Nico's Cruse Read online

  Damn her dreams just kept getting better and better.

  He tightened the chain and carabiner down until almost all of her weight was held up by the cuffs around her wrists. Only the barest amount of her stood perched on the tips of her toes.

  “What are you—” Cloth covered her eyes and she couldn’t help but laugh. “I thought you said a blindfold wasn’t required to be kinky.”

  He slapped her ass…hard, making her gasp. Heat spread from where he’d smacked her flesh, traveling straight to her clit, and the puckered rosette of her ass. She didn’t fight it like she would in real life. She didn’t protest and ask him to stop. Words failed her anyway when he swatted the other cheek, leaving heat in his wake.

  “They aren’t required any of the time but they can be fun so you don’t know what’s coming.” He reached between her thighs, fingering her slick pussy, fucking her sex with a near blissful depth and ample thickness. “I like keeping you off balance, making you guess what the next thing is I’m going to do, then doing the opposite.” His fingers pumped inside her for several more strokes and then they were gone.

  He moved around her, beside her, trailing her wetness along her skin, then he took away that touch as well.

  For a minute she stood there, trying to catch her breath, then realized he was gone. She couldn’t hear him even turning her head different directions she couldn’t hear him at all. He could have been right behind her or he could have left the room. She bit her bottom lip to keep from calling out to him. She knew he wouldn’t leave her somewhere she could be hurt and she breathed deeply knowing she was in good hands.

  “Very, very good, Rose. You trust me even when you’re completely vulnerable. Why?”

  Silence stretched between then, but he walked around in front of her and she finally accepted he wasn’t going to say anything else. “Why, what?”

  “Why do you trust me? We don’t know each other.”

  She swallowed trying to calm her racing heart. Having such a deep conversation in a dream was nearly as disconcerting as having it in real life she discovered. “Somehow I do…know you I mean. I know the taste of your lips, the feel of your touch on my skin, every sensation as you stretch my pussy while you fill me with your cock. I know what your laugh sounds like when you mean it and when you just think you’re supposed to laugh at something.”

  He brushed a hair off her cheek and she leaned into his touch.

  “I know the difference between silence when you want to be heard and just plain silence. I don’t understand why or how but I do. It doesn’t make a lot of sense does it? But it is what it is.”

  He continued palming the side of her face, rubbing her cheek with the pad of his thumb. He stayed quiet so long she wondered if she’d overstepped some imaginary line she didn’t know existed. She received her answer when he spoke.

  “I know the shade of your golden brown eyes, even with a blindfold covering them. How you wrinkle your nose when I say something you don’t agree with. How your skin on your chest flushes when you’re on the verge of coming. There are a lot of things I know about you just by paying attention to you but it’s more than that.” He moved up one of her legs flush to his hip. He touched a raised scar on her knee. “But I don’t know how you got this and I want to know.” He palmed one of her ass cheeks, smacking it hard before hiking up her other leg, helping her cross her ankles behind his back, spreading her pussy wide for the head of his dick to find her entrance wet, and inviting.

  “Mmm,” she whimpered as he pushed in a tiny bit then took it away.

  “I don’t know what you sound like when you cry. I can’t imagine what you look like right when you climb out of the shower.”

  He pushed his thick cock in again, sliding in deeper as she squeezed her legs, trying to take him farther in but he only allowed as much as he wanted and nothing more.

  “Favorite sexual position,” he gritted his teeth, fucking her once all the way, then pulled out, fucking her slow and sexy, making her grip the cuffs. She tried to gain more leverage, which he wouldn’t allow. “I don’t know what it is or if you like them all.”

  “More, Nico, I need more of you.”

  “I want all of you, every inch. I want to know everything about you, all the things you’ve never told anyone, I want to know those things to. I’ve never wanted to know more. Sex has always been enough. More than enough. Silence and fucking in your dreams is all I’ve ever needed. But with you, it’s not, I need more from you.”

