Friends Without Benefits (Knitting in the City #2)(58)
Author: Penny Reid

Nico pushed my shoulders, and I fell backward. I didn’t realize until my back hit the mattress that he’d managed to move us to the bed. He loomed over me, stood at my knees, his eyes glittering with delicious wickedness.

“Please . . .” At this point I was really a-okay with begging.

Nico grinned. If I hadn’t been in a near coma of turned-on-ness I would have been highly aggravated by the grin. It was colossally arrogant.

“Anche se a volte sei più testarda di un mulo[27].”

He unhurriedly unbuttoned his pants. He was driving me to madness. I pressed my thighs together.

“Mi piace la passione che è in te[28].”

His movements were tortuously slow as he removed his pants and briefs. With continued languidity, Nico lowered himself to my exposed body, his hot skin kissing mine, forced my legs apart his with a knee. He pressed himself into my center, rocked forward meaningfully.

I gasped.

His voice was a growl, “La tua lingua tagliente mi eccita da morire [29].”

I was about to come apart, and he hadn’t entered me yet. My skin was flushed, covered in goose bumps, overly sensitized. I shifted beneath him, impatient.

“Non ti lascerò mai andare[30].” His eyes were suddenly sober, serious and held mine. I stilled my movements. “Ti amo[31].”

I blinked at him. Even through the sensual cloud I registered the meaning of his words.

Ti amo. I love you.

I swallowed, brushed my lips against his, and panted breathlessly in return. “Ti amo, Nico.”

His eyes lit from within with blazing ferocity, scorching satisfaction. Slowly, slowly, he filled me and I stretched, arched beneath him then sighed with relief.

He claimed me with heartbreaking gentleness. His rhythm purposeful; his hands worshipful; his mouth hungry. Our breath met. I held him to me, wrapped my arms around his neck, wanted to be fully saturated in him, completely crushed.

He nudged my nose with his, his eyes wide. “D’ora in poi in poi non c’è modo di tornare indietro. Sei mia, per sempre[32].”

The last sentence, the earnestness with which he spoke, the unfathomable gentleness of his touch, splintered me in two. My body stiffened with the tremors of my release, and I cried out nonsense, noise, moans, and screams, and indiscriminate words of love.

As I returned to earth I couldn’t help but brood over the fact that he could have just read me a restaurant menu, and I would have been blissfully ignorant. He had a fatal weapon, and I was rendered stupid, seemingly powerless against it.

Italians who speak Italian should be illegal, or at least come with warning labels—may make your panties explode.

Chapter 23

I’d never made love with anyone but Nico.

This thought occurred to me as we were lying in my bed, touching each other.

Touching is the difference between making love and sex.

The physical act of making love is wanting to touch and be touched. A is hunger present, a craving, a need—for your partner, for their skin, for their hands, for their mouth, to see their eyes. It’s insatiable and must be fed every second or else it builds into something unmanageably urgent and ferocious.

I couldn’t keep my hands off him, and I couldn’t imagine his hands anywhere but on me. As we lay with each other, fitting our hands together and rearranging the furniture in our hearts, I felt fear.

I knew he loved me, and I knew beyond a whisper of a doubt that I loved him.

And I was afraid.

When things are fantastic it’s hard not to expect that the worst is waiting to pounce on you from a dark corner.

One of Nico’s arms was wrapped around me possessively as I lay half-sprawled over his chest. He played with my hand, tracing my knuckles and the lines of my palm. I allowed him to explore as he wished, preoccupied with thoughts about his security guards and the knife he carried in his pocket.

I wondered if he carried it for self-defense. I wondered if he needed to, if he’d ever used it. I shivered.

“Are you cold?” His voice was raspy, sleepy, satisfied.

“No.” I snugged closer.

“What are you thinking about?”

“Do you think Quinn is doing a good job? With your security?”

I didn’t see, but I felt the nod of his head. “Yeah. They seem like good guys.”

“And they’ll keep you safe . . . Do you think?”

He shrugged. “I think so. They’re better than the other ones.”

“Where were they? Tonight? Why weren’t they with you?”

