Honor

by Jay Crownover

  With a sigh I put both my hands on his chest and felt his muscles tense as I pushed him off of me. I scooted out from under him and scrambled to the other end of the couch. I was glad I hadn’t taken the cop up on her offer to set me up with one of her friends. I was about to kick this guy out with a serious case of blue balls and that wasn’t something most men in my experience easily overlooked. I didn’t need the cop on my case about that like she was on it about the gash I was still sporting in my forehead from the attack in the parking lot. The redhead saw too much.

  Instead I went to the bar that her boyfriend owned part of and picked up the first cute guy that seemed like he could give me what I wanted. I thought I was after sex. I thought I needed to take a guy home to prove to myself that I was in Denver to stay, and getting some kind of social life back was part of that. I thought I needed to prove to myself that it didn’t matter if Nassir wanted me, because so did other guys, and other guys were always a better choice than my devil. Any guy was . . . at least that’s what I thought until this very moment.

  I shoved my hand through my newly styled and freshly colored hair and looked at the horny guy who was mumbling my name in obvious confusion. I should have known when I gave in to the temptation of the fancy underwear that more of my old self was going to start knocking against the bars I had caged her in. First it was the bra and panties, followed by actually wearing makeup to work. Then it was a totally revamped hairstyle, which I told myself was simply to cover up the nasty scratch that was still above my eyebrow. It was a lie. I cut my boring locks into a drastically short bob that was significantly longer on one side than the other so that my hair partially covered my eye when it hung in my face. I dyed the sharp new do a fire-engine red so that it was bold and bright, totally eye-catching in a different way than my old stripper hair had been, but just as vampy and sexy.

  After the hair, there was no way I could justify wearing those ugly-ass nonslip shoes to work anymore, and even though I almost fell and broke my backside in the kitchen every time I walked in to pick up an order, I was back to wearing four-inch heels that cost more than the rent on my apartment. The changes hadn’t gone unnoticed.

  “I need you to go.” Funny, I had said almost the exact same thing to Nassir a week ago. The look this guy gave me was nothing like the soul-stripping, heart-crushing one those predatory eyes had leveled at me. This guy looked puzzled and then panicked.

  “Did I do something wrong?” I think his voice actually squeaked and it made me cringe. I sighed again and straightened my clothes while I leaned over to grab his shirt off the floor.

  I tossed it at him. “No, but I’m not into this anymore.” I sounded just as cold and callous as the man I needed to forget, and that made my skin pull tight.

  Wide eyes stared at me like I had lost my mind, so I got to my feet and moved toward the door. “I’m sorry. I know I practically guaranteed you a piece of ass, but this isn’t working for me.” He was what wasn’t working for me and he never would because he was the wrong guy.

  He pulled his shirt on and messed up his already tousled hair. God, he looked so innocent, so clean, and so uncomplicated. My heart twisted and my stomach pulled. He looked boring and basic. I wanted to slap Nassir across the face for pulling my blinders off and making me see everything that surrounded me here in Denver without the rose-colored glasses I had been wearing since I landed here months ago.

  “Um . . . okay.” He got to his feet and reached for the hoodie I had pulled off of him in a rush. “I really hope I didn’t do anything wrong. You seemed into it.”

  I tucked the longer chunk of hair that covered my face behind my ear so I could look him in the eye.

  “I was into it, but now I’m not. I really am sorry.”

  His brow furrowed and his nostrils flared. “You’re a goddamn cocktease is what you are.”

  I couldn’t stop the laugh that snapped out before I could bite it back. “You have no fucking idea.” I had made a fortune off of being a tease. I was the best at making promises to men I never intended to keep. Kind of like my promise that I was never going back home. I shivered at the thought.

  He gave me a scathing look as he swept past me out the door. “And that scar on your shoulder is ugly as fuck.”

  Man, he even made leaving him hanging uncomplicated. With his last words, any kind of guilt I might’ve been feeling fled as I slammed the door shut behind him.

  I couldn’t imagine the fight I would have on my hands if I tried to tell Nassir to stop in the middle of something like that, especially after years and years of the back-and-forth between us. I knew he would stop if I asked him to, he always respected the distance I insisted we keep between us, but I knew if he ever got his hands on me, he would taunt, torment, tease, torture his way right back to where he wanted to be and there would be no more stopping. He was not a man to be denied, and I had always taken great pride in being the one thing, the one person, to elude his very clever grasp even if all I wanted to do was let him hold me close and keep me safe. I was too smart to believe in the false sense of security a man like Nassir offered. Everything about him and his lifestyle was dangerous even if I knew he would treat me like I was his most prized possession.

  I refused to be his anything . . . let alone his belonging.

  I snorted at myself as I locked the door and headed to my bathroom. Not so clever anymore if all I could think about was him after I had purposely sent him on his way. I needed a shower to wash the feeling of defeat and wrongness off; then I was going to curl into bed and finish the book I was reading. My love life sucked, so I saw no reason not to live vicariously through a cute teenage girl that was in love with a dead sexy alien with attitude who turned into beams of light. It was fun and made me forget about my own nonsense for a minute. And the fact that the hero of the story was exotic, dark, and mysterious didn’t hurt things either.