  “You’ve got all of me, every inch.” Her pussy squeezed him tight, making him curse before he swept in, claiming her lips just as he owned her cunt, filling it completely with each frenzied stroke.

  “I want more, Rose. I want it all. Give me what I want.” He squeezed her ass, yanking her to him on every stroke, maintaining a rhythm she couldn’t keep her sanity through. He shoved his thumb between them, rubbing her hard clit, making her twitch and beg.

  “I need to come, Nico. Your hands on me, they’re so sexy. They make me feel like the most beautiful woman alive.”

  “You’re prettier than any woman I’ve ever seen. You’re radiant, gorgeous inside and out.”

  He sounded so sincere she almost believed him. “Kiss me,” she pleaded. “Just one kiss and I’ll come for you…only for you, my Nico.”

  “Mine,” he growled as his lips descended upon hers.

  He fucked her hard, filling her, using her body as a counterweight to his movements. It was as if she were fucking him too, even though she couldn’t touch him. She had just enough leverage using the chain holding her up and the grip she had around his lean waist.

  She moaned into his mouth as he kissed the orgasm out of her. She hadn’t asked permission but only because he’d already given it to her. Making him proud was all she cared about as she came on his cock. Doing what he needed to be happy, in that instance she regretted it only being a dream. For the first time she really wanted it to be real.

  She pulled her mouth away, throwing her head back on a gasp as he pinched her clit hard, then grabbed two handfuls of her ass and pile-drived into her pussy as if he’d never see her again.

  “Your pussy keeps kissing the head of my cock. Damn it’s fucking hot. I’d love to take you bare, just once. I’d love to know what every inch of your sexy cunt feels like when you come.”

  Words alone triggered another set of fireworks to ignite deep inside her. She twitched and moaned as he filled her. He shafted her perfectly until his orgasm took over, stealing his muscle control. It turned him into nothing but a man coming inside his woman.

  “I can feel you coming,” she whispered as he leaned close, kissing her hard between an inhale and an exhale.

  “Fuck, you’re sexy.”

  He slowed, squeezing her ass, holding her close, lifting her wrists free from what had held her up so perfectly for him. He slipped the blindfold free but she kept her eyes closed, so lost in the moment she didn’t want to lose it. The closeness seemed connected to the darkness somehow, so she went with it, not caring to overthink or question it.

  He laid her in bed, unhooked her feet around his waist, then slipped free of her drenched sex. “Be right back,” he whispered.

  She lay there with her legs spread, naked in more ways than one, and her cuffed wrists sitting on her ribs. Water running didn’t make a dent in her consciousness. When he returned and slipped the leather from around her wrists, freeing them, she only smiled.

  Her brain finally kicked on a bit more when he climbed into bed next to her, pulling her close.

  “Bicycle accident at the ripe old age of twelve.”

  “Huh?” he asked, clearly perplexed.

  “The scar on my knee you wanted to know about.” She bent her knee, tracing her scar. “I may have been a bit of a tattletale when I was younger, especially with my best friend’s older brother and some of his friends. Pretty sure it was my first attempt at flirting but I was too young to know it. I pushed my luck one day and they chased me on thei
r bikes when they figured out I ratted them out for getting up on a neighbor’s roof.” She turned toward him, snuggling in close to his side, closing her eyes. She tried to smother a yawn but it didn’t help. “I hit the curb when I was almost to my house and fell. Scraped my knee pretty good. Probably should have had stitches but didn’t, thus the scar.”

  Nico covered them with her comforter he must have pulled out of thin air. He hugged her close, running his fingertips up and down her spine. “You’re a bit unexpected, Rose Petal.”

  She liked the sound of that and relaxed into his side. She almost drifted off to sleep and shook herself awake, checking to make sure he was still there.

  He palmed her cheek as soon as she looked up at him. “I’m still here.”

  “But are you going to be here when I wake up tomorrow?” She traced his pecs, following each dip and curve of his muscled body.

  “No. It’s only a dream.”

