Total pages in book: 157
Estimated words: 154525 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 773(@200wpm)___ 618(@250wpm)___ 515(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 154525 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 773(@200wpm)___ 618(@250wpm)___ 515(@300wpm)
Until her crying stopped and her lips tingled. Until her jaw ached.
He kissed her over and over, tongue trapping hers in a dance that she had come to learn so well.
Then, his mouth traveled across her cheek. She sighed, happy.
“Was it okay?” he asked, then. “Was I?”
Her heart broke. “You were sweet, and funny, and good. Oh, my God, so good. It barely hurt, and I remember every second of it.”
His face found her neck where he nodded.
“Okay,” he replied, but he still sounded so broken.
“I think the molly made it better.”
“Oh, definitely did,” Nico returned, laughing a sad sound.
“And you can’t remember at all?”
He shook his head.
She wanted him to know—to remember. He would never get that back, even if she always had it, and she bet he understood that reality, too.
She turned her head, making him move away so that she could see him again. Taking the chance, she kissed him that time, wanting him to know it was all okay. They were okay.
“Tell me,” she heard him say against a flick of her tongue. “Tell me what I did to you.”
So, she did.
While he kissed a path down her body to make that new tenderness between her thighs ease, she told him every detail. Beginning to end. He watched her from down below, and she shuddered against the exploration of his mouth.
How she convinced him, naked and whispering his name. How he’d filled her to the point of pain that he promised her she could take.
And as he fucked her again against the shower wall, her legs hiked around his pumping hips, she told him the rest, too. That it had been perfect. That he let her call every shot. That he was perfect.
Her head fell back to the wall, as she shook like a leaf after an orgasm that took her breath away. He followed soon after, spilling hot and deep inside her aching body. She repeated the same thing to him that he’d told her the first time.
He remembered then. Or so she thought...she thought she saw it in his eyes when he said the words, too.
“I’ll love you for the rest of my life.”
The irony? That hurt the worst for Frankie.
18. — a better day...
Staten Island, New York
Nico, Rose Ridge Community
Nico laughed at the question Frankie posed him from the passenger seat of his vintage Mustang. He could have upgraded the car to have modern comforts like an auxiliary plug-in and a state-of-the-art stereo system, but something about the lack of distraction made him love the car as it was. Frankie loved it as much as him, sinking into the large bucket seats, something the Mercedes didn’t have, and she swore her father would kill her if she got on the back of his bike.
“You’d make such a cute backpack, though,” he muttered around a crunch of pretzel chips.
She gave him the weirdest look. “That had literally nothing to do with my question.”
“ADHD. My thoughts got in the way, and the question is ridiculous. The answer is none.”
“What’d I ask, then?”
“You think I don’t listen to you,” he accused, only half teasing.
Frankie grinned playfully. “Prove it.”
“You asked—how much trouble do you think I’m gonna be in?” Nico said, enunciating every word clearly while he cleaned his teeth of chips with his tongue. Rolling the bag up and stuffing it in the rear of the car and grabbing a brown paper bag he left there earlier; he then adjusted himself back in the front seat. Winking his girl’s way, he teased, “That’s what you asked, right?”
“Well, what’s a backpack?”
He pointed at her, now leaning against the driver’s window as he did, laughing. “Ah, so you were listening, too.”
Frankie guffawed. “Mean. I totally listen to you. I don’t even have your running internal dialogue to follow along with the random intrusive thoughts that come out of your mouth. I should get bonus points for that.”
“Good thing you’ve got bonus points because you lose credit when you don’t fucking listen.”
Her gaze narrowed. “I do listen.”
“Repeatedly, in fact, you have not.”
“That’s not true, Nico. I do listen when you talk. Name one time.”
That brown bag in his lap, which she hadn’t even really noticed, proved she didn’t listen. He hoped she did this time. He moved right along to explain to her, that way it was very clear between them, why her declaration wasn’t at all true.
“The night I told you not to move from bed because I had an unwanted guest. When I told you to be quiet yesterday because you don’t know Carmine Marino like I do. If I’m speaking up more than once to tell you don’t do something, babe, don’t do it. Both times, it was like you didn’t hear what I said. You just did what you wanted when I promise you, I should’ve been calling the shots in those moments. Also, a backpack, in bike-speak, is the girl on the back of the bike. I mean, put whoever you want back there, but it’s girls-only on mine.”