  After I was curled into bed and realized I was reading the same page over and over again and not comprehending a single word, I shut the Kindle down and picked my phone up off the nightstand next to my bed. I scrolled through the contacts, purposely skipping over the N section, and found the number I was looking for. It was late but I knew she would answer. I didn’t have anyone I really called a friend, but Reeve Black came close. She grew up in the same kind of life I did. She understood why it was hard to let anyone in and she helped me when I needed someone to spring me from the hospital after I got shot. She also promised not to tell me “told you so” when I came crawling back home with my tail tucked between my legs.

  Her cell rang once before she answered. “What’s up, bitch?”

  I could hear the noise of the strip club in the background. I tended to try to forget she was working for Nassir. She had taken over Spanky’s and made it as reputable as a strip club run by a crook could be.

  “I just kicked a guy that was a really good kisser out of my apartment.” It wasn’t what I meant to say but the words just sort of tripped off my tongue.

  I heard Reeve laugh and then she told me to hold on while the noise and music in the background faded away. When she was somewhere quieter she said, “He must not have been that good if you made him leave.”

  “No, he was; really, really good, but it felt so wrong and I haven’t been laid in almost a year and I’m going crazy. It’s all Nassir’s fault.”

  “A year? You’ve only been gone for six months, Key.”

  I blew out a frustrated breath and looked up at the ceiling. “Yeah, but Nassir took over the club a year ago. You think anyone was going to go home with me with him looking over their shoulder? Ugh . . . I hate him.”

  She laughed again. “We were all surprised he came back alone. He’s not familiar with the word ‘no.’”

  “Tell me about it. Before he left, he paid some hobo to beat me up in the parking lot.”

  “Are you kidding me!?” She swore. “Why would he do that?”

  “Because I hurt him.” The words whispered out and I hated that I
could always ache for a man I was pretty sure didn’t have a soul.

  “He is such a dick.” She sounded furious on my behalf, and that was why she was my only almost-friend.

  “He is, but it was his face I was picturing while the guy from tonight touched me, it was his voice I kept hearing in my ear. I know he’s mostly terrible and has no remorse for doing shady, illegal things, but I can’t seem to forget him.”

  She clicked her tongue in a tsk. “I told you before you left that there is no accounting for what the heart wants. In your case, it sounds like you can’t fool your body either. There is no substitute for a guy like Nassir.”

  I put a hand over my eyes and roughly rubbed my temples. “He’ll destroy me, Reeve. He’ll take over my life. All the choices I’ve made, the way I’ve struggled to build my life on my own terms . . . it’ll all just be wasted time and effort because he’ll control everything. I’ll hate myself and then eventually I’ll for real start to hate him.” And that I couldn’t bear. My heart had been twisted up over Nassir for so long that the idea of it actually turning on him for good made me sick to my stomach.

  She made a sympathetic sound low in her throat and I could hear her tapping her fingers on something. “Sometimes you have to burn it all, level it all to the ground, for something new to sprout up out of the ashes.”

  My heart skipped a little beat at the idea of someone as formidable and impenetrable as Nassir being breakable. “Man, the cop has turned you into a big ol’ pile of mushy goo, bitch.”

  Reeve had hooked up with a detective and was head over heels for him. Last I heard from her, she was trying to get knocked up and live the kind of life the Point usually smashed. Reeve was a fighter and a survivor, so if anyone could hold on to a dream and not let the city steal it, it was her.

  She giggled, actually giggled, and I felt an answering smile twist my lips.

  “Shut up. I’m just saying you never know what can happen. Even Hades loved Persephone.”

  I snorted. “He kept her trapped in hell and only let her loose a few times a year.”

  “Stop crapping all over my awesome analogies. You get my point and . . .” She paused and I could almost hear her turning over what she wanted to say next in her head. “He’s been really off ever since you left. Like even scarier than normal.”

  A chill raced across my skin and I sat up in the bed. I wasn’t aware that my fingers clutched the phone in a death grip until my knuckles cracked. “What do you mean?”

  “He’s been fighting.”

  I heard words floating around inside my head but couldn’t seem to grasp on to them. “What do you mean, fighting? With you and Chuck?” Nassir didn’t fight. He said his piece, made declarations of how things were going to be, stated his standards and expectations, and then waited for things to be done his way and his way only. He didn’t waste his words or his time on an argument he was bound to win.

  “No, Key, like fighting the way Bax used to, and it’s terrifying. No one has ever seen anything like it. He goes in the circle and doesn’t come out until the other guy is almost dead. He took on this ringer, a professional fighter Race brought in from Vegas during the last one.” She paused then made a noise that had me wanting to climb through the phone and shake her until she kept talking. “The guy was huge. Bigger than Titus, so way bigger than Nassir. And he was a pro. Bax said it was obvious he didn’t care about the money he just wanted to fight. Apparently Nassir walked into the circle still wearing his slacks and his fancy shoes and the guy laughed at him.”

  “Oh, that was a mistake.” The words whispered out.

