by Paula Cox
Nash was so shocked that he actually staggered to a stop, his brow furrowed and mouth dropped open. Eliza straightened up at the sight of him too, leaning less on Nash now and tugging at her clothes.
“Daddy?”
“Don’t you take that tone with me,” he snapped. Although Nash had seen the dean before, he was still a strange little man in a number of ways. Wiry grey hair sat slicked down around his head, and while Eliza had his vibrant green eyes, the rest of her delicate beauty she seemed to have inherited from her mother. Darryl was all angles, sharp and crooked—menacing, in a certain light.
“What’re you doing—?”
“Get your hands off her,” the man barked as he brushed Nash aside and took Eliza away, a seemingly tight grip on her forearm. “Who are you, anyway?”
“I’m—”
“It doesn’t matter.” The dean cut him off with a roll of his eyes, then pointed an accusatory finger at him. “Whoever you are, you’re a poor influence on my daughter. I don’t want to see you around her again.”
“Daddy—”
“Looking like he’s straight out of one of those awful gangs,” Darryl spat, speaking over Eliza and looking Nash up and down as if he was nothing more than the dirt on the bottom of the dean’s very pricey leather shoes. “If I see you again, I’ll call the authorities.”
“Daddy, stop, he didn’t do anything,” Eliza cried, more clarity to her voice at last, though she was still a wobbly mess on her feet, like a baby deer on ice, as her dad dragged her to the awaiting car. Clearly the driver preferred not to dirty his hands.
“Enough from you.” He yanked open the door and pushed Eliza toward it. It broke Nash’s heart to see her trip over her own feet. “You know it was Claire who called me? Because her assistant saw you in your current state! My assistant’s assistant had to contact me! Look at the state of you!”
She had scrambled into the car during his rant, no doubt mortified, even as intoxicated as she was, at the scene he was making. Nash’s jaw clenched as he watched the whole thing play out, hands balled into fists.
“She’s just drunk,” Nash interjected in her defense. Drinking wasn’t a crime, after all. Everyone did it. Sometimes people went overboard—especially if someone they cared about pushed them. If anything, he ought to be angry with Nash. And he was, judging by the icy look the dean shot his way. He cleared his throat and quickly added a sir in there, if only to stroke the guy’s ego so that he wouldn’t take it out on Eliza as soon as the car door shut.
The older, slimmer man drew a breath as if to say something else, but then pressed his already thin lips together into an even thinner line. It was obvious, loud and clear, what he thought of Nash.
Blackwoods filth. Uneducated cretin.
Nash raised his chin as a challenge, but then exhaled deeply as the dean climbed into the car and slammed the door shut. The last thing he saw was the man’s enraged profile through the partially tinted windows as the car pulled away.
But before that, the last thing he heard was Eliza crying.
And that hurt worst of all.
Chapter 25
“Yeah, yeah, okay.” Nash nodded, phone pressed to his ear and a cigarette hanging out of his mouth. “Thanks for everything.”
Not bothering to wait for the sign-off, he punched the disconnect button on the screen and tossed the phone onto the desk, leaning back in his worn-out office chair with a sigh. It was Valentine’s Day. Supposedly the most romantic day of the year, and Eliza was nowhere to be seen.
Well, not nowhere. They’d met up for coffee at an on-campus café covered in paper heart cutouts, each of them sitting through a somewhat uncomfortable hour as they forced conversation between them. Try as he might, Nash couldn’t get Eliza to talk about what had happened the other night at the club. After a lot of prodding, she’d admitted that her dad was upset with her for throwing away precious study time to party, but he only had her best interests in mind. It seemed to Nash that she knew the old guy was a controlling dick, but he was her dad all the same. While he wanted to lay into the guy for the way he handled her, treating Eliza like a toddler and manhandling her in front of peers downtown, Nash kept his mouth shut and drank his coffee, ignoring the fact that they hadn’t made plans to see each other that night.
“I have a presentation tomorrow,” she’d said when he asked if she wanted him to come over. “Harriet and I are going to prep together. I promised her.”
At the time, Nash couldn’t help but wonder if she was trying to get some space from him, too. Put the distance between them. Pump the breaks to keep the car from spiraling off the road—that sort of thing. He’d pretended to be relieved that he didn’t need to do the whole flowers and dinner and chocolates thing, but deep down, he wasn’t feeling great. While he wasn’t a romantic sap, he would have liked to celebrate the holiday as he saw fit, preferably with handcuffs and a ball gag for Eliza.
Still, it was very apparent that she didn’t want to spend the night together, so Nash threw himself into work instead. He had a lot to do. With no perp apprehended yet, the Steel Phoenix big-shots were getting antsy, and Nash was eager to show that all this time and energy around the campus had actually been worthwhile—and prove to himself that he wasn’t getting as wrapped up in Eliza Truman as he thought he was.
So, after ordering a dozen roses to be delivered to Eliza’s dorm—because he thought he owed her something for being a petulant brat at the arcade—Nash locked the doors, grabbed a fresh pack of cigarettes, and got to work.
