The Sweetest Oblivion by Danielle Lori

“If I’m honest I have to tell you I still read fairy-tales and I like them best of all.”

—Audrey Hepburn

THE QUIET ON THE WAY home could be chipped at with an ice pick. Luca drove himself, so it was only Nico and me, husband and wife, engulfed in a plague of thoughtful silence.

I was desperate to know what he was thinking. Did he regret today? I’d experienced many feelings across the board, but I couldn’t say I would take it back. Maybe, at first, marriage was a high like a drug, because even within the turmoil, I felt revived, unbreakable. Was this how it felt to be a Russo?

Nico had one hand on the wheel, and the sun glinted off his silver wedding band. I guessed he would carry around a reminder of me on his finger everywhere he went. I hadn’t realized he would be marrying me as much as I would be him. I might not be able to control him like he could me, but in a way, I owned an important piece of Nicolas Russo.

As soon as we got home, Nico headed straight for the minibar. He had a drink at lunch too, and I was beginning to think he needed alcohol to deal with marrying me. What a confidence boost. Though, I couldn’t exactly talk when I’d acted like I was stuck in a cloud of terror. To be honest, I was glad I got another wedding because I’d really screwed the first one up.

Bracing a hand on the door, I slipped my heels off. “I’ve never been married before.”

Nico pulled the top off a whiskey decanter. “Me neither.”

“Really?” I asked with mock surprise. “I was sure with your reputation you’d have a harem of wives you killed off one by one when you got bored.”

He turned around, a smile pulling on his lips. “Nah, I got men to do my dirty work for me.”

I nodded like I understood. “Killing wives is dirty business.” Grabbing a hair tie from the island, I pulled my long strands up and off my neck. “Well, I hope when you get bored of me, you’ll give me a head start.”

He slipped a hand into his pocket, watching me. His gaze burned like a lit match, just as it had days ago when he’d said: There’s nowhere you could go that I couldn’t find you. A shiver, equal parts hot and cold, ran down my back. It suddenly felt like I was in a twisted fairy-tale where the princess becomes infatuated with the evil king, and she chooses to stay in her tower even though the door is never locked.

I’d been right from the beginning. I’d never survive this man . . . but it was too late now. I would just have to enjoy my time while it lasted.

Goose bumps trailed down my arms as I padded toward him on bare feet. It was too damn cold in this house, and Nico was always as hot as a furnace. He could share some of his warmth.

“You’re not bored with me yet, are you?”

He ran a hand across his jaw. “I think you’ve got a few days, give or take.”

Stepping into his space, I gripped the end of his tie. “Only a few days?” I inhaled a deep breath of him. “I guess I better make them last then.” Rising to my tiptoes, I tried to kiss him, but he turned his head.

Maybe I would’ve been dismayed by his reaction not long ago, but I knew him better now. It also helped that he had a hard-on I could feel against my stomach. So I ignored his rejection and pressed my lips to his jawline instead. He’d shaved this morning and the skin was smooth for a change. I kissed a line down his throat, growing dizzy from his taste and smell.

He brought the tumbler to his mouth like I wasn’t making out with his neck. “Thought you’d rather jump off the Brooklyn Bridge than go through with it today.”

“No.” I shook my head, running my tongue up his throat and my palm down to cup his erection. He pushed my hand away. “Maybe the Washington Bridge, though,” I added. “It’s much closer to the ground.”

I rested my hand over his hard-on again, rubbing the entire length of him. He let me, but still held that stupid glass of whiskey. I kissed my way up to the corner of his lips, and he finally turned his head and swallowed my sigh in his mouth. The kiss was wet and rough, maybe a little annoyed. My tongue slid against his, and a flame pulsed to life in my lower belly.

He nipped my bottom lip. “You make me fucking crazy.”

“Don’t blame me for your psychosis.”

“You are my psychosis.”

“Rude,” I breathed against his lips.

He set his glass down, grabbed the back of my neck, and then kissed me deep and slow. He kissed me until my heartbeat throbbed between my legs. A frenzy burned through my blood. I pressed my body to his, raked my blunt nails down his stomach and tugged at his belt buckle. He made a rough sound in his throat, but his lips began to slow against mine. When I realized he was pulling away, I moaned in frustration.

“Nico . . .”

His thumb brushed over my mouth. “Surely a woman who acts like she’s at a funeral instead of getting married doesn’t want her husband to fuck her.”

“She does,” I protested.

Sex was sex and marriage was marriage.

Why was he always interweaving the two?

Didn’t he understand how much I wanted him? The words escaped me before I could stop them.

“I thought about you, you know . . . before we were engaged.” My blush was so intense it burned in my chest and made my heart race.

His body stilled for a split second. “Yeah?”

A tight sensation wrapped around my lungs—a mixture of fear, embarrassment, and vulnerability—but I needed him to know I wanted him. The truth was, I needed him in a way I couldn’t even fathom, but I couldn’t let anyone know it was that severe, especially him. Finding the courage somewhere deep inside of me, I rose to my toes and pressed my lips to his ear.

