Hold Him Like Gravity (Lombardi Family #4)

Chapter Nineteen

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Kick

Waking up had been disorienting.

The sun was streaming through the windows. Evander was perched near them, bathing in sunbeams. I had no idea what time it was. What day it was.

It wasn’t until I pushed up on my arm and the covers fell away, exposing my nakedness, that it all came rushing back to me.

Rico walking me home, grabbing me, kissing me, teasing me over and over, then holding me afterward.

And I guess I’d fallen asleep.

I wasn’t surprised by that. I’d been bone-tired before, and then all the activities had sapped whatever I’d had left. What surprised me was the fact that I’d clearly slept so soundly. No nightmares. But, I guess, orgasms were a source of stress relief.

I needed it, too.

My brain, for the first time, wasn’t racing. I felt less frazzled and jumpy.

While I should have been using that new clarity to think through the situation with Kyle and my brother, all my mind wanted to do was focus on Rico.

Namely, him leaving.

I mean, I couldn’t exactly blame him. I’d passed out hard enough that I hadn’t even felt him moving out from under me.

He’d been sweet enough to get my covers off of my bed and put them over me before he headed out. That had to count for something.

And, I realized as I wrapped myself up in the blankets and got up, that he’d also fed Evander. Which made sense why the little demon cat hadn’t woken me up with his screaming.

“I still wish he’d stayed, though,” I told Evander as I washed out his bowl and set out some more food and milk. “I bet you do too,” I added, rubbing his head.

He didn’t purr for me like he did for Rico, but he didn’t try to swat at me either. It was progress. He also didn’t want to be let out as much lately. I didn’t know if he was just picking up on my desperate mood or what, but his change of heart was breaking mine as I realized I was going to have to leave him behind eventually.

I set up the coffee maker then made my way down the hall to grab some fresh clothes and make my way into the bathroom.

I could still smell him all over me, lingering woodsmoke and cigars. The last thing I wanted to do was wash him away. But, logically, I knew I needed to. I had to get some separation between what we’d done and what I wanted.

Because there was no universe where I could have some sort of happily-ever-after with Rico. The man I was stealing from, for God’s sake.

I needed to keep my distance. Get my work done. Stop letting him walk me home.

In fact, I was going to the Bronx tonight, come hell or high water. And then every other night until I found my brother.

With that in mind, I showered, scrubbing him away. But even as I slathered my own scent on afterward, I thought of him. Of how he said he liked it. How he’d rested his head between my breasts to breathe me in.

Maybe I needed to get a new lotion.

I finished dressing then grabbed the tips out of my purse, adding it to the pile I was going to give to Kyle.

Tips would be picking up with the holidays coming, the shop running sales, and people flooding the streets to do shopping and needing somewhere to stop for food.

My finger was already looking better. And the shower had made the edge of one of the butterfly closures start to pull up. I figured that if I maybe put one of those weird finger condoms on, I could start doing sandwiches again. Get myself more tip money. Not just for Kyle, though. For myself. For Jake. For our escape. If I wasn’t being followed, I could walk up to the ATM and deposit the cash into my account where it would be safe until I needed it.

I hadn’t been hungry since Kyle showed back up in my life, but I forced myself to choke down some instant oatmeal with my coffee before making my way in to work.

Rico was there so I just… did my best to avoid him. Made myself scarce when he was around, made sure that there was no chance for our eyes to meet.

It was all working.

Until he actually called me into his office.

I couldn’t help but feel like a kid being called to the principal’s office, like I was going to get detention or something.

Or, worse yet, he might fire me.

Then what?

What would happen to Jake?

I mean, I couldn’t exactly do what Kyle wanted in the case of a situation like this. Break into the safe. Clean it out. Then take off.

My mind was still on all those things when he grabbed me and sealed his lips over mine.

All the reservations I had flew right out of the window at the feel of him close to me again.

Just once more, I told myself as he placed me on the desk. I could let myself enjoy this one last time.

So I did just that.

Then I put myself back together as best I could—ignoring the ache in my chest that said one part of me might be too shattered to be whole again—and went back to work.

