Page 5 of Nash

CHAPTER ONE

NASH

Six years later

Three times,a black Mercedes has crept by.

I’ve counted.

I always count.

They’ve done it over the past thirty minutes. They make it obvious they know I’m in here.

Watching them from the shadows of an arched window above Meeting Street, I unbutton my starched shirt. It reeks of perfume, sweat, and sex. Sex with seven men and one woman. The aroma is distinct. Taboo. Beastial.

And I savor it on rare occasions.

“We have friends.” I give the intel.

“And we have a screamer,” Axel replies.

He doesn’t care. He knows we’re covered. He reclines in a black leather executive chair behind his mahogany desk. The lamps in his law office are off. The light glowing from the dusk and gas lamps outside is enough to see how he’s amused, and I’m annoyed.

We’re done here.

I need to go home while the screams of the woman in the boardroom next door fill the otherwise empty office.

“He’s cleaning her,” I say, doing the same, wiping the sweat off my chest with my soiled shirt before tossing it aside. “He gets off on it.”

“By the sound of it,” Axel smirks, “so does she.”

“She’s barely twenty.”

He shrugs. “She’s his now; that makes herours,too.”

He makes it sound natural, and I shake my head.

Yes, it feels permanent now. I feel a bond after what we’ve done with her. I’ll always protect her, too, but … it’s not natural.

Reaching into my cognac leather duffel resting on a side table, I grab a fresh, black golf shirt. Tugging it down my torso, I fasten the buttons at the top. The familiar strangle around my throat conceals me; I count on it, smoothing away wrinkles in my shirt before dropping my dress pants and kicking them away.

We never wear boxers or briefs for this. Our pants stay on while we drag our zippers down. So now my black Brooks Brothers trousers reek. Like a wolf, I can smell the seed of men and a woman’s arousal on them; it’s a maddening skill.

“We need a safer place for this,” Axel says what I’ve warned for years.

Like tonight, ourmeetingsget loud. Booming voices, raucous laughter, tell-tale creaking wood, screams of lust, and grunts like beasts; we sound like the animals we are.

It’s risky. We can draw too much attention, and that’s the last thing we want. We’re trained to hide in plain sight.

“I think I found one,” I say, sliding on the khakis I plucked from my bag; their neat front crease is not my style and exactly what I intend. Toeing on loafers I hate, I slide glasses from a case, pressing their thick, black frames over the bridge of my nose and securing the disguise.

“A place?” Axel asks. “Where?” He’s skeptical. He knows every property in Charleston.

“The old Bonneau mansion.”

Axel cocks a brow. “You mean Delta’s, the sex shop?” He cocks a knowing grin, too. “Where you’ve been working for yourdaughter’sbest friend?”

Secrets don’t exist between us. It’s in his tone.

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