Page 64 of Lies like Rubies, Part One

When Nick brushed his lips against mine, I leaned in, only for him to pull away with a teasing smile. “Let’s get out of here, baby.”

Breathless with laughter after stealing kiss after kiss from each other while we returned our shoes, Nick leaned me against the side of his car, caging me in with thick arms, his body tense with need.

His knuckles brushed my face as he pushed my hair out of my eyes, rubbing it between his fingers before tucking it behind my ear. The gesture was sweet and intimate, and the butterflies in my gut roared to life as we stared at each other in the parking lot.

“Put your palms against the car,” he murmured, “and don’t move.” My memory flashed to the first night I’d met Dante, when he had me hold my wrists above my head, and want flooded through me. How could I be here with Nick, desperate for his touch, while dreaming of a man who treated me like a fucking pet?Fucked up, Sofia.

I lowered my arms, resting my sweaty, nervous, desperate-to-touch-him palms against the cool metal of the car door behind me.

“All this beautiful creamy skin,” he said, tracing his fingers from my collarbone to the swell of my breast, where it peeked out from the neckline of my summer dress. Taking one shuddering breath after another, I flushed as he dragged a finger across my chest. “Begging to be marked.”

Hot lips skimmed across my collarbone, and I pressed toward him, all thoughts of Dante fleeing my head as he traced a burning path across my chest.

“Don’t move, baby,” he said, his mouth hot against my skin as he gently wrapped his hands around my ribcage, holding me still, his thumbs brushing against the undersides of my breasts.

My nipples hardened into taut, needy buds, painfully hard against the lace of my bra, begging for his touch. I moaned softly and let my head loll back as he explored my skin with his mouth. “Nick,” I whined. “Please.”

“Please, what, baby?” he asked, nuzzling behind my ear.

“Kiss me,” I whispered, and he crashed his lips onto mine. Need pulsed through me, my clit throbbing, and my nipples so tight they ached. When I arched into him, pressing my chest into his, he groaned, wrapping one hand around my head and slipping the other down to cup my ass, pulling me tight against him.

Hot and hard against me, he ground his pelvis into mine, creating delicious friction as I tried to press closer. “Stay still, baby girl,” he said against my lips as he slid a thigh between my legs.

My sweaty hands slipped against the metal of the car as I pressed them harder against the door. The press of his thigh against my center when he lifted his leg made me want to grind against him, and I struggled to remain still.

“There you go,” he said, the fingers of one hand digging into the soft flesh of my ass as he tugged me up. I whined at the pressure building in my core, the feeling of our bodies pressing together overwhelming me.

“Sofia, do you want to come here in this parking lot?” he asked me, accompanying his words with tiny thrusts of his hips against my center.

“What?” I gasped, confused and lost in the lust he’d elicited in me.

“We’re in a very public space, Sofia, but I desperately want to see your expression when you fall apart on my hand. May I make you come?”

The laugh he startled out of me was breathy and more need than amusement. “Shit. Fuck. No. We have to stop. There are video cameras everywhere. Goddamit, Nick, give me some space to think.”

Immediately, I missed the heat, the warm comfort of his body, when he stepped back to let me breathe. My chest heaved, blood pounded through my veins, and a thousand tiny fires sparked everywhere his gaze brushed against my skin.

When I finally looked at him, he grinned, his bright green eyes mischievous as he ran his hands through his blond hair. “That got out of hand.”

He must have seen the hurt that bolted through me because he immediately yanked me against his chest in a grim hug. “Not because I don’t want to fuck you until you forget your name, but because you’re uncomfortable, baby.”

I exhaled sharply. “We’ll have to have another date then,” I risked, looking at him through my lashes.

The press of his lips on my forehead almost undid me. “I can’t wait.”

Wrapped in his arms, sweaty and mussed, trembling with frustrated need in the parking lot of a bowling alley, I couldn’t think of anywhere else I would’ve rather been.

“Come on,” he said, finally. “I gotta get you home.”

I nodded. “In a little bit,” I agreed, not pulling away from him and not lifting my cheek from his chest.

“Yeah,” he said, his hands tightening on my back, pulling me closer. “In a little bit.”

26

LORENZO

“Mamma!”Lizzie shrieked, running toward the door and embracing her mother. Miss Carolina looked up from the kitchen where she chopped vegetables for dinner.

---