Rico was called off to some other business later that evening, leaving me free to follow through with my plans to go check out the areas I had on my map. Though I had to admit that there was some small part of me that was disappointed not to have Rico show up when I was leaving, ready to walk me home, to spend more time with me.

Luckily for me, hanging out on the streets in the freezing cold was miserable enough to chase away the other kinds of pain I might have been feeling if I’d been obsessing about the situation with Rico.

I stayed out late enough to be reasonably sure that the two convenience stores weren’t ones that Kyle was frequenting. I’d even flashed a picture around at the employees to double-check.

As much as it would have been nice to find him on the first night looking, I’d known going in that it wasn’t realistic to believe that would happen.

So I made my way home, telling myself that any progress was something to be happy about. Eventually, I would have hit all of the bodegas in that area. I’d see Kyle. I’d follow him at a safe distance. See where he went. Then, when there was no activity there, go snooping around.

A week or two, that was all I needed.

Even if my stomach twisted at the idea of my brother being in that basement for that long.

That amount of time would also make it so that Kyle started to trust me, to believe I was just going along with the plan, that I wasn’t trying to fight back against him.

After all, Kyle was used to me doing that.

Submitting.

Obeying.

It would be natural for him to think I’d fallen into old patterns.

But I wasn’t the woman I’d been when I was living under his thumb. Everything about me screamed to rebel, to fight. To the death, if necessary. I’d done it before—or so I thought—and I could do it again.

Everything about my new life was fighting against who I used to be. Wearing the things I liked, not what Kyle approved of. Putting on makeup. Dyeing my hair an unnatural color. Standing up for myself. Even just with handsy customers at work.

The trick was retaining my new strength while outwardly appearing like my old, more timid, self.

I was two feet inside my apartment when there was a knock.

My heartbeat punched against my ribcage and my stomach turned upside down as I walked silently over to the door to look out of the peephole.

Then there he was.

Not Kyle, like I was dreading.

Rico.

I should have pretended like I wasn’t home, gone into my bedroom and fought the urge to invite him in.

But before I could even finish that thought, let alone find the resolve to carry through with it, my hand was lifting and I was sliding the chain, then the lock, and opening the door.

“Did I catch you before you made another of those god-awful frozen pizzas?” he asked as he stepped into my apartment, seeming comfortable inviting himself inside, being in my world.

“Ah, yeah, I, er, just got in from… running some errands. I haven’t even fed Evander yet,” I added.

As if on cue, something from the counter in the kitchen smashed onto the floor.

“Yeah, he’s got feelings about that,” Rico said, a little smirk toying with his lips as he walked over to greet the cat. “Let’s get you squared away so we can eat,” he told the cat as he went about getting his food and milk. “So,” he continued, looking over at where I was still kind of frozen a foot inside of the door. “Food?”

“I could eat,” I agreed, even if I knew I needed to keep my distance. I didn’t seem to have any defenses when it came to Rico.

“You feeling like going out or staying in?”

Considering Kyle or his cronies might be watching me at any time? “Staying in.”

Rico reached for his phone, finding the food delivery app, and coming over toward me, both of us looking over the options before settling on Italian.

“You’re freezing,” Rico said as his hand grazed mine.

“Yeah, I was, you know… walking around.”

Rico reached out, tugging down the zipper of my jacket, then sliding it off and leading me over to the couch, pulling me down next to him, then tucking one of my hands between his thighs and warming the other with both of his hands.

“Where’d you go?” Rico asked into the silence of my apartment.

“Huh?”

“Errands,” he clarified.

“Oh, the convenience store,” I said.

“You don’t have any bags,” he pointed out, making panic surge.

I tamped it down. “They didn’t have what I was looking for,” I said, again, telling the truth.

“What were you looking for?”

“Oh, I really like dulce de leche ice cream,” I told him. “Not many places carry it.”

I was getting good at telling half-truths.

Considering the predicament I was in, I should have been happy about that. But I really didn’t want to get good at lying. Least of all to Rico, who’d been nothing but good to me.

Rico’s phone buzzed in his pocket. He released my hand to fetch it. I took the opportunity to reach for the remote and start to click through the options to stream before settling on some drama that I’d been meaning to watch but hadn’t gotten around to.

