BEAUTIFUL.
Such a trite, overused word. Nicholas wished he could come up with something that better described the punch-to-the-gut feeling he got when he saw Livvy.
Nicholas leaned against a pillar. Livvy appeared utterly at home at the bar of the swanky hotel. She was wearing a red dress, short and strapless, with polka dots on it. A white petticoat was visible under the hem. Her hair was styled in some utterly complicated old-fashioned pouf that matched her pinup-girl dress. On another woman the outfit might have looked sweet and girlish, but she’d paired it with high-heeled wedges that had straps crisscrossing her ankles and calves. The vine on her shoulder peeked out from under the strands of her hair. The dragon was barely visible on the back of her calf, under the skirt, a flash of curling tail.
They’d had sex with the lights on now a couple of times, but he hadn’t spent nearly long enough inspecting and licking every spot of ink on her. He didn’t know if there was a point where he’d be satisfied.
For the first time in his life, he’d consciously stopped trying to compartmentalize his personal life from his work and family, and it was an amazing experience. Yes, nothing was as orderly as he was used to. Yes, he’d had to rely on his staff more. Yes, sometimes he zoned out during business meetings since half his attention was focused on how many hours it would take to see her, text her, talk to her again.
But he was happy.
Of course, he could see the problems looming ahead of them. He was growing more and more certain about his feelings for her; she was understandably skittish as hell. But for once he was living in the present, not the past or the future. He was living for himself, Nicholas the Man, not Nicholas the Son or Nicholas the Brother or Nicholas the CEO.
A man sitting next to Livvy at the bar edged closer, turning his head as if he were contemplating talking to her, and Nicholas stifled the growl in his chest. He walked closer, until he could wedge in between the two of them to lean on the bar. “Hello there,” he said quietly.
Livvy glanced his way, amusement dancing in her dark eyes. The dim chandelier lighting in the room caressed her golden skin. “Hello.”
“Can I buy you a drink?”
Livvy tapped her martini glass. “I have a drink. Can I buy you one?”
“I’d like that.”
“What will you have?”
“Scotch.”
She caught the bartender’s eye and waved him over to place his order. They didn’t speak until after the bartender poured his drink and moved away. The scotch was smoky and delicate, settling over his tongue and throat. “My name’s Nicholas.”
He could tell by the way her mouth puckered that she was biting her cheek. “Olivia.”
“You don’t look like an Olivia.”
“You don’t look like a Nicholas.”
He shrugged. “Call me whatever you like, then.”
“I’ll do that, Nico.”
She’d been sighing that in his ear for the past week. Those two syllables filled him with an unmatched sense of delight. “That’ll do, Livvy.”
She swiveled on her stool. “So, what brings you here tonight?”
“I’m looking for something.”
“What?”
Solace. Relief. You. He wanted to grin but controlled his expression. “Not sure yet.”
“You look like you have everything.”
“Seems that way on paper.”
She rolled her eyes. “Poor little rich boy.”
“How do you know I’m rich?”
Her hand smoothed over his chest, stopping his heart. Would he ever be tired of her touch? He feared the answer was no. She tugged on his tie. “This. This costs more than some people’s paychecks. That’s how I know.”
“You got me.”
“What do you do?”
“Boring stuff.”
“I bet it’s something important.”
“Not really. I take care of things.”
“Things? Or people?”
Nicholas looked down at her. “Both, I suppose.”
Her lashes fluttered. “Sounds important.”
“I hope it is. What do you do?”
“I’m an artist.”
“Ah.” He took a sip of his scotch, barely tasting it. “What’s your medium?”
“Skin.”
“Hmm.” Since she’d touched him, he dared to lift his fingers and trail them over the vine at her shoulder. “Did you design this?”
“I did.”
“Where did you get it?”
“Boston.”
“Nice.”
He continued tracing the vine, feeling her shiver. “For a tattoo artist, you don’t have many visible tattoos.”
“There are few people I’ve been able to trust to execute the designs I want on me.”
“I’ve been thinking of getting a tattoo.”
“Have you? I can’t see you with one.” She cut her gaze away from him, telling him she was lying.
“Maybe a fairy,” he ventured. “Or a mermaid?”
