Chapter 402: Rise and Grind

Nobody talked.

Dahlia just stood there with her arms crossed, looking completely done with the situation. Nash was still buried deep inside Rumi, and Rumi wasn’t in any rush to move. She was just sitting there on him, and you could actually see a wet line of cream cooling down his thigh. It was so quiet in the room that you could literally hear the drips.

Rumi blinked at Dahlia. Dahlia blinked back. Nash just stared up at the ceiling, probably praying the gods would just give him proof that three rounds were enough, although, at this point, he had found an alternative.

One second. Two. Three.

Then, Rumi shifted her hips.

A wet, sliding sound filled the air, her ass slapped against his hips with a meaty thwack. She leaned forward, resting her forehead on his chest, and then bounced again, harder this time. A fat glob of white squeezed out around him with a loud, squelching sound.

Nash made a weird noise in the back of his throat. It wasn’t helpful, but it showed he was feeling it.

Dahlia closed her eyes for a second, taking a deep breath.

"I literally just spoke," she said.

"Mhm," Rumi hummed, and then she just dropped all her weight onto him, bottoming out. "Five more minutes."

"We don’t have five minutes," Dahlia frowned.

"Two minutes."

"Rumi!"

"One minute and I’ll let ya have a run, dammit!" Rumi shot back.

Nash laughed under her. Even though he was trying to be the mature adult in the room, his hands found her ass and started squeezing.

"Next time," Nash whispered, one hand stroking her cheek while the other rubbed little circles on her hip, like he was trying to calm her down from a fight. "There’s an emergency. We gotta stop. We’ll do a whole session later, just you and me. No one walking in, no clock, nothing. You can take as long as you want. Promise."

Rumi just shook her head and her hips at the same time. She was a complete wet mess from the navel down, white stuff smeared all over her thighs and his stomach, glistening in the cleft of her ass.

"No."

She clenched around him, tight, slippery, and filthy, and ground herself in a sloppy circle that pushed even more of the cream out. It ran down his shaft and slid right back into her, thick and noisy.

"No— nnh— no, ya don’t leave when yer still in me, that’s— ah— rude! Why do people always— hnh— walk in? We never get to— nnH— finish—"

Nash kept one hand on her back, rubbing slow to keep her calm.

"I know. I hear you. But I need you to come up for me anyway," he said softly.

Rumi hated that she actually had to listen. She started climbing off him like it physically hurt, complaining the whole way. She couldn’t even keep her mouth closed, letting out these high, broken moans between every word as the head of his cock dragged across her rim, leaving sticky strings of loads stretching between them.

"This is— hnhHH— stupid! Every time we start, someone— ahh— comes to grab ya! I was just— nnH!— gettin’ it! Why is it always—"

When he almost slipped out completely, Rumi reached down with a wet hand and grabbed his cock. She mashed the head right back against her cunt, rubbing him through her folds like a sausage in a piece of bread stuffed with mayo. Back and forth, slick and messy, spreading their juices all over her clit and the tip of him until they were both shining. She wasn’t even using words anymore, just making these sharp, raw little cries every time he caught and slipped.

"Why do they always— hnhH!— interrupt? I hate— ah-ah-AH— I hate it—"

Nash laughed again, but the laugh turned into a shiver. Those rubs were hitting his spine in a way that made his whole body shake. His cock jumped in her hand, streaked with white, the veins popping as she kept painting herself with him.

"Easy. Next time is yours, I promise. Let go."

With a wet pop, she finally pulled him off her pussy. A long string of white hung between his tip and her open slit. She flopped onto the hardwood floor, dripping, sulking, and still twitching from the friction.

Nash looked down at himself and let out a little chuckle.

"Wow."

He was still rock hard, feeling it even harder than before. He was glossy from the base up, her grip still printed on his skin. It was the kind of mess you definitely don’t walk into a business meeting with. Jaz could be the one who could drain him with this new combo, but Rumi, even while complaining and trying to pull him back in—had that same kind of wrecking potential if you actually gave her the time.

Night sessions will be so interesting.