We sat in comfortable silence, bodies close, watching for a bit until Rico demanded I pause it so he could run downstairs to grab the food.

I didn’t stop to think how dangerous it was for Rico to be coming and going from my building until he was out of my apartment. What if Kyle’s guys saw him? What if they got ideas about me stealing more from him? Like those expensive watches or necklaces he was always wearing.

Before I could get myself too wound up, Rico was back with the pizza box and the cardboard box on top, full of meals because neither of us could pick between pizza or pasta. So we’d picked both. But there was also a plastic bag hanging off of his arm.

When I got up to join him in the kitchen to get some plates and utensils, he was reaching into the bag and drawing out six little pints of dulce de leche ice creams.

Completely unbidden, I felt the sting of tears in my eyes at the gesture. Maybe, to some, it wasn’t that big of a deal. But to someone like me, who’d never known a man who gave a shit about her wants or preferences, it felt huge.

“Sounded good,” he said, trying to play it off as he turned to stash them in the freezer.

“Thank you,” I said, head ducked as I tried to blink back the tears, praying that my voice didn’t betray my emotions.

“Just ice cream,” he said, shrugging it off.

But it wasn’t the ice cream.

It was the thought behind it.

The action on that thought.

That meant more than he could understand.

“Okay, I’m starting to regret not getting the baked ziti too,” Rico said as he pulled the little plastic tops off of our meals.

“We can share. I wouldn’t mind some chicken parm,” I said, handing him a knife and my biggest spoon, so he could portion it out.

“I think our eyes were bigger than our stomachs,” I said as we each brought our pastas and slices of pizza over toward the couch.

“I have faith in us,” he said. “Besides, looks like you’ve been skipping meals lately,” he said.

He wasn’t wrong. I’d been too nauseated to eat most of the time. And when I did, I usually only managed a few bites before I tossed the rest.

I didn’t respond to that, though. It was dangerous ground. Instead, I took a big forkful of my pasta and shoved it in my mouth and gave him a closed-mouth smile.

“That’s more like it,” he agreed, reaching for the remote to make the show start playing again.

It was low pressure, just eating food and watching a show, no need to talk about anything. Which would feel tricky since my entire damn life was a lie at that point. And I was worried that, given enough time speaking, my own guilt would eat at me and made me confess to what I was doing to him.

Afterward, we were too stuffed to move for a long time, just binging through the show for another two episodes.

It was as the third was going through its opening credits that he grabbed my ankles, pulling my feet into his lap, and starting to massage them.

I couldn’t help it. A low, long moan escaped me as his thumb pressed into my arch, massaging away an ache that had been with me for so long that I no longer even noticed it.

“That’s a good sound,” he murmured, doing it again.

It should have been relaxing, not exciting, to get a foot rub. But within moments, I felt little tendrils of need wrapping me up in their web.

I pressed my thighs tightly together, trying to ease the growing ache between.

Rico was onto me, though. And his hands moved from my feet to my ankles, up my calves.

When my thighs fell open, inviting more, he turned on the couch, came over me, and crushed down against me as his lips claimed mine.

I wrapped him up with my arms and legs, holding onto him, writhing against him as the minutes passed and both our needs became too strong to deny.

Rico’s face went into my neck, his breath warm against my skin as I rocked my hips against his hardness.

“Never fucking wanted someone this much,” he murmured, making my heart squeeze in my chest.

My hands slipped down, sneaking under his shirt, moving up the bare skin of his back, then down, sinking into his ass, and pulling him more firmly against me.

“Me either,” I admitted, my teeth nipping his earlobe, making that little rumble move through him, vibrating into me.

Rico sucked in a deep breath, then exhaled hard as he grabbed me, pulling me onto his lap. He waited for me to grab him again before he got to his feet, walking us through my apartment.

He paused halfway down the hallway, slamming me back against the wall, stealing my lips, grinding his cock against me.

Then he was moving again, taking us into my bedroom and kicking the door closed behind us.

We tumbled onto the bed, his weight crushing me into the mattress for a long moment before I threw my weight to roll over on top of him.

Rico sat up, reaching to grab my shirt and whipping it off, tossing it to the side.

