16. Nik

CHAPTER 16

Nik

I’ve commandeered a section of the security room’s bank of monitors as I keep replaying and scanning the footage that Throat-Bobbing Guy—Banks—has gathered together for us. Any remotely useful angles have been pulled—elevator exits and entries, crowd movements—but Brie’s floor has no security cameras on it thanks to her own request years ago, she told me, for privacy’s sake. And so the more I look, the more useless it seems, and my rage threatens to boil over.

The break-in to Brie’s suite isn’t just a security breach; it’s a personal affront. A challenge.

“Explain to me,” I growl, cutting off Phil Reynolds’s stammering, “how someone managed to access Mrs. Colombo’s private floor without triggering a single alert. How they bypassed the card reader in the elevator or got in via the stairs, and spent God knows how long tearing apart her suite—all without a single sign of them on camera. Without a single guard noticing,” I add, snarling over my shoulder at the nearest of them, who nervously shuffle in their seats as they keep staring at the casino monitors.

“With all due respect,” Reynolds starts, and I can already tell I’m going to hate whatever comes next, “Mrs. Colombo wasn’t even staying there. We had no reason to maintain full security protocols on an empty suite?—”

“ No reason? ” My voice could strip paint. “The fact that your own boss was murdered wasn’t reason enough? The fact that there have been two further attempts on Mrs. Colombo’s life? The fact that we already know someone has been able to fuck around with all the security footage wasn’t reason? ”

Some of the guards around the room are glancing my way with poorly concealed nerves, staring at the gun at my hip.

“Nik.” Brie’s hand lands on my arm. Even now, after everything we’ve been through the past few days, she has this effect on me—like a splash of cool water on feverish skin. I force myself to take a deep breath, but I don’t back down.

“I can watch the footage again,” Holden suggests, exhaustion in his voice. “Maybe if I run it slow?—”

“There won’t be anything there,” Brie says decisively. “We already know that. Whoever is doing this is very careful about the cameras.” She turns to Frank Colombo, who has also been called in, and is maybe the only one in this room who seems as worried about this as I am. “Frank, I need to leave the Golden Sands, at least for the night. It’s not safe for me here.”

Frank’s face creases with concern. He glances at the security feeds, then back to Brie. “Breezy, you know, Larry won’t like?—”

“I don’t give a fuck what Larry likes or doesn’t like.” The words explode out of me. “Brie is leaving with me. Right now. And she’ll return tomorrow, when you’ve had time to fix this colossal screwup.” I scan the room again, memorizing faces. “And if anyone here had anything to do with this, I will find you and I will make you regret your choices in life—very fucking painfully.”

Brie’s fingers squeeze my arm gently—agreement, not restraint. Her touch says she trusts me, but it’s time to go. Frank opens his mouth to say something, but one look at my face makes him think better of it.

“What about me?” Holden pipes up.

“Casino security outside his door, 24/7,” Brie says, looking at Phil. “Clear?”

“Clear, ma’am,” he says with a respectful nod.

Holden looks like he’s about to argue—maybe try to come with us again—but he’s just going to be a liability if he does. So I hustle Brie away immediately, and accompany her back up to her suite. She packs a go-bag from among the clothes strewn around the walkthrough wardrobe, and then I bring her with me into the guest room as I throw my own few clothes into a duffel as well. I call a taxi myself, refusing to let the hotel do it, and then I insist on checking it thoroughly before letting Brie anywhere near it. It’s an older model, and the driver’s body language reads as bored, not nervous. No suspicious bulges suggesting weapons. I still memorize the license plate and driver’s ID number.

Brie slides in first to the back seat once I’m satisfied, and I follow. She sits close enough to me that our thighs touch. I keep one eye on the mirrors, watching for tails, while also monitoring cross-traffic and potential ambush points.

The hotel I choose in what Brie tells me is a quiet part of town is neither fancy nor run-down—the kind of place that doesn’t care what you’re doing as long as you keep it down after nine, but maintains decent security cameras. Because if this fucker follows us out here, I at least want to know that we’ll have a shot at getting them on camera. The hotel is three stories and I demand a room facing away from the street. I do a sweep of the surroundings before letting Brie out of the taxi.

