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  “You should care,” he muttered, then clenched his teeth so his jaw flared for a moment. “It may not be what you want once you learn.”

  “Then I’ll decide that then.” She reached across the table and grabbed his arm, latching her hand to it before he could pull it away. “Please.” Their eyes met. “Just let me decide for myself. I…” Swallowing hard, she quieted herself, refusing to let the L-word slip. “We’re basically in a relationship now, whether you want to label it or not. All I’m asking is that we both acknowledge it and start moving forward.”

  He was quiet for a long while after that, perhaps lost in thought, perhaps trying to find the words to shoot her down. While he was silent, Eliza waited, not prodding or pushing. Playing on her phone, actually, just to give him the privacy he needed. By the time their appetizer arrived—spinach dip with grilled flatbread—he grabbed her hand and wrapped both of his around it.

  “Fine,” Nash said, giving her hand a little squeeze. “Let’s…try something. I do care for you, and I don’t want to let you go, but we have to move slowly.”

  “Whatever pace you’re comfortable with,” she insisted, nodding her head, unable to keep the silly grin on her face. Without another word, they both leaned across the table and shared a quick, hard kiss, then dug into the start of their meal, moving on from the conversation seamlessly.

  All the while, at the back of Eliza’s mind, she couldn’t help but feel like this was where their love story finally began.

  Chapter 18

  “Did you enjoy your meal tonight, sir?”

  He glanced at the hostess, wrapped in his black leather jacket and sticking out like a sore thumb at the upscale establishment where Eliza had wanted to eat. Of course, she would have chosen to eat there without a thought. Daddy probably brought her here all the time.

  Dirty Daddy who might very well be involved in the murder of some of Nash’s motorcycle club brothers.

  “It was delicious, yes,” he offered, his tone clipped, then turned away as he waited for Eliza to join him. She’d excused herself to use the bathroom before they left, perhaps sensing that he planned to fuck her senseless in the car before he dropped her off at her apartment. He shouldn’t—it only encouraged her feelings for him, but he couldn’t help himself. Nash wanted her. Desired her. Cared for her.

  It wasn’t love, but it was…something. And because of that, he knew he should have just walked away. Hit the road and never looked back. Eliza deserved better than someone who very well might knock her dad’s teeth out, but Nash had opted to be selfish. When she’d asked him to move forward with the relationship before the appetizer arrived, his first instinct was to say no, to let her off the hook and cast her back into the ocean. She’d find a sweet vanilla guy, or maybe one her dad’s Ivy League asshole friends had a son she could be set up with one day. Whatever happened, whomever she ended up with, it would be better than getting in deeper with Nash.

  But he’d let her. In agreeing to her request, he’d pulled her further into the shit-storm that was his life. He’d attached to her like an anchor, and he was going to make her drown as he dragged her down.

  And, even though he knew he’d hate himself, Nash planned to enjoy every second of it.

  She returned to him quickly enough, floating to his side obediently and smiling. Unable to help himself, he kissed her, right then and there, in full view of all the snobby patrons. Maybe someone would recognize her and tip off her dad that she was canoodling with a ruffian, with a fucking degenerate. But still she smiled, even as he pulled away, totally unfazed that he’d claimed her for all to see.

  So, he tucked her under his arm, his little angel, his little slut, and led her out into the winter darkness, a night of depravity ahead of them.

  And Nash was going to enjoy every damn second of it.

  Right until the world around him burned.

  Chapter 19

  Just as he was about to take a sip of his whiskey, Nash Reeves felt the vibration in his pocket. Without digging his phone out, he knew who was calling. Everyone else he knew was here, at the bar owned by the Steel Phoenix Motorcycle Club. Drinking for free, like the rest of the owners did, he’d been on the same barstool for a few hours, fully knowing he’d missed the start of his date with Eliza. It was her calling now, just as it was the last two times. He felt like the world’s biggest piece of shit for ignoring her, but he couldn’t think of anything else to do. All his excuses were starting to sound fake, even to his ears, and he didn’t have the heart to answer and tell her he wasn’t coming tonight.

  Ignoring her just seemed easier. It’s what he’d done with women for years now—ignore them until they went away. Only the women in his past didn’t make him feel quite as shitty as Eliza did when he blew them off. It wasn’t that she did anything in particular. She wasn’t the kind to guilt trip him. Like any good sub, she bounced back fast, looking for new and better ways to please her Master. But it was the look in her eye. The fleeting sadness that somehow managed to tug at his heartstrings. They’d only been “dating”—if one could call it that—for a few weeks now, and even though Nash didn’t love her, he cared for her.

  He cared that he was hurting her. No one else knew about the extent of his feelings for her. The guys in the MC knew he was fucking a girl on campus, and a select few knew it was the dean’s daughter, but they thought it was casual, like all of Nash’s relationships. Very seldom did he take things to the point where they were now. His lifestyle didn’t exactly lend much time to romance and dates—especially now, when he had a perp to find and gut over the deaths of his fellow bikers in the club.

