Stand of Redemption (10 page)

“Ria, I’m not the right person for you.”
Nicholas turned his face forward.

“I understand.”

Silence filled the car.

A
s soon as it pulled to a stop, she jumped out, not waiting for Mitchell to open the door.

“Ria, wait.”
Nicholas tried to stop her, but she was too quick, dodging his hand.

She ran through the lobby
and quickly pressed the elevator button.

“I…”
Nicholas was behind her.

Damn the slow elevator!

“There’s no need for explanations.” She shrugged. “Please just go. I’ll tell Emiliano that the deal is off and to leave you alone.”

The elevator doors finally opene
d, and Ria went in, pushing the button for her floor, but she was too slow, and Nicholas came in before the doors could close.

“Don’t say anything to him. I made the deal with him
, regardless that I’m attracted to you.”

Ria tilted her head
, frowning. “You are attracted to me?”

“Yes
. No.” Nicholas ran a hand over his hair. “What I’m trying to say unsuccessfully is that I am attracted to you, but I’m not going to do anything about it.”

“Why?”

The elevator doors opened.

Nick sighed impatiently
, taking her arm as they walked beside each other to her apartment door. Ria opened it, and Nicholas came in behind her, shutting the door.

“Right now
, we need to concentrate on getting you out of this mess and getting your mother back. I need to regain my title while not getting myself permanently damaged by one of Emiliano’s fighters.”

Ria fought her hurt feelings. Everything he said was true. She was causing enormous pro
blems in his life. If he was hurt and never able to fight again, she would feel guilty for the rest of her life.

“
Nicholas, please listen to me. Walk away. These are my problems, not yours. You should never have become involved. You can’t blame yourself for me losing my job.”

“Shut up, Ria. Just be quiet.”
Nicholas pulled her to him, his mouth covering hers.

He had promised himself not to touch her. He didn’t deserve to touch her with her brot
hers’ blood on his hands. She would hate him if she found out he was the reason she was in this position. He was just as responsible for Dragon’s death as Zane was. He could have stopped him from pulling the trigger. Dragon had given Ria and their mother freedom. With his death, they had lost it. All of this was going through his mind, but he didn’t stop kissing her.

His tongue parted her lips
to enter her mouth. She tasted like the rich caramel pie she’d had for dessert. Nick groaned, pulling her tighter against him, as his mouth glided up to her ear, tracing the delicate shell with a tender caress, causing her to shiver with pleasure.

Her initial reticence disappeared
. She wound her arms around his neck as her mouth tried to catch his. He gave it to her, stroking his tongue intimately against hers.

As she gave into the kiss, his hand slid to the back of her dress
, unzipping it until the material fell forward, fully exposing her bra. His hand cupped her breast, squeezing it as he rubbed his thumb across her hard nipple. He slid his fingers through the top of her bra, running the backs of his fingers along her nipple and taking the nub, squeezing it to a hard point. She moaned as she pushed her breast farther into his hand.

They continued to kiss as his hand slid down her body,
gliding down her leg to climb underneath her dress. His fingers moved upwards, finding her damp and warm under the tiny panties she had on.

H
e leaned down to kiss her breasts, feeling himself losing control. With his mouth on her breast and his fingers pushing their way inside her, she started to whimper.

Ria ran her hands up and down his back, touching every part of him that she could reach.
He was incredibly hard and muscular. She could feel the bulges of his muscles through his shirt.

He slid one hand below her ass and lifted her up as she wrapped her legs around his waist and her arms returned to circle his neck.
They kissed as he carried her toward the couch where he let her slide down his body. He looked down at her and let the dress slide silkily down. Her breasts swelled as his hand lifted one pink nipple to his mouth.

He went to remove her panties
, but Ria stopped him.

“I’ll stop whenever you want to, okay?
We don’t have to have sex”—he leaned in to kiss her lips then smiled—“unless you want to?”

Ria smiled uncertainly back
. “Okay.”

D
id he really want her, or was he only responding because she had made her own attraction obvious?

She sat down on the couch as he pulled her shoes off,
leaving her in a bra and panties as he stared down at her. Ria reached forward, unbuckling his belt then unzipping his trousers.

Any thought that he wasn’t attracted to her died as she saw the effect she was having on him.
His cock was fully erect.

W
ithout thought, she reached to touch it and heard Nicholas groan as she wrapped her fingers around it. She started to run her hand up and down his length, but he grabbed her and pulled her hand off him.

“It feels too good,” he grunted as he bent over to lift her up onto the couch
, placing her back against the thick cushions.

He quickly covered her with his hot and hard body
, his elbows on each side of her and his knee spreading her legs apart. He leaned in to kiss her before he worked his way down her neck to the globes of her breasts.

She arched
into him as he buried his face between her breasts, sliding her fingers through his hair and holding his head as he licked a trail from her cleavage to her neck.

He rose above her and she watched his hand slide to the center of her bra
. Before she could stop him, he unsnapped it, and the bra slid to either side of her breasts.

H
e quickly took one of the hard nipples into his mouth, and Ria gasped. His tongue circled around her nipple and then tugged the now rosy bud with his teeth. The sensations that he was causing had her panting with desire.

