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CHAPTER SIX

NASH

Vale is uncharacteristically quiet while I ditch the van and grab my Beretta before taking my duffel and black GO BAG from the back.

I signal for her to follow, and she does with venom in her eyes as I grab a set of keys to a new grey Accord from the garage wall of our dealership.

She’s right. Only amateurs drive cars that scream “criminal.”

We blend in. Our homes are in plain sight. Our aliases are boring. Our jobs, too. They allow us to infiltrate, connect with pillars in the community, and secure resources like this dealership under nameless LLCs, and more. We’re everywhere in this city, from churches to sex clubs, and we have enemies.

Enemies I’ve proudly earned.

I pull out of the car lot and turn, noting Vale pouting in the passenger seat, her arms hugging her waist.

“Are you hungry?”

“Am I human?”

I shake my head. I’ve kidnapped a barracuda. She won’t stop snapping at me.

It’s two a.m. as I pull into a drive-thru. I don’t usually eat this shit, but I’m starving. I don’t ask her; I order two quarter-pounders with cheese, and she looks surprised that I remembered.

“I’ve listened to you at work,” I explain. “You still love cheeseburgers for lunch.”

“What are you? Alexa?”

Silently, I hand her the brown paper bag.

“This is organic, right?” She unwraps her burger. “Farm to table grease?”

Good. She’s got her snark and appetite back, so I take a huge bite. Usually, I have manners. And patience. And silence. It’s part of my disguise, but around her, I feel like a teenager again.

Hungry. Angry. Horny. Alive.

I don’t answer her. I drive down the highway, scarfing down my food and enjoying loud sips of Dr. Pepper while she does the same.

But then it happens. A bubble of carbonation erupts from my throat, and I burp, long and loud, before I wince, embarrassed because it’s rude.

“Oh, good.” She laughs. “He’s not a beast. He’s human again.” Then she burps louder than me. “That was a ten,” she praises herself with a smile.

And, fuck.

Don’t do it. Don’t smile back.

But, fuck. I do.

I feel dangerously unguarded around her when I’m already so exposed.

No one knows who I really am other than the kings and our few queens … and yet, somehow, I’m tempted to let Vale see even more than they do. I’m tempted to let her see a man no one has known, not even myself.

But the temptation evaporates when I think of my daughter and their safety, hers and Vale’s, as we drive down the blocks of historic Charleston.

Of course, I know where she lives.

Vale rents a unit on the third floor of a yellow, historic row house just two blocks from her work. Its narrow front faces a cobble-stoned street with long, open porches down the side.

I circle her block three times, scanning for threats, and I don’t like it. Old homes like this are difficult to secure. The only good thing is it has a private, dedicated parking space, and Vale has a bicycle in it, so my car fits.

She turns to me. “Why are we at my place? Why aren’t we going to one of your mafia safe houses? You call them ‘safe’ for a reason, right?”

“Nothing is safer than a secret, and that’s what you and I are for now.”

“So I have to hide you?”

“No, you have to let me protect you until I’m sure they won’t come looking for you, too.”

“How would they even know who I am?”

I pause, frustrated, before sharing my rationale, “They saw me outside my home, trying to get a beautiful young woman to shut her fucking mouth and get in my van. Fast forward to them wanting to know who the woman is so they’ll explore my daughter’s world. I’ve tried erasing her past, but there are high school yearbook photos with Alena hugging you in them. The damn things are online and a huge risk, and now it’s a matter of time before they figure out who you are.”

“Jeez, so much for being in the Glee Club.” She looks around. “So what now?”

“I’ll get my gear, and you’ll stay behind me with your hand on my shoulder, letting me know you’re there while I lead and make sure it’s clear.”

“Oh, it’s clear.” She huffs, “This is clearly hell.”

No, it’s normal dynamic entry tactics, but nothing is normal about feeling Vale’s small, warm hand cup my shoulder like her life depends on it.

She’s shaking. She’s scared.

She hides it with sarcasm, making my pulse race faster than usual, my finger ready on the trigger.

I’ve cleared many locations, but not the studio apartment of a woman I shouldn’t care this much about.

Once we climb two flights of exterior stairs. Once I unlock her door as she stays with me, squeezing my shoulder while I sweep the dark room. Once we’re inside her one-room studio and I turn on a small lamp, making it glow by her bed, do I exhale.

I lock the door, checking it three times before I drag her loveseat in front of it.

Silently, she watches, resigned to the situation, before disappearing into her tiny bathroom.

I stare at its closed door, the only privacy she can find because her place is small, but it’s charming. Old, polished hardwood floors. One exposed brick wall. The other walls are white plaster with framed prints of red tulips. There are two large windows with white sheers. A tiny but new white kitchenette. A ceiling fan lazily whirls above.

It’s perfect for a single woman and the sparse furnishings are perfectly Vale.

A black, antique wrought iron bed, with its white comforter and piles of red velvet pillows, is centered on the brick wall. The loveseat, too, is red velvet, like an old Victorian settee. A gold-framed mirror is propped against the wall beside her bed, a lone antique dresser sitting beside it.

But the stacks of books circling the room get my attention. While water runs in her bathroom—she must be showering—I read some spines.

The History of Sexuality. The Ethical Slut. Come As You Are. Gender Outlaw. Sexing the Body. Whipping Girl. Fear of Flying. How To Piss Off Men. Sex, Sin, and Zen. The Hite Report. Sister Outsider. The Purity Myth. Promiscuities.

And on and on.

