29. Nash
29
NASH
“ E lena.”
She shakes her head. “No. You don’t understand, Nash. I have to be detached to go through with what I must do to save Pearl. I can’t react with revulsion when Manuel touches me, he almost caught me in the bedroom.”
“Elena,” I say her name again as I step forward.
“Please, Nash,” she pleads with me. “I’m not supposed to have a heart.”
I reach out and pull her to me, she bumps off my chest. “My heart has been a stone for a long time, too. The thought of those men touching you drove me crazy last night.” Her brows pull together. “I feel like murdering every last one of them for touching you.”
“Do I repulse you?” she asks me.
“What?”
“Knowing all those men fucked me, last night, does that repulse you?” she pushes.
“I’m not happy about it, but I know in that moment it’s not you,” I say, cupping her face. “That you are someone else in that situation.”
“I’m tired of being someone else,” she confesses as her shoulders slump.
“Who do you want to be?” I ask her, my thumb running over her cheek.
“Yours.” I wasn’t expecting that answer. “Too soon?”
“I don’t know,” I tell her honestly, “but what I do know is you’re not alone in it.”
“I’m not?”
I shake my head. “You have gotten under my skin from the moment you arrived. And once I got a taste, I realized what was missing in my life.”
“What’s that?”
“You,” I confess as I bend down and kiss her ever so gently.
“It’s only been a couple of weeks …” she murmurs as she continues to kiss me.
“I know.”
“You might get sick of me.”
“I probably will. You can be annoying.” I grin as I continue to pepper her lips with kisses. “And you’ll probably attempt to kill me a couple more times,” I add.
She smirks. “Yeah, probably.”
“Seems like a match to me.” I grin.
“Does that mean you will come back to Ibiza with me?” she asks. I can see the hope in her eyes, and it makes my stomach flip flop. Who the hell am I?
“Until the dust settles, yeah, it might be for the best.”
“What about your bar?”
I’ve been thinking about it since all this started. “Jose can have it, run it.”
“Won’t they come for him?” she asks with concern.
“No.” A frown forms on her face. “Pedro owes him, and he won’t allow anyone to touch Jose.”
“What did he do?” she asks in a hushed tone.
“Saved his life. And from that moment on, Jose and his family have been safe,” I explain.
“Wouldn’t that include you?” she asks.
“No. I’m not direct family.” Elena nods. “For the welfare of the bar, it’s his. He will keep it safe.”
“But you said you used your life savings to put that bar together.” I shrug. I did. “You can’t give that up for me.”
“Don’t worry about that. Come, let’s have a nice day just the two of us.” I don’t think she is going to relent but she does.
“Okay.”
I lean down and kiss her one last time before turning her around and smacking her ass, making her yelp. “Good, now get ready while I finish packing us a picnic.” She gives me a smile over her shoulder, does as she is told, and skips off happily. I hate how much I have the urge to make her happy. What the hell is wrong with me? You’re fucking lonely that’s what it is. This goddess walks into your life and turns it upside down, and you couldn’t be happier. True. As hard as that is to admit, she’s made me feel things for the first time in a long time. I have no idea how this is going to end, probably not well, but I don’t know if I give a fuck anymore. I thought running away from the world was what I needed to do, but instead, I just put myself into a self-imposed prison. Ellie has broken me out, and now, for the first time I see the world again, and it seems all right.
We’ve loaded up the Jeep and I start heading down the coast.
“Where are we going?” she asks, her blonde hair whipping around her as we bounce along the sandy road.
“There are beaches down here that tourists hardly ever go to,” I tell her.
“Does that mean the cartel doesn’t either?” she questions.
I shake my head. “No business down here,” I explain.
It’s a truly beautiful day, there’s nothing but blue skies, white sandy beaches, jungle, and aquamarine ocean. It’s not a long journey to where we are going, less than an hour, but I know she is going to enjoy this. I slow down as we reach our destination, press a button on my key fob, and a wooden door opens along the bumpy road, exposing an entrance for us. Elena’s jaw drops as I pull into the open garage.
