by C. J. Thomas
The moment her words hit my ear, it felt like someone sat on my chest.
“Did you do it?” she asked again.
“Alex, baby, you have bigger concerns than Val.” I tugged her hair and hooked it behind her ear. “Let’s not worry about her and what you think might have happened between us, because nothing happened.” I hovered my face so close to hers that the tips of our noses touched.
Her hands dropped to her sides.
“Tell me more about the money you found.” I held her in my grip.
Her hands hooked on my shoulders as she turned her head to the side. “I found it the night you fucked me in the alley.”
“By Mojito?” My mouth went dry.
Her eyes hooded over as she nodded.
Incredible. This was too big a coincidence for Wes not to be involved.
“Nash, I don’t want anything bad to happen.” Concern riddled her voice.
I hooked my finger beneath her jaw and tipped her head back. “Nothing will happen to you. I promise you that. For as long as I’m around, I will protect you.”
She flung her arms around my neck and hugged me tight. “Thank you, Nash.”
49
Alex
HE KISSED me with enough hunger to make me believe.
All my doubts about Val washed away in an instant.
Nash was right; I had bigger fish to fry.
Val was a bitch. Everyone knew that. But it seemed as if Nash knew more about what was coming to me than even I wanted to admit myself.
And that was what really shook my core.
What was going to happen to me when word got out that I had the $250,000?
His eyes danced across mine as he held me tight against him.
Now I knew I didn’t have a choice. I had to trust him. He was my only hope to get through this unscathed.
As I stared into those dark eyes, I knew that there was more inside that head of his that he wasn’t telling me. “Christ, Alex. I want you to feel safe.”
I brushed his face and ran my fingers through his hair. “I’m at peace when I’m with you.”
He leaned in and pressed his lips against mine, demanding entrance.
I parted my lips and pressed my velvety muscle into his.
There was no way to know what tomorrow would bring, but I meant what I said. When I was with Nash, I felt like anything was possible. He was mine and I wanted to be his only one.
He coiled his tongue over mine and sucked me in deeper.
Fucking shit I needed to be his only one.
“Please keep this a secret between us.” My voice was soft as the air in my lungs fought to escape past the narrow windpipe of my constricted throat.
“Your secret is safe with me.” He gripped the flesh around my waist and tugged me closer to him.
“I should really get back to camera.” I rubbed my face and sighed.
He pressed his lips against mine and I tasted him one more time.
The way we kissed, so passionately, like lovers who were saving sex for marriage, would make me believe that maybe we’d turned a corner and could find reason to move our relationship beyond just banging each other’s brains out. Truth be told, it needed to go that way for me to be okay with how much of my life he controlled.
I twisted my tongue over his.
God, I loved the way he tasted like coffee, giving me the jolt I needed to get through my day without constantly having to look over my shoulder. His promise of protection allowed me to live in complete denial, and I’d prefer to keep it that way for as long as possible.
It was easier that way. And yes, ignorance was bliss.
He pulled back to show me that glimmer in his eye. “How about just a quickie?”
“You’re unbelievable.” I slapped the palm of my hand down on his solid chest and laughed.
“And so are you.” He nipped the soft flesh of my neck, dampening my panties.
“Stop it,” I giggled.
He squeezed the globes of my ass before finally unpinning me from being smashed up against the door.
I smoothed out my hair and ironed down the front of my shirt before turning to open the door.
“This isn’t over.” He took the door between his fingers. “I’ll have you soon. You can count on me.”
“We’ll see about that.” I winked.
It felt good to leave Nash hungry. For once, we didn’t take off our clothes and fuck like monkeys. No matter how much I wanted to do just that, a part of me was glad that we didn’t. Because I really did want to know if we could have a real relationship. One where he’d hold my hand and take me out to dinner or have my back without expecting something in return.
I caught sight of Val when I worked my way back to camera.
The moment she noticed me, she threw daggers with her eyes from across the room.
There was no way I’d let her win. Nash was mine.
I tipped my head to the sky and walked confidently through the room, forgetting to breathe, knowing she was watching me the entire time.
Battle royale, bitch.
“Alex.” He grabbed my arm so quick I jumped. “I need to talk to you.”
“Professor.” I held my hand over my chest. “You startled me.”
“Sorry about that.” He smiled. “That wasn’t my intention.”
“What are you doing here?”
“There’s something I need you to know.” He looked in each direction as if he didn’t want anybody else to hear what he had to say.
“Okay,” I said so softly it was barely audible. “What is it?”
“I’m not sure exactly how to tell you this.”
“Professor, what is it?” My heart pounded.
“It’s Nash.”
My chest heaved as I started to hyperventilate.
“I don’t think he’s telling you the complete truth.”
50
Alex
“I CAN’T BELIEVE we’re doing this.”
Kendra gave me a disapproving look. “You love him, don’t you?”
I bit the inside of my lip.
