Total pages in book: 57
Estimated words: 52592 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 263(@200wpm)___ 210(@250wpm)___ 175(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 52592 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 263(@200wpm)___ 210(@250wpm)___ 175(@300wpm)
Nico groans and pushes himself harder against me as we both race to remove the fabric between us. The urgency is there, but so is something more—a feeling that I don’t want to name yet until I’m certain.
This time, we don't stand a chance of making it into a bedroom. By the time our feverish hands have peeled away the last of our clothing, we're tangled on the worn leather couch, the material cool against my heated skin. Nico's weight shifts above me as he carefully guides my back down against the soft cushions, his olive skin gleaming in the half-light. I bite my lower lip, fighting to keep my hips from bucking upward as his hardness slides against the sensitive skin of my inner thighs, leaving a trail of warmth. For a moment, he hovers there, his dark eyes locked on mine, pupils dilated with desire, the muscles in his forearms tense as he holds himself just barely at my entrance, the promise of what's to come making my breath catch. His thumb traces the outline of my collarbone, then slides lower, circling my nipple until it hardens beneath his touch. I wonder what he's waiting for, but not for long before his lips part to speak.
“The last time we did this, I knew that something had irrevocably changed, not just between us but inside me,” he says, straining to keep himself physically contained until he finishes telling me what he needs to say. “I felt all the walls that I’d carefully built around my heart come down, and I questioned whether this was just our mutual trauma driving us together or something more. Now I know. Through this dance that you and I have been doing throughout the years, we’ve seen through each other. I don’t know how, but trust has built gradually between us, and it’s opened up a place for emotional honesty and acceptance to bloom. I don’t feel like the man I was before you came back into my life.”
“You mean before I got serious about hunting you,” I tease playfully.
“That too,” Nico smirks. “Elle, we’ve overcome shared darkness and embraced the cracks within each other. Even as we’ve kept the rest of the world away from us, we’ve let each other in. I don’t know if I can ever help you truly find closure or heal the emotional scars that you carry with you, but I find myself trying to do that for you.”
The way Nico speaks is so raw and laid bare. It’s enough to make me think that maybe this is all the closure that I need. Maybe having him—the Ghost—is my way to heal from that night and move on from my past. This whole time, I’ve been trying to “solve” it so that I can put it behind me. But maybe I’m not supposed to put it behind me at all. Maybe Nico and I are supposed to move forward together.
I open my mouth and say something that I never thought in a million years I would say.
“I think I might be falling in love with you,” I gasp as I hear my own words aloud. “Is that crazy?”
Nico’s blue eyes light up as if he’s looking directly at the sun, reflecting off his pupils and emanating a pure bluish light in the night.
“It might be,” he says with a sultry smile as he slowly pushes himself into my waiting body. “But if it is, then I might be crazy too.”
I moan with pleasure as I feel him enter me, and Nico puts his mouth over mine to catch the sound as if he wants to share it.
Tonight, I found out that my father killed my mother. I discovered the answer to the question that I have been asking for what feels like forever. And tonight, instead of continuing my relentless pursuit of the Ghost who crouched in the alley and watched, I embrace him as if he’s the only thing in the world that can make things right for me again. And in the middle of the night, after we’ve had each other not once but twice, Nico wraps me in his arms and holds me as I close my eyes and fall asleep. It’s the first night in a very long time that I don’t dream about the Ghost, but instead I dream about Nico Vitale, the man who saved me from death that night and who now watches over me like my own, personal protective shadow.
CHAPTER 19
NICO
When I wake up in the morning with Elle in my arms, it feels surprisingly natural. Having her there with her cheek against my chest and the crown of her head nestled in the crook of my shoulder feels like something that I could very quickly get used to and could quickly miss if she were absent from my bed—or in this case, the couch.