“Where the hell are we? Whose home is this?” she asks, jumping out of the Jeep.
I don’t answer her questions, but instead, I indicate for her to follow me as I walk up to the home.
“Oh, wow,” she gasps as she enters the beach house.
“It’s mine,” I confess as I follow her.
She turns quickly. “Yours?”
I nod. “I like being alone, and I needed somewhere to go when things in my mind got too much.” Her brows knit together in confusion at my statement. “Most nights, I suffer from nightmares, it seems they have disappeared since you arrived.”
“What do you dream of?” she asks.
“Old tours. Faces of the people I have killed,” I confess to her.
“You have a conscious. That’s because you’re a good man,” she tells me. “I haven’t thought about any of the people I have killed. They all deserved it, that’s all I know,” she says with a shrug.
“There is nothing good about the thoughts I have about you.” I smirk, changing the subject.
“Is that so?” She grins, turning her back to me and walking toward the glass doors that lead out to the pool and then the sandy white beach before disappearing into the blue sea. “And this place no one knows about?”
I nod. I’m fairly confident they don’t. “There is nothing down here for them. We are in the middle of nowhere. Unless Manuel is tracking you?”
Elena stills for a moment before pulling out her phone and looking down at it. She taps on her phone a couple of times before looking back at me. “No, he’s not following me. I don’t have any cuts on me, so I doubt he’s placed a device inside me. Unless it’s old school and he has literally sent someone after me,” she says, raising a brow.
“Didn’t notice a tail, but I have good security here. We will be alerted if someone comes.”
She grins as she starts to slowly undress. My mouth turns dry, there’s a lump in my throat as my eyes can’t escape the erotic image in front of me. Firstly, her shirt hits the floor, exposing her bikini top, then she wiggles out of her shorts and kicks them to the side, leaving her in barely-there bikini bottoms. She turns around and shows me that they are G-string cut, and her gorgeous peachy ass is exposed to me. My mouth waters as all I can think about is biting it. The thick sexual tension is cut by her phone ringing. We both still and glare at her bag which is on the floor, she rushes over to it and pulls it from her bag, and relief falls across her face.
“Sophie, hi,” she says, answering the phone. Thank fuck. My shoulders relax. “You did. Oh my god. This is amazing. Is she okay?” Elena’s face lights up. “I can imagine she’s shell-shocked.” I watch as she nods at what Sophie is saying. “Yes. I found Pearl. Everything is in place for next week.” Elena wraps her arms around herself. “I did what I had to,” she answers Sophie, those sea foam eyes looking up at me. “Thank you,” she says. “He’s with me.” She stares at me. “I tolerate him.”
Oh, that’s it. She tolerates me. She does more than that. Maybe I should remind her. I stalk over to where she is standing, those green eyes widening with each of my long steps, curious over my movements, until I drop to my knees in front of her. Elena stares at me, her jaw open as I grab her long leg, hook it over my shoulder, and grin. Tolerates me. My fingers find the seam of her bikini bottom, and I slide it to the side, baring her glistening pussy into my line of sight, and before she can say anything else my mouth delves between her thighs, and I lick her from asshole to clit in one long stroke.
Elena lets out a squeak, her eyes bugging out as she looks down at me. “Just stubbed my toe,” she explains to Sophie. “Yeah, I guess Nash and I are getting along somewhat. We have a truce you could say,” she continues to explain to Sophie. “He could try harder.” She grins down at me.
Oh. Really now? I silently question her with an arch of my brow. I lick her again but this time I suck on her clit. Her teeth bite into her bottom lip as she tries to stifle a moan. “No, I don’t think I’ll kill him. He has some skills I could use.” Funny. Damn right I do, and it’s making her come. “Yes, we seem to have sorted out our differences. We’re playing nice, for now .” We most certainly have sorted out our differences, thanks to my tongue in her cunt. “Yeah, he mentioned he might consider coming back once the mission is over. I’m sure Brooks will be happy.” I know my brother will be, but I was kind of hoping she might be happy about it, too. Who the hell are you? Thinking you deserve happiness after everything you have done. “I’ve got to go, talk soon, Soph.” Elena ends the call and throws her phone onto the sofa. “Where did you go? Are you sick of eating me already?” she questions, looking down at me as she pushes me away. She’s right. I’m supposed to be eating her not thinking about a future with this woman as I fall on my ass. The next thing I know she is straddling me on the floor. “One minute you were eating me like your life depended on it, and the next, you stopped. Did I say something wrong?” she questions me.