Nico shifted so that he could see my face; he searched my eyes. “I don’t have them with me all the time.”

“Why not?”

“What’s going on?” He pressed my hand to his bare chest. “Why all the questions about my security team?”

I fought against a chin wobble by biting the inside of my cheek. When I felt like my voice would be steady I responded. “I just want you to be safe.”

His mouth hitched to the side. “I’ll be fine.”

“You have a stalker.”

His smile disappeared.

“And photographers chasing after you, after me. You need appropriate protection from the loony bins. Your security should be better, increased, they should live with you and—”

“Hey, whoa! Stop.” Nico kissed me and rolled me onto my back; his hand gripped my waist then traveled upward to caress my stomach, chest.

“Is that why you carry the knife?”

His movements stilled, and he lifted his head from where he’d been feasting on my skin. “What?”

“Do you carry the knife for protection?”

“No. I carry the knife because I’m a boy scout.”

I hit his arm. “I’m serious.”

“So am I. You know I was a boy scout. The pocket knife is an old habit that never died.”

I met his gaze and I saw the truth to his words; a flutter of panic erupted in my chest. More fear.

“I think you should get a gun.”

“Elizabeth!” His head fell to my chest.

“No. Listen. I think you should—”

“No, you listen.” He held my face between his two giant palms and forced me to meet his gaze. “I love that you worry about me and want to fire my security guards when they’re incompetent, but I’m not getting a gun. Quinn’s guys are really good. Really. You have nothing to worry about.”

I swallowed unevenly. My voice was strained when I spoke. “I’m going to worry. You should just think about it. If you don’t want a gun then at least think about martial arts or a larger knife.”

“Smettila di fare la prepotente[33].”

My body responded with urgent readiness. I plugged my ears with my fingers and fought to stay in control of my lady parts. “No! Not allowed! You are not allowed to speak in Italian when we are having a discussion!”

He laughed, kissed my neck, and pulled my hands from my head. “I wish you wouldn’t worry so much.”

My eyes shifted to a spot over his shoulder to the smooth white ceiling. “Wish not granted.”

~*~

My phone alarm sounded at 9:40 p.m., alerting us that it was time for Angelica’s infusion. We’d both been dozing, and my rest was fitful, hovered between awake worry and pseudo slumber.

As I left Nico’s arms he groaned in protest. He reached for me, but I’d moved to the edge of the bed out of his reach. I immediately felt bereft of his warmth, his strength, his smell.

His smell.

Something was different. I’d first noticed a change on Monday when he arrived home early; he was free of cigarette smoke.

“Did you stop smoking?” I turned just my head to look at him, found him lounging—naked— in my bed, his arms both extended in my direction. The large window overlooking Millennium Park shaded his body in the lights of the city. His skin was smooth. To my eye, his body was perfect. I self-consciously covered my br**sts with my hands.

“I did. I stopped six months ago.” Sleep lent a delicious sandpapery quality to his voice.

“Wait, what about—when I saw you at the hospital, that first time, you left to have a cigarette.”

“Seeing you.”

I twisted further so I could see him over my shoulder. “Seeing me what?”

He stretched, the sexy beast. “I experienced a brief relapse after seeing you. It lasted about a week.”

“Hmm.” I grabbed a mostly clean, large T-shirt from the floor and pulled it over my head before I stood.

“Hmm, what? And what are you doing?”

“Why did you stop smoking?”

“Angelica. She can’t be around the smoke. Are you getting dressed?”

“Are you going to start smoking again? After her treatment is over?”

“No. I’m quitting for good. But, you may have noticed, I’ve been feeling pretty irritable lately, losing my temper faster than usual—you can’t wear that.”

“Yes. I can wear this.” I tugged the hem of the T-shirt lower and walked to my dresser to extract a pair of underwear and yoga pants. At the last minute I decided to slip on the panty set I wore during my last dance party, starting with the panties.

He was out of the bed, and his hands had whipped the T shirt off my shoulders before I could turn around.

“Nico!” I ineffectually covered my chest with my arms. “Give me back my shirt.”