“Whatever.” I roll my eyes, this conversation is going nowhere. “It’s not like I have a choice, we have cases together.”
“Okay, so you work together. You don’t need to sit at a bar and have drinks too.”
“You don’t understand.” I’m sure that he just doesn’t get what William and I have. William’s fine with being friends and I don’t understand why he’s acting jealous.
Nico releases me and I think our conversation is over, so I begin to walk to the door, intent to take a shower and finally drag my ass into work.
“So you won’t mind if I have drinks with Amy tonight, then?”
I stop in my tracks and turn back to look at Nico. He’s sitting up in my bed, his hands clasped behind his head in a casual stance. Who the hell is Amy?
“Oh, we’re just friends. We used to sleep together, but we’re just friends now. She’s a vitamin sales rep and we’ve been talking about adding a line of vitamins to my gym, but I usually keep our business talks in the gym. But maybe it would be better if we discussed our business over drinks instead.”
Very nice. I feel like ripping Amy’s head off, whoever the hell Amy is. But I get it. Point taken. “Fine, I’ll do my best to keep my business with William in the office.”
Nico thinks I’m walking back to him to give him a kiss. He’s got such a damn, smug smile on his face. I pick up the pillow and hit him with it before heading to the shower. I hear him chuckling behind me as I stomp my way to the bathroom.
Chapter 43
Nico
I’ve never brought a woman to our monthly dinner. It’s not that my mom and brothers would mind, I just never found one that I thought would still be around by the time the next month’s dinner rolled around, so why bother introducing them? Elle baked cookies to bring, which is sweet, but I’m going to have to hide them from the kids to save them from possible food poisoning. She burned three batches before she finally got it right, or at least she thinks she did.
My niece Sarah takes Elle almost the minute we walk in and introduces her around like she’s a shiny new toy. My mom seems curious and I catch her watching Elle a few times. She must like what she sees because she smiles to herself as she watches. I check on Elle every once in a while, but she doesn’t look uncomfortable so I leave her to the women. She catches me looking at her each time, and smiles like a kid. It’s hard for me to tear my eyes away.
“You got it bad, bro.” Sam smiles at me before taking a swig from his beer bottle.
“Shut the f**k up.”
Sam laughs. “What? It’s about time. You had us worried you were going to get STDs the way you tore through women.”
“I didn’t tear through women.”
“Yeah, ya did.”
“You’re just jealous, ass**le.”
“Jealous about what?” Elle’s voice surprises me, I hadn’t realized she was near me.
“Nothing.” I snake my arm around her waist, pulling her close to me. “Come here.” I kiss her forehead as I wrap my other hand around her waist. She looks up at me and smiles. Jesus Christ I’m so far gone for this woman that I do shit like kiss her forehead and smile just because she smiles. Yep, I’m god damn whipped. And I love every damn minute of it. It doesn’t even bother me when I look up and find half my family watching us, smiling like complete idiots.
***
Sarah insists on sitting in between me and Elle during dinner. She’s the only girl among the seven boys my brothers have spawned. She’s wearing a silver princess crown, pink bodysuit, and her Girl Scout sash across her like Miss America. She’s also wearing yellow rain boots and it’s not raining. But whatever, she’s freakin adorable and she seems to have taken a liking to Elle.
“Can I paint your nails after dinner?” I look over at Elle’s manicured hands and try to save her, throw her a lifeline.
“I think Elle’s nails are already painted, Sarah.” Yeah, reasoning with her should work.
“I wasn’t going to repaint them, Uncle Nico.” She responds to me as she rolls her eyes, like I’m crazy for thinking she wanted to paint her nails, even though that’s the exact question she asked. “I’m just going to polka dot them!”
Elle smiles at Sarah. “I’d love that…mine are too plain.”
Sarah beams at Elle and looks back to me flatly, her face bearing the words “I told you so.”
The pair chat their way through dinner, covering pressing issues such as favorite cookies, favorite color, favorite cartoon, and favorite fighter. There seems to be a running theme with Sarah’s question topics. Elle pretends to struggle with her answer on the last question and, for a second, I think things might go sour with Sarah, but instead she just jumps up and down, amused. “Elle, you’re supposed to say Uncle Nico is your favorite fighter! I have a poster of him in my room and all. Uncle Nico gave it to me to scare away the monsters in my dreams, because he looks mean. Really mean.” Sarah makes a face that is supposed to be mean, but it’s freakin cute as hell instead. “And it works! Do you have monsters in your dreams? Uncle Nico, Elle needs a poster too!”
Everyone is laughing at Sarah’s excitement, so they don’t hear it when Elle leans in close and whispers to me, “I’ll take a poster for over the bathtub. For next time.”
The woman is going to be the death of me. Giving me a hard-on while sitting at a table surrounded by my family and next to a six-year-old.
***
“Go away with me this weekend?” We’re driving back to Elle’s, so I can’t see her reaction to my question, but she doesn’t keep me waiting long.
“Okay.”
“Don’t you even want to know where we’re going?” Her answer is f**king awesome, but I’m curious.
“Nope. I don’t care where we go, as long as I’m with you.”
Yep, I love this f**king girl.
Chapter 44
Elle
“What about your training? Is there a gym?” We’ve been heading north for a long time, and I regret telling Nico I didn’t want to know where we’re going, because now curiosity has gotten the best of me. I keep asking him questions, trying to get a hint of our destination, but he doesn’t budge an inch.
