He was muttering softly in a foreign language that didn’t sound foreign to him at all and beneath the black ink that covered his pretty gold skin I could see mottled bruises along his ribs and across his shoulders. The tattoo was startling in its detail and size, but it was the man under it that made my mouth dry and my hands start to shake. I must have made a noise because he turned around from the sink and let his molten gaze drift over me as I stared at him dumbly.
His collarbone had a fist-size black-and-blue mark on it and there was a really ugly splotch of purple that sat right above his pants on one side. Underneath his fancy clothes he looked just as rough and beaten as the rest of us did. I moved forward when I noticed that his hands weren’t only wet with water but also pink with blood.
“Were you fighting?” I knew he had been since Reeve told me so, but I couldn’t imagine he had gone and found a fight in the few hours we had been separated.
I didn’t even notice Chuck had made a silent exit as I grabbed Nassir’s damp hands in my own. The skin was abraded and rubbed raw. It looked like he had taken a tumble off a bicycle and caught himself on asphalt.
As I was standing this close to him, with him being half dressed, the heat that popped off of him and hit me was almost enough to make my knees buckle. My devil was hot and he knew it. I could see the way my reaction to such a simple touch pleased him.
“These aren’t from a fight. One of the shelves fell over in the cooler. I had to dive out of the way.” His long fingers curled over so that he was holding my hands on top of his own. “The bruises, though . . . they are from a fight here or there.”
My pulse kicked and I was sure he could feel it because his fingers tightened fractionally. I could tell how badly he wanted to curl his fingers around mine and pull me closer to him.
“Why were you fighting?” I wanted to hear him say he was sorry, that he felt bad for sending that homeless man to scare me. I wanted him to admit he was wrong and that he had purposely let himself take those bursting blows, hurting himself on the outside because he wasn’t the kind of man that would ever admit he hurt on the inside for the mistakes he had made.
One of his raven-colored brows arched up and the corner of his lush mouth tilted up in a grin that actually hurt me to look at.
“Because you weren’t here.” That was as much of an apology and an explanation as I would ever get from him. So simple yet so unbelievably complicated. Everything with this man always was.
I pulled my hands off of his and took a step closer to him. When I was almost nose to nose with him, I reached out and touched the nasty spot right above his waist. I saw his abs constrict at the featherlight touch and it made me grin. His injured hands curled into fists at his sides.
“Well, I’m here now, so no more fighting to go along with the no touching.”
I watched his jaw clench and his eyes light up at the center like a hot ember.
“We’ve been fighting against each other for years, Key. Are you going to stop? Are you ever going to let one of us win?” I pressed so close to him that he had to suck in a breath and lean against the counter to stay upright and support my weight without putting his hands on me.
“It hasn’t been fighting, Nassir. It’s been foreplay.”
He wouldn’t touch me, but I sure as hell was going to touch him. My lips touched his and I felt him suck in a breath so hard that it stole the air from my lungs. I felt his muscles tense up and in my head I added a check box next to my name for this small victory . . . that is, until he somehow maneuvered me around so that my back was to the counter, our bodies pressed together and perfectly aligned, my hands in his too long hair and his tongue in my mouth, all without laying a finger on me.
Chapter 6
Nassir
The second her lips touched mine I knew the years of waiting, of wanting, had been worth it.
I could die a happy man, a fulfilled man, a man that accomplished all he had ever set out to do. This tiny kiss, that little taste of her, was more of a victory than surviving anything in my youth or adulthood had been. She was my endgame. She was what had given my life meaning, and now she was breathing that very essence back into me and it felt perfect. She was everything.
My hands ached to touch her. My fingers twitched so hard they hurt as I latched them on to the edge of the marble counter behind her. I settled my hips into hers so that there was no mistaking what was happening between us. My dick throbbed, my heart pounded, and all I could do was brush my lips over hers and beg her to let me inside.
She wanted to control me. She wanted to call the shots and make the moves so this game was hers to win, but I stopped playing with her the instant she took a bullet and nearly bled out in my arms. I wanted her forever, on my terms, and I knew the only way to make that happen was to make her want to surrender. She had to give herself up to me and to the kind of life I could offer her. I knew she didn’t want to belong to me, but she did. I could tell by the way her hands shook when she plowed them into my hair and by the way she whimpered when she opened up to let me inside the warm cavern of her mouth. I felt her nipples peak against my bare chest and the tremor in her long legs as I forced a knee between them. I might not be able to touch but I sure as fuck could feel her. Taking away one sense had heightened the others to the point of almost painful sharpness.
It was more than a kiss. It was so much bigger than her challenging me. It was the start of something that had been simmering under the surface for years. The seeds had always existed in the ground, tiny and immature, and this kiss, this simple touch of the tip of my tongue to hers, was the rain they needed in order to grow. The way she pulled at me, the way she moved her hips restlessly against the insistent bulge in my pants as it pressed into her, was the sun that those tiny bits of nothing needed to flourish. It was the best goddamn foreplay that had ever existed.
