Page 99 of Made in Love and Blood

“Every time I look at you, there’s a little piece of me that keeps thinking I’m just gonna ruin you. Like I always do. Like I’ve done with everything, even myself.”

Frankie smiled in that knowing way of hers. “Nico...”

“You asked.”

“Nico.”

“What?”

That came out sharper than he intended.

She didn’t even blink.

“I don’t know why you’re so scared of ruining me,” she told him, “you already did, and I’m telling you right here and now, there will never be another person who does for me what you do. Never. Keep ruining me. Please. It’s the best fucking thing that ever happened to me.”

“You say that now, when it’s good and we’re like this, but—”

“I’ll say it every day until you believe it.”

“Frankie—”

“Every day, Nico. Good, bad, and in between. Watch me.”

He did. His fingers drummed against the steering wheel. His heart fucking hurt. He wished the demons in his head didn’t matter like they did.

“It’s supposed to be a good night, not like this,” he said, laughing darkly.

Frankie unbuckled her belt and crossed the middle of the car to kiss him so hard it hurt. He swore he tasted blood from the force of her soft lips seeking his again, until his chin trembled and his jaw ached.

“You fucking idiot,” she breathed against his parted lips. “Thank God you’re my idiot. It is a good night. It will keep being a good night because I’m with you. You’re nineteen, following a curfew because my father says so. You hunt down a painting of my dead mother’s like it’s nothing. You bring my dog to my fucking graduation. What do you mean, not like this? I want it like this, Nico. I want you.”

What could he say to that? “Yeah, okay.”

She pulled away, but barely. “Now, you’re going to get out, grab that bottle of champagne you tried to hide in the back of the car, and we’re going to go inside so you can show me this place. We’ll make a mess opening the bottle, and then you’re taking me into the shower with you so you can make sure every part of me is clean before you take me to bed. Do you understand me?”

Nico tried to shake his head.

“I’m not asking you to have sex with me. I think I figured it out. Why you pull back every time I try to push. You’re not just waiting for me to be ready, are you? You’re not ready, either.”

“Yeah,” he repeated shakily.

“Get out of the car, Nico,” she demanded.

One more, he chose to just do what he was told.

The bottle of champagne hardly made it past the threshold of the door before Nico managed to get the top off. Barely thirty minutes later, he could still feel the shower head pulsating water against his lower back while Frankie’s moans melted into the pattering sound of droplets beating down and she got herself off on him.

The way she trembled and locked eyes on him in a bed he hadn’t paid a cent for as he found just the right way she liked for him to thumb her clit and finger fuck her into orgasm was exactly how she’d shuddered against his naked thigh while jerking him off.

“Come on, come on,” he panted into her quivering kiss, her tongue swallowing his next words down. “Tell me that’s the spot right there; that’s my girl.”

“Oh, my God, Nico,” she mumbled, folding into him all at once. Her softest, warmest, wettest spot pulsated harder around him as her head fell back into the pillow. He got to watch the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen all over again. Her legs quaked, squeezing around his shaking arm. “Oh, my God.”

No, sex he couldn’t do.

Not yet. But this...

He’d do this anytime she asked.