Rumi licked her fingers, glared at the ceiling, and didn’t even bother closing her legs.

"I hate meetings," she muttered at Dahlia. "And I hate pants."

Dahlia rolled her eyes so hard it was like a full sentence. She turned around and started walking away, not even waiting to see if Nash had found his pants yet.

Nash caught up with Dahlia in the hallway a minute later. He was casually tucking in his shirt, his head already drifting toward tonight’s plan.

"So, how’d it go?" Nash asked, walking right next to her. "The setup with Lorenzo. Everything good?"

"Smoothly, for the most part," Dahlia answered. "Ma’am confirmed the place, the time, and the guest list yesterday morning. Just like you wanted. We’ve got two bodyguards on our side, but they’re staying outside the room, not inside. Lorenzo gets the same deal. No recording devices unless both sides agree. But since it’s happening on Ma’am’s turf, we have the home-field advantage, even if they don’t know it yet."

"Good, we won’t need a recording device here," Nash said. "Victoria wanted one of us to wear one, but that’s not needed. I just need to be face-to-face with them and it will be over. Especially if they commit the mistake to have one."

"I know," Dahlia sighed. "She told me. Said you’re surprisingly good at making things complicated."

Nash gave a little shrug.

"The complicated stuff usually pays the best."

"Sure it does."

Nash glanced at her. He could tell she was still on edge. Her voice was sharp, kind of clipped, and she sounded impatient. It wasn’t like her at all.

"You okay?" he asked after a second.

"I’m fine," Dahlia snapped back. Yet, it was too fast, too flat.

"You sure? Because you’re talking to me like I owe you a bunch of money."

Dahlia let out a low groan, finally letting some of that stress go.

"Sorry. It’s not you. It’s just... tonight. This whole thing. I spent weeks thinking that after the Jade Gardens, we’d be done with Apex for good. Now we’re just walking right back into their mouths and calling it a ’strategy.’"

"That’s fair," Nash said, his voice getting softer to calm her down. "We’ll be fine. We just need to kill the threat once and for all."

"I know," Dahlia said. She looked a bit more relaxed now, like just saying it out loud helped her stop shaking.

Then, her tone changed. A little bit of a smirk came back to her face.

"Actually, something is bothering me. I saw the hiring list for the new nurses."

"And?"

Dahlia looked him straight in the eye, raising an eyebrow.

"And... you’re basically hiring staff for babies that don’t even exist yet. Should I start taking birth control, or should I plan to train a junior to replace me for a while?"

Nash grinned, not feeling guilty at all.

"Maybe start planning," he joked. "You’re so hot when we do it. I probably won’t ever pull out."

Dahlia finally laughed, and the last of her tension finally vanished.

"You’re a menace. But I guess that’s why tonight doesn’t feel so scary. You make everything sound simple."

"It is simple," Nash said. "An old man, a fancy dinner, and some expensive silverware. Just follow my lead. We’ll be fine."

"The ’old man’ basically owns a third of the sports economy in the Underground," she reminded him.

"An old man with a lot of silverware, then."

Dahlia shook her head, but she wasn’t as tense anymore. Nash knew that was the goal, just keep her calm.

"By the way, what’s he actually like?" Nash asked, getting more serious. "You’ve been with Victoria longer than me."

"Honestly? I don’t know him personally," Dahlia admitted. "Ma’am hasn’t talked to him in years... Decades. I’ve just heard the stories." Her voice got lower. "And every story is the same. He’s a total bastard who doesn’t give a shit about human life. He’s the kind of guy who signs a paper to kill people and never even bothers to look at who he’s killing."

"Got it," Nash said.

They reached the end of the hall. Dahlia slowed down, her worry coming back for a moment.

"Can I ask something?" she said. "Why are we doing this the hard way? We have the recordings. We could just dump everything online tonight and watch Apex burn from a distance. Why walk right into the lion’s den?"

"Because the bigger the prey," Victoria’s voice rang out as she stepped into view, "the more ways it has to wiggle out of the trap."

Nash and Dahlia both stopped and turned.