Her lips twitched, and she took a sip of the fruity drink she’d ordered. “If they’re naked, I guess.”
“Look how smart you are. Such a professional.” He followed the vine to the back of her shoulder. He knew exactly where it ended, curling over the delicate bump of her shoulder blade. “I welcome any other suggestions you have.”
“I’ll—I’ll think on it,” she murmured.
“Are you good at what you do?”
She didn’t hesitate. “I’m the best. Are you good at what you do?”
“Taking care of people?”
“Yes.”
“I—” He was about to downplay his accomplishments but instead took a cue from her easy confidence. “I am. Though sometimes I can’t take care of everyone.”
“No one can.”
“You’re right. I’m learning to prioritize.”
“You should prioritize yourself first.”
His smile was genuine. “I don’t think you’re wrong.”
“Well.” Livvy picked up the cherry from her glass by the stem and took a bite of the fruit, holding the stem between her white, even teeth. “What are two competent people like us supposed to do with their time?”
He smiled, though he didn’t feel like smiling. His body was so hard it hurt, watching her slowly make love to that cherry. “I’ve got a room upstairs.”
She put down the stem. “I’d have been disappointed if you didn’t.”
They didn’t speak as they made their way upstairs to the room he’d reserved. This wasn’t a comfortable silence, but the kind of silence that came from two people who didn’t know each other that well.
Feeding the fantasy.
As the elevator rose, he slid his hand from the small of her back up to her shoulder, then down over her arm, scraping his callouses over the vine, until he could clasp their hands together. “The things I want to do to you,” he murmured.
The look she cast him was sizzling. “What do you want to do to me?”
He took one step, then another, crowding her smaller body. He raised their joined hands and placed them against the wall of the elevator. “Strip you. Lick you. Fuck you.”
Her legs fell open, giving him room to press against her. He couldn’t stop himself from grinding his cock in the warm, wet space between her legs.
“That all sounds good,” she breathed.
The elevator dinged, and he’d never been so grateful when the doors opened to reveal an empty hallway. If she hadn’t easily matched his eager pace, he would have been dragging her. He inserted his keycard wrong at first, and he cursed impatiently when it flashed red, giving her a dark look when she laughed.
Finally they were inside. He didn’t wait, pressing her up against the door, as he had in the elevator. With great care, he pushed her hair over her shoulders and looked down into her eyes. “I want you to tell me what you like.”
“You know what I like.”
“How, when we’ve never met before?”
Her lips quivered, but she didn’t contradict him. Her small breasts pillowed over the neckline of her dress. He lowered his head and kissed the flesh, not breaking eye contact with her. “I need you to tell me. Is this okay?”
Her eyes darkened. “Yes.”
He reached around her and found the zipper, pulling it down so he could properly trace her spine down to the dimples at her waist. He wanted to lick those dimples. He eased back and paused before lowering the dress. “Can I strip you naked?”
“Yes,” she whispered.
With a shove, he had the dress on the floor. He took a second to admire her braless breasts, then dropped his hand to her panties. It was a scrap of fabric, tied at each hip with a tiny bow. He gave the strings a gentle tug. “Please, can I get these panties off you?”
She nodded. Two tugs at each bow, and the lace was on the floor, her body completely naked in front of him. He took a second to admire her smooth skin, decorated with ink. He knew this body so well, and yet at the same time he didn’t know it at all. “Will you get on the bed?”
She bit her lip and sauntered past him, the muscles in her short, powerful legs clenching and releasing. She crawled onto the bed in a way he knew was designed to get his blood rushing to his cock. He swallowed, then slowly worked his tie free.
He dropped it onto the bed and quickly stripped off his shirt and pants, preening only a little when she ran her hungry gaze over him. He donned a condom and then grabbed the tie and crawled up her body, her smooth legs grazing his hairier ones. “Can I tie you up, Livvy?”
Her eyes widened. “Uh, with the tie?”
“Yes.”
“Yes, yes, yes.” She nodded for emphasis. “A million times yes.”
Well, that confirmed his suspicion she had some sort of weird fetish with his ties. He bit the inside of his cheek as she flung her hands above her head. He looped the tie around both wrists. She tested the knot, her expression growing more heated as she realized she was caught. “Boy Scout.”