  She glanced up at him again but he’d shut his eyes, blocking her out. But she could have sworn sadness rolled off him. Loneliness may have fit it better. What a strange emotion to feel coming from him. The rest of the dream had been so wonderful. It had been perfect.

  “Maybe if I cuff you to the bed you’ll still be here.” She tried to get up but he chuckled, pulling her down next to him again.

  He threw a leg over her to keep her in place but his laughter had lightened the mood. “I don’t know what to do with you.”

  On the verge of unconsciousness she kissed his chest. “Love me, It’s all I need you to do.”

  He stiffened but she didn’t care. It was her dream and she could tell him exactly what she needed if he wasn’t actually there to listen. She didn’t have to worry about him freaking out and leaving because that didn’t happen in dreams.

  “I don’t want it to end tonight. I don’t want you to leave.” She yawned.

  As she drifted off, Nico whispered into her hair, “For the first time, I don’t either.”

  Sun filtered in her windows the next morning through the gauzy curtains she had covering the windows. She rolled over, knowing he wasn’t there, nor had he ever been, but…she rolled out of a wet spot where her pussy had leaked onto her bottom sheet. She was never that wet, not ever, even after great sex. Well she’d never really had great sex, minus the dream sex she’d had with Nico.

  She glanced over, noticing an indentation in his—

  Not his, in her second pillow.

  She rolled over onto it, swearing she could still smell the faint scent of damn sexy cologne which would have smelled amazing on him. Like sex and orgasms and the beach, all wrapped into one yummy scent. If she could bottle it she’d make millions. Dark and sexy and virile and mmm…damn sexy. She ran her fingertips over the pillow, catching sight of red marks on her wrist.

  “What the hell?” Cuff marks circled her wrist. She rolled back over, halfway sitting up, focusing on her ceiling where she knew it had been completely smooth when she’d been chatting with him the night before.

  There wasn’t a hard point, a hook or any chain where he’d fucked her in her dream that night but the ceiling definitely looked a bit different where the hard point had been.

  Or hadn’t been?

  She flopped back down in bed, closing her eyes, her pussy clenching on nothing when she remembered all the deliciously depraved things she’d done with Nico in her dream the night before.

  It’s not real. He wasn’t here.

  Two questions popped into her head one right after the other.

  “Am I losing my mind?”

  “Do I really care?”

  Chapter Six

  The questions plagued her all morning, running through her mind, taunting her with possibilities.

  Talking to Nico seemed the only plausible course of action. She’d picked up the phone a million times to text him but she had no clue how to start a conversation like she needed to have. “Hi, I know I only met you two days ago—well kind of met you—and I’m dreaming about you. Every night. Not, hey-how-are-you kind of dreams. And I think somehow you’re really there with me.”

  She flopped down on the couch, clutching her phone to her chest, trying to get her head around what she wanted to talk to him about.

  Miss Pris jumped up on the couch, settling between her legs to stay a while.

  “I need to meet him, face to face. He’s here in town; it shouldn’t be too tough, right?”

  The cat rolled over, stretching her paws, showing Rose her belly.

  Rose rolled her eyes, reaching over to pet her for a second. “Lotta help you are.”

  She grabbed her phone, opening his text screen and she typed the first thing that popped into her head. “Need to meet in person. Need to talk to you about something. It’s important. I’ll be at the coffee shop at the corner of Main and Eighth in a half hour. Meet me?”

  After she pushed the Send button her stomach dropped. She wanted to delete it, call it back and have a do-over. He was gonna think her completely nuts and clingy. Too bad she felt like both of those things.

  A ding brought her attention to her phone. The urge to put the phone aside and not look at it crept up to the base of her skull, knocking on her noggin. Not wanting to add “chicken shit” to her list of accomplishments for the day she scrolled to his message and opened it.

  “I’ll try.”

  She relaxed, finally able to take a deep breath for the first time all day.

