Page 132 of Desperate Crimes
Nico’s fingers are precise, reverent, as he binds me to the headboard, sealing me to this moment, to him.
The silk sheets are cool beneath my back, but I am burning.
Every part of me aches.
Every nerve ending sparks.
And when his mouth finds the underside of my breast, trailing downward with a hunger he doesn’t bother to hide, I arch for him.
Offering myself.
Begging without words.
“Nico,” I pant, voice raw, already undone.
“Say it,” he demands, voice velvet-drenched steel.
Like a god whose altar has been forsaken for too long.
And I say it.
Because I mean it.
Because there is no one else, there never has been.
“I’m yours.Only yours.”
His groan is more animal than man, and he presses his mouth to my sternum like he’s sealing a vow into my bones.
“That’s the goddamn truth,” he growls.“Only mine, Princess.Mine to love.Mine to break.Mine to rebuild.”
My thighs tremble as he kisses lower, slow and deliberate, tongue flicking over the swell of my hip, the curve of my belly.
“You taste like roses,” he murmurs, almost in awe.“The kind I’d lay on an altar.The kind I’d bleed for.”
My breath stutters.
The garden he built me—filled with roses of every shade, wild and tangled and perfect—flashes in my mind, and I realize that even then, he was building a shrine.
Not just to beauty.
To me.
“These are my fucking roses, Wife,” he continues, dragging his tongue down the valley of my stomach.“No one else gets this.No one else gets you.You hear me?”
“Yes,” I whisper.“Yes.”
He presses a kiss to the top of my sex, and my whole body jolts.
“I’m gonna worship you until the sun comes up,” he says, eyes glowing like midnight fire as he looks up at me from between my legs.“And then?”
I can barely think.My blood is lava, my lungs too tight.
“And then?”I echo, helpless.
His gaze locks with mine, searing.
“Then I’ll kiss you goodbye.But it’s only temporary.I’m coming back to you.Always.”
