Page 59 of Sweet as Sin (Bad Habit 1)
Suddenly the laughter was cut off cold by the sounds of surprised grunts, curses, and the unmistakable hollow thud and window rattling that occurs when a body is thrown against a wall.
“I said, GET THE FUCK OUT!”
Nico had descended once again into the unhinged zone. I peeked over the edge of the bed just in time to see him physically throw a big, muscular man with dark blond hair through the doorway, then turn and grab another man—brown haired, with a boyishly handsome face that stood in stark contrast to all the black leather he was wearing—and slam him against the wall, his forearm against the man’s throat.
“Take it easy, bro!”
I recognized this one from the video shoot. He was Brody Scott, Bad Habit’s lead guitarist, aka “Scotty.”
Nico roared, “You take it easy, Brody! Do what I fuckin’ said and get your ass outta here, or I’m gonna rain down so much nasty shit on your head it’ll make the apocalypse look like a picnic! You feel me?”
After a moment, Brody said, “Yeah, bro. I feel you.”
A tense silence followed as the two men glared at each other. Brody didn’t look too happy about having Nico’s arm against his throat, but his hands were held up in a gesture of surrender. Finally Nico let him go. He pulled away to stand with his hands curled to fists at his sides, his legs spread wide in a fighting stance. I couldn’t see his face, but if the bunched muscles in his shoulders and back were any indication, Nico was ready to throw down in a major way.
And so was the woman inked on his skin.
Across the majority of his back was tattooed the figure of a woman floating in air. She was wrapped in a black gauzy sheet that barely covered her voluptuous naked figure, and had long black hair that waved in an invisible wind. There was something ominous about her, about her beautiful, unsmiling face, her piercing dark eyes. Something forbidding, and vaguely familiar. I felt as if she were staring right at me. Right through me.
Then Brody turned and stalked out the door. Nico slammed it behind him.
I exhaled a long, shuddering breath.
Nico stood staring at the door for several seconds. His hands flexed open and closed. He bowed his head, exhaled hard, then came to me. He pulled me up from the floor and hugged me, burying his face in my neck. I was surprised to find he was shaking.
“Well. That was fun.” I was joking, because obviously that was not fun, but I didn’t want to add any fuel to Nico’s fire.
“They’re lucky I wasn’t inside you or I would’ve killed them both.”
His tone was so murderous, his body so rigid and wracked with tremors, I didn’t doubt he was telling the truth. His temper truly scared me. I wondered if it had ever gotten beyond his control. I squeezed him tighter, my arms around his shoulders, my bare chest pressed to his. Even though I was totally humiliated, horrified, and pretty sure I wasn’t going to leave the room until the band was long gone, I felt it was necessary to try to diffuse the ticking bomb in my arms.
“They didn’t mean to make you mad. They didn’t know I was here. It was just a mistake, Nico.”
He lifted his head, slanting me a dangerous, cutting stare. “They saw you naked.”
I laughed nervously, afraid of what I saw in his eyes. “Well, my gynecologist has seen worse. And, you know, I may have had one or two boyfriends before you. There are men out there in the world who’ve seen me naked.”
Humor was definitely the wrong way to go. As was that last tidbit about other men. Nico’s eyes bored into mine with a blazing fury that made me even more frightened. His brows pulled down low. A flush of color stained his cheeks. He settled a firm hand around my jaw and tilted my head up so our noses were almost touching.
“I wasn’t kidding before, Kat, when I said no other man got to have you. That especially includes seeing you naked.” He paused, his voice dropping. “And get a fuckin’ female gynecologist. Any man that has that job is nothin’ but a perv.”
A strange sensation settled in the pit of my stomach. I recognized it, having experienced it many times before: dread.
I’d had two controlling boyfriends in my past. One of them, a narcissist named Ryan, had attempted to dictate every facet of my life, including my wardrobe, my work schedule, who I hung out with, what I ate, and how much sleep and exercise I got. I ditched him pretty quickly.
The other bad seed was an extremely intelligent and sophisticated Frenchman named Phillip. He was far more dangerous than Ryan, because his genius was in getting me to question myself. He never came right out and demanded I do anything. His style wasn’t a kamikaze approach, as Ryan’s was.
It was guerilla warfare.
Subtly, over the course of a year, I began to distrust my instincts. Had I really been flirting with that friendly bartender? Was my dress as revealing as his disapproving glances said? Phillip’s influence was so roundabout, his technique so refined, my self-confidence eroded to the point I began to rely on him for the most mundane decisions. And, mission accomplished, he happily complied.
It took Grace giving me a walloping slap upside the head to set me straight.
So now, with those shitty experiences under my belt, I couldn’t ignore the neon red sign flashing in front of my eyes, screaming, “Control Freak Alert!”
No man was going to tell me which gynecologist to see. That was just crossing the fucking line.
“Number one,” I began, staring him dead in the eye, “you said after you’d made me come, I’d belong to you. I didn’t come. You can work out for yourself where I’m going with that.”