I twisted my tongue around hers. I tasted every part of her I could, and as I leaned in closer, my hands began hurting with the effort it was taking to keep them off of her skin. It had been a long time coming, this first volley between us, and it was everything I had ever hoped for where this tricky, stubborn woman was concerned. She didn’t stand still and let me kiss her, she kissed me back with everything she had, and soon our lips and tongues were engaged in an aroused battle and I swallowed down a moan as her teeth roughly abraded my bottom lip. I could have her but she was going to make me fight for it.
The kiss lasted for what felt like an eternity, and I only pulled back when my lungs started to scream that they needed air. I felt hot. I was beyond turned on, and as much as I wanted to drag her off to bed or hoist her up on the counter and make a space for myself between her legs, I knew that I couldn’t do that. I wanted all the parts of her that made her match me in so many ways, not just her body.
I pushed off the counter and shoved my hands through my hair as I struggled to catch my breath. I watched her as she rubbed her thumb across her damp and swollen lips and smirked up at me in seductive victory.
“How bad do you want to put your hands on me right now, Nassir?” The taunt had no heat behind it because she knew I wanted it more than I wanted to live.
I blew out a breath and took a second to shift my focus off of her heaving chest and onto her light-colored eyes. The tempest that was always raging in the center of those gray depths had calmed and instead was sharpened and honed on me like a weapon. She knew just how easy it was to get to me and she was going to exploit this knowledge every chance she got. She wanted something, wanted me to understand why she was here now, why she was letting this happen between us finally. I considered myself a man of above-average intelligence. I wasn’t a genius like my business partner but there wasn’t much that slipped by me. Whatever was behind her change of heart and return home was as much a mystery to me as how my mother had been able to sell her only child out to the highest bidder.
“I’ve wanted to put my hands on you since the very beginning, but once they’re there they’re never coming
off. You’re going to have to ask me, Key. You’re going to have to make me believe that you understand what it means when you ask me to touch you.”
She scoffed at me but I could see my words made her uneasy. “What does it mean?”
I narrowed my eyes the slightest bit and exhaled slowly. She made it hard to breathe in the best way. “It means forever.”
Something that looked like fear flashed across her gaze and the angry storm was back swirling at the center. “Forever doesn’t seem to last very long in the Point.”
“Forever is what you make of it.” Forever could be a lifetime trying to right a wrong and wasting a life because you were filled with vengeance and hate, or it could be a youth wasted because of other people’s ideals and beliefs. It could be a single second with the right person or an eternity lost chasing the wrong one.
She rolled her eyes at me and scooted around to where I was standing in the center of the kitchen. “This is going to end so badly between us, Nassir. You’re going to have to share everything you’ve pillaged and plundered over the years and you’re going to hate me for it. I want to get my hands on all of your shiny toys.”
I lifted an eyebrow at her.
“Thinking about it ending in any way, shape, or form means you’re admitting something finally started, and that’s all I care about. I can learn to share, Key.” It might take some time. I was used to be being greedy and selfish with my things and with my time.
She tucked the longer part of her hair back behind her ear and muttered, “I’ll believe it when I see it, Gates.” Her eyes darted around the kitchen and landed on the massive double doors that led to the back deck that virtually hung off the side of the mountain we were perched on. “Why do you live in a cabin out in the middle of the woods? I mean it’s obviously more than a cabin, but seriously? A log house in the sticks? What’s up with that?”
I turned my back on her and walked to the fridge to get a bottle of water. “It’s the last place on earth anyone would ever look for me. Kind of like you in that diner.” And that was the God’s honest truth. “I have a suite built into the back of my office in the club so I can stay in the city if I need to, but this is home.”
“It’s beautiful, but not what I expected.”
I thought the same thing about her time and time again. “Make yourself at home. Bayla keeps the pantry stocked, and the rest of your stuff including your car will be here in a few days. If you need anything in the meantime, just ask.”
Her eyes snapped back to mine and I saw a pink stain start to spread across her high cheekbones.
“She lives here with you?”
It took me a second to understand who the “she” was that Key was talking about.
“Bayla? No. I live alone, but I work a lot and keep odd hours. This is a big house, so someone needs to look after it. She comes and goes as she pleases.” I wondered if the heat I had seen on her face could be attributed to jealousy. That idea made my dick even harder than it already was. “Why?”
I would rather have all my teeth yanked out of my face with rusty pliers than tell her that Bayla had indeed been in my bed more often than not. Key was no fool, so she knew I had spent lots and lots of time with beautiful women over the years, but having the evidence of that right in front of her while I was trying to tie her to me with unbreakable chains wasn’t in my best interests.
“Don’t be ridiculous. I have watched you fuck your way through every pretty girl that happened across your path for years. You might’ve had your attention on them from time to time, but you were always looking at me.” It was arrogant and made her sound so sure of herself, but she wasn’t wrong, so I didn’t argue.
“I not only looked at you, I always saw you.” And I had. I saw the young girl scared but determined to take her clothes off so she could have something more later on down the line. I saw the young woman coming into her own as she realized she could use her looks and her body to rule her world and to control the people around her. I watched the woman she was now, back where she belonged and ready to usher her broken city into something new, something fierce and formidable.
