“No,” I answered. “I haven’t eaten.”

“Right,” he muttered. His arms tightening around me, he dragged me up the bed so we were face to face. I opened my eyes and caught his just in time for him to finish, “Got nothin’ in the fridge. So we’re ordering a pizza.”

Nick was ordering us a pizza.

I was a girl with her guy, spending the night at his place, fucking and ordering pizza.

Normal.

Simple.

Real.

The last of the tension shifted out of me.

“I hope you have beer.”

His concentration shifted and he muttered, “I’ll run out and get some.”

“Sebring?” I called.

His attention focused again on me.

I had something to say but when I got those blue eyes, I couldn’t get anything out of me.

So I did the only thing I could do.

I moved to him and touched my mouth to his, my eyes open and I hoped communicating.

I had a feeling he read me because one hand glided in my hair, the other one glided down to cup my ass and he rolled into me, taking my lip touch and turning it into a hot, hard, rough kiss.

He ended the kiss by rolling us again, him to his back, me on top of him, whereupon he immediately smacked my ass and muttered against my mouth, “Now go get me the pizza menu. Famous’s. Top drawer, left back of the kitchen.”

I heard not a single word out of his mouth.

“You smacked my ass,” I declared, eyes narrowing.

“Do it again, you don’t get me the menu. And grab my cell on the way back. It’s in my slacks.”

I pushed up.

He came up with me and brought me down, twisted so my torso was pinned under his, back to the bed, lower body on its side so he could smack my bare ass again.

I felt my eyes get round before they went squinty.

“You gonna do as you’re told or you gonna fight me?” he asked.

He looked like he was struggling against smiling.

“You’re getting off on this,” I accused.

“You’re getting off on it too, Olivia, and don’t deny it ’cause I’ll just have to prove it and that’ll delay pizza which would be annoying.”

“I—” I began to snap but his hand cracked against my ass again right before it soothed it sweetly and his mouth came to mine.

His deep voice was gentle and just as sweet when he asked affectionately, “Livvie, go get your man the pizza menu and his phone. Okay, baby?”

He ended that request sliding his hand in, his fingertips gliding between my legs, one whispering across my clit.

“Okay, Nick,” I breathed.

His eyes smiled and he gave me a short, rough kiss before he let me go.

I got him the menu and his phone.

Holding me in his bed, Nick ordered pizza.

He left me in his bed when he got dressed and went out to buy me beer.

He came back and we ate pizza, drank beer and then fucked, slow and long and beautifully.

And I fell asleep with Nick in his bed.

I woke up there too.

Both the falling asleep and the waking up I did with Nick holding me.

Normal.

Simple.

Real.

And terrifying.

Chapter Seventeen

No Limit

Nick

7:28 – The Next Morning

After their shower, Nick lost track of Olivia when he was in his closet pulling on trousers.

He found her in his kitchen, wet hair just as it was dry, straight as a sheet, bangs spiky against her eyebrows, wearing his shirt from the day before barely buttoned up because there weren’t many buttons left.

She was doing something and he hoped it was making coffee.

But he saw her purse on the bar where he put it after he retrieved it the night before from where she’d told him she’d left it in her car.

“Got your phone on you?” he asked, moving toward the kitchen, his eyes to her purse.

“Yes,” she answered.

“Gonna take it today, honey. Have one of my guys look at it. Make sure they got nothing on it to track you.”

He felt her gaze and turned his from her purse to see panic etched in her features.

Like last night, he beat back his response not only to having the knowledge confirmed her own fucking father burned her, but also the asshole kept tabs on her to control her.

Instead, he swiftly moved around the bar and pulled her in his arms.

“It’s gonna be okay,” he told her.

She rested her hands on his biceps, her head tipped back, her expression not assured.

“Do you think they know I’m here?” she asked.

If they knew that she was visiting him, now or before, they both would be very aware of it.

“No,” he answered and gave her more, “And even if they did, if they got that info just off a tracker, they wouldn’t know who you were visiting. I own this unit ’cause I own the building. A company I’m a partner in did the renos. But the unit, the building, my car, nothin’ is easy to trace back to me. For business purposes, I erased myself a long time ago. Just makes shit easier. Only people who know I exist are the IRS but even that’s a juggernaut I pay three CPAs to straighten out so they don’t audit me. So, unless they’re standin’ outside watchin’ and see me open the door, they won’t know who you’re seein’. And I got security on this building, watched twenty-four seven, so if we had company, I’d know that too.”

She relaxed against him, but only slightly.

“We have a lot to talk about,” she remarked.

They really fucking did.

“We’ll do it.”

“Sebring—”

“Shade,” he cut her off, taking one arm from around her to cup her face and dropping his closer to hers. “We’ll do it. We’ll take our time ’cause we got it. We’ll figure it out. In the meantime, I make sure you’re safe to move around as you like, not the least of that being making it safe for you to be with me. Starting today. So can you do without your phone for the day?”