10. Chapter 10

Nix has us back on the road in no time and I can see the sun starting to lighten the sky as dawn approaches.

"We can't go to any of your properties," I say as I unpin the wig and throw it into the back of the car, unsure if Nix had a destination in mind when he took the wheel. "They will be watching those."

Nix nods, his expression grim as he keeps his eyes on the road ahead. "I figured as much," he replies, his voice tense. "We"ll have to find somewhere off the grid, at least for now."

I pull out my phone again, scrolling through my contacts until I find the one I need. With a quick tap, I dial the number and wait for the familiar voice to answer.

"Hey, beautiful," comes the greeting on the other end of the line.

"We need a property, preferably big enough for five people," I say without preamble, my tone urgent.

There"s a brief pause before Jason responds, his voice laced with concern. "Did you say five people? What"s happened?"

I sigh, feeling the weight of the situation bearing down on me. "Yes, five. We ran into some trouble with the government," I explain, frustration creeping into my tone.

"It"s them, isn"t it? Why did it have to be them?" Jason murmurs softly, his words filled with resignation.

I resist the urge to snap at him, instead forcing myself to remain calm. "We've had this conversation before, Jason. It always will be. Now, do you have a property we can use or not?" I ask, trying to keep the impatience out of my voice.

After a moment of silence, Jason hums, the sound of him typing faintly audible. "I only have one that can accommodate you at the moment that"s in decent shape. The others are either sold or mid-renovation," he explains.

"That"s fine. Where is it?" I ask, already mentally planning our next steps.

"It"s a penthouse in the city. It"s furnished but doesn"t have the full security setup on it yet. You"ll need to get your other contacts there when you can to get that sorted since my guy won"t be able to for another week," Jason replies.

I nod, making a mental note of the information. "That"s fine. I"ll give them a call and get them there. What"s the address?" I inquire, already preparing to relay the information to Nix.

Jason provides the address, confirming that the entry system is already set up, and I thank him before disconnecting the call.

Once I"ve relayed the address to Nix, I sink back into the seat, resting my forehead against the window as I watch the city pass by. The sun is beginning to rise, casting a warm glow over the buildings as dawn approaches.

Nix navigates the vehicle through the city streets with ease, eventually pulling into a parking garage. He enters the code that Jason provided into the keypad, and soon the gates are raising for us to drive in.

His properties always have the same setup to get in, not overly secure but enough to provide some peace of mind before we can get something better set up. It doesn"t take long before I"m using the biometric scanner on the penthouse door and leading us into the apartment.

The apartment is surprisingly spacious, with modern furniture and a wall of glass offering a breathtaking view of the waking city below. As the sun continues to rise, its golden rays spill into the room, casting a warm glow over everything.

Despite the beauty of the space, exhaustion weighs heavily on me, a reminder of the long hours I"ve been awake. I do a quick circuit of the apartment, noting its three bedrooms and mentally planning sleeping arrangements. With only three bedrooms, Beck and Rick will likely share, leaving one person to take the couch.

"How about a game of truth or dare?" Rick jokes, a smirk playing at his lips. Despite the attempt at levity, I can sense the tension lingering beneath the surface.

I scoff at the suggestion. "Ummm, somehow I don't see that ending well for me," I reply dryly.

Rick shrugs, undeterred. "Worked out well for Kace last time," he points out, a hint of mischief in his eyes.

I roll my lips, noticing the slight flush to Kacey"s face, but his expression remains serious. "How about after we all get some sleep," I suggest, turning away to avoid any further discussion.

But Kacey stops me, his voice sharp and demanding. "Answer something first. What were you warned about? Why did you almost have a panic attack when you found that letter saying you were warned?"

The apartment falls into dead silence at his question, the tension thickening in the air. My breath catches in my throat, realizing that he knew exactly what he was doing by asking about that in front of everyone.

I look back toward Kacey, feeling a surge of anger bubbling up inside me. But he meets my gaze with unwavering determination, silently daring me to answer.

