I shivered in his hold and lifted up my arms to wrap them around his wide shoulders. I could feel that he was shaking just a little bit and I couldn’t believe that this impossible, hard man was letting his armor break apart for me.

“You were too young, too soft, and too vulnerable and you knew it . . . but you were there on that stage anyway because you had a purpose. You wanted something and you were willing to do whatever it took to get it. That did something to me. In that split second of understanding, I found a reason, I found a cause of my own.”

His arms wrapped around me and we were hugging while he shook and while I tried to process all the information he had just handed over to me. I always thought Nassir was the one with the upper hand, that he was the one moving the players across the game board in the way he wanted, but from what he just told me, it sounded like I had always been the one in the driver’s seat. I wasn’t sure what to do with that information. That kind of power over a man like him was intoxicating.

He broke the somber mood by dragging me back into the here and now. “I need to eat and find a bucket of Tylenol for my head. Come downstairs and I’ll feed you.”

I watched him rub himself down with a towel and pull his black pants back on. He shoved his dripping hair out of his face and winced when his hand brushed over the wound on the top of his head.

“Okay?”

I was far from okay but I stepped out of the shower and took the towel he offered me. I grabbed his hand when he turned to leave the bathroom and looked at him from under my lashes.

“I don’t know who you were before you became Nassir Gates, but the man you are now . . .” I bit my lip and lifted both my eyebrows up at him. “He deserves every bit of the respect and control he’s earned over the years. You also have parts inside of you that have always been worthy of kindness and care. Those parts are the ones that brought me back, Nassir. Those are the parts that make it impossible for me to hold on to my heart.” He just stared at me for a long silent moment before dipping his chin down in a jerky nod and striding out of the bathroom.

Once he was gone I let out the breath I was holding and sat down heavily on the seat of the toilet. I winced a little as muscles that had been given a thorough workout both last night and on the stairs earlier let me know that they were there and pleasantly tender.

Nassir had always been a complicated man with layers and layers I was too afraid to dig into because I was sure I couldn’t stand side by side with him when I got to the core of what made him the way he was. And I was right. His story about his family and what his youth had been like wasn’t even something I could comprehend. Granted, my own childhood was a nightmare, but I didn’t have bodies and war as my first memories like he did. I had no idea how he saw anything besides that. I had no idea how he had seen me all those years ago or why my inability to save myself from that grabby customer had been enough to make me his cause, but I was grateful that things had worked out that way.

When we first met I had been too immature and stubborn to understand what the attention of a man like Nassir meant. I wanted the same things he had been after. I wanted to be free and to control my own life. I wanted no man and no master in charge of the choices I made and the direction I traveled to make something of myself. Even back then, I knew if I tied myself to Nassir all of that would stop. It would just be him and that was the only thing that would matter to me, and that couldn’t happen because I wanted to live.

Now I knew he was going to give just as much as he was going to take and I had to be deserving of all of it—good and bad—and I wasn’t one hundred percent sure I was up to the task. His bad was scary, but I was used to it. His good was devastating, and every time he showed me a piece of it, I couldn’t see anything else. I grumbled every bad word I could think of under my breath as I put myself back together to eat breakfast.

Chapter 12

Nassir

It took two days to clear out the vermin and clean up the club. That was a lot of money down the toilet and a lot of aggravation I had nowhere to put besides on Key. Luckily, she was made of strong stuff and could take everything, from my sullen and sharp mood to the less than delicate sex I kept throwing her way. She rolled her eyes at me a lot and told me to stop pouting about things I couldn’t control. I grumbled at her until she got on her knees in front of me and wrapped that sassy mouth around my dick and I forgot what it ever felt like to be pissed off and stressed out. She made being trapped in my house for two days bearable, and shutting off business and the Point feel like second nature. Here in my mountain retreat, it was just me and her and that was all that I allowed to matter for a few quiet moments when she smiled at me or taunted me into going after her.

The reprieve was broken when the cop that had been on the scene of the accident called and told Key they were releasing the woman who ran me off the road with nothing more than reckless-driving charges. He said they couldn’t charge her with anything harsher since I had refused medical care on the scene. I thought Key was going to try to reach through the phone and choke the police officer as he relayed the information. When she hung up she ranted about how I could have died and about how unfair it was that the woman was getting away with just a slap on the wrist. She was convinced it was all some conspiracy because I was a less than upstanding member of society. She kept muttering about how justice was for everyone, not just for people that stayed on the straight and narrow.

I kissed her on the forehead and told her she didn’t have to worry about me getting justice. That was one of those things I had no problem taking care of all by myself. I was way better at an eye for an eye than any kid in a police uniform was ever going to be. That revelation didn’t make her very happy, but when I asked her to drive me into the city since I was currently carless, she didn’t argue or pepper me with the million and one questions I could see clouding her eyes.

We got to the club and I could see her hesitancy when I went to pull open the back door. Luckily, nothing furry and disgusting rushed out at us and the cleaning crew had done a great job, leaving the place looking polished and back in its pristine condition. Key walked in front of me across the empty dance floor and to the back hall that led to my private elevator, dragging her fingers across the wall as we went. She looked at me over her shoulder with a soft grin pulling at her mouth.

“I never thought I would actually miss this place.”