“Okay, I’ll take your silence as a yes.” She turned her head and faced forward.
I didn’t know if what I felt for Nash was love or not. It was too early to tell. But what was certain was that my heart beat wildly, my tongue was tied, and my stomach fluttered when he was around.
I liked him. I’d admit that much.
But I wasn’t about to join the rest of the world in tossing that four letter word around to the point that it lost its meaning.
With Nash, I still had too many questions swirling around inside my head for me to trust him with my heart. So, for now, I’d trust him to protect me from whoever’s money it was I took.
And maybe, if I was lucky, love—true love—would come later.
My nerves were jumpy. “This doesn’t feel right.”
Somehow I’d agreed to Kendra’s silly idea to spy on Nash. She’d demanded she pick me up and drive across town just so she could see him for herself.
“What’s there not to like?” She leaned back and bent her knee so her foot was resting on her seat beneath her.
I turned my head and looked around.
“What if he sees me?”
She rolled up my window. “Let’s make it a little more difficult for him, just in case he might look our way.”
I pinched my bottom lip and mumbled, “I don’t know.”
“Well, you have two options.” Kendra raised her brow. “We can turn around and go home and forget this ever happened and you can continue to live in denial, questioning if he’s the right man for you.” She glanced at me.
“And the alternative?”
She reached out and gripped the steering wheel. “We have some fun tonight and see exactly how much trouble he really is.” An evil grin spread across her face. I knew what she wanted to do.
I wasn’t sure I wanted to know the kind of trouble he actually was. I thought I already knew that, and with what
Professor Fields told me this afternoon, the warnings were there for me to forget about Nash and move on.
“I like the first option.”
Kendra wrinkled her nose. “Then I guess it was a good thing you don’t have a car and I’m behind the wheel.”
I rolled my eyes. “Why do you even ask?”
She barked a quick laugh.
My phone dinged with another text. “Look, he just sent me another one.” I held my phone up to her face.
“Can you blame him?” She wiggled her brow. “He just wants to get his fuck on.”
Nash had been sending me messages all evening, telling me what he wanted to do to me. “Professor Fields stopped by today.”
Kendra looked at me. “What? Here at the studio?”
“Yeah.”
“Does he do that often?”
I shrugged. “Not like this. Today he stopped by just to tell me something.”
“What was it?”
“To warn me about Nash.” I cast my gaze down at my hands twiddling in my lap. “He said Nash might not be telling me the complete truth.”
“About what?” Kendra dropped her foot back to the floor and sat straighter in her seat.
“Old girlfriends or something. He didn’t go into it too much, and truthfully, I don’t want to know.”
“Hell, the world knows he’s a playboy.” She slumped further back into her seat. “Ah, snap!” She jumped up and pointed out the windshield. “Look.”
There Nash was, walking to his car. We watched him get inside and Kendra turned the key, starting her own engine. “This is fun, right?”
“Do you want me to answer?” I reached over my shoulder and brought the buckle across my lap, latching it into the seat. “I still don’t have a good feeling about this.”
Kendra pulled out and followed Nash. “Let’s just see.” She turned on her headlights. “If things get weird, I’ll leave. I promise.”
Weird? What could get weird?
We followed Nash across town, mostly in silence.
I was curious to know what he did at night. And I deserved to know more about him. But this was the wrong way to go about it. Except this was Kendra’s way, and since I was in her car, I had no choice but to go along for the ride.
Nash pulled into a private parking area and we pulled into an empty spot down the block.
“What is this place?”
Kendra killed the engine and looked around. “No, I know this place.” She snapped her fingers. “It’s the location of that exclusive club all the celebrities go to. Huh . . . what’s the name of it?” She hung her head, closed her eyes, and pinched the bridge of her nose.
I bit the inside of my cheek.
She lifted her head and looked at me. “You know, the one all the tabloids are always writing about.”
“The one that they’re all speculating on?” My brows furrowed.
“Yeah, that one. What’s the name?” She squeezed her eyes shut.
My fingers drummed on my knee and I could feel the name on the tip of my tongue. “Mint?”
“Yes!” She clapped her hands. “That’s definitely this place.”
And just when I didn’t want to believe that this was that place, I saw Nash round the corner and we watched him go inside.
“Oh, shit.” Kendra’s eyes went wide. “I guess it just got weird.”
BOOK 6
On My Knees
The Hollywood Nights Series Vol. 6
CJ Thomas
51
Alex
FOR ONCE, she was speechless.
“I need you to take it.” My voice was soft and pleading.
Her gaze darted between my eyes as she twisted at the scarf she had tied around her neck. It was unusual to see her so concerned, and I wasn’t sure who her silence shocked more—me or her.
I angled my jaw and cast my gaze back down to the duffel. My fingers pinched the zipper open and I took a moment to look one last time at the quarter million that was supposed to have changed my life for the better.
The bricks of hundreds stared right back at me without any kind of remorse.
