by K. L. Ramsey
“You mean like I should tell Rock who I am?” she asked.
“That part will be up to you, but if this thing works out, he’ll know sooner or later. You do know that right?” he asked.
Nix wasn’t naive. She knew what would happen if this merger worked out. She’d have to live up to her end of the bargain and back the three families. First, she’d have to talk to Carter to make sure that he was on board, although, she was sure he would be. Her brother was sick of hiding and living so far away from home. He was ready to come back and claim what was rightfully theirs, she knew that. Carter would be the head of the Lust family and that thought terrified her. She knew that would make him a target, just as it had made her father one. Losing her little brother wasn’t an option—he was all that she had left in the world.
“I won’t tell him tomorrow,” she said. “I need to talk to Carter about all of this first and he won’t check in with me for a few more days still.” It was true and that excuse would at least by her some time before she had to come clean with Rock about concealing her identity from him.
“He’s going to kill me,” she whispered under her breath.
“Who will? Carter?” Damion asked. He pushed his empty plate and cup back on the table.
“No,” she said. “Rock. My brother would never hurt me. Rock, on the other hand, will have no problem ordering my execution. I’ve lied to him the whole time that I’ve been working for him, Damion. He won’t forgive that.” She had seen Rock kill for far less than a betrayal like hers. He wouldn’t let her lies go unpunished—it would make him seem soft in the eyes of his men and his enemies. Rock wouldn’t allow that. It could topple his Syndicate and everything that he worked so hard to build. She knew Rock enough to know that he would never let anyone take him down—especially not a Lust.
“You’ll have my protection,” Damion promised. “You have my word, Nix.”
“While I appreciate that, Damion, you and I both know that if your uncle wants me dead, there is nothing that will be able to stand in his way. I will always live in a constant state of danger.” Nixon stood and began to clear the table, sure that danger had already found her.
“I think you’re not safe here, Nixon,” he said. “Your tires being slashed was a warning and I think that you need to heed it. I’d be happy to put you up at my house if you need a place to stay for the night, but I don’t think that it’s safe for you to stay here.”
“Damion don’t be ridiculous. I’ll be just fine here. I have security cameras and a gun, if it comes down to that,” Nix insisted. “I appreciate your kind offer though.” Damion didn’t seem to want to stand around arguing with her about whether or not she’d be safe at her house. He seemed tired from his very long day and honestly, all she wanted to do was take a hot shower and slip into her bed. Nixon was a very capable woman and if someone came for her, she’d be ready.
“I offered,” he said. Damion shrugged it off as if his offer wasn’t a big deal, but it was. He offered help to a stranger and Nix knew he thought of her as the pushy woman who worked for his competition. She wasn’t his friend. Nixon wasn’t anything to him. She was some annoying woman who showed up in his life just that morning and turned his life upside down. He didn’t owe her anything and it wasn’t his responsibility to keep her safe. She kept telling himself all of those things over and over in her head, but she couldn’t block out that little voice in the back of her mind telling her that she was making a big mistake in turning down his offer. Maybe she was but forcing herself on him wasn’t a good way to end a business meeting. No, she’d have her way because she wasn’t his to worry about, no matter how much of a fool that made her.
“You know where I am if you need me,” he said. “AAA will be here soon. You want me to stick around until they get here?” he asked.
“No need,” she said. “I can handle telling them not to scratch my baby while they load her up to tow away. Thank you for tonight and thanks for agreeing to consider Rock’s proposal. I’ll do my best to get him to the lunch meeting tomorrow, Damion,” she promised.
“You have my cell number if you need me, Nixon,” he said. Damion grabbed his jacket and headed for the front door. She just hoped she wasn’t making a mistake by letting him walk away from her. Nixon made her bed and now, she was going to have to lie in it.
Nixon cleaned up the dishes from their dessert and then locked up her house to head up to bed. She needed a quick shower and then, she’d be able to hopefully settle in for the evening.