"What letter, Ashley?" Nix asks, breaking the silence with his own demand for answers.

"Can we not talk about this right now? Maybe after some sleep?" I plead, feeling the weight of exhaustion settling in my bones.

Beck crosses his arms, anger etched across his face. "No, we can"t. What is he talking about?" His voice is sharp.

They"re all now invested in the small amount of information Kacey disclosed, and I can"t even be angry with him about it. I"m tired—not just physically, but emotionally drained. I"m tired of running, tired of living with missing pieces of my heart, tired of maintaining a wall I never wanted in the first place.

I sigh heavily, looking at each of them in turn—these men I loved and the one I"m learning to love. "I was warned that if I don"t leave you and stay away from you, someone will kill you. I was warned that our closeness would lead to your deaths," I confess, my voice strained with emotion.

Various looks of disbelief cross their faces. Beck scoffs and shakes his head, his gaze shifting toward Nix, and I can see they don"t believe me. "The Mustang," I say simply, looking at Nix as well.

He frowns, momentarily confused, but then realization dawns on his face. "That was an accident, Mon Ange. It had nothing to do with you," he insists, his voice earnest.

I shake my head in frustration before he finishes speaking. "I had a letter warning me it would happen if I didn"t leave, and you and I both know that was no accident," I growl, frustration bubbling within me.

"You should have talked to us. You should have come to us for help, not run away," Beck"s voice lashes out at me, his anger palpable.

When I turn toward him, I see Rick crouched beside him, his face buried in his hands as if his legs won"t hold him up anymore.

"And you don"t think I wasn"t warned against that too? At least if I left, I knew you would live," I retort, feeling the weight of guilt and anger pressing down on me.

But Beck opens his mouth again, ready to argue, and I hold my hands up in a plea for silence. "Enough. I"m not talking about this right now. We can talk later," I say, my voice cracking with emotion.

Turning away from them, walking toward the closest bedroom and closing the door behind me. I stand in the center of the room, trying to calm my racing heart and steady my trembling hands.

But my efforts are interrupted when I hear the door open behind me again.

"I said I don"t want to talk," I snap at Nix as he closes the door behind himself. But he pays no heed to my words, his expression intense as he stalks toward me.

"Good. Shut up," he growls before his mouth crashes into mine. The force of his kiss takes me by surprise, but I quickly melt into it, my body responding instinctively to his touch.

He grabs a handful of my hair, pulling me closer and deepening the kiss, the pull of it against my scalp sending heat straight to my core and making me moan. His tongue plunges into my mouth, stroking and flicking against mine in an erotic dance that has me hot and needy in seconds.

Breaking away from the kiss, Nix"s hands move from my hair to the front of my suit. With a sudden, sharp motion, he grabs hold of the material and rips the front apart. The buttons on both the jacket and the white shirt underneath pop and fly toward the carpet.

His hands freeze for a moment in the process of jerking the material away from my body, his eyes widening slightly as he takes in the skin revealed. His lips part, and his hands go back to pulling off the jacket and shirt, but this time, his movements are slower, more reverent.

The material drops to the floor, and his fingers start to softly trace the artwork decorating every inch of my skin from my collarbones down my chest and arms. "Fuck," he murmurs as his fingers trace the colorful images.

A hardness enters his expression, a look I"ve become more familiar with over the last week. One of his hands reaches back up to wrap tightly around my throat, tilting my face up in the process. My breath stutters in my lungs at the fierce look in his eyes.

"Do you enjoy pain now, Mon Ange? Was this some twisted way to punish yourself for what happened?" he growls, and I whimper in response, my words failing me.

He lowers his face close to mine again, so close I can feel his breath against my lips. "I"m actually happy you developed this... kink, because I developed some of my own," he snarls before he shoves me backward. I bounce slightly on the bed, gasping for breath, but I"m not given the chance to do anything about the tender flesh of my throat as he grabs my hips and flips me over onto my stomach.