Inside our room, I immediately begin fortifying our position. The dresser goes against the door—old wood, solid core, good weight. I check the bathroom for potential entry points, verify the ventilation system is too small for access, make sure the windows don’t open, and despite the dresser, I also set up a makeshift alarm using the ice bucket and door handle.

“Nik.” Brie’s voice stops me as I’m considering angles of sniper fire from the adjacent buildings. She’s perched on the edge of the bed, her golden hair falling loose around her shoulders, looking simultaneously vulnerable and regal. Like a queen in exile. My queen. “Come here.”

I move to her automatically, drawn by the soft command in her voice. She reaches for me, and I let myself be pulled down beside her, though I position us away from the window’s line of sight. The stress of the night so far bleeds away as her lips brush over mine, replaced by a different kind of tension.

The nice kind.

“You’re incredible, you know that?” she murmurs against my mouth. “The way you protect me…I’ve never felt safer than I do with you.”

I slide my hands into her hair, cradling her head. “Always,” I promise, pouring years of loneliness and searching into that single word. I’ve spent my life training to be a weapon for others to use. But with Brie, I’m a shield. A sanctuary. And I’ve never felt more fulfilled. “No one will ever hurt you while I’m breathing.”

Her hands find the hem of my shirt, and I let her pull it over my head. Her fingers trace the scars that map out my past—the marks of a life lived serving other people’s power games. But when she touches me, they become something else. A record of my path.

The path that led to her.

“I want you,” she whispers, and it undoes me. I pull open her shirt, and button by button her sunshine skin is revealed to me, smooth and perfect.

Her breath catches as my teeth graze her neck. She melts against me, her body molding itself to mine. I ease her clothes off her, our mouths never parting, and then tear off my own impatiently as I watch Brie spread herself out naked on the bed, waiting for me. She stretches her arms above her head, pulling up one leg in a parody of modesty, playing at being coy. Innocent.

Except that Brie knows exactly what she’s doing. And she’s only performing now for me.

I crawl over her, hungry for her, and she guides my head straight to her tits, then yelps as I take a nipple in my mouth to suckle hard. But she grabs my hair tight and moans as she arches up into me. “Fuck,” she breathes out. “That feels good. Do it again.”

I oblige, and her nails trace down my spine, dig in a little. I love how demanding she is, how unashamed.

She hisses approval as I switch sides, and the sound makes me all the more eager for her. I slide a hand down her belly, over her soft curls, until I can cup her mound and nestle my thumb against her clit. Her body responds instantly to my touch, hips bucking up against my hand. I massage her slowly, teasingly, and keep on teasing her tits with my mouth. Her fingers tighten in my hair, urging me on.

“What do you want?” I ask her roughly. “Tell me.”

“Your mouth,” Brie groans. “I need your mouth on me. Now.”

I can smell her already, her wet heat rising between us, and her scent is driving me crazy. But my own cunt is throbbing in time with my pounding heart, and I want her to take care of that just as much as I want her to come all over my face. I pivot, kneel carefully over her, helping her wiggle down the bed until her mouth is right where I need it.

“Be a good girl,” I tell her, looking down at her heaving chest, those velvety tits shaking as she breathes hard and fast. “You know what I want.” I spread my lips open with one hand, and she grips my hips, pulls me down onto her mouth. I shudder as her tongue wriggles eagerly into my slit, and reach down to play with her nipples, tugging at them. Her cry of pleasure vibrates through my core, and then I’m rewarded with her tongue working that special magic on my clit, sending waves rippling right through me.

My head falls back, and I give myself over to the pleasure of her mouth, letting her drive me wild. She’s so good at this, knowing exactly how to tease and taunt me, her tongue sliding up and down my slit, circling my clit and then sucking on it…

But I want her taste on my tongue when I come for her. I lean forward and nuzzle into her warm thighs, pushing them open so I can get at her pussy. She’s slick with her arousal, and as soon as I inhale her scent I can’t help myself. I dive in, licking a broad stripe from her clit down to her hole, then back again. Her hips jerk up toward my mouth, her moans muffled against my folds, and it’s so fucking hot that I almost lose it right there.

