Page 125 of Tracking Luxe

“Please. I can’t leave you here. I have money, I can give them money. The risk is worth it. I won’t leave without you. I’ll get more money. Anything they want. I’ll steal for them.”

“Are you crazy?Your lifeis at stake here. I’m not chancing that for fucking anything.” His words hushed and weak, his growled intent clear. His big chest heaved and he let the inhale out slowly, she felt branded by his gaze. “Love, you have to and you will.” His arms must be so sore, she wanted to rub his muscles, she wanted to tend to every cut and welt, her fingers reached out to touch and paused, not knowing where he wasn’t hurting, she wouldn’t make it worse. “Touch me.” He croaked.

She laid her hand on his neck, his pulse was rapid and he angled his head to somehow stroke his blood soaked bearded against her wrist. “Nathan, I’m so sorry. If I’d known this would happen. I should have stayed away from you, never asked you to---.”

“No.” he growled. “Never that.You’re mine. I don’t regret a fucking thing.” Eyes like steel held hers and that choking emotion crawled into her throat, her knees shuffling an inch closer, all too aware of the men behind her listening and waiting.

They’d played it well, she thought. Since Nathan wasn’t denying who she was to him, oh, though he’d tried to distance her from him, that big dummy trying to protect her, she’d gotten so angry he didn’t claim her as his. Irrational anger for them being a team no matter what.

“I forgive you. I forgive you. It’s what brought us together,Sí? So please don’t die, okay?” feelings landed like hard rock in her throat.

He smiled at her so stunning she leaned forward and pressed their foreheads together.

It felt like goodbye.

And that just killed her.

“You mean it?” He asked. He smiled as though they weren’t buried in risk, instead sitting on his couch at home. She stroked his blood-soaked face, using the hem of her shirt she tried to stem the harsh cut over his eyebrow that was causing the flow down his face.

Why had she waited? She should have told him weeks ago it was forgotten, that there was nothing to forgive, that she was so inherently grateful he’d done what he had, because it meanthewas in her life.

And she hadn’t felt truly alive until that moment.

How he got there was just inconsequential details and now it appeared too late to tell him. She’d held out, every time he’d askedDo you forgive me yet, Luxe? She’d held him off with a teasing smile and a sassy tongue.Not yet, kidnapper.

Dios, why didn’t she tell him sooner?

“There’s nothing to forgive, Nathan, there never was. Por favor…” she didn’t know what she was pleading for, only she did it fervidly. Her man so bruised, his one good eye barely able to open.

“You just make sure you get to my club, okay? Don’t think about me.”

Aching, like he’d hit her, she pulled back. “How can you say that?”

“I mean it. The second you get outside you don’t look back. I need you to get to the compound, can you do that? The boys will make sure you’re safe. And I want you to tell Rider,” dropping his head, she met him halfway and listened to his whispered message. Then he asked. “Is your car here?” She shook her head. They’d piled her into a blacked-out vehicle almost before she’d even stepped out of hers at the liquor store.

“We’re not far from the main road, far as I could tell. They’re going to let you walk out of here, I’ll make sure of it.”

“But----”

“Just head south until you can find a cab, okay? You don’t turn back, Luxe. I mean it. I’m handling this.” A mixture of impatience and dread and indignation blazed from her eyes, oh she felt it in her belly, too. It went beyond her to ever let a man, letanyone, handle her trouble and she was about to tell him so, they were in this mess together,because of her, she wasn’t about to throw him to the wolves to be eaten while she happily flagged down a cab and went about her life. No way.

But then.

“Please, Luxe. I will go mad if you’re not safe.” His sigh gusted against her face and she wilted, shoulders dropping, anger fading. She’d do anything for him.

“Wrap it up,comrade. We have much to discuss.” Grigori called out.

“A fucking minute.” Hissed Nathan. She had to give him his due, he didn’t show fear at all to the intimidating man.

Underneath the metallic scent of blood was his lingering cologne and the smell she knew was uniquely Nathan, a smell she was addicted to. She had to tell him, before it was too late. Something to make him live, to come back to her. “Nathan … I lo-----”

His eye pinned her. And he spoke louder than they had been. “Not here, baby. Not here, you don’t give me them here. You save those for me when I see you again.”

“Nathan….” emotion so strong swelled until she couldn’t say another thing. Nuzzling any part of his face that wasn’t battered, she clutched his shirt front and tried hard not to bawl her fucking eyes out. What could she do? She was a thief, not a thug, and no match for a whole tribe of mafia.

But this was her man.Her man. She had to do something. She was sick at the thought of leaving him chained and abused. These men didn’t care a dot about Nathan, whether he lived or he died. They could snuff out his life and go about their daily business and not care. Whereas Luxe would cease living without him.

“I’m going to get your boys to kill these bastards.” She murmured to him in Spanish hoping he understood. “And I love you, fuck them, I’ll say it whenever I want because those words areours, Nathan. You’ve beeneverythingto me, you are what happiness was made for, so it’s going to work out, it has to, I can’t live in a world where you aren’t here. I gave you little pieces of me and now you have all of me, so you have to be okay, because without you I won’t be okay.”

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