by Bella Jewel
Hell, it’s all I can say.
Because then I start crying.
And I can’t stop.
8
NOW – LUCY
Nicolai leads me through the crowd and into his office.
I hardly notice anything.
The only thing I can pay attention to, or even try to focus on, is his hand curled around mine, the way his fingers enclose mine, almost protectively, like nothing in the world can ever touch them.
I focus on that.
The moment we’re in his office, away from the noise and the intensity, I turn to him. He’s looking at me, concern etched in his features. He looks as though he has a million things he wants to say, or ask, but instead, he says, “What’s happened?”
I tell him.
I tell him Shania came by and how I felt about that.
I tell him I went on a date to try and get over him.
I tell him what that date tried to do.
Then, between sniffles and sobs, I look over to him, tears running down my cheeks.
He’s staring at me, his face at this current point expressionless. He isn’t showing me a single emotion, he’s keeping it together exceptionally well. He takes a deep breath in and slowly exhales. “Firstly,” he says, his voice gruff, “I’m trying to look past the last thing you told me, and my anger is white hot right now, so I’m going to focus on you for a second, then we’re going to get back to that piece of shit and how I’m going to deal with him.”
Oh.
Boy.
Nicolai moves closer to me, kneeling in front of me and taking my face in his hands. When he’s like this, so warm and giving, my heart explodes. It’s like he’s put the gruff, determined, professional man aside and is giving me what he reserves only for special people, like Tommy. I can see the warmth in his eyes, I can see that he cares. For the first time, I can truly see it, and it only makes things harder.
Sometimes I feel like it would be easier if he was just using me, because then maybe I could justify walking away and forgetting about him. When he’s looking at me the way he’s looking at me right now, it makes it very hard to do that.
“Why are you crying, Lucy?” he asks me, tucking a strand of hair behind my ear. “The Lucy I know is strong, determined, and she doesn’t cry. It concerns me to see you like this.”
“I’m just tired,” I tell him. “Tired of the way all of this feels. Tired of Shania being angry at me. Tired of trying to get my life back on track. Tired of trying to do what everyone else wants me to do. Mostly, though, I’m tired of trying to stay away from you.”
He curls his hand around behind my neck, and pulls me forward, “Then don’t stay away from me.”
“She’s my sister, Nicolai,” I whisper. “I love her. I don’t want to lose her.”
“If she loves you, Lucy, she’ll get over it eventually. I understand her hurt, I understand it and accept it, but her and I are not a thing, we’ve never been a thing, and while our past is ugly, it is just that … past. It’s finished. I’m free. You’re free. There is no reason for us to feel any sort of guilt.”
He’s right, I hate to admit it but he’s right.
I understand Shania’s pain.
I truly respect it.
But I also have to think about how it all feels for me, too.
Not every single part of this is about her.
“I’m scared of losing her …” I admit, biting my lip.
He swipes a lone tear that breaks free and slides down my cheek. “If I know Shania, which I think I do, you won’t lose her. She’s angry. She’s hurt. She will get over it. I promise you she will.”
I hope he’s right.
I really do.
Because staying away from him, it’s almost impossible.
“What exactly are we doing here, Nicolai? It makes no sense to me. Tell me what you want, I need to be clear.”
He moves slowly, reaching down and pulling me into his arms, then he stands and walks over to the sofa, sitting and positioning me so I’m straddling him. My fingers go to the nape of his neck and play with the thick, dark hair curling there, and I hold his eyes, listening as he speaks.
“I’m sure you remember enough about me to know that I’m not the easiest man to love, even like, for that matter. I’ve not been the kindest to women, I’ve used them, and I’ve done the wrong thing by them, Shania included. I’m not that man anymore. When I started to talk to you again, something felt different. I wanted to know more about you, I was curious, you intrigued me. The more time we spent together, the more I realized you were the first woman to ever capture me like that, and I wasn’t about to give it up.”
My heart aches, and I smile at him. “What changed you then, from the womanizer to this man in front of me right now?”
“Tommy changed me.”
Damn.
My heart explodes.
It feels like it’s going to launch out of my chest.
Those words, so beautiful, so perfect, so real.
“He opened something up for me. He melted the ice, so to speak. I didn’t honestly know it was possible to love something so much, until I had my son.”
Good lord.
My poor aching heart.
“That’s a really beautiful thing,” I say to him.
“I want whatever this is with you. I want to see where it goes. I want you, Lucy.”
Dammit.
How the hell am I supposed to say not to that?
“I want you, too,” I admit.
Because dammit, it’s the truth. I can try to stay away. I can fight it and fight it but, in the end, the only thing I know for certain right now is that I don’t want to be away from Nicolai, and I’m tired of trying to stay away from him.
“Now we’ve cleared that up,” he murmurs, squeezing my ass, “tell me about that jerk who you just went on a date with. Name, address, phone number, I want it all. He’ll wish he never laid hands on you.”
God he’s sexy when he’s protective.
“I’ll tell you what you want to know after …”
“After what?”
“After you fuck me.”