Tabs lace the pages with places she’s marked in over two hundred books. Her organization isn’t alphabetic; it’s some order that only makes sense to her.

But what gets my attention is her silver laptop charging on her black nightstand and the three books stacked beside it.

A hardback of The Kama Sutra , a small paperback of Tickle His Pickle and the one I want to open the most, She Comes First .

I step closer to read its subtitle, “The Thinking Man’s Guide to Pleasuring A Woman,” and it stirs my cock.

It breaks my heart, too.

I can press rewind on our convo, as well. I heard what she said. I’ll never forget it…

“I’ve never even been in love or had a good kiss or even a legit orgasm.”

Why? How?

Is it because of what her ex-boyfriend did to her so long ago?

The thought of him now makes me gnash my teeth, my blood boiling, but he’s gone. I glared into his dying eyes, said her name, and had a great, bloody day of making sure of it.

And it’s possible it’s his fault, but it seems she’s moved on.

Vale’s finishing her PhD in Sexuality Studies. She’s supposed to be writing her dissertation because she’s clearly well-read about it. She has no shame about sex.

I’ve watched her. I’ve heard her.

At Delta’s, the adult store she manages, she offers customers suggestions and tips.

The other day, while auditing the store’s taxes before the IRS does, I overheard her. She made a middle-aged man and woman laugh, suggesting they play with a Pickle Emojibator Personal Massager. It’s what the couple needed. They needed to relax and explore the toys. They needed to find that spark again because it sure as hell sparked inside me.

Pride that Vale helped them. Happy they let her. Aroused how she gave the toy a ringing endorsement. There’s only one way she knew it worked, and it flooded my mind, remembering how intoxicating she looks when she comes.

But she does it alone? She’s never felt it with someone else?

How can a young woman as smart, beautiful, and sexual as Vale not know what true connection, true love feels like?

Then again, I’m guilty, too.

Sure, I can come with a woman, but I’ve never felt a connection. I’ve kissed plenty, but it was never love.

Maybe…

No…

Definitely, it’s because, for so many years, I’ve felt connected to my daughter’s best friend.

Guilt drops me onto her loveseat by the door. I drag my hand down my face as if I could wipe away the shame.

What have I gotten us into?

Vale’s in my world now, and I’m in hers. We shared secrets tonight, but we can never share more. I can imagine the hurt in Alena’s eyes if we ever do.

We can’t.

We won’t.

The click of the bathroom door opening lifts my troubled stare. Steam billows out before Vale appears, and a thousand bullets wouldn’t hit me this hard.

She’s naked and wrapped in a white towel, water droplets glistening on her alabaster skin. Her long raven hair falls like a silk sheet, free from its braids and trapping my stare.

I can’t help it.

I never could.

The sight of Vale hardens my cock so fast; shame lashes my heart while she marches across the room, taunting, “Please avert your professionally, puritanical eyes, lest they burst into flames while, according to you, I must find something appropriately asinine to sleep in.”

I clench my jaw and turn away, slamming my eyes closed because the thunder of my pulse is deafening. I don’t need sights tempting me, too.

Drawers to her antique dresser open and slam shut.

“I can dress like a nun,” she teases, “but it’s a Bad Habit Nun costume and probably not what Father Allen had in mind. Oh, wait. I have a Sexy Chef Apron. Food’s not your fetish, is it? Oh, and I have some virginal bridal nighties, too. They’re safe because marriage turns you off, right? Since you’ve never done it. You’ll never commit. Or?—”

“Commit your fucking ass to that bed,” I growl. “I don’t care what you wear; just stop talking.”

Stop driving me mad. Stop putting images in my mind. Stop making me want to toss you on that bed and show you how your sweet little pussy is the only food I crave.

“Fine,” she huffs. “I’ll compromise. A tank top and panties, it is.”

Great. Raise a white flag, and my dick even higher.

Her tank tops and panties are my poison.

It’s what Vale started to wear when she and Alena were in college, and they’d spend their holiday breaks together. They’d prance around my house in cute spirit wear from their colleges, and on my daughter, I worried Alena would catch a cold.

On Vale?

She looked so hot, I’d have to excuse myself. I’d have to commit my biggest shame in the shower, jerking off to the image of Vale’s luscious tits and hard nipples under a thin, white Clemson tank top.

I keep my eyes closed, hearing her make a long production of settling herself into bed. Finally, when she clicks off the lamp, I open them.

“Here.” In the moonlight glowing through the sheers over her windows, I see her toss a pillow onto the floor beside her bed. “And here.” She throws a blanket beside it.

Shrouded in shadows, I can disguise the raging erection in my pants as I near her bed. I conceal it more, resting on my stomach. The wood floors are hard like me and what I need. They’re brutally uncomfortable, matching how I feel inside.

Vale’s only a few feet away, and I can smell her sandalwood shampoo. I can hear her breathing. It’s shallow, like she’s on edge with me here, and she’s too close.

I won’t sleep. I know it.

Once again, she’s right.

This is clearly hell.

Heaven would be me climbing up onto her bed and making her feel every orgasmic pleasure she deserves. I wouldn’t give her a choice; I’d make her come for me. It would get me off so much to do it. But hell would be the price I’d pay for it.

For minutes, our silence is heavy.

“Just tell me one detail.” Then, her voice sounds so tender in the darkness. She doesn’t wait for my permission; she asks, “You don’t hurt innocent people, right? You don’t traffic in women or girls or something like that?”

“No,” I answer. “We kill the people who do.”