For a long while he says nothing. When he speaks again, his voice has dropped low and even.
"Then we cut it out," he says.
"I don’t know what else he’s put on her to track her over the years since I was away. If he can find her, then he’ll be able to claim that you kidnapped her."
"There's a way," Nico says. "There's always a way, and I swear I'll find it."
I want to believe him. God help me, I want to. But I've spent seven years turning this problem in my head from every angle in the dark.
And every one of them ends at the same locked door.
"There's only one way to get her out." Sadness drags the words down out of me. "Frank has to give her up himself. He has towantto hand her over. And he'll never want that. There's nothing you can offer him and nothing you can do to him that would ever change it."
"Why not?"
I stare at this beautiful, dangerous man as I continue holding his face. The only thing I can hear is the sound of our breaths and the pounding of my own heart. His warm, masculine scent mixes in the hot wet air.
The answer to his question rattles in my head.
Because the only reason he’ll ever let her go is for me.
But some truths can't be unsaid once they're loose in a room. And this is a truth that I can never confess to Nico.
“Another time.”
Slowly, I dip my head, slide my hands along his jaw to pull him close to me, and jump the gap between us to touch my lips to his.
A fiery shudder moves through my body, settling into an unmistakable heaviness between my legs as his lips press against mine. He hesitates for a moment, as if recognizing that I’m using his body to keep myself from answering. But the moment passes, and his lips part to deepen the kiss.
His breath tickles my cheek, and I feel my hair dipping into the water as I run my tongue over the top of his lips and the roof of his mouth.
He matches me, stroke for stroke, and then suddenly I feel myself falling as he rises up from the tub. Water drips down from his body onto mine, blooming into tiny flowers bursting with wet fire.
His hand fists in my hair, and then I’m falling into the water, my back pressing against the porcelain while my front opens to greet the familiar weight of his body that I’ve been craving for three months in the water.
The kiss deepens, and he steals my breath and the moan bubbling up in my throat, leaving my head dizzy.
“Lydia,” he rasps as he breaks the kiss.
His hands are shaking as he pulls back. There’s a glassy look in his eyes, and I see that his wound has opened again. Red blood is soaking through the white.
“We need to get you out of here before you drown.” I run my fingers along his lips.
“I’ll be alright,” he replies.
“No.” I shake my head and step out, offering him my hand. “Come to bed, Nico. You need your rest.”
Slowly, he places his hand in mine, and steps out of the tub. My eyes dart down to see his hard and thick cock throbbing in the air. Silently, I lead him back to his bed and sit him down, water still running in rivulets down his muscular torso.
He leans back and looks at me, looking every inch like a king. Without a word, I kneel down between his legs, push his thighs open and wrap my fingers around the thick smooth shaft. He continues to look at me as I kiss him from balls to tip.
The muscles of his stomach tense each time my tongue laps up at the drops of pearl beading at the head. He groans quietly. Hot satisfaction hums up my throat before I give him one final lick around the head and take him down my throat.
His head falls back, and he breathes. “Fuck, Lydia, that feels so fucking good.”
I respond by bobbing my head up and down, running my hand up his thighs and pressing myself closer to his warmth until he envelops me in it. The buds of my nipples brush against him as I hug him closer and closer. Little sparks of pleasure burst throughout my body.
His hands move through my hair, and I bat them away. I suck him harder and faster, feeling him touching the back of my throat to make me gag. Tears leak from my eyes, but I refuse to let him go.
