21. Nyah #2
Not when I was back in his arms. Back with the man who made me feel safer and more loved than I ever had in my life.
We burst out through a side door of the building, people running all around us, someone screaming that the entire roof was coming down.
None of it mattered anymore. Because I was back where I belonged. I buried my face in his sweaty neck and inhaled the scent of his skin. God, I’d missed that smell.
“Nyah, talk to me, baby. You’ve got a cut on your head that’s bleeding all over me, and I need to know you’re still conscious.”
He put me down, and I whimpered, not wanting him to let me go.
It took me a minute to realize we were in the back of his car, and he was sliding in beside me.
I blinked at him, not one-hundred-percent sure I hadn’t imagined the entire thing. I reached up and touched his face, but my fingers came away warm and coated in his sweat. “Hey.”
He let out a laugh that sounded full of relief. “Hey.”
He leaned in and kissed me, his mouth warm on mine and so familiar it opened up the giant chasm of pain I’d been trying to close ever since my father had dragged me away from him.
I grabbed him and hauled him in closer because I needed more of that.
More of his lips on mine, more of the sweet sound of his voice. More of him.
I’d had him for such a short time. I just wanted more.
He kissed me again, giving in to what I wanted, but he pulled back all too soon. “Baby, you’re bleeding. Let me look at it.”
I nodded, only because there was blood dripping in my eye.
His gaze shifted to the left a little, inspecting the wound on my head.
He grimaced, peering down at it. “I don’t think it’s actually that bad, but head wounds bleed a lot.
” He leaned into the front of the car and took out a small first aid kit from the glovebox.
He rifled through it, pulling out some saline and gauze and cleaning up my head.
He frowned down at his supplies. “I have no butterfly strips, so we’re going to have to make do with a Band-Aid. ”
I plucked one from the box on his lap and held it up to him. “There you go, Doctor.”
He smiled as he took it from my fingers and tore off the wrapper. He stuck it so gently to my head that tears filled my eyes.
He noticed and cupped both sides of my face between his hands. “Shit! Did I hurt you?”
I shook my head. “No. You never could.”
His worried gaze flickered all over my face. “Should I take you to the hospital?”
I probably should have said yes. Probably needed to have my head checked by a professional, and I wanted to get the baby checked too.
But my first instinct had been to protect the little life growing inside me.
And my gut instinct told me I had. That the baby we’d created together was a fighter, apparently as much as his or her father was.
I wanted to question why he’d been in that ring. Why he’d been trading punches, but my heart didn’t want to know the answer. I’d already seen it in the pain on his face.
He’d been fighting because of me. Because of the way I’d broken him when I’d left.
“I’m so sorry,” I whispered, the windows fogging up around us with the wet heat of his sweat and our breaths mingling in the small space. “God, I’m so fucking sorry for all of this.”
A sob racked my body, and he put his arms around me, holding me close. He kissed the top of my head. “It’s not your fault.”
And maybe he was talking about that night. But I was talking about it all. Our lives. The fact I’d walked into his, laid claim on his heart, knowing full well my father would come for me and rip it out.
I knew now there was nothing I could do to stop it. I was a pawn in a game that was too big for me to play.
But I’d wanted more time in his arms, in his bed, in his life. Dax was everything that was good and sweet and soft and gentle.
I just wanted him.
“I love you,” I whispered, needing him to know it, even though it was selfish of me to keep doing this with him. My sobs turned into tears. “I miss you so much it hurts. I think about you every day.”
He kissed me to stop me babbling, his lips warm and perfect on mine when he whispered back, “Not even half as much as I think about you. Fuck, Nyah. You’re killing me. You can’t stay with them—”
I kissed him again, not wanting to hear what he was going to say, because when he said to run, it seemed so easy. Just take this car and drive until no one knew where we were.
Except I knew.
I’d done that once before, and my father had still found me. It would only be worse now, with Carlos Guerra hunting me down as well.
And when they found us, they’d punish me by punishing him. By punishing my baby.
And that was a fate I couldn’t live with.
All we had was this. Stolen moments in the back of a car. I didn’t know how I would explain it to the Guerras when I eventually went home, but I would have to worry about that then. Because right now, nothing in this world was going to stop me from kissing him.
I pressed my lips to his, and he kissed me back without a second of concern my future husband could be lurking around in the parking lot somewhere, looking for me.
His lips tasted of salty sweat, but once that was gone, it was just him. The sweet man I’d fallen for the moment I’d met him. His arms tightened around me, like he was trying to protect me from everything outside this car, and I held him just as tight, knowing it was him who needed protecting more.
I’d be doomed to walk beside a Mafia don for the rest of my life, or at least until I got too old and he divorced me for a younger model.
But Dax, they’d kill without thinking twice.
Just the thought had me kissing him harder, my tongue stroking with his. I climbed into his lap, pushing my fingers through his hair.
“I need a shower,” he murmured against my mouth. “Let me take you back to my place—”
I shook my head and kissed him harder, shutting him up before I whispered over his lips, “Take me here.”
He groaned, palms running down my back, pressing me closer. His mouth trailed off mine and down my neck. I arched my back, grinding over him with my hips, loving the way his tongue felt as it licked a path across my flushed chest.
The little buttons on my shirt came undone one by one, his artist fingers nimble but also bruised from the fight.
I hated that. Hated he was fighting, even if he was clearly good at it.
My shirt fell open, and he pushed it down my arms, giving himself room to kiss the swells of my breasts.
It was me who was greedy, impatient for more, and urged on by the fact Lynx wouldn’t leave until he found me, even if Luca and Carlos didn’t care enough about me to stay.
I imagined Lynx shouting my name, searching through the mess the collapsing cage had left, trying to find me, and I had a momentary flash of guilt that he was worrying about me right now.
But I needed this. Needed to be in Dax’s arms. Needed to remind myself I wasn’t completely doomed to a miserable life with Carlos Guerra.
I could have this. The man I loved, even if only in secret.
At least until he got sick of it and moved on, finding someone who could actually be what he needed.
Dax might have loved me now, but I would have to let him go at some point. He deserved a partner who could love him wholeheartedly.
Not one he could only have stolen moments with.
It was wrong of me to be here with him. In so many ways.
And yet, when he put his mouth over my nipple and sucked it through the fabric of my bra, any hesitation disintegrated.
I reached behind me, unclasping it, freeing my breasts so he could lick and suck me without anything in the way.
His mouth was warm and wet, and I tried so hard not to grab the back of his head and hold him there. But I tightened my fingers in his hair anyway, eliciting a feral groan of need that cut through the noise of people all around us outside the car.
A siren echoed from somewhere, but I was too lost in the feel of Dax laying me out on the back seat and undoing my jeans.
There was no room. He was half on the floorboard, and my head was jammed up against the door handle, but neither of us complained.
Neither of us stopped.
I struggled out of my jeans and then my underwear. I breathed heavy, naked, staring at him, watching his familiar almost-golden-eyed gaze travel over every curve of my body.
“Fuck, Nyah.” He massaged his way up my legs, thumbs digging into my flesh in a way that didn’t hurt at all but only had me trembling more, wanting those fingers to spread my legs so he could get inside me. “Need to taste you.”
I squealed as he yanked me sharply, using strong fighter’s arms to drag me across the back seat, hooking my legs over his shoulders so his mouth could get to my pussy.