Page 66 of Owning Nicci

It feels so fucking good. Maybe better than sex. He massages the soap into my hair, running his fingers through the strands, down to the nape of my neck, and back over again. It might be the most blissful thing I’ve ever felt, certainly the most intimate—and to my horror, I feel tears fill my eyes.

All at once, I’m both turned on and feel as if I’m going to sob. It’s terribly confusing, and I squeeze my eyes tightly shut, sucking in a breath.

Savio pauses. “Did I hurt you?”

I shake my head. “No,” I manage. “No, I just?—”

He stops, and I want to beg him to keep going. “What is it, Nicci?”

The way he says my name is grave, full of concern. I let out the breath I’ve been holding, my eyes still closed.

“No one’s ever done anything like this for me before,” I whisper. “It feels good.”

“Well, then I won’t stop.” He goes back to massaging the shampoo through my hair, and I bite my lip, not knowing if I want to moan aloud or cry. Maybe both.

I’ve never been so confused in my entire life.Everythingabout my situation with Savio is confusing in the extreme. Our relationship is problematic in a dozen different ways. Heboughtme from my father, for fuck’s sake—like a painting…like an animal. He used me, forced me to submit, fucked me whether I liked it or not. He tried to break me—until he realized that I couldn’t be broken, and stopped when he found out why.

Trying to be better after finding out the truth isn’t good enough. It’s never been good enough for anyone when it’s come to me…except for maybe Savio. Because no one has ever cared for me like this. And it seems that, when he found out the truth about me, he started trying to be better. He started to try to change.

Deep down, after all of this… I think there’s more to him. I think this man—the one standing there washing my hair patiently in the shower, with no care for his own arousal or needs—is the man that Savio is, deep down. But how can I possibly be the one to bring that out of him in its entirety? How can I be the one who makes him capable of loving again, of being a good man?

I’ve been just as terrible as he has—done awful things. I tried to kill a woman so that I could save myself from more pain. No one has ever loved me, and now, looking back, I think that maybe it’s that I was never worth loving. The first part of my life was nothing but selfishness—money, socializing, shallow friends, and living a life centered around wealth and accolades.The latter part has been about surviving, no matter what I had to do. I’ve been abused beyond reckoning, used by countless men, including my own flesh and blood. So how could I be worth anything, really—now that Savio no longer sees me as his means for revenge?

I’ll never be worth loving. Not really. I can’t undo all that I’ve done or become the kind of woman he would want. I’ll never be soft again, if I ever really was. I’ll never have the kind of dreams that I had when I was a child.

Savio’s fingers slide out of my hair, and he gently tilts my head back, running his hands through my hair again as he washes the soap out. When it’s all done, he reaches for a sea sponge on a shelf, and I shake my head.

“I can do the rest?—”

“Nicci.” His voice is firm but not like I’ve heard it before. It’s not an order or a demand. It almost sounds like a plea—a plea for me to let him do this. To let myself be cared for, for once. “Let me help you.”

I close my eyes. I thought I knew what it meant to be vulnerable when I was kept naked in that room at his whim. I thought that all those times when he used me while he was fully clothed, my bare flesh on display for him, was the most exposed I could feel. But that was just my body. This feels deeper, more intimate. I feel vulnerable in a way I never have before as I feel Savio start to run the soapy sponge over my skin, washing me clean. I feel bare in a way that goes beyond skin, undone completely, and I feel tears start to leak out of the corners of my eyes.

He’s slow and patient, washing every inch of me gently before squeezing the sponge clean and rinsing the soap off, water trickling over my skin. My chest feels so tight that it feels hard to breathe. My teeth sink into my lip, and I hear Savio turn the tap and feel the water stop as he reaches for my arm.

He helps me out of the tub and carefully dries me off. “As long as you move slowly, the stitches in your shoulder should hold. We’ll re-bandage them if we need to.” He wraps the towel around me and goes to open the door, still naked. At the last moment, he seems to realize that he’s still dripping water and grabs another towel, hooking it around his waist as he waits for me to walk out of the room. It’s impossible to miss that he’s still hard, his cock a thick, jutting line against the fabric of the towel.

Carefully, I make my way down the hall to the bedroom, with Savio at my elbow to make sure that I’m fine. “Your bags are in here,” he says as he opens the door. “I brought them up. We can figure out unpacking tomorrow, if?—”

I turn before I can stop myself and kiss him.

The moment my lips touch his, he freezes in place. I reach up with my good arm, my hand touching his chest, and I can feel his heart hammering under my palm. His lips are warm and damp against mine, beads of water on his skin, and I flick my tongue out, licking one away from the corner of his mouth.

His entire body shudders. “Nicci?—”

The shape of his mouth against mine brings back that night outside the bar, his lips moving against my mouth as he held a gun to my head. But there’s no gun now. There’s no one forcing me to do anything I don’t want to do—and I want him.

I think I’ve wanted him for longer than I can admit to myself.

His hand comes up, gingerly, stroking through the wet strands of my hair. “We can’t,” he whispers. “You’re hurt?—”

There are so many things I could say to that—that I don’t care, that I’ll be fine, that I can handle it. But I don’t say any of them.

I just slant my mouth over his and deepen the kiss.

26

SAVIO

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