Chapter Thirty-Seven
Grudges are for those who insist
that they are owed something;
forgiveness, however, is for those
substantial enough to move on.
Criss Jami
“You know what? I am. I am broken,” I admit. I don’t even bother hiding it, unwilling to do so after Vincent, of all people, pointed it out after I fucking stained my fist with his blood. “But so are you, Minka. And there’s nothing wrong with that.”
She scoffs. “Get off of your high horse, Niccolaio,” she says, and I wonder if we’re horrible for each other.
Maybe we are. Maybe we both know this. But even so, our hearts aren’t listening. Mine is aching for her in ways I never knew possible, and I know she feels the same way. I’m sure of it. I can see it in her eyes, in the way her eyes flare every time I drift closer, even if it’s in anger, frustration and disappointment.
She can’t stand me, but she can’t stand to be away from me either.
“There are consequences to your actions,” she says, referring to Vincent, and it doesn’t bother me, because I know she’s hurt. That she’s just trying to piss me off. To push me away like she does everyone else, except Mina.
No, Mina she tries to pull close.
Too close.
“That’s your problem right there.”
Her eyes seductively flash with anger, and my cock rears its head. The damn thing wants angry sex, but I can’t. Not with her. Not when everything is so damn complicated right now. I can lust after her, sure; I can crave her, yes; I can help her on the right path, absolutely; and I can kiss her, perhaps.
But I certainly can’t fuck her.
Not when I know I won’t be able to let her go afterwards.
“I don’t have a problem,” she protests.
“You do. It’s that you live life worrying about the consequences.”
She snarls. “I’m not going to listen to advice from you. You didn’t give a damn about consequences, and now you have a hit out on you, taken out by the Andretti family, by your own brother.” She scoffs. “If that isn’t enough to support the merits of my way of thinking, this discussion with you is pointless.”
I shouldn’t have told her that. I shouldn’t have told her about my past, about my family. I don’t know why I did. Sometimes I feel like I hate her. Like I hate her so fucking much. How dare she say these things to me? How dare she speak the truth? And why do I want to be around her if I hate her so much?
But I know, deep down, that it’s because I don’t hate her.
She’s just too real with me, too eager to confront my darkest demons. She always has been. And fuck, it rouses every emotion in me—the good and bad. It wakes up the monster in me. It rises the beast. And it dawns on me that she wants me like this. She wants me to be mad at her so that I can forget about what we’re arguing about and focus on the fury.
She knows to do this, because we’re both the same.
We’re both animals, always succumbing to our rage. Our inability to forgive.
But not tonight.
Tonight, I won’t let her push me away.
And when she storms out of the warehouse, practically scorching the place in her wake, I follow after her. I can feel the waves of anger radiating off of her, yet I choose to follow her. I choose to pursue this woman that I want more than I’ve ever wanted anything else. More than I want my next breath.
When she sees that it’s raining and she’s only wearing her tiny fucking sleeping shorts and a t-shirt—Christ, my t-shirt—she doesn’t even stop. She continues down the alley, opening her mouth, pivoting to face me, and yelling, “Just stop, Niccolaio. Not tonight. You won’t win this fight.”
But she’s standing there, opening that too-smart-for-her-own-good mouth of hers, rain dripping down her hair, her face, her body, and I hate her. I hate what she does to me. I hate that this is a fight that either both of us will win or both of us will lose. And of course, I want both of us to win…
I want to fucking kiss her.
She sees the look in my eyes—feral, animalistic, and deranged. And she doesn’t move away from me.
She. Doesn’t. Move. Away. From. Me.
I don’t know who moves first, but within seconds, her lips are against mine.
Angry. Clashing. Warring.
And so fucking delicious.
Holy fuck.
I’m kissing her.
I’m kissing Minka.
I press her against the wall of the warehouse, both thankful and furious that we’re so far away from civilization. The animal in me wants to fuck her against the hard metal for everyone to see. To see me claim this beautiful woman as mine. But there’s no audience here. Just her, me and this amazing magnetism between us.
Her tongue dives past my lips, brushing against mine once. Twice. Three times, and I’m gone. I’m lost in the magic that is her. Her lips. Her hair. Her skin. It all consumes me until my hand grips the round globes of her ass and lifts her into the air, her legs wrapping around my waist.
She grinds herself against my erection, moaning sexy little noises into my mouth. My lips drift from hers bottom lip to her neck, where I nibble on the sensitive skin, trying to be gentle but not doing a very good job. Especially when she rubs herself on my cock again, trying to fuck me through my pants.
“I’m on the pill,” she whispers into my mouth, the best invitation I’ve ever heard.
I respect this woman. A lot. I think she’s a strong woman, stronger than any other woman I met, but tonight, I’m not going to treat her like it. I’m going to dominate her, fuck her like I’ve been wanting to since I met her.
I pull back a little and force her lust-filled eyes to focus on my face when I warn, “I’m going to fuck you now. It’ll be hard, it’ll be rough, and it’ll hurt. But I promise you’ll feel good. That your pussy will come so hard around my cock that I won’t be able to move it as the walls of your tight, little pussy clamp down on me. Okay?”