  It didn’t take her long to put some makeup on, along with a T-shirt and jeans. She slipped her feet into a pair of flip-flops, grabbed her purse, and headed out.

  The coffee shop was definitely busy for a Saturday afternoon. She ordered a latte and a bagel with strawberry cream cheese and grabbed a table for two.

  She nibbled her bagel, sipping on her hot drink in between incessant glances at her phone and the front door.

  Every person who walked through the door could have been him but none of them were.

  Her coffee grew cold and her butt fell asleep because she sat there for so long.

  After two hours she finally gave up. She threw out the rest of her bagel, tossing the to-go cup and napkin. She drove home on auto-pilot, entering her door as if she’d aged twenty years in just a few hours.

  “Too good to be true, kitty. Just like I thought when I first saw his profile. If he was who he said he was he would have shown up.”

  A message dinged on her phone and she didn’t care. Too little too late…but she couldn’t help herself. She opened his conversation and read it.

  “Sorry, I couldn’t get there. I tried to leave, tried to meet you but I just couldn’t.”

  The screen dimmed on her phone and then went black. She decided not to answer. “What was the point?” she asked to no one in particular.

  She powered off her phone, tossing it on the kitchen table, cursing herself for being so naïve, thinking she was anything to him. Tears filled her eyes. She told herself to get a grip, willing them to stay in place and just disappear but they didn’t listen.

  She climbed in bed and cried for the first time since her parents died.

  Hope was a dangerous thing. Once it’s dashed, the rest of the world loses a bit of its color.

  Her eyelids closed sometime later and she slept, thankfully dream-free.

  She woke up just as the sun started to set and took a shower, washing away the sadness, or at least trying to. Getting disappointed in people always sucked but she decided while brushing her hair that she wasn’t going to let it get her down. Making a clean break from him was definitely the best thing she could do. She vowed to remove him from her friends list on the dating site and she could delete his contact info from her phone.

  Her phone sat on the table, right where she’d left it. She approached it like it might bite her. It lay so silently there on the wood and she wondered about just tossing it and getting another one. All the rest of her contacts were stored in a cloud account. She’d made a backup of them a few days before uploading her
profile to Crossroads. Adding all of them into a new phone, all except Nico’s, wouldn’t be difficult.

  She settled on the couch in her towel, tucking her feet beneath her and powered on her phone. Messages blew up the notification screens as soon as the screen lit up. There were more than a dozen apology text messages and several voicemails. She accessed her messages and they were all from Nico.

  “I wanted to come more than anything, Rose. I wish there was something I could give you to make up for it. Please forgive me. I’m just so sorry.”

  One question had plagued her since she’d started thinking about it after she woke up and curiosity finally got the best of her. “Are you married?”

  Didn’t take long for a no to pop into her screen. “Can we talk? Video chat?”

  She typed no, then hovered her thumb over the Send button. No matter how hard she tried to convince herself it was for the best, she just couldn’t send it. The worst part? All the irrational reasons he couldn’t meet kept popping into her mind. He’d been sick. His dog died. He had a prior engagement—work related of course—that got in the way.

  She berated herself, knowing he didn’t deserve a chance to apologize to her face because she knew buying whatever line of bullshit he tried to sell was inevitable since she really liked him and she wanted to believe him.

  “I guess,” kind of typed itself and she sent it along.

  “Great. Give me a few minutes to hop in the shower and I’ll text when I’m ready.”

  She didn’t respond, just wandered into the kitchen and grabbed a bowl of cereal to eat for dinner. She settled on the couch and ate while staring at the TV, even though it was off. She rinsed her dishes then turned on her laptop, wrapping a fleece blanket around her shoulders while she waited.

  He messaged her and she gave him the new password. The password scheme seemed familiar all of a sudden but she couldn’t place why. Then his worried face filled the screen and she forgot all about it.

  “I’m sorry, Rose Petal. I would have been there if I could.” He ran his fingers through his wet hair, clearly exasperated by whatever reason had barred him from meeting her at the coffee shop.