CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Nico
She’s lucky Grant was there, is all I can say. I’m still shaking as I drag her over to Tenth Avenue to catch a cab uptown. I don’t have any patience for the train tonight, and I sure as fuck can’t deal with anymore slimy motherfuckers eye-fucking Layla in that underwear she calls a dress.
Fuck, this girl makes me feel out of control. Fuck.
Once we’re safely in the cab, it doesn’t take long for the stop and go rhythm of the engine to lull her to sleep against the car window. The driver gives me a knowing look, and I have to bite back the urge to tell him to mind his own fuckin’ business. I haven’t said a word since we left the club, and I’m still too pissed off to be nice.
But the anger wears off a little as we shoot up the Westside Highway. Asleep, Layla’s lost that angry pout––the pout I put there. Her words ring in my mind. Just fuck and run. You don’t give a shit about me. No, I think. She’s drunk. She doesn’t really think that.
I’m so lost in my thoughts that I barely notice when the cab stops in front of my building. Layla is still asleep, so I pay the cabbie and walk around the other side to help her out.
“Come on, baby,” I mutter, wrapping an arm around her waist and lifting her out of the car.
She wakes up and starts walking, but leans on me in her daze.
“Hey,” she says, looking around drowsily. “This isn’t my dorm.”
“It’s my apartment,” I say, tugging gently on her arm. “I didn’t know if your friends took those other assholes home, and I don’t want you there with them.”
She looks equal parts tired and curious, but the anger is still gone. She lets me guide her into the building, and suddenly I’m self-conscious, seeing the old place with new eyes, the way she must see it. It’s one of the prewar stone buildings that are all up and down the West Side, but far enough uptown that it’s not in the greatest shape. I wonder what she thinks of the cracked black and white tiles of the lobby floor, the streaks of mold and cracks running up the walls, the splotchy graffiti tags on the elevator door. It isn’t the worst-looking apartment building I’ve ever seen—not by a long shot—but it isn’t exactly her posh dorm with the security guard.
I lead her into the tiny, fluorescent-lit elevator that barely fits the two of us, and she lets me tuck her hand in mine as I press the number four and close the accordion-style gate. She wrinkles her nose.
“It smells like pee in here, Nico.”
I swallow back a sharp retort and just sigh. She’s not wrong, but she sounds like a fuckin’ princess. It’s just another reminder of the miles of difference between us. At least this building even has a working elevator. We could be taking the stairs.
The elevator stops, and I walk her onto my floor, which is only lit by the ghostly moonlight coming in through the windows. My landlord barely pays for the elevator maintenance. The cheap bastard would never pay for hallway lights.
Layla follows me down the hallway over more cracked-tiled floor until we reach the apartment marked 406.
“This is me,” I say as I dig my keys out and unlock the door.
It’s nothing to be proud of, although because of rent control and a shady landlord, my place is a lot bigger than you’d usually get for this price. Keeping Layla’s hand in mine, I lead her down the very long, dark hallway that connects the two bedrooms, living room, and kitchen. It’s kind of like what realtors call a “railroad” apartment, where all the rooms are lined up one on top of the other, one after another, except this one has the hallway down one side, and the rooms jut off.
I knock on the lights as we go, gesturing silently at the kitchen, with its sink half full of dishes, the living room where I keep a faded plaid couch I picked up for free and my TV, and a third common room that I never use because it’s full of Maggie’s crap and a cot Gabe sometimes uses when he needs a break from our mom.
Layla follows me into the kitchen, where I flip on the cheap fluorescent light. I open the fridge and pull out a beer for me and a bottle of water for her. She twists it open and takes several long, grateful pulls of the cold water. It’s hypnotic, watching her lips on the bottle, sucking on it like that. It reminds me of something else she’s sucked on before.
Goddammit, Nico. That is not where your mind should be.
She looks up and catches me staring. I swallow, then take the bottle from her and toss it into the bin by the sink before handing her another.
“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.
~