Page 118 of Nash

I’m not worried about our security. It’s tight.

It’s me I worry about. I’m a cyclone of love, lust, rage, and primal possession. A different emotion storms my veins every hour.

When I watch Vale laughing with Wren in Sire’s kitchen, I feel love. Vale looks happy and free.

When I hear Sire fucking Wren in their shower, his taboo taunts make lust scorch through my veins. Sire makes sure we hear them. It makes me fuck Vale for the second or third time in a night.

Then rage seizes me, watching Sire or Jace smile at Vale. How each brother silently adores my new queen.

Yes, they said this would happen a long time ago—the day I killed Chad. But they didn’t have to wrestle with my guilt over my daughter finding out. It took time for me to confront it.

Hell, I still feel it. Not guilty for loving Vale. It’s guilt for how she needs my protection now. I’ve made her the ultimate bait for Turner, as my daughter always has been. I’ll do anything to keep them safe.

I climb to the third floor of Delta’s, with the demonstration room on my right and our new meeting room on my left.

The juxtaposition of the open ivory door, where select customers are invited to watch how the sex furniture and toys can be enjoyed, is set against the closed door at the opposite end of the dark hall.

It only makes our locked, black door with its gold doorknob and keyhole more tempting, more forbidden.

Will Vale pass the test tonight?

Better question. Will I?

Past that gilded, black door, I can see my future with Vale. I just can’t see the next week or the next month. With all the secrets I hide, I’m not sure we’ll get there.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

VALE

I won’t be lyingto Stacey. Delta’s really is dead tonight. A summer storm cracked the sky outside, sending people scurrying home.

Jace turns out the lights on the porches, indicating we’re closed. Then he works on his laptop, switching the camera footage from live to pre-recorded.

If Stacey ever checks, she’ll see that her beloved shop is empty and secure—which it sort of is with the team of men guarding it.

I should’ve known Nash and his brothers have a small army they employ. If they trust them, I do, too. Besides, I’m too excited about tonight.

Nash fed me an early dinner of cheeseburgers, then left. “I’ll be back in a couple of hours,” he promised before a long kiss. “Be ready for me.”

Ready?

I make a thoroughbred in the starting gate at the Kentucky Derby look sedate.

I don’t care what the test is tonight; I’ll pass it.

I want a life and love like Sire and Wren have. Their love is as taboo as the love Nash and I share, and it makes them beautiful together. How they’re too in love to care.

I’m not sure who the other kings and queens are, but I’ve never felt so powerful, so accepted, and so adored, and I’m not even officially a queen yet.

Eagerly, I get ready in the ensuite bathroom of a bedroom-turned-boudoir photography studio on the second floor. Drying my hair before braiding it, I swipe on my makeup, too.

When I emerge in my robe, I laugh, finding what Nash must have had Jace leave for me to wear on an ivory velvet chaise.

Of course, he did.

Nash chose a Fleur du Mal collared bodysuit for me tonight. With a white collar, a solid black bodice, a see-through black dotted tulle neckline and long sleeves, it’s demure for lingerie. If you wear it as a bodysuit with pants, it’s almost street fashion. I chose it for Delta’s to sell.

But I roll my eyes, grinning, because Nash chose it to cover me. My Mary Janes are here, along with black, opaque thigh highs. All that will be exposed of me is all that’s his.

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