“Turn here,” Nero tells me.
We’re weaving through Roscoe Village. It’s funny being in such a sleepy little neighborhood, just minutes after pulling off a bank robbery. We’re passing by Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s. Hipster lofts and coffee shops seem like the antithesis of criminal activity.
I know we need to get rid of the police van, but Nero seems to have his own destination in mind.
“Right here,” he says, pointing to a parking garage.
I turn into the first stall, mildly confused.
“Are we leaving the van here?” I ask.
“Nope,” Nero says. “Come on.”
I get out of the van. Dante climbs into the driver’s seat instead.
“Nice to meet you, Camille,” he says in his deep voice.
“See you again soon, I’m sure,” Sebastian says, giving me a little salute.
They drive away, leaving Nero and I alone in the garage.
I turn to face him, utterly bemused.
“Where are they going?”
“To burn the van,” Nero says.
“How are we getting home?”
“I dunno,” he grins. “I was hoping you’d drive me.”
I have no idea what he’s talking about. All I know is he’s definitely excited about something. Not just the insane amount of money we just stole—this is something else.
“What are you up to?” I say, suspiciously.
“I’m talking about your new car,” Nero says.
He pulls the dust cover off the car parked in the nearest stall.
I gasp, hands over my mouth.
I see a long, sleek body with outrageous curves, painted a deep oxblood red. The chrome grille and round headlights gleam in the dim parkade. The wheels are pristine. I can smell the fresh leather even from here.
“You’re joking,” I say.
“I would never joke about a car,” Nero says. “Especially not this one.”
I turn to look at him. His eyes look darker than usual, intently focused on me. His expression is serious.
“Nero, I can’t take this . . .” I say. “You may never find another one.”
“Camille,” he says, touching my cheek with his hand. “I’ve always felt things . . . intensely. Or I thought I did. But every emotion I ever had, my whole life through, is nothing compared to what I feel when I look at you. I don’t care about the car, or the money we just took, or anything else in this world. Next to you, all those other things just fade away.”
“This is crazy,” I whisper.
The Grand Sport is beautiful, utterly beautiful. Priceless, in that there’s not another one like it in the world, and you could never buy the countless hours of time that Nero put into it, when he thought it would be his.
But it’s not the car itself that’s making my heart race like mad, and hot tears spring up into my eyes.
It’s what it means, for Nero to give it to me.
Nero is the most gorgeous man I’ve ever laid eyes on. He has a fire inside of him that burns hotter than the surface of the sun. I know how strongly he hates—I can only imagine the kind of love he feels. It terrifies me.
I don’t know how or why he’s given it to me.
I feel like a mortal, chosen by a god.
And yet . . .
It feels right.
The way our hands fit together. The way our bodies fit together, too. The way I understand him, when no one else seems to. And the way he sees me, when no one bothered to before.
The way we find peace in each other, when we’re two restless souls.
I’ve known he was the one for me for a long time now.
I just never thought I could be the one for him.
Then Nero says something even more insane.
“Do you think you could ever love me, Camille?”
I’m so startled that I almost laugh.
He mistakes the look on my face.
“I know I’ve got an awful history and honestly, I’m not much better now. My temper is shit. I want to kill any man that looks at you. I’m not . . . good with words, or feelings,” he takes a deep breath and I realize that Nero is nervous—almost as nervous as I am. “But I love you, Camille. I’ll never hurt you. You can trust me for that, if nothing else.”
I’m speechless. Desperate to answer him, yet totally unable to make a sound.
All I can do is grab him and kiss him. I kiss him like the very first time, hungry and aching. Then I kiss him like we kissed in my tiny little glassed-in room—as if the whole universe has passed away, and he and I are the only two things in existence.
When our lips part, I can finally speak.
“I love you so much it hurts. I’m scared to tell you, scared to even let myself feel it. But I love you, and I have for a while.”
“Good,” he says, with infinite relief.
He kisses me again, crushing me against his body.
When he lets me go, he grins and says, “Now take me for a drive.”
He hands me the keys. Even the fob is original to the car, made of old silver polished bright again.
I slide into the driver’s seat, inhaling the fresh leather and paint. The dash is all round dials, with the huge steering wheel in the center.
I turn the key, listening to the engine turn over with a roar, subsiding into a patient purr.
“When did you know you were going to give this to me?” I asked Nero.
“The moment you touched it, and I saw the look on your face,” Nero says.
I pull out of the parking garage, my heart soaring with every turn of the wheel. The car operates flawlessly. Nero truly is a magician.
He looks perfect in the passenger seat—stylish, haughty, and outrageously handsome.
As if reading my thoughts, Nero says the same thing to me: “It suits you. It was made for you.”
I take us east to Lake Shore Drive, so we can drive along the water. A cool breeze is blowing. The maples are turning red. It’s finally fall.
We stop at Montrose Point, parking the car so it faces the city. Chicago is lit up, the skyscrapers reflecting on the water.
I climb over onto Nero’s lap, straddling him. He reclines his seat so he can look up at me.
The moonlight illuminates one side of his face, the other deeply shadowed.
He’s always going to have two sides of him: the side that’s dark and vengeful. But also a side unearthly in its beauty.
I can feel Nero’s cock, already raging hard, pressing against me with too many layers of clothes between us.
I see myself reflected in his eyes. I see the longing radiating out of his face.
And finally, for the first time, I accept that Nero wants me as badly as I want him. He loves me like I love him.
