Page 34 of Owning Nicci

The shower and the breakfast that follows it are heavenly. Savio returns in an hour, as promised, with my workout clothes, and he waits for me this time. He’s wearing workout clothes too—sweatpants and a t-shirt—and I try to ignore the sight of his muscular arms. I’ve never seen him this casually dressed, but the last thing I want is for him to catch me staring at his biceps like a swooning Victorian maiden.

Nor do Iwantto swoon over any part of him. But his arms are…impressive.

“Let’s go,” he says curtly, and I follow him downstairs.

We start with the firing range, as usual. My aim is getting better, and I’m hitting the target more often. Savio actually praises my aim once, which startles me. It seems to startle him, too, because his face goes expressionless afterwards, his mouth set in a firm line. And when we head to the gym for the second part of the session, he’s harder on me than usual.

“We’ll spar together today,” he tells me flatly, standing opposite me. “Not every Crow will fall for your wiles like Lucasdid. You need to be able to fight better than you do now. You won’t ever win a contest of strength with these men, so instead, you should focus on being quick. Get under their guard, get them off-balance. It’s the only advantage you have.”

His voice is sharp, cutting, as if he’s punishing me and himself for his compliment earlier. The workout itself feels like a punishment. He doesn’t hold back, sending me to the mat time and time again. I manage to block his blows a few times, but as he gets inside my guard over and over, I’m distracted. Shaken.

He hasn’t been this close to me during these sessions. I can feel the heat radiating off of his body and smell the masculine scent of his sweat. His face is flushed, and his dark hair clings to his temples.I can’t help but think—he’d look like this during sex. The thought shoots through my core with a jolt.When he catches me in a grapple, his arm going around my neck as he takes me down to the mat with him on top of me, I feel my body arch into his involuntarily.

He’s heavy on top of me. Lean and muscled, his knee pressed between mine, and my chest heaves against him, my body tense with sudden desire.

His gaze meets mine, and it feels like time slows down for a moment. There’s something different in the way he looks at me for that brief second, like everything clears from his eyes, and he looks almost…proud of me. Impressed. He’s looking at me in a way that I’ve never seen before, and then it passes, replaced by a dark heat that matches the thick hardness I feel grinding into my thigh.

I wonder, for a split second, if he’ll fuck me here. But deep down, I know he won’t. That would mean accepting how badly he wants me, accepting that I can send him over the edge, snap that thread of control. If he fucks me—whenhe fucks me—it’ll be at a time of his choosing, carefully planned and orchestrated.

Anything else would mean I have power overhim.

12

SAVIO

I’M IN DANGER.

The thought pounds through my head as I look down at Nicci, pinned underneath me, looking up at me with those defiant eyes. She just won’t fucking quit. Even now, trapped by my arm around her neck, held down by the weight of my body, the threatening line of my cock grinding into her thigh, she won’t tap out. She won’t admit defeat.

It makes melikeher. And that’s unacceptable.

I’m not supposed to like her. That was never part of the plan. The plan was to buy her, take her, claim her. To steal her from my brother after he’s in the grave, the way he stole the woman I thought I loved from me while I was still living. To make sure that everything he ever had is erased, beginning with his claim on Nicci.

I was going to use her until I was finished with her, and then put her to some other use.

The first mistake was agreeing to her reckless plan to take out the Crows. I see that as I look down at her, as I battle every primal urge within my body that says I should take hernow. But it aligned with my plans. And I was curious.

I shouldn’t have let myself be curious about her—because now, I’m learning things about her. I’m learning that she’s defiant, but she knows when to bend. That she’s patient. Wily. That she’s stubborn, refusing to let herself be broken. That she’s capable of controlling herself, too…at least to an extent.

Last night’s scene at the restaurant proved that she’s not always capable of it. Anger burns through me again at the memory, at the reminder that defying me was preferable to her being seen with me in public, as if she’s still the precious jewel in the Armand family crown. As if she wasn’t thrown away and then dug out of the trash to be sold to me.

I shove myself away from her, ignoring the throbbing in my groin. Last night wasn’t enough. I’m aching to take her, and I know I’m going to have to find the right moment to unleash that desire soon. One where I’m in control. It’s just that she seems to threaten that control so easily.

“Again,” I tell her sharply. I try to focus on the rest of the workout, on showing her where her faults are, her weaknesses…and there are plenty, that’s for sure. But I can’t stop thinking about her strengths, too. No matter how many times I send her down to the mat, she always gets up. I don’t doubt that she’s hurting after last night, sore and stiff despite the stretching routine I put her through, but she’s kept going anyway. She’sstillgoing, pushing herself through every instruction I give her, until I finally call an end to the session.

She’s silent on the ride back, clearly tired, but she doesn’t complain. She doesn’t say anything at all, looking out of the window at the cityscape as it slides by. When I return her to her room, she hands me the clothes back without a word, too, before heading to the shower.

I watch her walk towards the bathroom, feeling a sudden itch under my skin, a desire to follow her. To shower with her, runmy hands over her body, pin her up against the wall, and run my mouth over every inch of bare, exposed…

I shake my head sharply, pivoting on my heel. Nothing about what I just imagined fits with the place Nicci has in my life. I bought her to consume her.

Not to fall for her.

—

Still,I can’t help but be curious. Sitting in my office an hour later, after I shower and change, I flip through a list of contacts, wondering who might have additional information on Nicci. I’ve had people here in the city that I could rely on as sources, contacts who occasionally filled me in on things I might need to know. I found out about Barca’s death that way.

Saul Brokov.He was the one who leaked the news to me about my brother’s death, a contract killer who mostly keeps to himself. I’m always careful what I tell him—information is one of his currencies, and I know he could sell my secrets just as easily as I’ve gotten some from him. I’ll have to be careful how I inquire, but he might be able to tell me more about Nicci.

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