She cocked her head to the side and regarded me solemnly for a long, quiet minute. “I’ve always seen you too, Nassir. I know who you really are.”
I wanted to laugh. No, she didn’t. No one did, not even Chuck, and he had almost all the gory details of my past festering and seething somewhere in his memory bank.
“Who am I, Key? Who do you really think I am?” The words sounded harsh and rumbled out from a place deep inside of my soul. Maybe if she could answer that question, I could finally have some peace. Maybe I could forget the horrible things I had done and the horrible things I was bound to keep on doing to keep my throne.
Calmly and totally serious she told me, “You’re the opposite of a good man, Nassir, but that doesn’t mean you aren’t my man.” Her stormy eyes flashed at me. “You’re my man, and my devil . . . it depends on the day.”
I didn’t get a chance to respond because she turned on her heel and glided out of the kitchen. Even if I had had time to fire something back at her, I wasn’t sure there was anything to say. She was right. I was the devil. I made bargains for souls that weren’t mine and I played with fire every single time I stepped foot in the Point. Sins and vices were my playthings and punishment was second nature to me. Suffering felt like old hat and I was pretty sure any soul I might still have left after the life I had led before was now tainted with so much soot and blackness that there was no way it could ever come clean. She saw that part of me and she was still here.
She also saw the part of me that was reserved for her and her alone. The part of me that wanted to protect the innocent, that wanted to give the untouched and the unforgiven a fighting chance. She saw the part of me that still managed to care even though it had never known kindness or softness. It was the part of me she awakened when she looked up at me from the stage when she was just a kid.
I tossed the empty bottle in the recycle bin, scooped up my dirty shirt, and headed out toward the main part of the house. The guest rooms were upstairs on one side of the expansive sprawl and the master was on the other. I had some numbers to run before opening day and I was still waiting on a call from Chuck about whoever had been careless in the cooler earlier, but I was tired. Going head-to-head with Key and the sexual tension still humming in my blood made me feel lethargic.
I was surprised to see Bayla sitting on my white leather couch when I entered the living room. She was quiet and very discreet, which is why I kept her around. She was also very nice to look at and sucked cock like a champ, which had just been a side benefit of bringing her on before I knew Keelyn was going to be under the same roof. She typically knew when to make herself scarce, so I figured her appearance had to do with the woman that was back and determined to turn my entire world end over end.
“Why are you still here?”
The younger woman lifted her dark eyebrows and rose in an elegant motion off the couch. She walked toward me and took the shirt I was still holding out of my hands. I had sacrificed more than one really nice garment to the blood and grime that infiltrated my day-to-day, but this one was still salvageable.
“I’ll drop this off at the cleaners for you on my way back into town. How long should I expect your guest to be staying?”
My jaw clenched, and I almost tugged the shirt back out of her hands. I didn’t like being questioned about anything, and as far as Keelyn was concerned, I wasn’t going to try to explain that situation to anyone.
“For as long as she wants. Her stuff will be here tomorrow, and she better feel welcome. Do you hear what I am saying to you, Bayla?”
She had never struck me as jealous or proprietary before. Other women had come and gone on her watch, but Key was the first who was allowed to stay.
“I understand perfectly, Nassir. You like to pretend to be made of stone and ice, but you cannot stop yourself from trying to save tragic women. I have seen that firsthand.
”
They weren’t tragic, they were innocent. When I had the means to offer someone the chance to save themselves, I never let it pass. I knew all about being on someone else’s leash and coming to heel for a master I never wanted to serve, so I couldn’t stop myself from offering the innocent a way out whenever I could. All of the people that worked for me knew there was a way out, there was no contract or intimidation, and I held that up as especially important for the women that worked for me. If they didn’t want to dance, if they tired of selling sex, I made sure they had an escape route, and I always did my very best to make sure I had a spot for them in one of the less “objectifying” areas of my business. Few took me up on it. Selling sex was easy, and with me to keep them safe and vet their clients, the women that worked for me often did so without much thought to the future. I’d offered Key more than one exit strategy over the years, but the woman was determined to save herself. She was as far from tragic as they came, and that was one of the primary reasons I could never get her out of my system.
“I’m not trying to save anyone.” In fact, whenever I looked into those cloudy gray eyes, it felt like she was the one trying to save me.
Bayla’s dark eyes shifted away from my probing gaze and I saw her hands twisting in the expensive fabric of the shirt she had commandeered.
“She must be very special.” Her voice was quiet as she turned on her heel and headed toward the front door. “I’ll see you sometime tomorrow. Let me know if you have any specific instructions now that you have a permanent guest.”
The front door clicked closed behind her and I sighed. Bayla’s possessiveness was not a complication or headache I needed to deal with on top of getting the club opened up, and getting Key into my bed. It would be bothersome and time-consuming to find someone else to take care of the house, and I had no doubt that if I kicked her out of her current role, Bayla would end up back on the streets selling herself for money. I didn’t want that to be the outcome because she was a good housekeeper and a decent woman, but I wasn’t going to let anyone or anything stand in the way of getting what I had wanted for so long.