He ran his lips down the inside of her arm, making her shiver. “Good with knots. Always prepared.” She arched up, and he controlled her easily, placing a hand on her hip. “Be patient,” he whispered.
“Patience is not my strong suit.”
“That’s too bad. It is mine.” He licked his way over her breast, to her nipple. “I still need you to tell me what you like.”
“Nico . . .”
Her breasts were fuller on top than the bottom, which meant he had to cup and lift them to get her nipples into his mouth. He plumped one up, then ran his mouth all around the tip and down the valley between her breasts. Her foot dragged up his leg and ass and back, exerting a steady pressure to get him closer and tighter.
He readjusted so her legs were caught under his, and took in her glassy eyes and flushed skin. “Do you want me to stop?”
“No.”
Very carefully, he ran his tongue around the areola of her nipple. She cried out, and he lifted his head. “What do you want?”
“Suck me.”
He drew a bit of her skin on the curve of her breast into his mouth and sucked it softly. “Like this?”
“No. My nipples, damn it.”
He pushed her breasts together and opened his mouth wide, his groan matching hers when he sucked in a mouthful of her pretty nipples. He drank in the sound of her sighs and moans like they were ambrosia. If he could, he’d consume her completely.
He played with her for a long moment, until she was writhing beneath him. He kissed his way over her body to the tattoo on the outside of her left breast. A heart, with parentheses around it.
“Where did you get this one?” he murmured, and traced the heart with his tongue.
“Los Angeles.”
He nipped her skin, then moved lower, kissing over her clenched stomach. He nibbled her cute navel, then lower still, over her hipbones and the pot of gold there. Her first.
He spread her legs wider and traced his fingers over the intricate stylized dragon that ran up her leg, its head on her thigh. “What about this one?”
“D.C.”
He frowned, something niggling at the back of his mind, but he shoved it aside, barely able to concentrate on breathing when her body was so wet and ready beneath his.
He ghosted his lips over the crease of her groin. “Livvy, can I fuck you with my tongue?”
She stifled a sob and pulled at her binding, but he really had been a Boy Scout. That was a solid knot. She wasn’t going anywhere. “Yes. Yes, please.”
“Do you know why I always wanted to go down on you?” He kissed her mound.
She inhaled. “The answer every woman wants to hear is because you love it.”
“I do love it. I love your taste and scent and how you move under me. I love I can make you crazy for my touch. But also . . . I was always so grateful.” He nuzzled his nose against the landing strip of hair there, breathing her in, allowing himself to pretend they were together for real and that this was his right and privilege at all times. “Whenever you contacted me, I wanted to get on my hands and knees and show you how grateful I was.”
She stilled under him. “Most people send a card.”
“I don’t like writing.” He spread her open with both fingers and touched his tongue to her hard clit, holding her still when she would have jumped. “I love licking you.”
He settled in to feast, fucking her deep and hard with his mouth. The world around him vanished, his entire focus on the wetness on his tongue, her trembling thighs surrounding his head, the gasping cries she gave. He used his thumb to keep stimulating her clit, even after she started coming, sensing she wouldn’t be satisfied with just one orgasm. He loved it when she hit multiple peaks. It didn’t always happen, but when it did, he felt like a god.
When she was replete, a boneless heap beneath him, he stretched up her body and kissed her lax mouth. “Livvy, can I fuck you?” he whispered.
“Yes,” she whispered, then gasped when he readjusted his body and sank inside her, her heat making his toes curl. With the exception of the time in the woods, he’d worn a condom. She might be on birth control, but he wasn’t a man who took chances.
Except with her, he supposed. He should pull out and suit up but this was such perfection. Fucking her bare sent him back to when they’d been young and hot and committed to one another.
He pressed his lips against her ear. “I’ve never been naked like this with anyone but you.” Her pussy contracted around him at the confession, and he had to swallow to keep speaking. “Just like no woman’s gone down on me but you.”
Her head snapped back, incredulity edging out the passion in her gaze. “Are you serious?”
The sense of vulnerability was overhelming. So was the freedom. “Extremely. I told you it had been a long time.”
“But that long?”
“Yes.” He worked his way deeper. “Those words are exactly what I want to hear when my cock is out, by the way. Say them with more excitement.”
