Page 120 of Nash

“I’m so sorry,” I murmur, feeling tears prick at my eyes. With each passing day, I’m growing to love Nadine, too. Any girl, woman, or mother who’s survived what she has would make you drop to your knees in veneration.

I survived a night.

Nadine survived a decade.

“So,” Jace reaches for my fingers, holding them lightly like a gentleman, not a lover. “It will be an honor to be your second king. Yes, we can be beasts; I won’t lie and say we don’t relish that part. But other times, we’re men honoring where we came from. We honor our queens.”

“Aw, shucks.” I punch his arm. “Ouch!” I shake my shocked hand. “What are you packing under that suit? Teflon muscles?”

“All the better to fuck someone up with,” he teases.

“Fuckwhoup?” A voice calls down the hallway to the back door.

It’s Nash.

How long has he been standing there?

He’s stoic except for his huffing bare chest, his abs flexing with ire. The blood splatters on his creased khaki pants are an odd contrast as I realize it’s not me and Jace making him seethe. It’s whatever he and Grant just did to Turner’s man.

“Poison,” he snarls. “Take your robe off.”

With a yank of the knot, I let it fall from my shoulders, pooling at my feet. I’m not afraid to be exposed to Jace, too.

“Come here,” Nash beckons with a finger caked in dry blood.

I don’t hesitate. I don’t snark. “Yes, my king,” I answer.

Standing in Nash’s shadow, I smell his sexy deodorant, wafts of coppery blood hitting my senses, too.

Without a word, Nash reaches into his pocket, pulling out a wide strip of fabric. It looks like a piece of a grey T-shirt, splatters of blood adorning it, too.

“This is from the man who thought he could take you from me today,” Nash glowers. “I carved your nickname on his back and left his balls in a very humbling position.”

With his bloody finger, he lifts my chin. The man I love is in his eyes, but the beast has taken his body. It’s covered in the evidence of the violence he’ll commit protecting me, protecting anyone he loves.

“Vale, do you want this life?” he tempts. “Do you want this man and beast because you have to love both?”

I’m shocked and aroused by what Nash did for me … again … because if that man had takenme, I’d be the one bound and bloody.

“Yes, my king.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

VALE

Nash tiesthe strip in a blindfold over my eyes. I can smell his victim’s sweat on it.

I gasp as Nash lifts me in his arms. Draped over them, I wrap mine around his neck as he carries me up two flights. At the top of the stairs, I sense him turning right toward the demonstration room, and I stifle my disappointment we didn’t turn left toward the secret meeting room.

“That’s for your initiation.” He reads my mind. “Tonight? We test you in here.”

In a fast movement, Nash shifts me, his hands cupping my ass, as I sense him walking me back before carefully setting me down. The surface is cool and pillowy, sagging a bit at my weight.

The sex swing.

It’s not a cheap one made of thin straps. It’s a high-end swing made for ultimate comfort. It has a small black swinging bed, fluffy loops for feet or thighs, and a trapeze bar to grab, all dangling from the ceiling on a suspension chain.

I’ve never used it. But Stacey and her husbands crave showing customers how much they love it and each other.

---