I force myself to close my mouth as I stand there watching him grab my bag from the car and return to me, his disappointed face now replaced with a megawatt smile that reminds me of his fighting name.  Lady Killer.  If the name fits…

Inside, things cool down, which I’m grateful for.  Or, at the rate I was going on the street, I would have been in his bed within fifteen minutes of my arrival.  Nico picks me up and seats me on the kitchen island, so we can talk while he cooks.  Watching him breeze around his kitchen, I realize how sexy a man who knows his way around the kitchen can be.  There’s something instinctually alluring about a man who wants to take care of his woman.  Not that I’m the barefoot-and-pregnant-in-the-kitchen-type of woman.  But this is different.  An almost natural role that he takes in our relationship and I find that I like to be taken care of.  It’s something I have never allowed anyone to do before.

Nico

I need to slow things down.  I almost took her on the street for fuck’s sake.  I feel like I’m stuck in a bad movie, with a little devil sitting on one shoulder and an angel on the other.  But the goddamn devil is twice the size and my angel is a fucking mute.  Great, I have a fucking mute angel.

She looks so cute up on the counter, I get the urge to bring her with me wherever I go and just plop her up on a pedestal near me.  But as I grab a bottle of water out of the refrigerator, I see her reflection in the stainless steel.  She crosses and recrosses her legs and I catch a glimpse of the top of her thigh for a split second.  Damn it, I can feel myself starting to get hard from a damn reflection of a thigh.  Freakin mute angel.  Think thoughts of my grandmother.  Grandmother Ellen.  Ellen, hey that’s just Elle with an n.  Elle’s legs.  Shit this isn’t working.

“That smells good.  What are you making?”  I turn my head to respond to her, but it takes a minute for her question to catch up to my brain.

Not half as good as you smell.  I’d like to eat you instead.  “Couscous.”

“You make couscous?”

“Well it doesn’t taste good straight from the box.”

“Cute.”  She smirks at me.  Even her smirk turns me on.  “What’s in it?”

“Garlic, olive oil, peppers, onions, parsley…”

Elle jumps down from the counter.  I had put her there to keep her at a distance.  She doesn’t realize what she does to me every time she comes near me.

“Can I help?”  Her arm brushes against mine as she comes to stand next to me at the counter.  She leans down over the pan where the ingredients are sautéing and her eyes close as she breathes in the aroma.  Clearly, she appreciates the smell.  Her face softens and her cheeks go slack as her nose delivers the scent to her brain.  It’s the most erotic thing I’ve ever seen.  She needs to get back up on that fucking counter.

Elle

Nico lifts me as if I am nothing but a doll and seats me back on the counter.  It’s the second time he’s moved me out of the way.  The man sure is territorial about his kitchen when he cooks, oddly, I find it sexy.  The inside of his hand brushes the curve of my breast each time he lifts me and I have to recross my legs and squeeze my thighs shut to keep my body from responding to him.

“I’ve seen you cook, remember?  I think I’ll do this one on my own.”  He grins at me.  A cocky smile that should annoy me.  But instead I find myself mirroring his smile.  I’m smiling back at him after he just insulted me.  The man makes me lose all my common sense.

Dinner is delicious.  We get to know each other a little more.  I tell him about my job, my volunteer work at the battered women’s clinic, and a few things about my childhood.  I skip between the ages of eleven and seventeen.  They don’t exist to me anymore.  Nico tells me about his gym and some of the other products he endorses and I’m impressed by how much he seems to know about the products.  Clearly he doesn’t endorse something unless he uses it and feels strongly about it.  Unlike many athletes that endorse one product and use another, money doesn’t seem to buy his endorsement.

After dinner, I tell him to go relax and let me clean up.  He doesn’t listen, so instead we do it together.  It feels natural and comfortable to clean up his kitchen.  We work together easily, without effort…like we’ve done it a thousand times before.  It’s not the first time I’ve gotten that feeling when I’m with Nico.  Sometimes I feel as though I’ve known him a lot longer than I have.  Oddly familiar, yet it’s all new and exciting at the same time.

My heartbeat picks up as Nico pours me a glass of wine and dims the lights in the kitchen.  With dinner out of the way, there’s nothing left to occupy our time.  Except what I think we’re both anticipating will happen.  We haven’t known each other that long, yet I feel like I’ve been anticipating this night forever.  Since the day he walked into my office.

He takes my hand and leads me to the couch.  Nico looks up at me and his cocky grin is gone, replaced by something that I didn’t expect to see written on his face.  He looks worried.  He exhales loudly, forcing out a deep breath I didn’t realize he was holding, and his hands run through his hair nervously.  It feels like he’s mentally preparing himself to tell me something.  To deliver bad news.  My stomach lurches at the thought.

“Have you ever been to a fight?”  The loft is quiet and his voice is so low it sounds almost pained.

“You mean an MMA fight?”

“Yes.”  He waits quietly for my response.

“Once.”

Nico’s eyebrows shoot up.  He’s surprised that I’ve been to a fight.  I grin at him.  He’s right to be surprised, I still can’t believe I got conned into going.  I haven’t told him that I was at one of his fights.  Especially not the one that I saw.   He smiles back at me, but then his face falls again before he continues.

“Who was fighting?”

“You.”  It’s not like the subject has come up in our conversation and I lied to him, yet I feel like I’ve done something wrong for not mentioning that I was at a fight.  That fight.

My answer takes him my surprise.  “You’ve seen me fight?”

“Once.”

“Which fight?”

“I don’t remember the other guy’s name.”  I should remember, I remember everything.  But I’m not lying when I respond.  I’ve blocked the whole thing from my memory so well that I actually don’t remember.  I’m good at doing that.  Luckily, my brain goes into protective mode sometimes.

“Did I win?”  I see a hint of his cocky smile.  He must have always won.

“Yes.”  I smile.

“Did he tap out or was it a decision?”

“Ummm.”  I have no idea how to respond to the question.  Nico probably thinks I don’t know what tap out means.  But I do.  Only in that fight, his opponent didn’t tap out and there was no need for a decision.

“What round did I win in?”

“I think it was the second.”

I watch as his face changes.   His eyes close as he realizes which fight I saw.   His handsome face is pained and I’m not sure if it’s the memory of that night or if it’s because I’ve just told him I was there.  I say nothing because I’m not sure what to say.  I only know that seeing him in pain hurts me.  Physically.

I reach out and take both of his hands into my hands and gently squeeze, imploring him to look at me.  He doesn’t move for a long moment.  His head still bowed down, he eventually looks up at me.  What I see breaks my heart.  Raw pain in his eyes and sadness etched on his face.

“You know.”  His voice is strained and I get the urge to make it better.  Make him better.  Make him forget the memory that causes him so much pain.  Sometimes it can be unbearable, I know all too well.  All those years I had no one to help me forget.