15. Dax
DAX
Dear Diary,
Loving her feels like choosing to bleed out slowly instead of dying all at once.
Sitting three houses down from the Guerra mansion for six hours had eventually paid off. I followed the black town car through the streets of Providence, making sure I stayed far enough back that I wouldn’t be noticed.
I had no idea where they were going until they took the turnoff that led to the ice rink.
My stomach sank. This was where Nyah had broken it off with me. Where she’d told me all she could see when she looked at me was the baby we’d lost, and she was leaving.
Where she’d broken my fucking heart.
I would have happily never come back here, except, I would follow that woman anywhere.
The Guerras’ driver dropped them off at the door, while I stopped my car in a parking space as far away as I could get.
Not that I needed to worry about being spotted.
Nyah and Luca argued the entire way inside the building, neither of them looking anywhere but at each other.
Lynx glanced around, but he clearly wasn’t expecting danger, so there was no urgency to his actions.
I got out slowly and followed them inside, tapping my card distractedly to pay the entrance fee when prompted by the young woman in the reception area.
The rink was noticeably cooler than outside, and a team of skaters slid along the ice, warming up. Nyah said something to the other two and then moved in the direction of the bathrooms.
Lynx followed her close behind, but Luca stayed standing at the edge of the rink, studying the players moving around with sticks, pucks whizzing by.
I followed Lynx and Nyah along the corridor that led to the bathrooms. Ahead of me, she disappeared inside the one marked for women, and Lynx leaned back against the wall opposite, kicking one foot out and taking out his phone while he waited for her.
He glanced up as I approached. Recognized me and groaned.
“Dax, man. Seriously. Do you have a death wish? I thought we talked about this?”
“We did. But I don’t care. I need to talk to her.”
“You need to turn around and walk back to your car.”
I stared at him, man-to-man. “We both know I’m not going to do that.”
He huffed out a sigh. “After the other day at the house, and now following us here, you’re really beginning to be a pain in my side, you know? Be quick, all right? Luca is out there, probably reporting everything she does back to his old man. Don’t give him something to punish her over.”
I snapped my head up. “Carlos punishes her?”
Lynx shrugged. “I don’t know. I haven’t actually seen him do anything. But he seems the type. Acts like he owns her. Wouldn’t really want to give him a reason to test the theory. Do you?”
I despised the notion that someone would hurt her. “No.”
He stepped aside, and I used my shoulder to open the door.
She looked up from washing her hands. Her mouth dropped open. “Dax? You can’t—”
I forgot my entire plan had just been to get her alone enough that we could have a proper conversation without a Guerra butting in. Forgot I’d warned myself to stay in control.
I lost it as soon as I saw her.
I stalked across that tiny bathroom, slid my hand along the side of her face and back into her hair, tilting her head up so she had no choice but to stare up at me.
The words died on her lips.
“I can’t what?” I lowered my head enough so my mouth hovered just over hers. “Can’t love you? Because too bad. I do.”
Her bottom lip trembled.
“Can’t need you?” I walked her back to the wall, pressing my body against her so she could feel exactly how badly I did. “Too bad. I need you.”
A tear dripped down her cheek, and she clenched her fingers in my shirt.
I breathed her in. Fuck, I’d missed her. Missed her so much my entire body ached. “Can’t kiss you?” I whispered, my breath misting over her lips. “Because too bad. I’m going to.”
She lifted up on her toes at the same moment my mouth crashed down on hers.
She gasped, straining up to meet me while I devoured her mouth like I needed it to breathe.
Because I did. I hadn’t taken a proper breath since she’d walked out on me.
Since she’d broken my fucking heart into pieces so badly I knew for a fact it would never recover. That there was no other woman for me.
It was always going to be her.
Her mouth was warm and welcoming, and kissing her felt as familiar as coming home. I knew her. Knew the way she kissed. Knew her body. She squirmed beneath me, and I grabbed her leg, dragging it up, hooking it around my waist so I could grind on her core.
I demanded it. Took what I needed.
The kiss was hard, my erection against her core rough. Part of me wanted to punish her for the way she’d broken me, and yet I was so fucking gone for her that even the thought of me punishing her didn’t sit right.
The way she kissed me, clung to me, her tongue stroking deep into my mouth, her moans of need in my ears told me none of this had been her idea.
She wasn’t marrying Carlos Guerra because she suddenly felt for him the way she’d once felt for me.
Nothing had changed between us.