  “A big mistake. Race told me Nassir let him get in exactly two punches, one to either side of his face, before he took the other guy to his knees with some kind of crazy martial arts move and then proceeded to pummel him into pulp. The fight lasted maybe three minutes when Chuck waded in and pulled Nassir off the guy before he killed him. Race said if Chuck hadn’t stepped in, Nassir wouldn’t have stopped.”

  I wasn’t surprised by the violence or power that she was describing. What shocked me was that he had purposely let the other man hurt him, had withstood injuries to that perfect face of his without defending himself. Nassir wasn’t a man that would express his remorse and guilt at his misdeeds outwardly, but I had no doubt that he was regretting his decision to set the homeless man on me without being there to make sure his plans didn’t take a violent turn. I hurt him, he hurt me, and then because we hurt each other, he let a stranger hurt him physically to leach the poison out. He sought punishment for the injuries he inflicted and doled it out for the ones I had left on him.

  I told her what I had known was going to be the inevitable truth since he moved the menu away and I saw that unforgettable face after six months of missing it. “I think I’m coming back.”

  “Thank God. Maybe that will set him back to rights and he can go back to being his normal level of frightening and ruthless.”

  “I’m not coming back for him, Reeve. I’m coming back for me. I thought I could make a life here but I didn’t even really try.”

  She hummed a little. “Why didn’t you try, Key?”

  I looked around the small apartment and gritted my teeth. “Because as much as I wanted my own life and my independence, as much as I wanted to do something good, when I saw Nassir I realized I didn’t want to do it here and I never will. Denver isn’t home.”

  “You can keep your own life and your independence and still love someone as long as it’s the right someone, you know?” Her tone was quiet but it was sure and steady. “Hey, I need to go work. One of the girls just tried to go onstage drunk off her ass and that’s a big no-no. Call me when you get back to town and let me know if you’re going to take Nassir up on his offer.”

  She was about to hang up when I screamed her name like a crazy person. “What offer?”

  “What are you talking about, Key? I really have to go.”

  “Take Nassir up on what offer, Reeve?”

  “The business offer he went to Denver to tell you about. He wasn’t just asking you to come home so he could fuck you, though I’m sure that was his primary reason. He’s been sinking a ton of money into a new club and he wanted you to be a partial owner. He knows you have a pretty hefty nest egg stacked away from dancing.”

  I was so dumbfounded I could barely speak. “A club?”

  “Yeah. It’s massive and super swanky. It’s way too nice for the Point, but people are dying to get in already. He finally decided to open it next week. I think he realized you meant it when you said weren’t coming back.” She snorted. “Men are dumb.”

  “What kind of club?” His old club had been part dance club and part fight club. It was seedy and oily. It didn’t fit him at all but it generated all kinds of cash, and he was pissed when someone burned it to the ground.

  She laughed. “A sex club. What else? I gotta go for real. I miss you, bitch.”

  “I miss you too.” I said it automatically as I hung up. I stared at the glowing screen and couldn’t decide if I wanted to laugh or throw the thing across the room.

  In my head I heard him as clear as if he had been in the bed next to me . . . “I have a business proposition for you, Key.”

  His voice, with its faintest hint of an accent as he looked at me with those candy-colored eyes, gave nothing away. Of course, when he offered me something other than sex and physical temptation, it was a chance to get into bed with him in a different way . . . a way that would probably be just as dirty and complicated as the traditional way. Only Nassir would take something people did anyway and charge for it. He was already making money from the strip club and from the working girls he looked out for, so why wouldn’t he take that a step further and make money off of people chasing a chance to indulge in their kinky vices. It simply made good business sense.

  I scrolled back up to the Ns in my contact list and stared at his name before pulling it up. It took another ten minutes before I could get my hands to stop shaking enough t
o type out a text message. I couldn’t call him. The sound of his voice after what had happened with the guy from the bar tonight would be too much. I would be in my little Honda Civic racing back to the Point and throwing myself at him like a lunatic. I needed to keep the upper hand with him if I was going to go home, if I was going to even consider tying myself to him in any way.

  I’m coming home, asshole.

  I sent the message off and stared at the phone, expecting an immediate response. Expecting a “good” or an “about time.” I got nothing. Zero. Zilch. The screen stared back at me, taunting me in silence for hours. When I couldn’t stop hitting the message button to see if anything was there, and as dawn started to cross the sky, I finally gave in to frustration then and threw the thing across the room.

  There had been good men and bad men in my past. There had been men I wanted to stay longer than they did and ones I couldn’t get rid of fast enough, but in the background there was always Nassir . . . always. I couldn’t escape his pull and not even time and distance had done anything to stop the irresistible attraction I felt toward him. I told Reeve he couldn’t be the center of my world, but the reality was that he had been the core of everything from the get-go, and all I was doing was orbiting around him. Forever circling and trying to get as close as I could without succumbing to his gravitational pull and colliding into him.

  I fell asleep after the sun was in the sky and was so tired and stressed out from the night before that I slept through my alarm, missing my shift at the diner. I guess it was a good thing I was going back to the Point. I didn’t think my ego could handle getting fired from a waitressing job I never really wanted in the first place.