His movements freeze once again, long enough that I start to raise my body up from the bed, but he thrusts a hand against my back, forcing me back down against the bedspread. His fingers flex, and he digs his nails into the flesh of my back for a moment, as if wanting to physically grab the fur of the black wolf that spans my entire back with its bright blue eyes.

"You"re lucky I didn"t see this before now," he says, his voice deceptively calm.

"Why?" I whisper.

"Because then I would have known. I would have known that you were still mine, and nothing would have stopped me from fucking you until you admitted that," he states, his fingers flexing on my back again before they disappear.

I hear the sound of his belt opening, and once again, I try to raise my body, only to be shoved back down again. This time, he grabs hold of my arms where they are pressed into the bed, drawing them behind my back. Then, I feel the cool leather of his belt wrapping around my wrists. I whimper as it tightens almost painfully.

"If we were in one of our properties, I would have tied you to the bed. I"ve learned that I need my partners restrained, that I need to remove the ability for them to escape from me. A result of you running away," he breathes as his fingers start to work on pulling my pants and shoes off.

I release my own growl as anger flashes through me at the thought of how many women he had slept with in order to figure that out. It"s hypocritical of me, considering how I tried to drown my own pain in other men. He tears the rest of my clothes from my body before his hand lands hard against the skin of my ass cheek. I gasp at the sharp pain that flashes through me before pleasure blooms.

He does it again to the other cheek, and this time, he receives a moan in response. His fingers dip down between my legs, sliding to my pussy and feeling how much I am enjoying what he is doing to me. The fingers disappear again, and I hear him suck the taste of me from them, releasing a soft groan.

I can hear the rustle of material as he removes his clothes, and my pussy throbs in anticipation.

I feel him step back up to me, his legs brushing against mine before he uses his feet to widen mine and open me up. I feel the heat of his cock as he presses it to my opening, rubbing the head of it along my wet folds, and I"m shocked to feel a piercing there.

"Are you clean?" he grits out, and I stutter out a yes before he thrusts into me, bottoming out in one push and making me clench around his cock. "Me too," he groans. The feeling of him stretching me to my limits is almost too much, and at the same time, it feels like coming home. Nothing I ever experienced since leaving them has felt as good as his cock inside me.

He withdraws slowly, allowing me to feel the piercing drag against my sensitive walls before thrusting back into me until his hips slap against mine. "You feel that, Mon Ange? Tell me you haven't missed the feel of my cock," he demands.

I can only moan in response, my pussy tightening even further around him as he starts to set a steady and hard rhythm. He reaches over my back and fists his hand into my hair, dragging my head backward and making my back arch so he can lick and nip at my ear as he keeps thrusting hard into my pussy. This shift in angle has the piercing hitting the right spot each time.

"I'm never letting you or this pretty pussy ever leave us again," he growls, his voice filled with possessiveness and desire. The intensity of his words and actions sets my body on fire, and I surrender completely to the pleasure of being claimed by him once again.

The wet sound of our bodies colliding mixes with the sounds of pleasure escaping from me with each punishing thrust. Because that"s what he"s doing right now, punishing me in the best possible way. His hand cracks against my ass again, once, then twice, and I cry out as my orgasm crashes over me. I pulse and clench around him, my body shaking with the force of it.

His hand wraps around the belt on my wrists as his thrusts grow erratic, losing their rhythm until he is groaning out his own release. As our orgasms subside, he briefly rests his head against the skin of my back, his fingers working to undo the belt again. My fingers and hands tingle as the blood rushes back into them.

He wraps his arms underneath me, lifting my body effortlessly, cradling me against him as he gets us into the bed and moves us around until we are wrapped around each other. I sigh in contentment as exhaustion once again makes itself known.

I whimper when he pushes back into my sensitive pussy, and he hums in response. If he wants any more than this, he"ll have to do all the work. But once he is buried to the hilt, he just gets more comfortable wrapped around me and closes his eyes, as if the world is only right again when he is buried inside me.

Sleep drags at me, and I stop resisting, surrendering to the warmth and safety of his embrace.