“Wanted to take my time with you earlier,” he said, lips meeting the bare skin of my clavicle. “Wanted to hear you fucking screaming my name as I fucked you,” he added, hands sinking into my ass, dragging me against his length until a long, low moan escaped me.

My head fell back and his lips moved there, teasing over my pulse as his hands moved around my back to work the clasps of my bra free. He pulled it off, then grabbed me at my sides, forcing me up so he could lean forward and suck one of my nipples into his mouth.

Not having to muffle myself, I let the moan—loud and long—escape me. Rico’s teeth nipped the tightened point in approval, making my sex clench hard.

Then he was moving across my chest, continuing to lick, suck, and bite until I couldn’t take it any more. I dropped my hips back down on his lap, feeling his hardness press against me.

A sexy little laugh escaped Rico as his hands grabbed my ass and dragged me against his length. “So needy for my cock,” he murmured.

My whimper was my agreement as I continued to move against him.

But then he whipped me over onto my back, knelt, and pressed my legs into my chest so he could pull off my pants and panties.

He barely spared the time to toss them to the floor before he was spreading me, and lowering down between my legs, his tongue on me.

His lips sucked, his tongue traced, and his fingers slipped inside of me.

The build up was fast but intense as my hands slapped down on the back of his neck, holding him against me as he drove me up toward an orgasm that had my whole body tensing and my thighs clenching at the sides of his head.

He grabbed my knees, pulling my legs apart, then turned to press a kiss to my inner thigh as a sexy, rumbling laugh escaped him.

I was desperate for more of him then, going up onto my knees with him, my hands working down his buttons, then pulling off his shirt.

My hands slid over his warm skin, loving the way his muscles tensed with my touch as they moved down his stomach to undo his button and zipper, then pulled his pants down.

Rico scooted back, stepping onto the floor at the foot of the bed. I followed to sit off the edge, reaching out to push down his pants, then go for his boxer briefs until he was as bare as me.

My hand reached out, stroking down his length as I ducked my head and took him in my mouth.

His hands grabbed the back of my head, holding onto me as I started to suck him, then guiding me, making me take him faster, deeper. His breathing went ragged; little curses escaped him as his taste filled my mouth.

My own desire reached a fever pitch, making me press my thighs together to try to ease the growing ache between.

Then Rico was suddenly pulling me back.

He leaned down, grabbing the backs of my knees and flipping me back on the mattress.

I landed with a small giggle as he grabbed a condom with one hand as he stroked himself with the other, his hungry gaze on me the whole time.

When he was done protecting us, I pulled my legs up at an angle, then spread them for him.

That rumbling sound moved through him as he moved toward me, as he came over me.

He slid inside of me slowly, making me aware of each thick inch as he claimed me.

His lips were on mine as he started to move inside of me, slow and deep.

It was all just so… intimate. I felt pulled open, laid bare in a way I wasn’t sure I’d ever been before.

It was all just… too much.

I threw my weight, rolling him under me and moving to sit up, creating a distance some part of me so desperately needed right then as I started to ride him.

Up and through an orgasm that had me crying out as a shiver racked my whole body.

“Fuck,” Rico growled, rolling us again, then going back on his knees, pulling my legs up to his shoulders, and fucking me.

Hard.

Fast.

Like I needed.

He pushed me through another orgasm before coming with me.

He sat back on his calves afterward, his head tilted back as he tried to slow his breathing.

I felt breathless looking at how gorgeous he was right then.

He leaned down, pressing a kiss to my leg, then sliding away from me.

Did I sit up to watch his firm ass as he walked away? Yes, yes, I did.

It took him a while to come back, and I realized why when he walked in carrying a pint of ice cream and two spoons.

“Figure we worked off enough of dinner to get some dessert now.”

And it was just the most perfect night ever.

Eventually, we curled up on the bed, me resting with my head right over his heart, his hand draped casually around my hip.

His lips pressed into the top of my head.

“I’m gonna stay for a while,” he told me as I started to drift off to sleep. “But I’m gonna go home before morning. Just didn’t want you to wake up alone and think the worst,” he said.

“Okay,” I sighed.

And that was the last thing I knew that night.