Fighting for Control (Against the Cage Book 3) (25 page)

The first time with Nikko, she’d just been . . . shocked. She hadn’t known sex could be that intense, and it’d been all she could do to sit beside him for the remainder of the flight to Vegas and not cry at the discovery of everything she’d been missing. She’d been furious thinking about all she’d given up, throwing her twenties away on such an undeserving piece of shit like Barry.

But now, looking up at Nikko, who was pulling the covers over her naked and deliciously sore body, she found herself hoping he wouldn’t leave, because she definitely wanted to go another round with this gorgeous fighter. He straightened and she caught his hand before he could turn. “You’re not leaving . . . are you?”

His brows tightened and his gaze darted to hers, revealing a storm of emotions he didn’t have time to mask. “You want me to stay?” he asked, sounding a bit surprised, if not a little hesitant—which made her feel even more insecure.

Until now, she hadn’t realized how much baggage she was still
carrying from her divorce—how much Barry had broken her with his
betrayal, the insecurity and lack of self-worth left behind in his
adul
terous wake. It wasn’t Nikko’s responsibility to pick up her broken
pieces, to soothe her damaged soul. “If you don’t want to stay, I under
stand,” she said, letting him off her hook. “It’s probably better if—”

“I didn’t say that. I just wasn’t sure where you were going with this, Clover. I don’t want to presume or make it awkward.”

Neither did she, but . . . “I was kinda hoping we could, you know . . . do it again?” she confessed, feeling her cheeks heat, and she silently thanked Bacardi for giving her the liquid courage to speak her mind.

She had no doubt she was going to regret this in the morning—so she might as well regret it twice, or maybe three times. There were a lot of reasons she’d resisted going down this road with Nikko. Problem was, she couldn’t seem to think of any of them at the moment. His scowl of concentration broke into a roguish grin at her offer, his dark brow arching. “You were, huh? Well, sweetheart, far be it for me to deny the birthday girl her wish.”

Violet rolled her eyes and couldn’t help the laugh that bubbled up her throat as she pulled him down beside her. Nikko slipped under the covers, the mattress caving to the two hundred twenty pounds of hard-muscled fighter. It’d been a long time since she’d let a man into her bed, but no one had ever come close to filling it like Nikko did.

“You know . . .” he said, pulling her close, his gravelly voice sending a shiver of anticipation up her spine as he nuzzled her neck, finding that sensitive spot below her ear. “We’ve never done this horizontal before.”

“I know. I rather enjoyed vertical, though. You’ve set the bar high. Think you’ll meet my expectations?”

Nikko climbed over her, moving with a speed and grace that defied his overwhelming size. Pinning her with his stare, he growled, “Sweetheart, I guaran-fucking-tee it.”

Dipping his head, he took her breast into his mouth and sucked greedily as his hand slipped between them, finding the sensitive bundle of nerves at the top of her sex. Violet moaned, her hands sliding into Nikko’s hair as her back arched, holding him at her breast. His tongue flicked over her nipple, then trapped the peak against his teeth, applying pressure until she gasped—the line of pain and pleasure blurring as he stoked the fire between her legs.

Already she was on the razor’s edge. Her body was no longer her own. Under Nikko’s control, he commanded every stroke of pleasure. Every nip of pain only seemed to heighten her body’s responsiveness to him. Nikko wasn’t a gentle lover. He fucked the same way he did everything else—demanding, controlling, and unapologetic. And Violet loved every second of it. Already, he knew her body’s tells—knew she was going to come . . . With another nip to the sensitive tip of her breast, she gasped as her empty sex clenched in response, then groaned in frustration as he pulled his hand away from her clit.

A wicked chuckle darkened his raspy voice. “You’ll come when I let you to come, Clover. And I’m not nearly done with you yet.”

Holy shit
. . .

Violet lost track of the times Nikko took her to the brink of release, only to snatch her back from the grasp of bliss at the last second. She was mindless with need, her body breaking out into a fine sheen of sweat as Nikko mercilessly tortured her with his tongue and those sinfully skilled hands. Every nerve ending tingled with eager anticipation. Her skin felt too tight for her body. Her six-hundred-thread-count Egyptian cotton sheets felt like sandpaper against her flesh. Her breaths came in broken gasps, her heart rioting inside her chest. She couldn’t stand another moment of this sweet torture. She needed him inside her—filling her and taking away this relentless ache. A broken sob tore from her throat as she writhed beneath him. “Please . . . Nikko . . . I . . . I need . . .”