He switched breasts to suck on her other nipple as he used one hand to play with
her other breast. Then he started to slowly kiss down her stomach and tease her belly button with his tongue.

She looked down at him as he kissed around her panties, using his fingers to graze
the skin just inside the flimsy material. He teased her, running his fingers along the side of her panties and at the edge of her lips, but not touching her anywhere to relieve the need that he had built up inside her.

“Oh
, my God,” she moaned as she spread her legs farther, wanting him to touch her. She needed his fingers and almost grabbed his hand to direct it to her waiting pussy.

“Is this what you want?” he asked as he cupped her outside of her panties, using his thumb to play with her clit
while his free hand played with her breasts.

“Yes,” she groaned as she
began to grind against his hand.

Before she knew it, he had
pushed her panties to the side and slid one finger inside her. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she was telling herself to slow things down; however, her body won the battle when his finger slid all the way in.

As her body adjusted to his finger, she thought that everything about him was big, even his finger.

He used his thumb to play with her clit as he slid in and out of her
, and Ria felt her body start to spin out of control, finally understanding what this was supposed to feel like.

She had limited experience with men
. It seemed like, once she started getting close to any of them, they would suddenly end it. Now, she wondered if it had anything to do with her brother trying to protect her. However, there was no one to stop her from doing anything she wanted now, and Nicholas knew exactly what to do to make her lose her mind.

She felt the waves of pleasure take over as his thumb sent her over the edge.
He squeezed her nipple with his other hand as she tried to control her screams.

“Don’t hold back,” he commanded.

That was all she needed to hear to let the small screams escape as the waves continued.
He continued to torture her body with his fingers until she couldn’t take it any longer.

“
That was amazing,” she panted. And it truly was. It was her first orgasm, and she knew she would never forget it.

She felt like a lump of clay as he
lay down beside her and ran his fingers along her stomach as she tried to catch her breath. She looked up at him and saw the conflict of emotions in his face.

“What’s wrong?”
she asked, thinking back to their earlier argument.

“Nothing
.” He smoothed his facial expression and smiled down at her.

“Don’t do that with me,” Ria ordered.

“What are you talking about?” He frown
ed.

“I see how you try to cover things up with a smile.
Whenever someone does something you don’t like, you keep your voice calm and put that fake-ass smile on your face, but I can see it in your eyes.

“Look
,” she continued, “we were just fooling around. I don’t need or want a serious relationship.”

Nicholas looked down at her
in surprise. She was repeating his lines.

“You’re the first person to ever say that to me
.” He laughed ruefully.

Ria grunted
, “Then no one else has really seen you then. You seem ready to run out the door.” Her arms fell away from him.

“It’s okay.
All I’m asking is that you don’t lie to me.” Ria reached up to caress his cheek then kissed him. “If you don’t want to take this further, I understand. I don’t want you to stay where you don’t want to be.” Her face lifted to his, her tongue tracing his lips.

“Ria, you
’re kind of making it hard to leave.” He pressed his cock against her pussy.

“I never said it wouldn’t be hard
,” she teased seductively, amazed at her boldness.

As
Nick lowered his head, deepening the kiss, she pushed him onto his back, thankful the couch was big.

She heard his sharp intake of breath as she sat up and started to tug his underwear and slacks down his hips.
She knew she wasn’t ready to have sex with him yet, but there was no reason not to use her hands to return the favor.

After she threw his
clothes to the floor, she moved to her knees between his legs and grasped his dick in her hand. She used her other hand to grasp his balls, watching his body slightly arch upwards as she gently squeezed and slid her hand up and down. She used the wetness coming from his tip to wet her palm as she felt him getting harder in her hand. She continued the motion as she watched the excitement build in his face.

He squeeze
d her breast. “Fuck, Ria. I’m already about to come,” he warned her as she watched the lust on his face.

S
he lowered her mouth over the tip of his cock then stroked him with her tongue as her hand discovered every ridge of his large dick. She enjoyed listening to the moans of pleasure coming from him. It was exciting to know she could get that kind of reaction from her mouth. She had never been brave enough to give any of her dates a reason to tell her brother she was a puta.

Her
mind drifted to what his thickness would feel like inside of her, but she forced herself to stop the direction of her thoughts; otherwise, she would climb on top of him and try to take every inch of him inside of her.

She groaned in arousal when he came in her mouth
. He had tried to pull her of him at the last minute, but she had wanted to taste him as he had tasted her when she had come.

She climbed off the couch to go to the bathroom and clean up
, coming back to lay down next to him, throwing an arm and leg over his body to make room on the couch. Ria enjoyed feeling the heat radiating from his body.

As they
lay there in a peaceful silence, her mind started racing again. He was everything she could dream for and all she could think about since their first date. Yet, she couldn’t be involved with him right now.

Without thought, she squeezed him tighter.

“You okay?” Nicholas asked.

“Yes
. Thank you, Nicholas.”

He made a
grunt. “I should be the one thanking you. I’m a bastard. I shouldn’t have followed you from the limo, but I can’t regret it right now.”

“Don’t regret it
. Please, Nicholas. I’ve been attracted to you since I saw you walk in Zane’s gym.”