“No.”
“Then what was it? I was thoroughly enjoying what we were doing. I like it when you get naughty.” She grins. This woman has my chest tightening and I hate myself for it. Those sea foam green eyes narrow and I know she is seconds away from getting inside my head and working it out. She runs her hand over my head and scratches it a couple of times with her nails, a groan falls from my lips as goosebumps cross my flesh. That feels so good.
“Nothing, it doesn’t matter,” I tell her.
“Oh, I think it does. You stopped licking me just when things were getting good.”
“I got in my own head, okay,” I spit out angrily, more at myself than her as she continues to scratch my head.
“About this?” she asks. I nod. Not daring to say a word. “Are you wondering if we will continue doing what we are doing if you come back to Ibiza?” I knew she could read my mind. “I don’t know what the future holds, Nash, but I’m not done with you yet and I hope you aren’t with me.”
“Far from it,” I answer.
She smiles. “Good. Now will you fuck me and put me out of my misery.”
We’ve spent most of the day in bed exploring every inch of each other. How have I become addicted to this woman so quickly? I love her sass, she keeps me on my toes. Maybe I’ve had too many knocks to the head to be liking the combativeness of what we have, I’m addicted to the push and pull. I’m also addicted to fucking her and caressing her with my knife. Never in my life would I have ever thought holding a knife to a woman’s throat would get me hard or her wet. It’s fucked up. There has to be something broken inside me to like this, and this woman seems to call to the darkness in me. And I like it. Elena seems to like exploring with me as if she feels safe for the first time in bed with someone to let her control go. It’s still there, but I can see she is relenting to me. She doesn’t fight back when I push her arms above her head and hold her by the wrists where she is unable to break free as I slide my dick inside her. I may be physically stronger than her, but I know she could erase my existence in two seconds if she wants to, and honestly, that is fucking hot. See, I’m messed up.
“You’re awfully quiet.” She smirks, looking up at me as we laze on the sofa after I cooked her a delicious meal of steak on the outside grill and salad.
“You’ve worn me out.” I chuckle as I place a kiss on her forehead.
“I’m sorry, old man,” she teases.
“I fucked you within an inch of your life, woman, you know there is nothing old about me.”
This makes her giggle. “You did. And I can feel you stirring again.” She grins as her hand slides between us and over my cock. How can I not when she is wrapped around me?
“Can I ask you something?”
Her hand stills on me. “Sure, anything.”
“Can I ask you about the guy you were seeing who thinks you’re dead?” Morbid curiosity gets the better of me as she doesn’t talk about him much.
“Oh,” she says, removing her hand from my cock. “I don’t still love him if that is what you’re worried about.”
I shake my head. “I’m not. I just want to know who I am protecting you from. It’s always best to know your enemy.”
Elena stares at me in surprise. “You want to protect me from Dimitri?”
Reaching out, I cup her face. “Yes and everything else that wishes to harm you.”
“I can look after myself …” she starts to say but I stop her words with a kiss.
“I know you can, kitty, probably a hell of a lot more than I can, but you need to know I’ll always have your back.”
“I’m not used to relying on people.”
“I know.” Leaning forward, I kiss her again. “I won’t ever double-cross you. I don’t know how you sneaked past my defenses, but you have.”