  There’d been no more deaths since the last one, but the delivery crews had said they felt like they were being followed. One was even almost run off the road by a non-descript van with fake license plates. Nash was getting closer to finding the man responsible for all the chaos inside the club. Unfortunately, more and more signs pointed to Eliza’s father, Dean Darryl Truman. Nash’s intel was finally falling into place. Leads were starting to make sense. Signs were pointing to the most powerful man at Blackwoods University.

  And Nash was fucking his daughter.

  And actually caring about her in the meantime.

  Agreeing to date her had been a mistake. It had been selfish and cruel to drag her into his world, and he knew now, as he got closer and closer to pinning things on a member of the dean’s staff, very likely the dean himself, he was on the path to hurting Eliza. Devastating her. She didn’t deserve that. She was a good girl who clearly felt strongly about him. She did as she was told and seemed to love every second of it—and he couldn’t stand the thought of shattering her world. He had to break things off. It would be easier for everyone if he went after the dean without being in love with his daughter, and vice versa.

  How much fucking therapy would Eliza need if she learned that the man she’d fallen for savagely attacked her dad, who, before that, was ordering hits on a local biker gang and stealing cash and coke?

  Again, she didn’t deserve that kind of shit storm. She ought to just finish law school, even if it wasn’t her thing, graduate, and find a good guy who could take care of her.

  Because Nash wasn’t that guy. No way in hell was he that guy—and he never would be, to anyone. Not if he kept on living the life he did.

  Another bout of vibrations rumbled in his pocket, and once more Nash let it go straight to voicemail. When it stopped, he dug the phone out to check the caller ID. Sure enough, there was Eliza’s name. Three calls. Three opportunities for him to be a decent guy and just tell her that something had come up tonight and he couldn’t make it. Three times he failed.

  “Jimmy,” he barked after downing the rest of his whiskey. The bartender sauntered over, drying out a glass, eyebrows up. “Another whiskey. Make it a double.”

  “Why don’t you just take the bottle, Nash?”

  “Because I’m not a whole bottle kind of guy,” he fired back, which made the bartender smirk. The only thing he
was ever whole about was the Steel Phoenixes, clearly. And that was where his loyalties ought to be. They’d been his family for years. Eliza wouldn’t want to be a part of that family. It wasn’t a safe one to live in—especially not with all the deaths. He couldn’t risk her; he couldn’t put her in danger.

  He needed her to get out, to get away. He owed her that much.

  Eliza deserved that much.

  Chapter 20

  Eliza Truman bit the insides of her cheeks at the sound of Nash’s voicemail, then hung up. She wasn’t being an aggressively clingy girlfriend—she knew she wasn’t. They’d had plans to see each other tonight, and it wasn’t the first time Nash had bailed on her. She should have expected that he’d be a bit of a flake even if they were officially labeled as sweethearts, but she’d naively hoped that things would change.

  They had, and they hadn’t. Since their romantic dinner downtown where they’d agreed to take things to the next level over a bottle of wine and ridiculously expensive appetizers, she and Nash had been connecting on a more emotional level. It was more fulfilling that way, looking into his eyes and knowing he felt the same deepness that she did. Unfortunately, he was still prone to cancelling their dates at the last minute, and tonight wasn’t the first time he’d ignored her phone calls. At least Eliza assumed he was ignoring them. He couldn’t have been so busy for two straight hours, during which she’d called him only three times, that he hadn’t found a second to shoot her a text and apologize for being totally late and all but cancelling their evening with no warning.

  A part of her worried he was in trouble, of course. How could she not? He lived in a neighborhood of Blackwoods where people thought it was acceptable to poke nails in other people’s tires for whatever stupid reason they had. Whenever he didn’t answer for an inordinate amount of time, the thoughts at the back of Eliza’s mind swirled to a dark place, a dangerous place, and she worried, fleetingly, that something had happened.

  So far, nothing had actually happened. No, as February approached and Nash had skipped out on her more times than she was comfortable with, Nash Reeves had been totally unharmed every time. Instead he fed her BS excuses like his neighbor needed help with a furniture delivery, or he’d fallen asleep studying. To his credit, he always seemed apologetic, but it was starting to grate on her nerves a little. She’d given up a part of her life—her academic focus—because she wanted to nurture their relationship. Eliza had abandoned it freely, willingly, of course, because it was becoming increasingly clear that academia maybe wasn’t for her, but it was still a pretty important part of her life. And sometimes, it felt like Nash didn’t realize, or acknowledge, what she was giving to him. Mind, body, and soul. The least he could do was return her calls if something came up on a date night.

  Exhaling noisily, she turned to look over the back of her loveseat at the clock on the stove. He was officially two hours late. Should she just give up? Assume he wasn’t coming? As she sunk into the plush purple loveseat, wrapped in a blanket she’d knitted with her online knitters’ community last month, Eliza decided to give it one last try. Sweeping her thick, wavy blonde locks out of her face, she pressed his number into her phone and brought it up to her ear. Three rings later and it went straight to voicemail, and Eliza disconnected the call before the automated message made it to the beep.

