Honor

“P-p-lease . . .” Of course they would ask for leniency for themselves when they had no intention of showing those poor girls they trafficked and traded any such thing.

“You’re on a boat back to your homeland in the morning.” I saw both the men sag in relief, thinking they were getting off easy, but I knew my devil wasn’t done playing with them just yet. “But before you go, you’ll be spending the night in our special holding facility under the club.”

If they weren’t deplorable men, I could almost feel sorry for them. Nothing good ever happened when you had to spend the night in the dungeon under the club.

Nassir inclined his head in Chuck’s direction and the security team moved forward to secure the men who were now babbling incoherently and struggling to get free. Nassir pointed to the one that had made the lewd comments about me and told Chuck, “The one with the big mouth . . . give him a reminder that it’s wise to think before you speak.”

Chuck’s gold tooth flashed as his grin lit up his dark face. He muttered, “Gladly,” and hauled the struggling men out of the office. I watched them until the elevator swallowed them up and whisked them away.

I dug my fingers into the tense muscles at the back of Nassir’s neck and asked, “Really? All he said was that he could show me what a real man is like?”

Nassir snorted and reached out to turn the screens off behind us and to shut down his computer.

“No. He said really disgusting, crude things that you don’t need to hear and that I sure as hell don’t need to picture anyone doing to my wife.”

“Are they going to make it on the boat in one piece or more likely in pieces?”

He snorted. “Depends on how much of a hassle they want to give the boys. Either way they won’t be in the Point after tomorrow.”

He tugged on my hand and pulled me around so that I was in front of him with my rear end resting against the edge of his desk. His candy-colored eyes gleamed up at me. They always did when he called me his wife.

When he first asked me if I wanted to get married, I had laughed it off, thinking it was the painkillers and too many close calls in such a short amount of time. But then he asked me the next day and the next. He asked me every single day for a month if today was the day I wanted to be his wife, and on the last day I finally told him yes. It took me a minute to get used to the idea of settling into something so traditional and steeped in custom. That didn’t feel like us but it was obviously something that mattered deeply to him, and when he showed me his soft side, his vulnerable side, I couldn’t keep saying no.

He wasted no time. I had a ring by lunchtime and an officiant—along with Chuck and Reeve, because I couldn’t think of anyone else to act as a witness for me—there by dinner for the ceremony. It was fast. It was simple. It was quiet and solemn. There was no flare or show to it. It was so unlike everything in the rest of our relationship that it made me cry because it felt so perfect and special.

It was such a weird and ever-evolving thing, this relationship of ours. Some days we seemed like a typical married couple, sitting on the couch watching movies together—the first one I made him sit through was Pinocchio; obviously—arguing about whose turn it was to do the dishes, making love softly and sweetly while we told each other how happy we were together. Other days we dealt with people trying to kill us, trying to arrest us, trying to get between us and make us weaker because as a unit we were invincible. The city had no idea what would happen when Hades handed over half of the underworld to Persephone. She came into her own and was unstoppable. Those were the days we fucked, tore at each other, couldn’t get enough as we tried to cram as much life and time as we had together into every second of every day. We were equally appreciative and greedy. It was never the same and it was never boring. Each day left a mark, a memory that I was happy to hold on to, and I could tell that the number of good memories was overtaking the number of poisonous ones from the past. Every single day, no matter what kind of day it was going to be, I faced it being proud to have a place by Nassir’s side, and I never regretted making that ultimate commitment to him.

My ring sparkled as I brushed my fingers across his high cheekbone. “How about you picture all the things you want to do to your wife instead.” Sitting in front of him on this desk was not a new position for me. In fact, it was one of my favorites. I had a lot of new favorites because of him. There wasn’t a boundary he didn’t try to cross, a sexual fantasy he didn’t fulfill, and yes, being tied up in actual rope as long as he was the one doing it was a lot of fun, and I now had a better understanding of why all the people in this club paid him so much money to chase down their needs.

His eyebrows lifted up and his teeth flashed as a wicked grin spread across his handsome-as-sin face.

“My office always turns you on.” His fingers brushed up along my thighs, taking the hem of my tight dress with them. Seeing him behind that big desk playing lord and master over all he surveyed turned me on, and now that I knew he would make sure no one was watching what went on between us in here anymore, I never denied myself having a piece of him.

“No. You doing your thing always turns me on. Power is sexy and it has always looked so effortless and easy on you.”

“Hmm . . .” He got to his feet, which forced me to actually sit up on the desk as he made room for himself between my spread legs. “It looks good on you too, Keelyn.”

I got ahold of the buttons on the front of his shirt and started meticulously pulling each one free of its hole. Usually I would rip the thing open to get to all that smooth, bronze skin lying underneath, but we had to be somewhere in a little bit and that didn’t leave time for a wardrobe change.