He growls low, and I move forward, capturing his lips with mine. He kisses me deep, long, occasionally hard, occasionally soft, our bodies squashed together, everything feeling incredible. Our hands roam, and I grind myself against his cock, loving how hard he gets beneath me. Loving the way he growls into my ear. He has my dress off in a matter of seconds, and his mouth covers my nipple as he arches me back, one hand supporting me, the other gripping my breast in such a masculine way it’s fucking gorgeous.
I whimper his name as he licks and sucks at my nipple.
Then we’re moving, and my back is hitting the sofa and my dress is gone and his face is between my legs, and oh, oh lord, it’s heaven. Pure heaven. His tongue swirls around my clit, licking and sucking until I’m squirming in pleasure, then, and only then, does he slip his fingers inside me, making me cum so hard my screams fill the room. The most intense pleasure radiates through my body, and it feels … incredible. Out of this world. Amazing.
Legs still trembling, I watch as he stands and shrugs off his jacket, unbuckles his belt, and frees his cock. He can’t get naked, being that we’re in his club, but oh, I wish he could, I’m craving his body, craving the way his hot, hard, muscled skin presses against me.
He’s perfection.
I need him in me, like yesterday.
He moves over me, cock in hand, and then he’s inside me, his hard body over mine, his cock filling me. I whimper, pressing my heels into the sofa and thrusting upward to take him deeper, needing more of him, all of him. I want everything he’s giving. Every single thing.
“Nicolai,” I breathe into his ear as he starts fucking me.
The man knows how to fuck.
He knows he knows how to fuck.
He makes sure I get there. Every time.
I get there, oh, do I get there.
I get there with a w
himpered moan.
I get there with my toes curled.
I get there with my hands clutching his arms.
I get there with his mouth against my neck.
I get there.
Oh.
Yes.
I get there.
~*~*~*~
“I have to ask you something,” I say to Nicolai.
I’m sitting beside him on the sofa, fully dressed again, still aching from the incredible sex we just had. I have my leg thrown over one of his, and I’m turned in toward him, his arm thrown over the back of the sofa and resting on my shoulders. It feels nice. Casual. Relaxed. Like we’ve known each other forever. Like this is just life for us.
I like the feeling.
The way it makes me feel inside.
“What’s that?” he says, distracting me by taking a strand of my hair and twirling it onto his finger.
I have to ask him this question. I honestly do. The reason being, it plays in the back of my mind, a constant question. I need the answer to that question, and now seems like the right time to ask it, though I’m sure he has work to do. It’ll only take a moment … I hope.
“Why did you change your name?”
His fingers pause, and for a moment, I wonder if I’ve made him angry. Am I even supposed to know about this? Or maybe he didn’t think anyone knew. I don’t know, but the pause has me nervous.
“Damon told you, huh?”
“Amongst others, you know they looked into you to find you for Shania …”
He exhales and then resumes playing with my hair which makes me relax a little.
“I was married.”
Whoa.
What?
“I am … married.”
My head spins. What the hell did he just say?
He’s married?
He’s freaking married?
I move quickly, feeling the sting as my hair jerks from his fingers. I spin around and face him, “You’re married!”
“Before you overreact,” he says, calmly, “let me at least tell you the story, yeah?”
I exhale, take a few deep breaths, and then stay sitting where I am and nod. He’s right, let him tell the story.
“I’m still married because I’ve not legally gotten a divorce. There are a few reasons for that, one being I disappeared and changed my name, so, as far as I know, she has no idea where I am. Not that she’d be in a hurry to get a divorce anyway.”
“This story isn’t making sense, maybe start from the beginning.”
“I met Chastity when I was twenty-one. Young. Stupid. I thought she was everything, we got married, it was going well until I was about twenty-four, right when I started venturing into the business side of things. I partnered with a good friend and we bought a small club, it was great. As the years grew, we made more money, sold the club, and I went out on my own. I wanted to go bigger. I had some good savings, I’d been building on them, I wanted to have a huge cash deposit.”
Impressive, for such a young man.
“Chastity and I weren’t doing well. I found out she cheated on me and broke it off. She wasn’t going to divorce me without taking everything I owned. She got a bulldog lawyer, made up all these fuckin’ lies, and shit got ugly. But, she lost. She had nothing. She wasn’t going to win. Then, she got a boyfriend, some junkie, and it got worse. He started coming after me, threatening to do horrible shit if I didn’t give her what she wanted. My guess, she had started drugs too, because she lost it. They beat my sister, put her in hospital. A message. A warning.”
“Oh, god,” I say, my voice shocked, because this isn’t where I thought the story would go. “The sister you spoke of the other night?”
“Yeah. It’s why I don’t speak a great deal of her. She went through hell, had to move her family, it wasn’t easy for her. They nearly killed her. No word of a lie. It was bad. So fucking bad.”
Oh, his poor sister.
“I wanted to buy the strip club in another city, but I knew she’d track me down and I’d risk things crashing. So, I changed my name. My sister changed her name. We got up, and we left. Never looked back. I opened the club, and things have been good since. However, it has made it hard to obtain a divorce, being that I don’t want her to know my name, or where I live, or mostly, about my son.”
“Wow, that’s intense. I’m sorry that happened to you. Is your name a legal change?”