I fucking loved her and she loved me. No matter what she said in front of Luca Guerra, I knew it in that kiss.
She tried to pull away, but I couldn’t let her. I kissed her again, licking away anything she might have been trying to say because I knew those words would put an end to this and I couldn’t bear it. Not yet. Not when I’d only just gotten her back.
I needed to be inside her but knew we didn’t have time. Luca and Lynx were right out there, and if she didn’t come out soon, they would come in.
Lynx might have allowed this.
Luca wouldn’t have been so forgiving to see his future stepmommy this close to fucking a man who wasn’t his father.
But I couldn’t stop. I pressed my hand between us, feeling how wet her panties were with her arousal.
It was the wrong move.
She shoved me away, hard enough this time for me to know she meant business. She stared at me, wild-eyed, hair messed up from my fingers in it. Her chest rose and fell hard. “You can’t do this.” She shook her head. “You’re going to get yourself killed.”
I closed the gap between us again, this time gentler. Softer. I stroked my hand down the side of her face, loving the way she leaned into the touch. “Don’t you know I’m already dead if I don’t have you?”
She wrapped her arms around my waist and laid her cheek flush on my chest. “Don’t say things like that. You’ll get over this.”
I knew I wouldn’t. “I won’t. Not until I have you back.”
She lifted her head miserably. “That’s the thing, Dax. I’m not coming back. You know that. I can’t. I’m engaged to Carlos. That’s a life sentence, and we both know it.”
The truth was there in her words. I just didn’t want to hear it. “He can’t force you—”
Her bitter laugh cut me off. “Yes, Dax. He can.”
Something deep inside me snapped. The same frayed cord that broke every time I’d gotten in a fight ever since she’d walked out. “Then I’ll kill him.”
I’d never been that sort of man. I’d grown up doing martial arts and boxing alongside my brothers, tumbling on mats, fighting with hands and feet and bodies. Ironic, I realized now those lessons had probably been paid for by the wages my mother had earned from Carlos Guerra.
But art had always been my one true love. Drawing until the sun went down and I couldn’t see the paper beneath my pencil. Drawing faces, shapes, colors, landscapes—anything I could, because when I drew, the world narrowed down to nothing but that.
I fought for exercise.
I’d never had any desire to actually hurt people.
Until now.
Now I was quite sure I could kill Carlos Guerra without a second thought, if it meant I got to take my girl home with me.
She pressed her forehead to my chest. “You wouldn’t get within six feet of him before someone would take you out.”
I put a finger beneath her chin and lifted it so she was gazing up at me again. “Wouldn’t I? I got into his house, didn’t I?”
“That won’t work again. Luca knows about you now. He knows something was up. He’s not stupid.”
But maybe I was. Stupid enough to do whatever it was I had to do. I didn’t know what that was yet, but I had to think of something. I kissed her again. “You aren’t marrying him.”
“I have to,” she whispered back. “They’ll hurt you if I don’t.”
I jerked back. “That’s what they’re holding over your head? That they’ll hurt me? Fuck them, then, Nyah! Walk out of here with me right now. Let them come for me, I don’t care! Me being dead is better than you living with a monster.”
She shook her head viciously. “No, it’s not.” She stared up at me, demanding my attention. “Because the way you feel about keeping me safe is the same way I feel about you. Either way, one of us is losing the other.” She sniffed. “At least my way, both of us are still alive.”
I wanted to scream. Wanted to storm out and end every person who stood in the way of me and her being together.
She’d warned me. Warned me her life wasn’t her own. That her father would come for her one day.
I’d fallen for her anyway.
But I hadn’t had a choice. She was too damn easy to love.
A knock came at the door. “Nyah?” Lynx called. “You okay in there?”
Luca’s more impatient tone followed. “You shit your pants or something? What’s taking so long?”
Nyah’s eyes widened, and she pushed me into a stall. “Stay here until we leave, then sneak out. And, Dax? Don’t come back. Please. This is too hard to keep doing over and over. You’re breaking my heart just as much as I broke yours.”
I stared at her. “Tell me you don’t love me and I’ll walk away.”
She closed her eyes for a long moment.
Luca banged on the door. “Nyah! Hurry the hell up.”
She opened her eyes. “Don’t come back, Dax. Please. For both of our sakes.”
She turned and slipped out the door before I could say another word.
But the ones she hadn’t said hung in the air.
She hadn’t said she didn’t love me.