  Fine. Let him explain himself when they saw each other again—and she wasn’t going to let his sexy dominant side distract her from the truth. She was a law student, damn it. Even if she wasn’t a fan of her program, she knew how to examine someone and ferret out the truth.

  Well, sort of. She wasn’t exactly at the top of her class. Not even in the middle these days even. Sinking ever lower down the grading roster to the bottom. It was a little embarrassing, honestly.

  With a shake of her head, she sat up and fired off a text to Annabelle, a friendly acquaintance who she’d shared classes with since first year, and said that yes, she would, in fact, be joining Annabelle’s study group after all. They were supposed to meet tonight and an invite had been extended to Eliza, but she’d declined initially, knowing she had plans with Nash.

  But if he wasn’t going to show up—again—then she was going to do something productive with herself. No point in wallowing in her dorm apartment, alone, wishing she had a man to keep her company. She was better than that.

  She had to be better than that.

  Chapter 21

  For all his big talk and mental prep work, Nash was a coward. There he sat, leaning on a campus bench, bundled up in winter gear, as he waited for Eliza to finish her last class of the day. Valentine’s Day loomed, and he just hadn’t found his balls yet to break things off. In fact, he was taking her out tonight for a Sorry-I’m-Such-A-Fuck-Up date because he’d missed so many of their scheduled nights. Much to his surprise, Eliza hadn’t given him much shit. Recently she’d expressed that she’d like to know in advance if he wasn’t planning on showing up, because then she could get on with her school work instead of waiting around for him to arrive—or not.

  And he felt like shit for it. Nash wanted to pull away. It was best for Eliza if he did, but he just…couldn’t. Every time he saw her, those beautiful big eyes drew him right back in, and before long he had her bent over a table, his hand making her ass red, and he was desperate to be balls deep in her perfect pussy. To make himself feel a little better, he tried to pass it off as a physical thing, as if wanting to be around her all the time was because he liked fucking her, but deep down, he knew it was more than that. He knew that he stayed with her because he was starting to fall just a little more for her with every visit, and in the end, he was going to hate himself.

  Eliza would probably hate him, too.

  Swallowing hard, he readjusted the scarf she’d knitted for him recently. Black and thick, it was nothing like the stuff she usually made. If any of the guys in the MC knew he was fucking a girl who liked to knit him stuff, they’d never let him hear the end of it. But he liked the scarf. Practical. Durable. It blended with the rest of his usual dark attire, and if he shoved it to his face and inhaled deeply, he’d catch a whiff of Eliza’s sweet floral scent.

  She was running a little late that afternoon, but he really couldn’t give her any shit for it. She could be as late as she wanted, and it still wouldn’t compare to all the times he’d stood her up. A couple strolled by him, backpacks on, smiles plastered on their faces, hands clasped. The guy looked at his gal in the most adoring way possible as she talked and then threw her head back in laughter. Eliza ought to be with a guy like that—someone who worshipped her in a more traditional way. Nash did it through pain and punishment. He showed her just how valuable she was by binding her, gagging her, then making her come until she couldn’t see straight anymore.

  He sighed heavily. It was a “green” February; most of the snow melted away after a week of warm weather. Now it was just gray and ice and bare trees—but still the Blackwoods University campus was pristine. Much cleaner than the rest of Blackwoods anyway. Still, winter was dreary as all hell this year.

  But the one shining beacon in all the gray was the woman he was waiting for. Eliza stood out like a firefly in the inky black of night. He spotted her immediately as she made her way out of one of the few law buildings, wearing her vibrant pink wool cap and her yellow winter jacket. His little bundle of sunshine. A spark in his otherwise black life. Nash straightened up at the sight of her, then bit down on his back teeth when he realized she wasn’t alone—again.

  His hands curled to fists at the sight of Professor Holstein—James Holstein, specifically. From what Nash gathered, the guy was the pinnacle of youthful intellectualism, flying through his academic life and earning a coveted position teaching by the time he was thirty.

  Oh, and did he mention the professor was handsome as fuck? Magazine cover worthy? Because he was. And Eliza was spending way too much time with him. Dropping in for office hours. Helping him organize study sessions. The number of times James Holstein had come
up in casual conversation was starting to grate on Nash’s fucking nerves, but he kept his temper in check. If he had plans to distance himself from Eliza, why get all up in arms about some preppy academic dick she seemed enamored with? What did it matter to him, really?

  Nash pushed himself off the bench, tossing his cigarette on the hard, frozen ground and stomping out the embers. A passing student shot him a look that said she disproved of his littering, but he ignored her. If she wanted to make a scene, let her. Nash welcomed the opportunity to snap at someone in that moment. But she kept on going, and he turned his attention back to Eliza, back to the bright dash of color in an otherwise sea of blah.

  She stood there for a moment, clutching her laptop in its beautiful leather case to her chest, smiling at her professor as he talked. Nash itched for another cigarette, but Eliza didn’t like kissing him when he stunk of smoke. Instead, he popped a mint and waited, arms crossed, until she was finished. Seconds felt like hours, however, and by the time she started toward him, he’d been biting down so hard on his back teeth that his jaw hurt.