“There’s no gym, but I’m planning on lots of cardio this weekend.”
Nico smiles but keeps his eyes on the road as he drives in the dark. There aren’t any street lights and the road has narrowed to one lane in each direction. I take in his handsome profile, the beautiful lines of his cheek leading to his square jaw. A jaw that hasn’t seen a razor in twenty-four hours and the stubble makes him look even more rugged and handsome, if that’s even possible.
“You’re staring.”
“I like what I’m looking at.”
Nico takes his eyes off the road for a second and glances at me quickly and then they return to the road. But in that split second I see the green in his eyes and it makes me want him. His bright eyes light up his sexy, dark-tanned face. As he turns back to the road, he smiles and his stunning cheek dips, revealing the dimple that makes me weak in the knees. I don’t know exactly what it is, but there is something about the contrast of how strong and masculine Nico is that mixes with his boyish, dimpled smile that does me in. I actually need to squeeze my legs shut to calm the swell growing between them. I have the urge to reach over and feel him. Start at his solid thigh and slowly follow the heat that will undoubtedly lead me to a place that will leave us both panting with need.
“We only have another five minutes drive, or I’d be pulling off to the side of the road the way you’re looking at me.”
I laugh at his comment, grateful that he can’t see my face as it reddens. I’ve never been one to seek out physical contact with a partner. I usually enjoy it and participate in it actively, but I have just never been the pursuer. Yet with this man, I find myself unable to stop my body’s natural reaction to being near him. It has a mind of its own when it comes to Nico Hunter.
***
We finally turn off the road and head down a long driveway, or perhaps it’s a private street, I can’t tell in the darkness. But we drive for a while and there are no longer any houses. There’s a light off in the distance that seems to be in the direction of where we’re going.
“Where are we?”
“Preach’s lake house.”
“I can’t even tell there’s a lake it’s so dark.”
“It’s behind the house. Tomorrow in the daylight you’ll be shocked you couldn’t see it, the damn thing’s huge.”
We finally pull up to the house and I can see the light that was flickering in the distance is now on the porch. It’s one of those solar lights that gives off a blue tint and barely enough brightness to see more than three feet ahead. But the porch looks huge, wrapping around the entire house. There’s Adirondack chairs and small tables set up in various places that I can barely make out in the dark. Nico comes around and opens my door to help me down out of his SUV.
We make our way up the few stairs to the porch and Nico opens the front door with a key on his key ring. With the headlights now off, it’s pitch dark except for the sole dim light sitting on the porch.
“Stay right here.” Nico let’s go of my hand and I can barely see what he’s doing, just a slight change in the level of darkness shows me he’s moving through the room. He doesn’t bump into anything, so either the room is empty or he knows his way around well. A few seconds later, I hear the familiar sound of a match striking a flint and then a candle is lit on a small table up against a window.
“You’re not going to turn on the lights and let me see the place? After keeping me in the dark about where we were going for hours?”
Nico laughs and I watch as he comes towards me, the one candle providing enough light for me to see him more clearly. “There’s no electricity here.”
“What do you mean there’s no electricity?” My voice comes out almost appalled, because for a second I am.
“Preach calls it his sanctuary. No phone, no electricity, no cell service. No people for miles.” Nico wraps his arms around my waist as he speaks and pulls me close against his body, making it easier to digest what he’s telling me. Everything seems easy when I’m pressed up against the man. He makes me lose my wits, my edge, my common sense.
“You took me to a place with no electricity and no cell service.” I have to try now to sound disturbed, because I’m not anymore. Not with his warm breath nuzzling its way onto my neck as he buries his head into my hair.
“I did.” His sinful mouth finds its way to my ear, where his words are spoken quietly but they travel through me like heat through a coil and wake up every molecule in my body. The hair on the nape of my neck responds, prickling through a chill that breaks out all over my body in goose bumps.
“Come on, it’s cool enough up here to make a fire.” Nico releases me and my body is disappointed to lose contact so soon. He holds my hand and steers me through the dark house into a room at the back. After he’s made a fire I can see the enormity of the fireplace. It’s made of stone and I feel dwarfed by the sheer size of it.
“Wow, it’s…incredible.” The words don’t do enough to describe it. The light from the fireplace casts a soft glow on the room and I can see that the walls of the room are all glass. It’s too dark to see anything on the outside, but I imagine that I would be looking out at a lake if the sun was shining.
Nico is still standing by the fireplace, but now he’s watching me as I take in the beauty of the room. “Jesus, Babe, you look like an angel standing there.”
I smile at his compliment, I’ve never been good at accepting compliments, but with Nico, the way he speaks to me, I believe every word he says. I know I don’t look like an angel, but to Nico, I do at this moment. Neither of us moves, both content in what the light finds for the other to see. Then his eyes find mine and everything else fades away…the darkness, the fireplace, the room, everything. None of it exists anymore. It’s just us and everything seems so simple. It’s one of those moments in life that you feel a shift. Like everything you’ve done before has lead to this point and whatever happens from this point on will be different. I don’t know how or why, but I’m as certain of it as I’ve ever been of anything in my life. I’m in love with this man, and the realization doesn’t even scare me. Not the slightest bit.