Victoria looked incredible. She was wearing a deep black gown that hugged her curves in all the right places, with gold jewelry at her ears and throat. Her hair was pulled back perfectly. Nash’s brain basically short-circuited for a second. She didn’t look like she was going to dinner; she looked like she was about to buy a small country and rename it after her dog.

"The thing we have proves Hector is guilty," Victoria continued, walking up to them. "The Jade Gardens, the trafficking, it all leads to him. But Lorenzo’s name isn’t on any of those papers. He’s too smart for that. If we go public now, Hector goes to hell, but Lorenzo just picks a new puppet and Apex keeps running. He’d survive."

"So the recordings don’t work on him?" Dahlia asked.

"The recordings are leverage," Victoria corrected. "Not a bomb. A knife. You don’t blow up a knife; you put the blade exactly where it needs to go, and you make sure the person holding it knows exactly how it feels to have a knife at their throat."

"Which is why we need him in a room," Nash continued.

"Exactly," Victoria said with a confident smile. "He will be like you wanted. Face to face, no distance, no lawyers. You wanted to handle him just like you handled Hector."

"And this time," Nash added, "you get a front-row seat to the show."

Victoria smiled, looking genuinely happy.

They got to her office, and she stopped talking about business. She went straight into "boss mode" for his wardrobe, pulling a black suit out of the closet and holding it up to him.

"This one," she decided.

"I don’t get a say in this, do I?" Nash asked.

"None at all."

He let her dress him. It was easier than arguing, and honestly, he loved the way she focused so intensely on straightening his collar. It felt intimate.

"Tell me about him," Nash said while she worked. "The real deal."

Victoria’s hands paused for a split second on his tie before she kept going.

"An arrogant piece of shit," she said. "He thinks everyone has a price. He’s probably convinced that if no one has leaked his secrets yet, it’s because we’re just waiting for a payout. That’s why he agreed to meet. In his head, he’s already won this negotiation."

"Got it. I can work with that. He sounds easier than Hector."

"If you’re ready for it," Victoria said, smoothing out his lapel. "I also made sure Monique is coming tonight. Every big head of Apex will be in that room. You could end the whole thing tonight if you wanted."

Nash smiled, grabbed her hands, and gave her knuckles a slow kiss.

"If we ended it tonight," he whispered, "where would the fun be in watching them actually suffer for what they did?" He looked deep into her eyes. "I promised you one last surprise. And I’m giving it to you."

Victoria’s smile widened, and she let her guard down for a second. She leaned in and kissed him slowly. Her hand slid up his collar, undoing a bit of the work she’d just done, like they had all the time in the world to fuck right there.

They didn’t, of course. Dahlia’s voice came through the door, sounding patient.

"Car’s here."

The drive felt like it took forever. The three of them were squeezed in the back: Victoria in the middle, Nash on one side, and Dahlia on the other. The driver was silent as Victoria’s name. Outside the tinted windows, the expensive lights of the Spires multiplied as they climbed higher.

Nobody talked. Victoria kept checking her phone, though Nash could tell she was just doing it to keep her hands busy. Dahlia sat perfectly straight, trying her hardest not to fidget.

The restaurant was at the top of a massive tower. The elevator alone probably cost more a year than most people in the Underground make in a lifetime. Nash watched the city shrink below them through the glass wall. The lights of the Spires looked designed to make normal people feel like ants.

Victoria stood beside him, looking calm and collected. Dahlia was on his other side, hands gripped tight behind her back, her jaw clenched.

The elevator stopped, the city vanished, and finally, the doors opened to a fancy private hallway. Two guards stood by the double doors at the end; they stepped aside immediately when they saw who it was.

Victoria stopped a few feet from the doors, fixing her sleeve one last time for no reason.

"Ready to face the source of every problem you’ve ever had?" Nash asked.

"With you two by my side," Victoria said, "the only thing I’m scared of is the police showing up and ruining the fun."

Dahlia let out a little huff that was almost a laugh.

Victoria grabbed Nash’s hand for a quick, firm squeeze.

"Let’s go," she said.

They opened the door.