Chapter 3
Kennedy
I couldn’t believe it was actually him! I was sitting beside Nico Rossi and he remembered my name!
Six years was a long time. It wasn’t like I’d thought about him often in that time. I’d dated casually since then, lost my virginity to a guy in college who barely lasted a minute inside me. Over the years, Nico and that kiss had faded to the background, but I hadn’t forgotten him.
I’d always wondered what happened to him, and sometimes I thought about how hot he would have been in bed. After that kiss, I waited for him for several weeks. To turn up magically in school again. I had my heart set on giving him my virginity. But he was gone.
Now, he was here and he still looked hot as hell.
“What are you having?” he asked. I ordered the beer myself and I could sense his eyes on me the whole time. Nico was watching me, assessing me. I turned to him, feeling the back of my neck burning up.
“What happened to you? You seemed to vanish into thin air suddenly,” I asked.
Seeing Nico again, talking to him…had transported me back to those teenage years. When I was too shy to talk to guys. When I didn’t think I was good enough to be asked to Prom. Nico lit those feelings in me again. I was back to being a giddy teenager around him.
I watched as he shrugged his shoulders.
“Personal shit. My granddad got really sick and my dad needed me to help him look after the family,” Nico said. He was looking at his glass of whisky as he spoke. I felt this irresistible urge to just reach for him and throw my arms around his neck.
What was wrong with me?
Technically, I didn’t know this guy at all!
He kissed me once, at a drunken house party. Okay, he remembered my name, but so what?
Get it together Kenni!
“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that, Nico. Is your granddad all right?” I asked. He looked up at me again, his gray eyes had darkened.
“He passed away some years ago. It’s fine, we don’t need to talk about it,” he replied and I smiled.
A silence fell between us. How was I supposed to jump to a different subject now? Right after we’d spoken about his dead grandfather!
I cleared my throat, trying to come up with words to say. Nico spoke up instead.
“You really have my name on the back of some diary?” he asked.
I bit down on my lip and shrugged.
“Maybe. I’m not sure. I thought I was really into you,” I told him.
I didn’t know why I was admitting this to him. Maybe I was scaring him away. He didn’t need to know about my stupid teenage angst!
But he smiled. It was the most devastatingly handsome smile. Some of his dark hair fell boyishly on his forehead and I could feel myself melting into a puddle.
“That’s sweet,” he said and I shook my head.
“And then you disappeared.”
“Were you heartbroken?”
“Into a million pieces. I’m still picking them up. I stalked you to this bar, if you haven’t figured it out already.”
Nico stared at me, there was a grin on his face. We broke into laughter at the same time. Thankfully, he knew I was kidding. He hadn’t taken me literally. I was beginning to really enjoy this conversation. It reminded me of that evening when we’d spent hours gossiping and complaining about all our school-mates.
Nico leaned towards me and breathed in deeply.
“I should have known you’d grow into this sexy siren,” he commented. His voice was deep and husky. Even though he was smiling, I could sense that he meant was he was saying.
“Are you saying I was none of those things in school?” I asked, arching an eyebrow. Nico’s eyes traveled from my face, down to my heaving breasts and then further down to my belly and my bare legs.
“If I kissed you, then you must have been,” he said.
I rolled my eyes, but my cheeks were flushed. He remembered the kiss! He remembered what happened that night!
“I assumed it was more a pity-kiss,” I said.
Nico and I were sitting close together, our bodies only inches apart. Was it crazy that I wanted him now just as badly as I wanted him in high school? I thought I was grown-up enough to have grown out of those desperate desires.
“I don’t do pity. You should know that about me,” Nico replied, but this time, his eyes had darkened threateningly. He meant what he said. He didn’t do pity. He was claiming that somehow he was less human than me.
Was he warning me too?
I lifted my chin up in the air. I wasn’t afraid of him. Whatever he was trying to tell me, I wasn’t backing down now.
“What else should I know about you, Nico Rossi?” I asked. He knocked back the remaining whisky down his throat and smacked his lips.
Those lips that I wanted to kiss again. The ones I wanted between my legs now. I could feel a tightness in my belly. No random guy at a bar made me feel this way. This was a feeling specially reserved for Nico Rossi and nobody else. Six years later and I still had goosebumps all over my body.
“That if you’re going to wear a dress like that, at some point, it’s going to have to come off,” he stated.
Nico’s eyes were fixed on me. He was peering at my face, like he was making some kind of statement. What was he trying to say? I tried to decipher his expression, but I didn’t know him at all.
Even in high school, he was the kind of guy nobody could figure out. He spoke very little, looked mysteriously sexy and dated college girls way out of everyone else’s league.
I didn’t know anything about him. If there was something he was trying to warn me about, I couldn’t figure it out.
“It was quite an effort to put on this dress, if it comes off, it stays off,” I replied and drank some more of my beer. He was grinning again.
“Remind me again why I didn’t fuck your brains out in the spare bedroom that night?” he asked.
His words startled me. I wasn’t expecting to hear them so blatantly. I gulped and then licked my lips.
“You said you wanted to take me to dinner first,” I replied.
Even as I said the words, I felt needy. I felt like that desperate teenager again, hoping and praying for Nico’s attention.
His eyes grew wide, he remembered now what he’d said. He breathed in deeply and drew himself away from me.
“Yeah, I was an idealistic gentleman back then,” he commented.
“Why? What are you now?”
Nico turned to me and there was a burning flash in his eyes.
“You don’t wanna know.”
I clenched my jaw and tried not to show my frustration. Why would he just give me a glimpse into himself and then clamp up again immediately? I was beginning to realize that Nico was not as uncomplicated-sexy as I thought he was. Had something happened to him in these past six years? Was this about his granddad?
I tried to smile again.
“I guess you’re right. We might not see each other for another six years. I don’t need to know,” I declared.
Nico raised his eyebrows.
“Six years? Is that how long it’s been?” he asked.
Shit! He’d caught me out. He knew I’d been counting the years.
“Something like that, I’m not sure. Anyway, it doesn’t matter,” I replied quickly.
Nico stood up from his chair, banging his glass down on the counter. Was he leaving? That was quick. My teenage fantasy was over in less than twenty minutes.
“I know this wasn’t much of a dinner,” he said. My heart started thudding against my chest.
“That’s okay. I ate before I got here,” I replied, adding a nervous chuckle at the end of that.
“Kennedy,” he said my name firmly, narrowing his eyes at me. “Do you want to come back to my place?”
I felt my heart stop for a second. Was this actually happening? I grabbed my purse from the counter and stood up. What did I have to lose? None of my friends had noticed I was gone anyway.
“Yes,” I said, the word barely audible.
Nico tipped his head at me once and then turned. I followed him as he weaved around the tables and the crowd. I was rushing to keep up with him. He didn’t even turn to see if I was there! Nico Rossi was confident that I would follow him. That man knew exactly how much I wanted him.