As soon as her head hit the pillow, Nix closed her eyes and before long, she had drifted off to sleep, dreams of Damion Pride filling her overly active mind. God, that man did it for her. He was her walking wet dream and when he asked her if she wanted to sleep over at his place, she almost took him up on it.
Her front door alarm going off startled her from her dreams and when she woke up to an automated voice shouting at her that the front door was open, she bolted from her bed and pulled on her robe and slippers. Nix knew it wasn’t a coincidence or an accident that her alarm system had triggered. If someone wasn’t in her home, they would be soon and she wasn’t going to stick around to find out who was out to get her. Whomever it was had already sent her quite a message with the slashed tires; she wasn’t going to find out what they had planned next for her. She grabbed the handgun out of the top drawer of her nightstand, where she kept it and made sure that the safety was off. If someone was already in her house, she wanted to be ready. She quickly came up with a plan to get the hell out of her place and run as fast as she could over to Damion’s house, across the way. She just had a feeling that it was going to be easier said than done.
She was almost out of her bedroom when she heard someone rummaging through her kitchen. When a plate hit the floor and shattered, she covered her hand over her mouth to muffle her scream. Whoever was in her home was looking for something and they seemed angry and were taking it out on her dishes. It was time for her to get out of there before they found her and took their anger out on her.
Nixon slowly opened her door and started out of her room, down the dark hallway. She wanted to turn on a light, to shout for whoever was in her home to leave her alone. No—that was all a lie. She wanted to curl into a ball and cry, but that wasn’t who she was.
Nix made her way down the stairs, as quietly as possible, and when she got to the front door, she opened it and took off across her front lawn. She didn’t bother with shutting her door or even turning back to find out who might have gotten into her place. It didn’t matter. All that mattered was that she made it across the road to Damion’s house before whoever was after her caught up to her.
Damion
Damion went home and took a hot shower, letting the water wash away his long day. All he could think about was how sexy Nixon looked when she walked into the restaurant earlier that evening. He’d never admit it to her, but she was just his type. Her long blond hair was usually pulled back into a sleek ponytail, perfect for wrapping around his wrist and pulling from behind. But, for dinner, she opted to wear her long hair down and he damn near swallowed his tongue. It pissed him off that Finn was right—Nix was the type of woman he’d usually fall for. His uncle knew exactly what he was doing by sending her in to defuse the situation with him.
If he was being completely honest, he’d admit that he couldn’t stop thinking about her all damn day, since he first found her sitting in his conference room. But the way she looked at dinner, in her little black cocktail dress and her blond hair spilling around her shoulders—well, that just plain made him horny as hell.
Damion soaped up his cock and ran his hands over it, stroking his shaft while thinking about Nix. God, he wished she was on her knees in front of him, sucking his cock into her hot, hungry mouth. The thought of her working her cherry red lips up and down his shaft had him getting off in no time. And when he came onto the shower tile, he shouted out her name.
“Shit,” he whispered when he came out of his orgasmic fog. H
e had just gotten off thinking about the one woman that he shouldn’t make his. Nixon was dangerous—not only did she work for Rock but she admitted that she was a Lust, making her completely off-limits.
He turned off the water and toweled off, wrapping it around his waist when he finished. Damion needed to figure out what to do about his uncle’s proposal and the only other person he could talk to about it was Finn. It was late and calling his business partner wasn’t his finest decision, but he needed to talk about his meeting with Nix and the proposition she proposed from Rock. He found his cell phone in his jacket pocket and called Finn.
“Lo,” Finn grumbled into the phone. Damion could tell from his raspy voice that he had woken his best friend up.
“Hey man,” Damion said.
“What fucking time is it, man?” Finn asked.
“Just after one.” Damion cringed when he said it. He really was a douche for calling Finn so late. “Sorry,” he breathed.