Instead of making my life easier, it had only brought trouble. Both kinds. The good and the bad.
Kendra reached out and rested a friendly hand on top of mine.
I needed to say goodbye.
Kendra knew it too, if not better than I did.
My fingers pinched the zipper and I closed it shut, inch-by-reluctant-inch.
If Nash was right about anything he said, then I needed to hide the evidence before someone else found out that it was me who found it and had it stashed here, at my new apartment.
With the duffel zipped shut, I looked at Kendra and said, “Get rid of it.”
She rolled off her heels and landed on her ass, crossing her legs. “Why me?”
“You’re the only one I can trust.” My bottom fell to the floor and I hugged my knees to my chest. “And you’re a lawyer. You know the difference between right and wrong.”
“I’m a corporate paralegal.” She raised her brows. “Not a criminal defense lawyer.”
I rubbed my face inside the palms of my hands. “You have to take it.”
“You say it like I don’t have a choice.”
“You don’t.” My voice snapped with my tightening chest.
She stared long enough to make me want to apologize for being short with her, then she finally spoke. “What do you want me to do with it?”
“Anything.” I twirled around until I was standing. “Just get it out of here.”
She got up off her butt and stood. “All right.”
I pulled my hair up off my shoulders and tied it into a ponytail. “Thank you,” I whispered.
“But only because you’re my friend.” She spread out her arms and I leaned into her accepting embrace.
After our hug that reassured us that we had each other’s backs like all the times before, I bent down and helped sling the heavy duffel over her shoulder. “So this is what a quarter million dollars feels like,” she smiled, bending her knees gently as she adjusted to the weight on her shoulder.
“Now go.” I took Kendra’s hand and dragged her to the front door. “He’ll be here any minute.”
“Remember, stay strong.”
We both saw where Nash went last night, and I couldn’t help but feel like maybe I was getting played.
“I will. Now go.” I waved her away and watched as she hurried down the hallway and to the elevator where a lift was waiting.
I liked Nash.
Perhaps too much.
The fact that he always seemed to find a way to tell me what I wanted to hear had me questioning everything he said.
Kendra and I both saw with our own eyes what doors he walked through last night. And as soon as we confirmed that those doors were in fact the ones that opened up to the club, Mint, we couldn’t wait to search the internet and familiarize ourselves with what we thought we already might know.
The rumors that swirled around that place were nothing short of a turn-my-head-and-blush, I’m-going-to-hell-if-Mom-finds-out kind of place. And if that, in fact, was truly what hid behind those very exclusive closed doors, where not just anybody could enter, sex was on the menu and kink was served nightly.
A knock on the front door brought my head back to the present.
I padded across the apartment floor, stood on my tip-toes, and peeked through the peep hole to see if it was him.
Sure enough, it was.
There was the gorgeous sex on two legs that I couldn’t stop thinking about. He ran his hand through his dirty blonde hair just as I opened up. “Hey.”
Nash smiled and gave me a quick peck on my cheek before stepping inside.
God, he smelled amazing. A perfect blend of both masculinity and the salt of the ocean.
“I like what you did with the place.”
I looked around, following the same path I watched him take with his eyes, and said, “Thanks.”
&
nbsp; It wasn’t much, but I was able to fill in the empty wall space and apartment with paintings and furniture that made it feel more like home.
He turned and let his sinfully dark eyes rake over me.
My breath caught in my lungs.
“Hope you didn’t spend too much of that money you found.”
I didn’t know what to say. Instead, I focused on my tense muscles.
He moved over to me and took my elbows between his fingers. “Where is it?”
“What?” My tongue slid over my lip.
He laughed. “The money. I’d like to see it.”
I flattened my palm and rested it over his heart. “It’s not here.”
“I see.” He tipped his head back and nodded before releasing his hold on me.
Nash turned and headed to my bedroom.
I didn’t have to waste my breath and ask him what he was doing. I heard his heavy footsteps move between the walls, wandering around, opening doors and sliding drawers shut before he came back out. “Wear this tonight.”
I opened my hands and took it from him. It was a sexy short club dress Kendra had me purchase with some of the money. “What’s tonight?”
“We’re going out.” He moved to the door. “I’ll pick you up at 8.”
52
Nash
WES DIDN’T TELL me shit.
We talked last night. He wouldn’t come to me, so I went to him.
He gave me no choice.
Mint was a place that brought back memories. Some good, but mostly bad. Recent accounts in my life that I didn’t care to relive.
I slid my arms through the sleeves of my white dress shirt and continued getting ready for tonight with Alex.
But being there, at Mint, made me also realize something that had been eating away at me ever since she left.
It was time to move on. Forget what happened with my last intern and concentrate on the one that I had control of now. And in doing so, put myself directly next to Wes until I figured out just how much he knew about this money we were both desperately chasing.
Mint would accomplish both those needs.
I leaned forward and ruffled my hair in the mirror.