He nods. “Yes.”
“Wow.”
“Yeah.”
“Do you think you’ll ever find a way to divorce her?”
“There are options, but as of yet, I haven’t looked into them. I should, because while she’s legally married to me, I’m risking her trying to take shit.”
“If she didn’t win before, though, she wouldn’t now …”
“No, it would be highly unlikely, and she’s also got charges against her. She wouldn’t have much of a case. Still, for my own sake, I should do it.”
“I understand why you delay,” I tell him. “It would be really hard to even think about putting your son at risk.”
“Yeah, and I don’t know what life she’s leading now, or who she’s with. She’s lost it. She’s cruel. She allowed someone I loved to be hurt. I don’t trust her. I don’t want her ever knowing about Tommy.”
“I understand that,” I tell him.
He nods, holding my eyes. “That’s the story, anyway. Nothing on what you thought it would be, I’m sure. I know Lincoln and his club friends found out that it wasn’t my real name, it took some good digging on their behalf, I’ll give them that.”
“They never did figure out what your real name was, though.”
“That’s exactly how I want it,” he mutters.
“Can I ask,” I say, biting my lip, “what your real name is?”
He grins, and oh, he’s gorgeous.
“I’ll only tell you the first.”
I clap my hands together, anticipation killing me. “God, tell me already, you’re killing me!”
He exhales, runs his hands through his gorgeous thick hair, and mutters, “Pierre.”
I burst out into a fit of giggles.
I don’t mean to, but that was the last name I thought he’d come out with. I expected maybe a solid old name, like John or Peter. Never Pierre. It’s actually a super nice name, but the shock sent me into a fit of laughter.
Nicolai is staring at me.
“I’m sorry,” I giggle. “It’s actually a nice name. I just didn’t think that’s what you’d say.”
More giggles.
“You can stop laughing now,” he says, but he’s got a smile on his face.
“I’m trying,” I hysterically laugh, then snort.
He starts laughing too, and then we’re both there, Nicolai and me, laughing our asses off at his adorable name.
When we stop, we both look at each other, eyes red from laughter, faces bright and happy, and he says to me, “I haven’t laughed for so long.”
I smile. “I’m glad I could make you laugh.”
He reaches over, cupping my face. “I’m starting to think you’re going to change everything for me.”
Oh, boy.
Because of one little laugh, things just went from confusing to very confusing.
Because now, I’m not sure I’ll be able to stay away.
I don’t even know if I want to.
9
NOW – LUCY
Damon exhales and glares over at me.
“What?” I cry, pulling my sunglasses down over my nose and giving him the eye.
We came for a drive to the lake; I wanted to swim and Damon had to come, because he’s my bestie and he has to do as I say.
Not really, but he never says no to me.
I think deep down he secretly likes hanging out with me, even though he won’t admit it.
“You’re going to get yourself into trouble,” he warns me, sipping his beer and glancing around as if he’s some sort of teenager who isn’t allowed to drink.
/>
“Stop sipping that beer like you’re going to get into trouble …” I huff at him.
“I probably am. Can’t deal with much more trouble right now.”
I give him the eye. “Why? What’s happening? Share with Lucy.”
“Please don’t refer to yourself as Lucy.” He chuckles. “And we’re going to get into your story first, thank you very much.”
I frown. “I’m sick of talking about my story.”
“I’m not. Now, tell me, you and Nicolai are talking and fucking again, and you haven’t told Shania?”
“Firstly,” I mutter, “it was once, and yes we’re talking, we’re trying to figure out where to go from here, actually. I’m going to speak with Shania today. As a matter of fact, I’ve decided I’m either going to do this, or I’m not, either way I have to stick to my choice.”
“Are you going to do it?” Damon asks, narrowing his eyes.
“Right now? Yes. I want to do it. I care about him, Damon. I wouldn’t be risking anything if I didn’t think we had something. I know all the rest of you don’t want to accept it, but I’m not stupid, and what Nicolai and I have, it feels good, real even.”
Damon studies me, then shrugs. “Look, if that’s how you feel, then you’re entitled to that. I’m not going to tell you that you can’t feel a certain way. But you need to be honest with Shania about it, that’s the only advice I’ll give.”
“I will be,” I promise him, because it’s true. I will be honest. Even if she doesn’t like it. “Tommy is having his birthday tomorrow, we’re all going, I’ll talk with her after it.”
“The birthday.” Damon nods. “Yep, we all got an invite, even half the club members.”
I giggle. “That’s Shania for you, going to introduce her son to her family, and I suppose they are her family, kind of.”
“Yeah, they’re good people anyway, his life will be a whole lot better with them in it.”
He’s right about that.
The club. The Knight brothers. They’re all such an incredible group. Anyone would be lucky to have them in their lives.
I’m lucky to have Damon, even though I’m not going to tell him that.
“So” —I nudge him with my shoulder— “tell me about what’s going on with you?”
He exhales. “I’m not supposed to discuss this shit, but fuck it. I’m not part of the club, or the fighting ring, so I’m going to tell you, but if you spill, I’ll have to murder you and bury you in some shallow grave somewhere.”