Page 75 of Owning Nicci

If she didn’t, I’d already be dead.

“I got what I needed.” Nicci’s voice is slow and even. “I’m leaving now, just like I planned. And I’m not going to risk you coming after me. I couldn’t run before, because I knew they’d always find me. You could find me too, if you wanted to, and I don’t think you’re just going to let me go. I’m yours, right? Yousaid it so many times. So if I want to be free, you have to die too.” She swallows hard, the gun still pointed at my head.

I feel cold. Somehow, despite that, I take a step forward, and another, closer to Nicci and the gun she’s holding leveled at me. My heart is pounding so hard in my chest that it hurts, but I keep moving toward her, only stopping when I see her flinch.

“Your father made you into a villain,principessa,” I murmur, keeping my voice as calm as I can. “He made you into the kind of woman who would catch and deliver another woman to be killed because she took your fiance. But you were never really that kind of woman, Nicci. I know that now. You did all of it because that fucking bastard who called himself your father made you do it. He’s dead now. Dead byyourhand. You don’t have to be the villain any longer,principessa. You can choose to be different. You can choose to be whoever you want to be.”

That same bitter laugh that I heard before spills from her lips. “That’s fucking rich, coming from you,” she spits out. “You’re one to talk. You came back to New York just to pick up the same war thatyourfather and brother were fighting—right where they left off. And you’re not doing any better than they did. You’re going to start a bloody war you can’t win, and I want no part of it.”

“I’d leave all of it behind if you left with me.” I look at her, and I don’t think I’ve ever meant anything as much in my life as I mean that. I can feel my pulse racing, acutely aware of my heart beating in my chest and just how quickly it could be stilled, but it feels as if the world has narrowed down to her and me, and the choice being made. “I mean it, Nicci. There are other cities I could put down roots in as a don. Other places with territory I could claim for the Valenti name. We could go somewhere else. I’d walk away from all of it with you. You—you’ve changed all of this for me.”

Nicci’s jaw tightens, her hand trembling ever so slightly, and my pulse leaps with alarm. She could pull the trigger by accident as easily as on purpose. “You’re just saying that to save your life,” she accuses, her voice sharp as the knife she used on her brother minutes ago. “You wouldn’t be saying it if I didn’t have a gun to your head.”

“I can understand why you’d think that. But it’s not true, Nicci. I—” I suck in a breath, looking down the barrel of the gun, looking at the woman just past it. “Over these past weeks, I—I’ve fallen in love with you. I love you.”

Her eyes widen, and I see her lips part. I see the way the words hit her, as if they’re a physical thing. “Savio?—”

The sound of my name on her lips spurs me on. “I thought I owned you,principessa, but I was so fucking wrong. Somewhere along the line, I started to belong to you, too. Every fucking thing about you made me fall in love with you. Your stubbornness, your resilience, your refusal to stay down. Every time something or someone tried to break you, even me, you just got right fucking back up. I tried to make you mine, but you made me yours instead. And now? If you’re going to leave, you might as well kill me.”

Nicci’s mouth trembles, and her eyes are glossy for a different reason now, I think. “What the fuck does that mean?” she hisses, and I take a step closer, the gun almost touching me now.

“I don’t want to live without you,principessa. My vicious little assassin. You’re as bloody as I am, and just as brutal. And you’re the only woman who could ever be my match.”

For a brief moment, there’s nothing but silence after I say it. A silence so thick and heavy that I can only imagine it will be broken with a gunshot in a moment, cracked as wide open as my chest will be when she pulls the trigger.

Instead, Nicci speaks.

“You’d walk away from all of this? For me? I don’t believe you.” She shakes her head, and I think I see tears on the edges of her lashes.

“Why not?”

“Becauseno onehas ever sacrificed anything for me.” Her voice cracks, hurt and anger warring together in her gaze, and I step forward once more, the gun pressed to my chest.

“I would,principessa,” I murmur. “I’d go anywhere with you. Give up anything. As long as you were with me. As long as you were mine.”

Nicci lets go of the gun. It hits the floor with athud—but I barely have time to register the sound before her mouth is on mine. Her hand wraps around the back of my neck, her fingers clawing into my skin with a sharpness that sends pain shooting through me, but I don’t care. I don’t care about anything other than the fact that she’s kissing me instead of killing me.

Her tongue sweeps into my mouth, hot and sweet, and I wrap her up in my arms. I pull her into me, backing up until I hit the edge of a table, and I’ve forgotten where we are. I’ve forgotten that there are two dead bodies in the room with us, and a body’s worth of blood. I’ve forgotten everything except the feeling of Nicci against me, kissing me, her body arching into mine, and I’d give anything to keep her here, touching me forever.

“I love you,” I whisper against her mouth as I wrap my hand in her hair, wrenching her head back so that I can drag my mouth along her jaw and down her throat. “I fucking love you,principessa.”

“I love you.” She chokes out the words, her nails still digging into the back of my neck, and they send a jolt through me, my already stiffening cock hard as rock in an instant. “I fucking love you too, Savio Valenti. I love you?—”

I drag her mouth back to mine, one hand dropping to feverishly undo my belt. “I want all of you,principessa. Right here. Right now. Give it to me, and I’ll give you all of me.”

She looks at me, her blue eyes bright. “What do you want,ma coeur?”

“God, that makes me so fucking hard.” I kiss her, hard, my tongue tangling with hers as I free my aching cock and reach for her hand, wrapping it around my throbbing length. “I want you on your knees,principessa. I want you there of your own free will.”

Nicci jerks back, her eyes gleaming, and she bites my lip, sucking it into her mouth before breaking the kiss. “You first,” she whispers, and she twists away from me, pushing me to one side as she leans back against the table. “Get down on your knees and make me come, Savio. I’ll give you what you want, then.”

I hadn’t thought I could get any harder. The space we’re in feels impossibly hot. I reach for my shirt, stripping it over my head and tossing it to the floor as Nicci pushes herself onto the table, yanking her own shirt off as she reaches for the button of her jeans. I glance at her shoulder, my lust ebbing just long enough to worry about whether or not she might hurt herself, but she doesn’t seem to be in too much pain. And right now, the last thing on earth I want to do is stop.

My cock throbs, and I reach down, stroking it once as I hook the fingers of my other hand in the waistband of Nicci’s jeans, dragging them down her hips, leaving her in just her panties. She looks down at me as I sink to my knees in front of her, sliding my hands up her legs as I push them apart, and I lean in, breathing her—in as I press my mouth to the damp cotton between her thighs.

“Are you sure,principessa?” I murmur, looking up at her. “Are you sure you want to do this here? We can go back inside?—”

“No.” Nicci reaches down, her fingers threading through my hair as she tugs me closer, pushing my head down between her thighs. “Let them fucking watch.”

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