His teeth graze her beaded nipple, sending little jolts of pleasure into her empty core. The cool air kissed her breasts as he lifted his head and locked gazes with her.

“What do you need, Clover? Tell me . . .”

“You . . . I need you to make me come,” she pleaded shamelessly, shifting her hips against the pressure his thumb held against her clit as his fingers teased her opening, denying her his penetrating touch.

His eyes darkened at her confession like sapphires glittering against a silvery backdrop. He stared at her with an intensity that seared her soul. When he pulled his hand away, she cried out in protest, only to have her whimper cut short when his mouth came crashing down on hers. His tongue swept past her lips and the thick head of his cock breached her slippery folds.

His powerful body flexed above her as he seated himself deep inside her, and she swore he reached her very soul. He worked himself in and out, his hard-muscled chest brushing over her sensitive nipples, like electrical currents lighting her up. Vi’s walls clenched tighter, her muscles straining against the mounting tension of Nikko’s thrusts.

Nikko’s mouth tore away from hers and claimed the spot just below her ear. He sucked hard, teeth abrading her flesh, spiking her pleasure. She was so close . . . Her breath hitching . . . And then his deep, husky voice uttered her command . . .

“Come.”

She shattered.

His name was a broken cry on her lips as euphoria slammed into her. Her sex gripped his cock as she spasmed around the fullness inside her. A curse tore from his throat and heat blasted against her core. His massive body tensed above her, and the rush of his ejaculate sent her spiraling into another round of shuddering waves.

Slowly, the high began to ebb, leaving her basking in the aftermath of orgasmic bliss. Nikko’s heavy weight rested on top of her, his massive body a comforting press. She could feel his heart hammering against her breasts, his quickened breaths hot against her neck.

Amazing
. . . The thought echoed over and over in her mind. She slipped her arms around Nikko and hugged him tighter as she lay there, grappling for her bearings. Lord, this man was magnificent—every perfectly sculpted, scarred inch of him left her in awe. He was her beautiful disaster, and she feared Nikko Del Toro had just stolen her heart.

R
emmy’s hit!” West grabbed Nikko’s flak jacket, yelling into his face.

Did he think Nikko didn’t know that? He’d sat right here and watched as the Taliban sniper’s bullet tore into his best friend’s shoulder, dropping the Marine to the ground. The sharp report of gunfire lit up from both sides as Remmy suddenly became the focus of a standoff. If the Taliban tried to grab him, Nikko’s men would pop those little fuckers like CrackShot at the county fair. If they tried to recover their friend, you could be damn sure the same thing was going to happen to them.

The Warthog was on its way; Nikko had called in the coordinates for an air strike when they’d begun taking heavy fire. They had fifteen minutes and counting to make it to high ground and clear the blast zone. Problem was, one of his men was lying out in the dirt with a fucking bullet in his shoulder. Nikko shoved West off him and rolled onto his stomach, staying behind cover while trying to get a better look at where the hell that sniper was hiding. Before he could lift his gun and use his sight to aid his search, a loud pop fractured the air and a bullet slammed into Remmy’s thigh. A muffled roar through tightly clenched teeth rang out, Remmy’s agony ripping Nikko’s soul to shreds. This couldn’t be happening
. . .

“Motherfuckers!” West growled beside him. “They’re fucking torturing him!” He shifted to stand, and Nikko grabbed the soldier’s collar, yanking him back down on his ass behind their cover. “Goddammit, West! Keep your head down or you’re going to lose it! They’re using Remmy to draw us out! I’ve got a Hog coming in hot, and I want you to take Ford and Baker and fall back.”

“I ain’t fallin’ anywhere without Remmy!”

Now it was Nikko’s turn to grab a fistful of jacket and get in West’s face. “That wasn’t a fucking suggestion, soldier. It was a goddamn order! Now get the rest of my men and haul your asses to the safety zone!”

Pop!

Nikko flinched. This time the cry carried a string of curses. Nikko let a few of his own fly and dropped West, turning back to survey the damage. Holy shit! The last hit had taken Remmy’s foot. His combat boot was blown to shreds. Even if, by some miracle, he was able to get out there and recover his friend, at this rate, Remmy was going to bleed out before Nikko could get him to their extraction point. He had to find that goddamn sniper! Training his eye to his scope, he renewed his search and snarled, “What are you still doing here, West?”

