“No,” she whispered, before he could move lower and kiss her feet with the same reverence with which he was worshipping the rest of her. “I’m not her. I’m not any of them,” she reminded him and then asked again, “Who am I, Tino?”
“I know who you are,” he said against the back of her other knee. “I would do anything for you, Bri. I would spend a lifetime in that basement for you.”
“I would never ask you to do that,” she said softly. “How many women did you let use you like this? You promised, Tino. You promised you wouldn’t let this happen.”
Tino lifted his head and pressed his face against the flat plain of her stomach. “Does it make it better if I pretended it was you?” he asked like he really didn’t know the answer, as if it was something he had asked himself a thousand times before.
“No.” She tried to fight the tears. “That doesn’t make it better at all. I hate her. I hate her more than anyone in this world, and I hate the Borgata for turning me into her.”
“You’re not her, Bri.” Tino licked at the dip in her belly button. “You could never be her. You could never be any of them.” Then, as he kissed her hip bone once more, he reminded her, “You made me a promise too.” His voice darkened with a thread of anger when he asked again, “Was last night the first time he hurt you?”
She bit her tongue rather than answer and finally had to concede they had both broken their promises. Who the hell was she to give him shit about unhealthy relationships?
So screw it. They could both be fucked-up.
She slipped out of his arms and fell to her knees next to him. The hard tile stung, but she ignored it as she reached out and cupped Tino’s face. “How do you like it?” she asked, not for the first time. “When you think about it? When you’re all alone? What do you think about?”
“With you?” He raised his eyebrows and looked down at her body once more. “I like it all.” His hand slid up her rib cage slowly, making goose bumps dance over her skin, his touch soft and torturous at the same time. “I wanna worship you one time and pull your hair the next.” He brushed his thumb over her nipple, making her suck in a hard breath. “I like all the flavors of Brianna. It’s the only thing I was ever really sure about. Needing you.”
She considered that for a moment, before she admitted, “Well, I like all the flavors of Tino. So I guess it doesn’t matter.”
“No, Bri, I know.” He tried to pull away, but she held on. “I’m still fucked-up. I’m probably more fucked-up. Miami fucked me up. You have no idea how much Miami fucked me up. It churned up a lotta old shit.”
“What do you want?” she asked rather than question him about Miami. She pulled Tino closer and pressed her forehead against his. “Right now. In this moment. What do you want? You want to bend me over and fuck me until I’m begging? Or do you want to stay here and lick me until your knees hurt? You choose. I want you to choose, baby. I’ll be any flavor of Brianna you want tonight.”
Tino’s breath caught. He cupped her face too, leaving the two of them clinging to each other, their foreheads pressed so close together that their hard breathing mingled over the thrum of water.
“I missed you.” Tino’s voice cracked with emotion. His eyes were glassy as Tino and Brianna stayed there, hidden from a life that wanted to hurt them both. The corner of that shower in West Virginia felt like the only safe place in the entire world, because it was just the two of them. He tucked a strand of wet hair behind her ear and admitted, “I just missed you. Missed you so fucking much. So much I don’t even know how I lasted four years. Sober. Jesus.”
She remembered that one moment where she wanted to let David choke the life out of her rather than keep living and sighed. “Ditto.”
Then they were kissing, with Tino’s tongue pushing past her lips and his fingers in her hair. There was nothing choreographed about any of it, when everything Tino did in the bedroom had always been about calculated seduction, too smooth, too perfect, too well trained, but this wasn’t that.
This was inelegant and needy, with shaking hands brushing over slick skin, and Brianna found herself in Tino’s lap, his hard cock trapped between their straining bodies as she pulled his hair too and arched into him.
He slid his fingers between her folds without warning, feeling for himself just how wet and needy she was. How desperately she had missed him. How easily he could make her ache. She might have been embarrassed if Tino didn’t groan against her lips. Then he let his head fall against the wall while he felt her, teasing her, making the shivers of pleasure dance down her spine as he got his fingers sticky with her desire as if he liked the feel of it.