Her lips part, her eyes glazing over in arousal, but I need her to nod her head. To give me her permission.
“How do you want me?” I ask, hoping she’ll let me dominate her, because fuck, I need this.
“Hard. Rough.” Her voice lowers, and she rubs her pussy against my cock, our bodies separated by our damn clothes. “And bare.”
I growl at the filthiness of her words and the trust in me they reveal. My fingers dip into her tiny shorts, ones that I’m starting to love, and it’s a shame that I have to rip them off of her. And I do, tearing the shorts and her sexy lace panties at once, until she’s bare for me, her pretty pussy glistening in the moonlight.
I don’t even bother taking anything else off, leaving my shirt on her torso because I want her to remember that she’s mine.
My hand dips into my pants, wrapping my fingers around my cock. I stroke it once, groaning as she takes my bottom lip into her mouth and sucks on it, grazing it with her teeth before she releases it. I fist my cock and run it along her slit, soaking it with her wetness, which has left a trail down her inner thighs.
She moans into my mouth, and I ram my cock into her waiting pussy without a warning. She screams at the contact, her mouth moving to my shoulder and her teeth biting down hard on the muscle there. Her nails draw blood from my back, but I don’t fucking care.
Dominant and in control, I command her body, using her pussy like it’s a vehicle for my pleasure. I pound into her, unrelenting as she chants my name like it’s a prayer. Each thrust of my hips pushes her harder into the wall, but she doesn’t complain as she takes everything I give her and gives it back as she meets each of my thrusts. My lips drift down to her nipples, and I suck on one of them roughly through my shirt that she’s wearing, biting down on the hardened bud and enjoying the tantalizing smell of both of our scents mixed together.
I feel like I’m marking her. Claiming her. Making her mine. But I need more of her, more of this. I knead her ass roughly with my hands before moving them to her narrow waist and gripping the skin there. I grab her waist and slam her down onto my cock to meet each of my hard thrusts, the need to come overwhelming now, but I refuse to let go until she falls apart on my cock.
And when my fingers brush against her clit, it’s all it takes for her to start spasming around me, and only then do I empty myself into her, the tight clenching of her walls milking every single drop out of me. When we’re done, I don’t pull out of her. I don’t think I can.
“That was…” she trails off, struggling to find the right words.
But there aren’t any, so I just say, “Yeah,” agreeing with her.
I keep her in my arms as I carry her inside of the warehouse, taking her into my room. I reluctantly pull out of her pussy and place her on top of my bed. I get in behind her, curving my body around hers and pulling the sheets over us.
I should probably clean her, but I don’t want to. I want part of me in her even as I pull myself out of her, and that should scare me, but it doesn’t.
Good God, I think I’m finally ready for this.
For our relationship.
There are a million things I need to do the next morning, but I can’t help but wake Minka up with my mouth on that sweet pussy of hers, my teeth grazing her clit. And my God, when she rides my tongue, coming hard around it, I nearly spill my load on the sheets like a fucking teenage boy.
“I don’t think I’ll ever get used to that,” she says, a post-coital glow on her beautiful features.
I smirk but don’t respond, because I plan on waking her up like that as often as I can. We still haven’t resolved the argument from last night, but I know she’ll accept Mina’s words when she’s ready to. And I’ll be there for her when that happens.
Until then, I plan on showing her that there’s a silver lining to this. While she’s showering and getting ready for the morning, I make breakfast and pack it in a picnic basket along with a blanket. When she’s done, we go outside, and I set up the picnic in front of the river, ignoring her smirk as she watches the domestication of the panther that used to be me.
When we’re done eating, I stare at her and say, “Curse.”
Her eyes widen, taken off guard by the unusual demand. “What?”
“That’s something you gave up years ago for this quest of yours. But you no longer have to.”
She glances uneasily at me. “Not filing for custody of Mina doesn’t mean I should stop trying to be a good role model for her.”
“True, but the way you choose to be a good role model will be on your terms. Not because you think Social Services will hear you cursing and snatch her away from you.”
She opens her pretty mouth, no doubt to argue my statement, but she closes it immediately when she realizes that I’m right. I can see it in her eyes that she has had that fear before. In fact, she’s probably spent the past four years fearing that anything she did at any second may have resulted in the fury of Social Services.
And now that she no longer has those worries, I hope that she feels free, untethered to the responsibilities that were weighing her beautiful soul down.
She throws her head back and yells to the water, “Fuck, fuck, fuckity fuck!”
My eyes widen for a moment. For a second there, I didn’t think she’d actually do it. My mouth spreads into a grin, and even though it sounds ridiculous, I shout with her, “Fuck, fuck, fuckity fuck!”
“Damn it!”
“Jackass!”
“Shit!”
And because I want to make her laugh, I yell, “Asshat!”
I’m reward by her laughter, and Minka and I curse all morning long at the Hudson, until our throats are sore, our faces hurt from smiling, and she whispers, “I’m falling in fucking love with you.”