“Why the fuck are you calling me at one in the morning, Damion. This better be good—like someone’s dead, good.” He heard Finn rumbling around on the other end of the call. “Wait—is someone dead, Damion?”
“No,” he admitted. “Although, I’m sure you want to kill me for waking you up.”
“You aren’t wrong,” Finn admitted. “So, what’s up?”
“Why the hell didn’t you show up to our dinner meeting with Nix?” he asked.
“Did you just get home from your dinner meeting?” Finn asked.
“No—and don’t turn this around on me. I asked you a question first,” Damion insisted. He wasn’t about to tell Finn that he ended up over at Nixon’s place, helping her with her tires, and having coffee, and dessert in her cozy kitchen. There were some things his business partner didn’t need to know about and his spending time with Nix was one of those things.
“You really are the worst liar, Damion,” Finn accused. “To answer your question, I had a flat tire and couldn’t get to the meeting.”
“You had a flat tire?” Damion asked. It was too much of a coincidence that Finn and Nixon both had flat tires in the same evening and they were supposed to attend the same meeting.
“Yep,” Finn said. “Two flat tires to be exact. If I only had one, I would have been able to change it out and make the meeting. But, two flat tires made that impossible. I had to call for a tow and I should have my car back in the morning.”
“Shit,” Damion growled. “Nix had two tires that were slashed tonight too. She had to Uber to the meeting, but when we got back to her place, I checked them out for her and they were slashed. It looked like someone took a hunting knife to them.”
“So, you went back to Nixon’s place after the meeting? I take it things went well then?” Finn asked. Damion could almost hear his friend’s smirk through the cell phone and he wanted to reach through it and knock it right off of his friend’s face.
“Try to keep up, Finnegan. We were talking about you both having slashed tires,” Damion reminded. “Don’t you find that to be a crazy coincidence?” he asked.
“Sure,” Finn said. “I mean—my tires looked to be slashed by a knife, but I didn’t inspect them or anything. I guess I can call the shop in the morning and ask what they think. Is Nix all right?” he asked. “I mean—she’s safe, right?”
“She’s not with me now, if that’s what you’re asking. I offered her my sofa, but she refused,” Damion said.
“Such a generous offer, how could she pass it up?” Finn chided.
“What was I supposed to do, man? Should I have offered her my bed?” Damion asked.
Finn’s laughter filled the other end of the call. “You’ll get there at some point, man. How did the meeting go?” he asked, changing the subject.
“She wants us to join forces with Rock. I told her our company is off-limits, but I’d talk with you about an alliance with him. Nix believes that the three families joining forces would give us a leg up over the Gluttony family.” He conveniently left out the part about Nixon being a Lust and technically, it would be four families banding together.
“Yeah—but will it be enough if the Gluttony family gets the Wrath and Sloth Syndicates involved in their feud. I mean, look what happened to the Lust family. The three of them banned together and wiped out an entire family. Their Syndicate didn’t have the resources that it needed to survive and it eventually died off.”
“Maybe the Lust family isn’t all gone,” Damion almost whispered.
“What do you know that I don’t know, man?” Finn asked.
“Can’t talk about it now. Listen, I promise to fill you in on all of the details when I can. But for now, will you just trust me?” Damion asked. Yeah—he saw the irony in the fact that he was asking Finn to trust him when he trusted no one.
“Of course,” Finn agreed. “You know I trust you, Damion. I wouldn’t be in business with you otherwise.”
“Thanks for that, man,” Damion said. “Nixon asked if we could meet tomorrow with her and Rock.”
“You mean today,” Finn said.
“What?” Damion asked.
“It’s after one in the morning—Nix wants to meet today.” Damion rolled his eyes. Finn could be quite the drama queen when he wanted to be.
“Fine, today,” Damion agreed. “Can you meet up for lunch?”
“Yeah—I’ll call my assistant and have her add the meeting to my schedule,” Finn agreed.