“You seem to have obliterated mine. You make me feel safe, something I’ve never had before. I don’t know what is going to happen between the two of us, especially once we grab Pearl and hightail it back to Ibiza. What I do know is you’ve brought back some of my humanity.” A single tear falls from her cheek, and I rub it away. “See, you’re making my eyes leak, and I never do that.” She chuckles before snuggling herself back into my arms, and I feel her body relax against me as she lets out a deep sigh. “With hindsight, what I had with Dmitri wasn’t love, it wasn’t anything. But I guess I was so desperate in this world to feel something other than hate, disgust, and hopelessness that I fell into bed with the devil.” I let my hands rub up and down her arms, reassuring her that I’m here. “His uncle introduced us and explained to him that I was their secret weapon in to getting favors for them. We started off working together, he and his cousin Nikolai. And when my services weren’t needed, I used to hang around with the two of them. We became friends as much as you can in this business. I never saw their monstrous side, and that should have been my warning, those two devils were well disguised. But over time, things between Dmitri and I turned from friendly to flirty. I pushed him away a lot because of what I did, who would want to date a whore?” I feel her body stiffen, and I pepper feather-light kisses on her skin reassuring her that is not how I see her. “Before anything could happen between us, I was sent away by his uncle for a couple of months to work at a different branch of the Bratva. We stayed in touch on the phone and talked all the time, and the next time I saw him, that was it. We couldn’t hide how we were feeling about each other and fell into bed together. It was the first moment I had been happy since being kidnapped, and I guess when you’ve been starved of happiness for so long and someone gives it to you, you don’t want to ever let it go. What I didn’t realize was he got me hook, line, and sinker, and I was now his plaything. He had his own weapon to do his dirty work for him, and stupidly, I fell for it because when everything was over, he would soothe my aches. He would reassure me that he loved me, that he never saw the monster that I was, and in return, I never saw the monster he was. Stupidly, in my mind I thought we were two lost souls, dealt a shitty hand in life, trying to make the best of a fucked-up situation. I was wrong. All Dmitri ever wanted was power, more power, and being able to control me was his way of getting more especially after the death of his cousin, Nikolai. Which I’ve only recently found out was because of Zoe. Nikolai was obsessed with her, but I had no idea who she truly was. I didn’t know that both Nikolai and Dmitri were dating Zoe and Grace as if they were normal members of society until recently. I thought they were like me, mainly because that is what they both told me. I was also kept away from the jewels a lot of the time, but Dmitri told me it was so it wouldn’t interfere with everyone’s orders. I consider myself an intelligent person but when it came to Dmitri, I wasn’t,” she explains.
“You are a young woman thrust into an underground world. You were trying to survive. You never had a choice it was either kill or be killed,” I tell her.
“I could have opened my eyes and seen the real horror these men were doing to women. How can I ever forgive myself for not helping these women? I protected those fucking men at the expense of them,” Elena says as she sobs into my chest. I wrap my arms around her and hold her tightly.
“Please don’t blame yourself. How could you know the people who you thought you knew were monsters?”
“Everyone around me was a monster.” She sniffles. “I let my heart rule my head.”
“I get it, truly I do. I nearly got my entire team killed because I fell for the enemy. The woman I thought I was saving had set me up and lured me into her web so that she could destroy me. I never thought it would happen to me,” I tell her.
“We’re messed up, aren’t we?” She turns and looks up at me.
“Yeah, kitty, we are.” Elena leans forward and kisses me slowly, I let my fingers dig into her hair.
“This isn’t fake what’s happening between us. I need you to know that. You weren’t supposed to happen,” she tells me.
“I’m not using you for power either, kitty. In all honesty, I hate sharing you. You’re mine. And I protect what is mine.”
“If we can pull off saving Pearl, I’ll be yours and only yours for however long you want me,” she confesses.
Her words surprise me. “I think I can handle that, can you?”
Her face lights up. “Yeah, I think I can handle you.” Her legs slide over my thighs, and she wiggles herself until she is straddling me. “I don’t want to share you either. You’re mine too,” she declares, running her hands up over my bare chest. “I wish we could stay in this bubble forever.”
“We can once you save Pearl.”
“Promise?” she asks me, holding out her pinky to me.
“You want me to pinky promise you?” I stare at her finger.
“Yes.” She grins. Rolling my eyes, I pull out my hand and pinky promise this woman. Honestly, I would pinky promise anything she wants. “You’re stuck with me now. No takebacks.” She giggles and it’s the purest sound in the world.