“You were totally jealous.” She sounds so damn smug that I hate her. I also hate that she’s right.
“I’m hanging up on you now,” I groan.
“Hot damn! You are. You are totally a jealous little whore,” Hollis teases as Xanthe barks a laugh in the background.
I drop my head, ashamed of myself. I was jealous. Incredibly so. I wanted to rip the woman’s pretty brown hair off her head. She appeared way too happy leaving Nico’s apartment.
“Sav, are you still there?” Xanthe asks.
“I’m here.” I never should have texted these two. My brain feels even more scrambled now that I’ve spoken to them and come to some realizations about my feelings for the bad boy next door. “What should I do?”
“Talk to him,” Xanthe suggests as Hollis proclaims for me to “bang one out”.
Thirty minutes later, I step out of the shower and grab the towel off the bar. It’s warm and fluffy, and smells like Nico’s clean masculine scent.
Let’s pretend I didn’t take a few deep whiffs before using it to dry off.
Once dressed in a pair of leggings, a baggy T-shirt, and my butterfly robe, I leave the safety of Nico’s bathroom in search of the man.
Nico’s bedroom is nothing like I expected it to be. This room sits in the building’s corner, so two walls are floor-to-ceiling windows. In three corners, thick charcoal curtains hang from the ceiling to the ground. With them open, the view is sensational. I bet that on a clear day, he could see all the way to the Pacific.
There is so much more I want to unpack as I look around his space.
There is no flat screen hanging on the wall. No trophies, jerseys, or any other baseball paraphernalia. There are no clothes lying about. Everything is tidy and meticulously put in its place. Even his bed is neatly made, showing no signs of having had a woman in it.
I roll my eyes at myself and steer my thoughts back to what this room says about him. It’s very different from the way the living room is decorated. This room seems more like Nico. Rustic and masculine. It even smells like him. Leather and salt.
The sizzling sound of food in a pan catches my ear before the scent of garlic hits my nose. My stomach grumbles, and my mouth fills with saliva at the delicious odor.
Curious about what Nico is up to, I exit his bathroom and head in the opposite direction he brought me from.
I find Nico standing behind the kitchen counter, back to me, still shirtless and stirring something in a pot. Not wanting to interrupt him, I lean against the wall and observe. He moves around the stove like he’s done it a thousand times before.
I switch focus to the tattoos covering his back. They are fabulous pieces of art. Whoever drew them is an amazing artist and couldn’t have put them on a better subject. The care with which each tattoo is rendered and placed on his body tells me that every inked line on Nico’s body means something to him.
I’d love to know what the inked angel wings on the back of his neck mean. They are breathtaking. One white, the other black, both look so realistic that I want to reach and touch their silky feathers with my fingertips.
“Finished gawking at me yet?” Nico says, pulling me from my thoughts of running my hands over his tattooed skin.
“I wasn’t gawking.” My face flames at being caught.
He looks over his shoulder and gives me one of his smoldering, cocky grins. “Sure you weren’t,mia gattina viziosa.”
“That’s the second time I’ve heard you call megattina. Is that Italian?” If he’s going to keep speaking to me in another language, I’m going to need some lessons.
Nico ignores me and goes back to stirring his pot. “Would you like something to eat?”
“No, I’m good. I don’t want to bother you on your day off. I’ll just order takeout or something.”
Nico turns off the burner and turns around. He crosses his muscular arms over his thick chest and narrows his eyes at me. “You’ll stay. You worked all day and deserve a home-cooked meal.”
“You cook?” I blurt.
He looks insulted by my question. “So judgy.”
That’s the second time someone has called me out for being judgmental today. I never thought I was the type of person to jump to conclusions about someone. But here I am, continuously doing it to Nico.
“Sorry.”