“Thanks, man. Just maybe wait until the suns up before you call her,” Damion teased. Finn ended the call—no good-bye, no smart-ass remark, not even a grunt. Damion laughed and tossed his phone onto his nightstand.
He laid back in his bed and moaned at how good it felt to finally stretch out. He closed his eyes and saw Nixon’s face, groaning and rolling over to his side.
“It’s going to be a long fucking night,” he mumbled around a yawn.
Nixon
Nix ran up onto his small front porch and banged on his front door with all of her might. “Damion,” she screamed. “Damion help me, please.” She continued to bang on his door until his groggy, beautiful face stood in front of her. He wiped the sleep from his eyes and stretched and yawned. Nix shamelessly looked down his body when she realized that he was completely naked, sporting a rather impressive erection.
“Shit,” he grumbled, lowering his hands to his cock, cupping it from her sight. “What the fuck is going on, Nixon?” he asked.
“Someone was in my house,” she said. Damion peeked his head out his front door and looked around as if he didn’t believe what she was telling him.
“Come in,” he breathed. “I’ll go throw on some sweatpants and take a look,” he said.
“Thank you, Damion,” she whispered. He disappeared upstairs and came back down minutes later.
“How about you let me take this for safekeeping?” he asked, reaching for the gun she still had in her hand. Nixon didn’t realize that she was still holding it and when she looked down at her hands, she saw that they were shaking.
“Shit, sorry,” she breathed. Nix turned on the gun’s safety and handed it over to Damion. “I forgot I even had it.”
“I called 911 while I was upstairs and they are on their way,” he said. “Tell me what happened,” he ordered. Nixon rubbed her forehead, her head still shaking, and a sob escaped her chest.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I usually can hold it together better than this.”
He pulled her against his body and wrapped his arms around her. “You’ll be okay, Honey,” he promised. “Just take your time and tell me what happened from the beginning.” She nodded against his shoulder and could feel his arms tighten around her. Damion wasn’t going to let her go to tell him what happened and she was just fine with that since she couldn’t seem to stop shaking.
“I was sleeping. It felt like I had literally just laid down and closed my eyes, but according to my cell, I had been asleep for about an hour. I woke to the sound of my front door alarm telling me that the door was
open. It felt like a dream, you know?”
“I do,” he agreed, “it’s how I feel every morning when my alarm goes off to get up.”
Nixon giggled, “Yeah, like that. I woke up pretty quickly and grabbed my cell phone and my gun from the nightstand.” She looked over to the kitchen counter where he had stowed her handgun. “I was so afraid that I wouldn’t get out of my house. I got to the front door and that was when I heard someone rummaging through my kitchen. I heard a plate or something shatter and that’s when I ran from my house and made my way over to you.”
“You didn’t see anyone?” he asked.
“No,” she said.
“How about anyone outside, or a suspicious car, or anything like that?” he asked.
“I didn’t take the time to look around, honestly. I was too afraid to stop running,” Nix said.
“It’s fine, Nixon. You did good,” he praised. “I need for you to stay here and wait for the cops to show up. I’m going over to your place to see if your intruder stuck around. Can you do that for me, Honey?” he asked.
“No,” she sobbed. Nix clutched at him as if he was her lifeline and she wasn’t about to let him go. “You can’t leave me here, Damion,” she begged. “What if they find me here while you’re gone?” The terror she felt was tangible. It was something that she couldn’t explain but a real fear, nonetheless.
“You’ll be fine, Nix,” he promised.
“No, I won’t and I won’t sit here while you go over to my house. If you go, I go,” she insisted. “Please, Damion—don’t leave me alone.”
Damion sighed and nodded. He reached for her hand and she took his. “Let’s go then,” he said. “I don’t want to give your unwelcome guest the chance to leave without the police getting here. This might be our only chance to find out who’s doing all this to you and Finn.” Damion grabbed her gun from the counter and put it into the waistband of his pants.