He’d come down to the conclusion that the guys whacking his MC brothers were hired help. They were too good, too skilled, to be guys from the local gangs, and after perusing through the usual freelancers who actually did this kind of shit, he phoned in a favor from one to get the logistics. Cash flow. Rumors. Freelance hitmen who were suddenly flush. Nash dug deep, spending the last nine hours up to his eyeballs in freelance bullshit—who knew Blackwoods was such a haven for criminal activity?
In the end, a large chunk of cash traced back to Blackwoods University. Someone was diverting funds to pay for these jobs, these hits against the Steel Phoenixes, and the only guy who had a finger on that kind of trigger was the dean. Who else had enough sway to dictate where that much money was being spent? The dean was King of Blackwoods University in every sense of the word. All that skinny jerk needed was a crown.
And Eliza would be his princess.
Groaning, Nash’s face screwed as he rubbed it. Dating the dean’s daughter had some perks, but this wasn’t one of them. If Darryl was indeed the guy funneling funds to pay hitmen to take out Nash’s brothers, then he would have to pay—probably with his life.
It was going to kill Eliza. Darryl was all she had—Darryl and Nash, two secret criminals holding such large chunks of her heart. It wasn’t fair. None of it.
He decided right then and there that he had to tell her, at least a part of it. He owed Eliza that much anyway. It would mean spilling his secret, too, that he wasn’t some hotshot business student, but rather, a local biker with an online degree and three loaded handguns stashed around his apartment, none of them legally obtained. It was going to crush her, but enough was enough.
Time to stop being a coward and get the truth out in the open.
Lost in thought, he flinched when his phone started to rumble, skittering across the table with the vibrations. Snatching it up, he answered without checking the caller ID.
“Yeah?”
“Nash?” Eliza’s small voice sounded in his ear, and he sat up a little straighter, putting the cigarette out on his desk out of habit.
“Eliza…” He cleared his throat, annoyed that his heart was beating a little faster suddenly. “Is everything okay?”
“Fine,” she replied, sounding more like herself now than she did on their coffee date. “I just got a delivery, actually.”
His eyebrows shot up as an easy relaxation settled over him. “Oh? Well… Wonder who might have sent it. Probably some go
rgeous guy with a huge—”
“Ego!” she shouted, then giggled into the phone. “They’re beautiful. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” he murmured, unable to stop from smiling. “How’s presentation prep going?”
“We’re talking a break, but it’s going okay so far,” she started, then launched into a huge story about the details of her night. Suddenly she stopped, and when she spoke again, some of the insecurity from before had returned. “Sorry. I’m sure you don’t want to hear about any of this stuff.”
Nash shook his head, slowly closing his laptop and migrating to the nearby armchair instead. “Of course I do.”
“Why?”
“Maybe I just like listening to your voice,” he said, adding just a hint of Dom to his tone that he was sure made her shudder. “Tell me more. Tell me everything.”
“We’re only on a break for a few minutes,” Eliza muttered, though he could hear the breathlessness in her voice. Damn he wanted her.
“Well,” he mused, head cocked to the side, “you’d better start talking then, shouldn’t you?”
And so she did, because she was a good girl, and Nash listened with more attention than the topic warranted.
All the while wondering when, and how, he was going to shatter her world, and if he had the balls to actually do it.
Chapter 26
She wasn’t sure what she had been expecting the first time she walked into Nash’s apartment, but it certainly wasn’t… this. Arms folded across her chest, Eliza tried to mask her surprise as best she could, but given the way Nash was watching her, she was probably failing—badly. Everything was just so… bare.
It wasn’t that Nash struck her as a materialistic guy, but he seemed to have a tendency of leaning toward the finer things. His motorcycle was expensive and meticulously cared for. His leather jacket collection was off the charts, and Eliza knew that kind of stuff didn’t run cheap. While his car wasn’t anything to write home about, it was still polished and clean and upgraded with the latest dashboard gadgets. But his apartment was shockingly sparse, like he barely spent any time there, and for some reason, that concerned her.
Hell, she hadn’t been expecting cozy throw rugs and doilies and knick-knacks on the mantel, but some sort of décor beyond the wilting potted plant on the thick window ledge in the living room would have been nice. The furniture matched in that it was all muted greys and whites and blacks, aside from the huge desk in his office. Eliza poked her head in there briefly as he gave her the grand tour, her surprise growing when she found the desk actually had some clutter. If she hadn’t seen that, she would have wondered if he even lived there at all.
For a man so experienced and adept in his sexual proclivities, his bedroom was also quite muted and bland, with a made-up bed near a window and a dresser with a very faint layer of dust on it. She stood in the doorway for a long moment, studying it and wondering just how much she actually knew about the man she was dating.