She huffed out a laugh, her breasts jiggling. She tugged at her bonds. “Let me touch you.”
Fearing she might tweak a muscle, he complied and then entwined his hands with hers. He pressed them flat against the mattress as he withdrew and shafted back inside.
He grew selfish and greedy as he fucked her, shoving harder. He thought he could hold out longer, but then she turned her head, her teeth sinking into his shoulder, her orgasm tightening her pussy around him. He came with a strangled shout, his come spurting out of him in great spasms.
He returned to reality in slow degrees when she shifted her body under his and brought her hands to rest on his shoulders, her fingers caressing his skin. He turned his head and kissed her inner wrist, where three dots decorated her skin, so tiny one could miss them. She’d had them since she was twenty-one or so. He remembered the first time he’d noticed. “Where did you get this tattoo?”
“New York.”
He nodded, closing his eyes, a nagging sensation still tugging at his consciousness. He would move in a second, once he could get his shit together, but right now this felt so fucking good, resting on top of her while she stroked his shoulders and hair. If he could, he would stay here forever.
Boston.
D.C.
Los Angeles.
New York.
He frowned, trying to shoo the wriggling thoughts as his brain struggled to piece together parts of a puzzle he hadn’t been aware existed. He didn’t need his head to ruin this perfect night.
He pulled out of her and took care of the condom, dropping it into the wastebasket by the bed. Then he ran his hand up her side, urging her onto her stomach.
Her lashes fluttered. “Wha—?”
“Let me rub your back,” he murmured.
She complied, and he had her entire lovely back before him. He ran his hands over her shoulders and lower, rubbing the flesh, working out the knots there.
His fingers brushed over vibrant ink, so colorful it felt alive. She had a watercolor tattoo of a gold compass centered on her spine, splashes of soothing purple and blue and green behind it. He traced the script N above the arrow at the top. It stood for north, not Nicholas.
He drew a circle over the compass. She turned her head so her cheek rested against the pillow and sighed. He drew another circle. “A box,” she murmured.
“What?”
“Draw a square, not a circle.”
He didn’t understand her request, but he changed the motion. Her eyes narrowed in pleasure.
“Do you like that more?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
She didn’t answer for a moment. “It’s something someone taught me. If I’m feeling overwhelmed or like my emotions are too big, I think of putting my feelings into a box. It helps calm me down.”
How funny. She had to put her feelings in a box, while he’d only recently allowed his out.
He shifted to lay on his side, and continued the motion, finding it soothing to him as well. He moved to the N, boxing that. “Where did you get this tattoo?”
“Chicago,” she murmured.
Boston.
D.C.
Los Angeles.
New York.
Chicago.
His mind whirred to life, fitting the cities into a pattern, alongside what he knew about those tattoos and when they’d appeared on her body.
What were the odds she would get a single tattoo in every city he’d met her in?
He ran his finger up to the vine that unfurled on her upper back, almost kissing a splatter of ink from the compass. The harsh lines of the vine were a sharp contrast to the dreamy blurriness of the compass. He drew a square there, around a prickly flower. “What does this mean?”
Her shoulders moved. “I told you. I thought it was pretty.”
He nodded and slid his hand down her arm to her wrist. A box there. “And this?”
“It’s an ellipsis.”
“What does it mean?”
She rolled over on to her back and stared up at him. “Punctuation.”
He bent and pressed a kiss on the side of her breast, where the heart lay. “What about this?”
“It’s from a poem I liked.”
“What poem?”
“What’s with all the questions?” She moved, subtly edging away. She shoved the sheets and comforter down and crawled under them, wrapping the bedding around herself.
“I’m curious.”
Boston.
D.C.
Los Angeles.
New York.
Chicago.
“What about your other ones?”
She yawned, her eyes closing. “Other what?”
“All your tattoos? Where did you get each one?”
Her lashes fluttered. “What’s the big deal, Nico?”
That Nico wasn’t a caressing endearment. It was a warning. His stomach churned.
Too bad he’d never been good at heeding warnings. “Did you get a tattoo in every city we met up in?”
She straightened, clutching the sheet to her chest. “Huh?”
“There’s a pattern. Boston, D.C., L.A., New York, Chicago. I flew to all those places over the years. I’m betting you have other cities we met in on you, don’t you? Atlanta? Minneapolis?”
