When he spanks my clit again, though, I gasp, and from there, the orgasm bursts through me. I clench around his cock, my legs quivering and tense, every muscle locking with the force of my release. Nick’s hand leaves my clit and braces against my hip, and then he’s holding me in place while he thrusts into me, his movements wild and surging. He breathes my name as he comes, the sound curiously soft and gentle even though his movements are anything but. He pushes our joined bodies forward and pins me flat against the tile, my breasts shoved against the wall, and pumps into me again, milking his own orgasm.
“Always mine,” he murmurs thickly.
“Always,” I agree.
***
After a weekend spent cuddling with Nick in bed and holing up in our apartment, I’m ready to face the world again. Christine makes it easy on me, though. She’s not at class this week, and things are quiet. I find that I don’t mind having lunch by myself quite so much, and take new delight in the sight of Nick’s beloved face waiting for me when I leave class. Did I ever feel like we needed more people in our lives? How odd. I have him, and I feel complete.
Nick is all I need.
I’ve started visiting my father again, now that Christine is no longer muddying my thoughts with reminders of old memories, old worries. We’re easy again, and my father’s proud because he’s started taking his dog out on the stoop at night to do his business. The apartment no longer smells like dog pee, and my father is going outside voluntarily. Both things are wonderful, and I bring him batches of cookies to make his day brighter.
The next week, when Christine is not at class again, I approach my architecture teacher and ask about her. She’s dropped the class, my teacher tells me. His frown shows he disapproves. It’s too late in the year for her to get a refund, but I doubt Christine cares. I feel a twinge of guilt, imagining that she’s out there somewhere, desperately hoping that Saul will return. And then my guilt is overtaken by scorn. She hopes he will return so he can beat her and ruin her life?
We’ve done her a favor, Nick and I, and she can’t even know about it.
Nick and McFadden have talked once in the last two weeks. They went out and got a beer down at a bar one night, and I visited my father. When Nick returned, his mood was curiously light. McFadden reported that there were three teenagers involved in the shooter game. The goal was to shoot something to prove that you could have killed someone. The man who’d sustained the gunshot to the head had died as a result of very poor aim. The teen had been attempting to shoot the stop sign. A stupid, stupid tragedy. Nick cursed in Russian and said that he’d offered to kill the three boys in order to rid the gene pool of such idiocy and that for at least a minute, McFadden considered his proposal.
Fortunately for all of us, McFadden said that the legal system should take care of them. Nick has no belief in that, and I admit I don’t have much either, but we’re safe and together so we don’t spend more time worrying about the matter. That’s for McFadden to deal with.
I realize in bed that night, when Nick is asleep against me, that perhaps McFadden is filling a role for Nick that he did not realize he needed—that of a friend. A peer. Who better to understand an ex–hit man than a dirty cop?
Perhaps I should ask if McFadden has a girlfriend. I wouldn’t mind someone to go shopping with. Then I squish the idea down, shoving it away. I don’t need anyone as long as I have my Nick. I wake him up then, pressing kisses against his back, against the dark tattoos that crawl over his pale skin. “Kolya?” I murmur into the night.
“Hmm?” He rolls over and pulls me against him, kissing my temple. “What is it?” His voice is sleepy, but content.
“Want to take a cooking class with me?”
“I will do whatever you like, my Daisy,” he murmurs, then yawns. “We will enroll in the morning.”
I smile and burrow against his chest.
I need no one but my Nick.