I never realized how deeply certain insults had buried under my skin. I told myself I didn’t care what people said. But it was the compliments I deflected, while inside myself I clung to the belief that I was ugly, undesirable, and pathetic.
Now the most beautiful man in the world is looking at me with love and desire. And I realize it’s impossible that he could feel those things for me if I were truly undeserving.
If Nero and I are a perfect match—and I feel certain that we are—then I’m his equal. His analog.
It’s a strange realization to have, after all this time, but I finally believe it. I’m beautiful. I’m intelligent. I’m worthy of love.
“What is it?” Nero asks me.
I take a deep breath, my forehead pressed against his. I’m breathing in the scent of his skin, and his lips, just an inch away from mine. Taking in his breath—then giving it back to him again.
“I’m really, completely happy,” I tell him.
“So am I,” he says. “It’s weird, isn’t it?”
I laugh.
“Do you think that’s how other people feel all the time?”
“No,” he says, wrapping his arms around me and pulling me close. “I don’t think anyone has felt exactly like this.”
He kisses me again, with those full lips that spark a thousand sensations everywhere they land.
He pulls off the remains of my shirt, already cut to tatters and filthy with sweat and blood. He takes off my bra, too, letting my breasts spill into his hands. He traces their curves with his palms, brushing his fingertips over my nipples until they stiffen and throb under his touch.
He puts the palm of his hand in the center of my back and pulls me closer to him, so he can take my breast in his mouth. He sucks on my nipple, gently at first, then harder, so that my whole breast is aching with pleasure.
With his spare hand he massages my other breast, running his thumb down the muscle of my chest, then pinching and tugging on the nipple with just the right amount of pressure.
He always finds that perfect balance point between pleasure and pain—taking the sensation to its fullest intensity, without destroying the enjoyment beneath.
When it comes to sex, Nero has infinite patience. He spends ages just on my breasts, kneading and sucking and teasing them, until they reach their fullest erogenous potential. They become more sensitive than I ever would have thought possible. So aroused that I’m about to cum before he’s even touched anything else.
In fact, the moment he slides his hands down the front of my jeans, I start to climax. He still has my breast in his mouth. All he has to do is apply a little pressure to my clit, a few strokes with the flat of his fingers, and I tip over the edge. He sucks on my nipple and lets me grind against his hand. I feel that rush that flushes through my body—joy and satisfaction and release, all at once.
Nero raises his hand to his mouth and licks the taste of me off his fingers. Like an aperitif, it seems to ignite his hunger. He throws me down in the back seat and rips my jeans off, flinging them who knows where. He yanks my panties to the side and licks the length of my slit, flicking his tongue up under my still-throbbing clit.
I gasp and try to wriggle away, but he pins me down, thrusting his tongue all the way inside of me, then licking all over my pussy lips and clit. He’s ravenous for my taste. He drinks it down, coming back again and again for more.
My pussy is already swollen, thudding with each pulse of my heart. When he takes two fingers and slides them inside of me, I yell out, barely able to stand it.
He eases the intensity by lapping at my clit with his tongue. Then he slowly slides his fingers in and out, finding that sensitive spot on the inner wall, teasing it with his middle finger.
I feel like I’m possessed. My back is arching and I’m making all kinds of embarrassing sounds, but it’s impossible to care. He’s building up another climax, this one much stronger than the one that came before.
I’m squeezing around his fingers and grinding my pussy against his tongue, barely able to handle what I’m getting, but still wanting more and more.
He switches to gently sucking on my clit. I explode. I almost blackout for a minute, from the insane euphoria that bursts through my brain.
Nero is grinning with that wicked, devilish smile. Nothing pleases him more than playing my body like an instrument.
He climbs on top of me, thrusting his cock inside of me while my pussy is still burning from before.
“Oh my god,” he groans. He can feel how molten hot I am, soaking wet all the way down my thighs.
Nero’s cock is much bigger than his fingers. It fills every bit of space inside of me. In fact, with every thrust, it demands more room than exists. Like Nero himself, it straddles the edge of serious discomfort. And yet it’s intensely satisfying on a whole other level.
He kisses me tenderly. He fucks me roughly. He doesn’t give one good goddamn what he’s doing to the brand-new leather seats.
He slams into me harder and harder, as if he wants to take possession of me all over again, as if this is the only way he can exorcise that demon inside of him.
His breath quickens and I know he wants to let go.
But he won’t let himself do it, not until he’s wrung one more climax out of me.
He presses my body tightly against his, so my clit grinds against his abdomen as he thrusts into me. And sure enough, I feel one last orgasm building up, even though I’m already weak from the ones that came before.
Nero is full of strength. He does all the work, fucking me with relentless intensity. Until I turn my face into his neck and I scream out, as a final wave crashes over me.
Only then does he let himself cum, thrusting as deep as he can inside of me, and unleashing the load that he’s been holding back.
He cums so much that I can feel it running out of me, before he’s even pulled out. I would never say it out loud, but I’m wildly aroused by the volume he produces—the evidence of his virility, and his desire for me.
He collapses on top of me, our limbs tangled together.
I realize how cramped it is in the backseat. But I don’t care—in fact, I love it. I love how tightly we’re pressed together. I love the smell of the car and the scent of our skin, mixed together. I love the stars through the windows, and the silver glow on Nero’s skin.
He’s right—there’s never been another moment exactly like this one.