“Uh, I was living in those places, of course I got ink there. And I got tattoos in places we never met up.” She raised her arm and flashed the tiny velociraptor on her inner biceps. “That was in Denver.”
Well used to her wily ways, he rested on his elbow and watched her. “I asked you if you got something in every city we met up in, not if you only got them in those places.”
“So what if I did?”
He tensed. “That’s interesting.”
“Why is it interesting?” She rolled her eyes. “It just is.”
His gaze dropped to the pot of gold on her hip. She’d gotten that one the day after her seventeenth birthday.
He might love patterns, but Livvy loved anniversaries. He had trouble swallowing. “It was the next day, wasn’t it? Each time?”
“Jesus, what does it matter?” She sat up and threw her legs over the side of the bed, tugging the sheet so she could wrap it around her body toga-style.
She stood and stalked over to her dress, picking it up and shaking it out, the petticoat flaring.
He ran his hand over his face, suddenly, fiercely tired. “Livvy, I thought you wanted to resolve the stuff between us.”
She dropped the sheet and stepped into her dress, quickly zipping it up before he could be distracted by her body. “That’s what we’re doing.”
“We’re not if you won’t talk to me.”
“This conversation is pointless. You’re digging for something and I don’t understand what.”
“Were you punishing yourself? For sleeping with me?”
She drew back, a sneer on her lips. “No, dumbass. Tattoos are never punishment.”
She’d skipped calling him Nicholas and gone straight to dumbass, but he didn’t have the mental reserves to deal with that.
She smoothed her badly wrinkled skirt. “Why would you even think that?”
“Because I know you . . . hurt . . . after we broke up.”
“Yeah, I told you that.”
“I know . . .” He licked his lips, certain he should shut up, but unable to stop himself. “I know you were depressed. I know you said you wanted to die.”
She went utterly still, every muscle frozen. It was like looking at a statue. Her lips barely moved when she spoke. “Who told you that?”
Aw shit. He had to keep going now. “Your brother paid me a visit.”
Her head snapped around. “What? When?”
“Last week.”
“Last week . . . when?”
“The day we went to my grandfather’s.”
Her gaze flickered, and her skin paled. “Oh God. The day you suddenly decided we needed to talk? Is that why . . . is that what this has been? You and me, this week? The sweetness, the talking, the fucking? Was this all out of, what? Pity?”
He came to his knees, uncaring of his nudity. “No, no.”
She laughed half-hysterically. “We talked about hate-fucks and guilt-fucks, but I suppose I should have brought up pity-fucks.”
“That’s not it. Damn it, Livvy.”
Fury joined horror in her expression. Beyond listening, she grabbed her shoes from where she’d kicked them off. “That’s what all the questions were about. Was I punishing myself for having sex with you? Because I was so heartbroken, I couldn’t stay away from you, right?”
“That’s not—”
“Yes. I was depressed after you broke things off with me, is that what you want to hear?” The tears trembling on her lashes broke something apart inside him. “I fell into the deepest, scariest pit of depression, so much I never thought I’d crawl my way out. I did want to die.” She didn’t bother to tie her sandals properly, simply wrapping the strings around her ankles in a large knot. “That first time I texted you, that first birthday, I felt so pathetic and lonely. After you left, I cried for days. But then the next year, I cried less. And even less the following. I built myself back up. And tonight? I’m not going to cry at all. So take your pity and go fuck yourself with it.”
He scrambled out of bed, panic driving him. Wait, she couldn’t leave. Where were his pants? He had to stop her. “Livvy, wait. You’ve misunderstood everything. It wasn’t pity. It was never pity.”
She stalked to the door and glanced over her shoulder. “Then what was it?”
Love. He opened his mouth, the answer there, on the tip of his tongue.
Say it.
The seconds ticked by as he struggled to do it, to strip that final protective layer off his heart. Cold moved through him, freezing all animation, the wind-up man going still.
Finally, she shook her head. Tears shimmered in her eyes, but they didn’t fall. “Actually, I think I finally understand everything.” The look she cast him was inscrutable and cool. “I think we’re done now, Nicholas. I’m going to do my damnedest to forget your number. Don’t ever text me again.”