“I can’t do it, Bull
. . .
I can’t just fucking leave him here to die!”

“I’ll stay with him. Just get the others and go! I swear to God if you don’t get your ass moving, I’ll have you tossed from my unit when this is over.”

West muttered a nasty curse and took off, just as the sniper sent another bullet into Remmy. There! In that burned-out shell! Nikko caught the sniper’s muzzle flash in the fading daylight. Nikko turned his scope on his friend, looking for the hit. Instead, his eyes locked on Remmy’s—glassed with pain but lucid as shit as his best friend stared him down and mouthed the words that damned Nikko’s soul.

Shoot me . . .

Vi startled awake at the agonized roar. Nikko’s body glistened in the ambient light from the bathroom. A fine sheen of sweat coated his body as he slept, caught in the grips of a nightmare, too far gone to wake. He’d told her he had them, admitted to insomnia as a result, but this . . . this was so much worse than she’d imagined. The twisted, tortured look on his face broke her heart. His breath sawed from his lungs. She placed her hand on his chest and found his heart hammering a rapid staccato.

“Shh . . .” she soothed, unsure if he could hear her, but praying if he couldn’t, then hopefully his demons would. “It’s all right,” she whispered, reaching up to run her fingers through his hair. The soft, silky strands were damp. How long had he been trapped inside this nightmare? A few more minutes passed before the anguish on his face began to relax and his breathing settled into a regular pattern once again. Gently, she stroked her hand over his chest, feeling for his heartbeat to slow. It was steadier now. Violet snuggled into his side and laid her head in the crook of his shoulder.

Her heart broke for him and the torture he endured at the hands of these demons that refused to release him. How much longer could he keep going like this, before they finally broke him for good? Nikko deserved the chance to heal. He deserved to have someone fighting for him when he wouldn’t or couldn’t fight for himself.

Lying there beside him, Violet slipped her arm around his waist and hugged him tight, making Nikko a silent promise that
she
would fight for him. She would discover the secrets he kept locked away, and together they would exorcise his demons. As she drifted back to sleep, it was with the vow that if she did nothing more for this man, she would help him bury his past so he could finally have a future.

Violet woke to the sound of birds chirping, the early morning sun beaming in through her bedroom window, and the feeling of a deliciously naked man in her bed. A satisfied smile tugged at her lips. Her body ached in all the right places, leaving her with the sated feeling of a woman who had been well and thoroughly ravished.

Her head was still tucked in the nook of Nikko’s arm. The shallow, steady rise and fall of his breaths told her he was still asleep. Vi wondered what time it was but didn’t want to get up and risk waking him. Since snuggling up against him after his nightmare, he seemed to have fallen into the sleep of the dead. He no doubt needed it.

Her eyes flittered open, and she took the opportunity to get an uninhibited view of her beautiful fighter. Even at rest, he looked cut from steel. She glanced down at his chest, getting a better look at the smattering of scars along his right side, and wondered at the damage this powerful body had taken, all in the name of war. What had happened to him? Would she ever know? Thinking back to her failed efforts to obtain Nikko’s military records, she began wracking her brain for other ways, other avenues, she could go about securing the information she needed. What she really needed were his medical records.

As she pondered her options, she absently began tracing the path of scars down his pec and over his ribs. There had to be something she was missing. Or maybe there was someone she could contact who had access to get his records for her? Someone who was in the military, perhaps, or who had the connections she was lacking . . .

When the answer came to her, Vi’s gut soured, and she immediately dismissed the thought. She wouldn’t do it—absolutely not. She refused to ask Barry for anything. But if it meant helping Nikko, could she really be that selfish? Barry had a good friend who worked at the Pentagon who’d helped him cut through red tape in the past. If Barry could get Vi those records . . . If she could discover what had happened to Nikko, she knew she could help him. Tucking the option away in the back of her mind, Violet softly ran her finger over a nasty, jagged scar on Nikko’s pec.

Her mind had drifted to more sensual thoughts when Nikko snatched her wrist with the speed of a striking viper. He yanked her arm above her head as he rolled them. In the time it took to blink, he had Vi on her back and pinned to the mattress. One hand clamped on her wrist, the other locked on her throat. Her startled yelp died, cut off by the pressure exerted against her windpipe. The look on Nikko’s face held no recognition of her, and in that brief second, she got a glimpse of the cold, merciless killer that lived within him.