Because she’d already seen an ugly side of Nash. When she looked back on the night at the arcade, it became almost painfully obvious that he was jealous of all the time she was spending with Professor Holstein. When she had come to that conclusion, Eliza almost felt bad—almost. After all, Nash was the one who constantly put a stop to their plans, who bailed at the last minute, and, now, who had stormed off in a jealous rage over nothing.
To Eliza, Nash was sex on legs. Undoubtedly the most attractive human being she’d ever seen. Did he not think she wondered about his previous romantic endeavors? Did he not think she wondered about the girls shooting him bedroom eyes in the cafeteria or library or, well, just about anywhere on campus?
Of course she did. Of course. But Eliza also knew, or she thought she knew, that Nash was her man. She trusted him implicitly, the bond stemming from how he’d taken of her when they first began their sexual relationship. She knew without a shadow of a doubt that he would never cheat on her now, even if she’d questioned it early in the relationship. Now, she would never stomp off in a jealous huff.
But apparently she would go get completely trashed at a bar at the first whiff of trouble, only to have her father drag her into his chauffeured town car in front of all the other drunk students. The episode had been humiliating, and she’d barely been able to show her face for her Valentine’s lunch with Nash. He’d seen it all, every gory detail of her humiliation. Her father had been horrible to him too, though she couldn’t recall the exact words—much of that night was pretty hazy.
Yet, he drew her back to him. Showered her with a beautiful bouquet of roses while she prepped for a presentation on Valentine’s Day. Finally opened up the most private part of him to share—his home. The two-bedroom apartment surprised her, but no more than his demeanor that evening. In a way, Nash was almost fidgety—a trait she would never, ever associate with the man who knew how to make her come just by twisting her nipples a certain way.
But tonight he was off somehow. Something in his smile, his eyes, the way he moved. Perhaps he was nervous about showing her his apartment, but for some reason, that didn’t strike Eliza as the cause for all the fussing he was doing.
“So, this is me,” he said, his head appearing in the doorway between the small living area and the galley kitchen. “Tea’s almost done.”
“Thanks,” Eliza replied with a soft smile, seated on the edge of his couch with her hands threaded together on her lap, suddenly feeling as though she didn’t belong. “So you’re just renting this place, right?”
“Been renting it for years,” came his response, followed by some tinkling of cutlery and dishes. “Not sure why I like it so much.”
“Good location,” she offered. After all, it was pretty centralized. Far enough from campus to avoid the hub-bub of student life in the north end, but close enough to all the amenities downtown so that he could walk just about anywhere to get what he needed. Ideal, really. All the place needed were a few extra touches, something to warm it up and bring it to life, and it’d be the perfect little love nest.
Though Eliza would probably insist on a locked room to display all the toys she and Nash used if they ever moved in together. Not that she was thinking that far down the line, but she’d want their sex life locked up if anyone came to visit—particularly her father.
Oh, her father. He’d been so angry with her that night, but he was even angrier when she admitted to being in a relationship with Nash.
“He looks like typical Blackwoods south end trash,” her father had said when she confronted him about his dislike. “He reeks of a poor upbringing and bad news.”
She’d then chastised her father for judging a book by its cover, but that was all she could do and it probably hadn’t changed his mind about anything. He was a very stubborn man, Darryl Truman, and after all these years, Eliza still hadn’t figured out how to sway his opinion in her favor.
“Here we are,” Nash announced, setting her steaming mug down on the coffee table, the wood stained with permanent rings, probably from beer cans based on the size. He then settled on the couch beside her, sitting on the edge just as she did. For some reason, that didn’t bring her the comfort she was hoping for once he was back beside her, and Eliza swallowed hard and reached for the mug.
“Thank you,” she murmured after taking a tentative sip, then kept the warmth cupped between her hands rather than putting it back down. “I was wondering—”
He said her name sharply, causing her to look up with raised eyebrows. The tone he took with her was authoritative, and she briefly wondered if they were about to start a scene. It had been a while since he was buried, balls deep, inside her—and she really did miss it.
But why bring her the tea if they were going to start a scene? Would the heat be a new kind of pain for her to try and master? She licked her lips, nodding as she offered him her full attention.
“I didn’t bring you here just to show you my apartment,” he started, speaking slowly and purposefully. When he pressed his lips toget
her and looked away, Eliza inched toward him and placed a hand on his knee, hoping to encourage him to go on. She couldn’t stand the unease churning in the pit of her stomach. Whatever he had to say, she could handle it.
“Nash?” Eliza tilted her head to the side and kept her expression as soft as possible when his eyes flitted over to her. They’d been in a weird place ever since they made their relationship official. If anything, Eliza wanted him to know that adding a label hadn’t changed things. She cared for him. She wanted them to grow together—not fall apart.
He sighed heavily, and just as she thought she was losing him, he covered her hand with his, his warmth radiating up her arm. Unable to help herself, Eliza turned her hand upward and worked her fingers around his, gripping his much larger hand in hers. A hand to inflict pain and pleasure. To caress and to discipline. She wanted to kiss it.