“After that moment in the kitchen at my parents’, I was so hot I couldn’t even think . . . so I went to my room and lay on my bed. And then I slipped my fingers inside me and pretended they were yours.”

Three heartbeats drummed in my ears.

“Fuck me,” he groaned, before grabbing my hips, lifting me, and meeting my mouth with his. Finally. My legs wrapped around his waist and my hands buried in his hair.

Walking me backward toward the stairs, he kissed me like he was trying to eat me alive. He was such a selfish kisser. Kissing me only when he wanted, biting me, controlling every dip, lick, and press of our lips.

He trailed his mouth down my neck, and I worked on his vest and shirt buttons. I wanted his skin against mine, something I’d only felt once, and something I ached for. I got all of them but the cuffs, which were impossible since his hands were kneading my ass. I tugged the white undershirt out of his pants and ran my hands beneath it. Over the hot skin of his stomach and chest. He hissed through his teeth, and a lungful of air escaped me when he fell on top of me on the bed.

He yanked on my dress, and a rip sounded as the straps came loose. “That was Chanel,” I breathed against his lips, but all thoughts vanished when he pulled down my bra and sucked on my breasts. His hands gripped low on my ass, and I sighed when his fingers slid beneath my panties, brushing my clit and teasing my entrance.

“Fuck, you’re wet,” he groaned.

I tensed when his finger inched into the wrong hole.

“Nico,” I gasped.

Beneath my palms, a tremor rolled through his chest. He slowed, kissed my cheek, and murmured against my lips, “Tell me to stop and I will.”

I didn’t believe I was an adventurous girl, but I suddenly knew I would do anything to feel this man shudder like that.

His gaze liquefied when I didn’t say a word. He watched my face as his finger pushed further inside of me. It was a strange feeling, but I grew hotter than I’d ever been at the way his breathing turned ragged and his body grew tense, as though he struggled with holding himself back.

Two of his fingers slid inside while one still filled my ass. I groaned when he began to move them in and out slowly. The fullness was intense, delicious, and close to tipping me over the edge. He kissed my throat, and I shook beneath him as his fingers fucked me agonizingly slow.

I fisted the sheets, dug my heels into the bed, and when I came he swallowed my noises in his mouth. The finesse of the kiss faded. He nipped at my lips and jaw. Sucked on my tongue. Clinked my teeth.

It was messy and dirty. And everything him.

“I’m going to fuck you slowly,” he breathed in my ear.

He did as he said.

And in every possible way.

The kitchen. The living room. The shower. The hallway. His bed.

Seven days passed, and I grew very familiar with Nico, sex, and every possible place and position to have it.

I didn’t think it was healthy.

I breathed, slept, and consumed everything Nicolas Russo.

The first time I attempted to leave his bed after we were married, he grabbed my wrist and watched me with that lazy stare again. This time, he would hold me there forever. Not once had he complained about the ring, and I could only assume he felt better about it now that his was on my finger as well.

I slept in his bed. Sometimes with my face in his chest. Sometimes with his body spooning mine and his arm around me. Always with him pressed against me. Always with his hands on me and his smell everywhere. I didn’t know how or even when it happened, but somehow, he’d found a way to tear down my boundaries and embed himself in every piece of me.

Something touched me deep in the chest.

Something warm and fragile.

Something unraveling like a rope.

He didn’t go to work those seven days.

He taught me how to cheat at cards. How to fuck. And how to make an omelet.

His mamma was a good cook, he said. When she wasn’t high, he was quick to specify.

I soaked up any and all information he shared, no matter how small it was. Soon I would have every piece of the puzzle.

Slowly but surely, I was learning how to cook.

“I’m telling you, Mamma, it’s all watery,” I sighed into the phone.

“You didn’t make the roux right.”

“I did it exactly how you told me!”

“My recipes are buono, Elena. It is you who’s the problem.”

After a few of those similar conversations, I learned Google was a much better teacher. Nico might be able to make an omelet, but he was just as inept at everything else.

We ate a lot of takeout, but he never complained. In fact, he never complained about anything. Not when that itch for his attention began and I bothered him in his office, and not as I sat on his lap when he was on the phone talking business. While that bossy, totalitarian side of him was never going away, I was beginning to learn he was more laidback, more gentle, than I’d ever imagined a man like him could be.

I wished he was awful. Because I would soon deserve it.

He kissed me soft and slow. Ran his fingers through my hair. Let me pick the movie, though we never got through one film the entire week. Once his thumb started tracing circles around my belly button, I was dying for his hand in lower places and he always gave me what I wanted.

His body covered mine, so heavy, so perfect.

Skin against skin. The demanding way he tilted my head to kiss me deeper. The roughness of his palm sliding down my throat. His handprints burning me like brands.

It was all a blur. A feeling that coalesced in my chest.

I pressed my face into his neck and breathed him in. His smell was like nicotine, the drug burning through every capillary and spreading through my bloodstream.

The last thread of the rope snapped.

And then it was nothing but me, him, and a long way to the ground.

Thrilling, she’d told me.

She never said it would hurt.