Instead, I focus on her, on eating her out like it’s my job, like it’s my only purpose in life.

Because right now? It is.

When Brie and I are like this, so perfectly fitted together, building up the sensations between us, nothing else exists except her. So I let myself sink into the wet, hot bliss of her pussy, her cream coating my tongue as I eat her like a starving woman. She echoes my increasingly frantic pace, working me with her talented mouth, a back and forth between us that’s more intimate than anything I’ve ever done with anyone else, because it’s her .

We’re both panting, groaning, sliding against each other, chasing our orgasms. I feel my climax building, but I’m not going to let her beat me—this race is won by losing, and I plan to make her shatter first. She’s close; I can tell by the way her thighs start shaking. I redouble my efforts, pushing two fingers inside her and I redouble my efforts, pushing two fingers into her tight, wet hole while my tongue works her clit relentlessly. She cries out, her hips bucking against my face as I curl my fingers to hit that perfect spot inside her.

Her mouth falters on my pussy as she gets lost in the sensations I’m provoking from her. I feel a glow of satisfaction that has nothing to do with my own orgasm—watching her fall apart is its own kind of ecstasy. I flick my tongue rhythmically over her clit, feel her inner walls start to flutter…

With a muffled cry, Brie’s thighs wrap around my head as she comes hard, gushing against my mouth. I lap up every drop, let her cream coat my whole face, until her hot panting between my own soaked thighs evens out, her tongue finds me again, insistent and demanding—and then I’m lost to her. My orgasm explodes, and I shudder through it, with my only sensory input the warmth of her soft thighs, the taste of her on my tongue, the scent of her in my nose.

I collapse sideways, panting hard from the exertion and the rush. Brie swivels on the bed to wrap herself around me, holding me close.

And later, tangled in cheap hotel sheets that feel like silk because she’s in them with me, I watch her sleep. The streetlights paint gold highlights in her hair, and I’m struck again by how much power she holds over me.

And how completely I would destroy anyone who tried to harm her.

I wake to empty arms, but hear Brie’s soft voice from beside me. She’s sitting up on the side of the bed, talking to someone on the phone. “I need to speak with Sophie Johnson,” she’s saying. “Yes, it’s urgent. Well, then I need someone to look around until they find her.”

My body tenses until I spot the burner phone in her hand—one with a VPN. She catches my eye and smiles, wrapping up the call. In the morning light, with her hair mussed and wearing only a t-shirt and panties, she looks vulnerable, and my heart aches.

“I’ll need your help again today,” she says, setting the phone aside. Reach out my arms to pull her close, breathing in the scent of her hair, her skin.

“Whatever you need,” I promise.

She melts into me, and for a moment, we just breathe together. Outside this room, there are enemies and threats, mysteries to solve, and battles to fight. An empire to claim, a murder to solve, a thousand dangers waiting in the shadows.

But right here, right now, I have everything I need in my arms.

She chose me—not just as her shield, but as her companion. Her confidante. Her lover. And she makes me feel human. Whole.

So God help anyone who tries to take her from me.

I start mentally preparing for the day ahead. We’ll need new clothes, secure transport back to the casino, and a better plan for maintaining Brie’s security any time we’re there. But first, I’m going to hold her just a little longer. Let her relax just a few more minutes in this temporary sanctuary.

But that lasts only a few seconds, until she says, “No one can find Sophie at the Golden Sands.”

“Maybe she’s not in yet.” But then I glance at the clock. “Okay, she should definitely be in by now,” I backtrack. It’s past ten. “She hasn’t called in sick or something?”

“Her car’s in the parking lot,” Brie says. She sounds troubled, more so by the second. “But her office is locked.” She leans up on her elbow. “Nik, I think…”

I nod. “We’d better get back. ASAP.”