. The way we lay together was heavy, sticky, and uncomfortable, but I would have paid any amount of money for him to stay like that as long as possible.
I swiveled my head to kiss whatever part of him my lips could reach. It turned out to be a lock of hair stuck to his forehead. “Take a shower with me after this?” I asked.
He lifted his head with a small grin. “Yeah, I’d like that.”
After an extremely handsy shower, we emerged clean if not completely well rested. Pippa was awake, so I grabbed her and changed her, emerging to the kitchen to discover West standing there holding the bottle ready. I let out a chuckle.
“What’s so funny?” he asked.
“I’m just thinking about all the women in the world who would pay big money to be in my shoes right now. Hot, muscled doctor in his underwear fixing a bottle for their baby? Jesus Christ. It’s like every woman’s wet dream. Look at you.”
He turned and flexed his muscles like he was modeling for a calendar. “Does this make it studlier?” he asked.
“No.” I laughed. “It makes you dorkier. Gimme that bottle.”
West handed me the bottle before turning back to the coffee maker. He began singing in a teasing voice. “He thinks I’m a hot doctor. I’m Nico’s wet dream… He wants me…”
I bit my tongue to keep from grinning like a fool. “You’re insane. Are you sure you didn’t sneak a little something-something from the opiate supply at work this morning before you left?”
He continued to dance around the kitchen in his underwear, shaking his gorgeous fucking ass as he gathered supplies for the coffee. Pippa squawked in my arms, and I realized I’d pressed the bottle’s nipple into her cheek instead of her mouth.