It took him less than five seconds for reality to hit, for recognition and clarity to return to his eyes, and with it, absolute horror and gut-wrenching shame. He was off her as quickly as he’d pounced, scrambling back to the edge of the bed. “Shit, Violet, I’m sorry.” He scrubbed his hand over his face as if that would somehow help clear his mind or turn back time. “You startled me,” he rushed to explain, then, “Fuuuck . . . Clover, are you all right? Did I hurt you?”

He started to reach for her, then must have thought better of it, because he snatched his hand back, curling his fingers into a fist at his side. He looked so shaken, so horribly remorseful and . . . broken. All she wanted to do was go to him and pull him into her arms. But at the moment he didn’t look like he’d be receptive to receiving any comfort from her.

“You didn’t hurt me, Nikko,” she assured him, trying to sound calmer than she felt. “It wasn’t your fault.”

“The hell it wasn’t. I snapped. When I felt your hand on my chest, on my scars, something in my head reset and the next thing I knew I was back in the desert with someone’s hand in my side, digging shrapnel out of my fucking ribs. It’s like I told you before, I have no idea what’s going to trigger these flashbacks or how bad they’re going to be, or how long they’re going to last. Dammit . . . I really could have hurt you.” Nikko swung his legs over the side of the bed, and the sheet twisted around his waist as he planted his feet on the floor. Bracing his elbows on his thighs, he dropped his face into his open palms and sat there as still as a statue.

Vi’s heart broke at his torment. This had to stop. She had to help him get past this. If she’d hedged before on how far she’d go to discover the truth of Nikko’s past, there was no indecision now. She would do whatever it took, whatever was necessary, to help him. If only he would let her in, maybe she wouldn’t have to go as far as contacting Barry.

She grabbed her discarded nightshirt off the end of the bed and pulled it on. Rising to her knees, she crawled up behind him and placed her hand on his shoulder. He flinched, stubbornly refusing to relax into her touch, as if denying himself comfort was somehow his penance. This was how he lived his life, rejecting help or comfort when it was offered to him and suffering in silence—alone.

“Nikko, please talk to me.” She leaned in and pressed a kiss to his shoulder, gently rubbing his back. As her hand followed the muscular path from his wide shoulders to his narrow waist, she couldn’t help but be in awe of all the raw physical power bottled up inside this man. “You can tell me anything, you know. I’ll never judge you.”

Nikko shot off the bed and snagged his jeans from the floor. “You say that now, Violet. But you don’t know what I’ve done,” he said, shoving his legs into the holes and hiking his pants up past his hips.

He didn’t face her until they were fastened. She tried not to notice how low they sat on his waist, or the V of muscle near his hips, guiding her eyes farther south. “You’re right, I don’t, because you won’t tell me.”

“Let it go, Violet.”

She should have let it go. She could hear the sharp warning in Nikko’s voice and knew he wasn’t a man to warn her twice before she’d get bit. But her emotions made her reckless. Her desire to help him burned in her chest something fierce. “Dammit, Nikko, talk to me!”

“You think that just because you spread your legs for me that I’m going to let you into my head? It doesn’t work that way, sweetheart, and there’s a name for women who fuck for trade.”

She knew what he was doing. She just couldn’t believe he’d stoop so low. He was courting her anger to steer her away from the true issue. But it didn’t make his words hurt any less. Last night had been amazing. How dare he stand there and cheapen it by suggesting it’d been something else.

She’d been fucked by him before, and what they shared in this bed was not that. She might not be an expert at such things, but she wasn’t an idiot, either. The connection between them last night had been . . . well, she wasn’t exactly sure
what
it was, but it had been more than some emotionless romp. Who in the hell was he trying to fool? Her or himself? She knew he was hurting—horribly—and hurting people hurt other people. She knew all that rhetoric and psychobabble bullshit, but that didn’t stop her from falling for it and succumbing to her own hurts, anger, and insecurities.

“Fuck you, Nikko!”

He stared at her, his expression hard and unwavering. The silence stretched between them as if he couldn’t believe she’d said that, though she wasn’t sure why he would be surprised. It wasn’t the first time she’d told him to eff off.