“Shut up. Don’t you dare mention my sister’s sex crap if you want to get laid,” he grumbled.
“But—”
“No. My sister, West. My sister. Gross. Fuck, I lost my hard-on,” he complained, slapping at my thigh in frustration. “Goddammit.”
I turned back around, stashing the condom and lube under the pillow before taking Nico’s chin in my hand. “Dude, if you think I can’t find the hard-on you just lost, you have zero faith in my abilities in the bedroom.”
My eyes stayed locked on his while I moved my hand down to his throat and clasped it firmly but gently. Nico swallowed and widened his eyes before I continued teasing him.
“Now, you are going to turn over onto your hands and knees like a good little Nico, and I am going to blow your fucking mind—among other things. Capiche?”
“Si, signore,” he murmured as he scrambled over onto his belly and pulled his knees in. I couldn’t help but run my hands appreciatively over the coil of snakes and the plume of peacock feathers.
“God, you’re the hottest fucking thing I’ve ever seen,” I said under my breath. Nico arched his back and pressed his ass closer to me, naturally opening himself up until I was looking at exactly what I wanted. “Oh, and will you look at that?”
I leaned over and put my lips against his lower back before reaching through his legs to grasp his cock.
“Seems I may have just found that erection you lost.”
The whimpering sounds he made into the pillow revved my heart rate up to the stratosphere. I leaned in to lick a stripe from his balls up the bumpy piercings, across his hole to his lower back and heard him suck in a breath.
“Like that?” I asked before taking a soft bite of the flesh of his ass and running my tongue along the captured skin.
“West… fuck, yes. Like that.”
I loved the way his voice changed when I gave him pleasure. It was the only time I felt like Nico truly let himself be vulnerable to me. And I was beginning to think that the man wasn’t used to making himself vulnerable to anyone. He seemed desperate to keep up a prickly outer shell, and I wondered if that was just here in Hobie or elsewhere in his everyday life back home too.
I wanted to know more—learn more about who the real Nico Salerno was behind the purple hair and the spiked earrings and the tatts. Was he happy in his life? Did he miss anything about his hometown? Did he have someone special back in San Francisco? What had made him start to think about keeping Pippa and raising her on his own?
My mouth was teasing his opening while my brain circled around thoughts of the man himself. I realized I wasn’t giving his pleasure my full attention and forced myself to push those thoughts away. Once I did, I speared him with my tongue and reached again for his cock.
By the time I was ready to enter him, I was afraid I’d blow on the first stroke. I popped open the lube before sliding cool fingers into his hot body. His sudden intake of breath accompanied his body’s clench, and I felt all the air leave my lungs.
I couldn’t wait any longer.
“Turn over,” I told him. “Want you on your back.”
He did as I said and moved onto his back in the center of the bed. Colorful hair went every which way, his chest was heaving from rapid intake of breaths, his hand had reached down to stroke his cock as he waited for me, and his eyes were shining like flecks of obsidian—all pupil and very little color.
I maneuvered between his legs and leaned down over him, dragging my lips up his chest to his neck to his studded ear. His hand moved from his cock to my hair, fingers threading through it before pulling my head back enough to meet his eyes.
Something was there between us—something unspoken and important. But I couldn’t grasp what it was, only that it made my heart hurt when I looked at him all flushed and wide-eyed, panting and desperate. Whatever it was, it settled over us for a moment, causing our eye contact to go on longer than normal, like an acknowledgment that something was off or something was waiting just out of reach that needed to be claimed.
“West,” he breathed.
“Mmm?” I responded, lips unable to keep from brushing against his. His cock jumped against my abdomen, and mine pressed hard into the bedding beneath me.
He didn’t say anything else, so I met his eyes again. There was still something in there I couldn’t name.
“What is it?” I murmured. “You okay?”
His eyes searched mine some more before he blew out a short breath and gave a small nod. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m okay.”