The worst was exactly what I found.
One look at him was all it took to realize how wrong I’d been. The spark I’d seen in his eyes that first night wasn’t the sign of a monster. It wasn’t the glint of an evil man.
It was a warning.
A warning that he’d been hurt and had never healed. It was the anger and the fear of his past lurking just beyond the surface waiting for him to finally break.
And break he did.
The room was dark, except for the green lava lamp on the bedside table and a small reading lamp that was turned over onto the floor, blinking on and off. Preppy was pacing the room, shirtless. His jeans were open and hanging low on his hips, his belt dangling from the loops. His hair was disheveled. He carried a bottle of whiskey by the neck in one hand, a lit cigarette in the other.
“Why?” he asked, the pain in his voice cut through me, sharper than any knife. He kicked the closet door in with his foot, sending it careening off the hinges.
“Preppy,” I said softly, taking a tentative step toward him. “Preppy, it’s me. Dre. Doc.” I stopped at the foot of the bed as he continued to pace, and although I was right there it was like he couldn’t see me, his eyes glazed over. He let his cigarette fall onto the carpet, and immediately I stomped it out with my foot before it could catch fire. He threw the bottle into the bathroom where it smashed the mirror into pieces, sending shards of glass shooting around the room like shrapnel. He pushed down his jeans and took his soft cock in hand stroking up and down angrily.
“Preppy. It’s me,” I said again, taking another step toward him. There was no fucking way I was leaving him in that condition. I was either going to find a way to drag him out of it or we were going down together.
“Go away,” he barked, his voice a strangled cry. He fell to his knees, bracing himself with one hand on the carpet as he continued to stroke himself furiously, growling in frustration until finally he stood up and stepped out of his jeans.
“I’m not going anywhere, Preppy.”
He paced the room, yelling at the wall. He overturned the desk. He paced back to his nightstand, where he leaned over and snorted three lines of blow in a row. He ran to the closet and came out wielding a large pocket knife, stabbing it into the drywall and running it down to the baseboard with his teeth bared and his face turning ten shades of red. His knuckles were white. "I was a good boy!" he cried out. "Bad boys have wrinkled pants. Bad boys wear t-shirts and ripped jeans. I was a good boy. No fucking wrinkles. I was such a good boy!” he yelled as his fist sailed through the wall.
Preppy was in the grips of his own personal hell and I had no idea how to drag him back out.
“Fuck you! Fuck yoooooouuuuuuuu,” he screamed to the ceiling, banging his head against the wall again and again, so hard his eyebrow split and blood trailed down his face, narrowly missing his eye.
“Don’t do this!” I shouted. “Stop! Stop!” I cried, jumping up onto a coffee table that was pushed against the wall.
“Die motherfucker! You’re dead, just fucking die you god damned asshole!” he screamed again, the tendons tight in his neck and the veins in his forearms popping at the surface of his skin. I reached for him, grabbing his face on both sides and pulled him toward me. Consequences be damned.
He swatted at my hands and pulled away.
“Don’t you see? He broke me. I’m broken!” he shouted. His eyes were bloodshot and his voice raspy from yelling. “And that fucking bitch let it happen! She fucking let it happen!”
“You’re okay. You’re not there anymore.”
“But I am! I’m always fucking there!” He pushed his hands through his hair and looked as if he were pulling it out. He spun in a circle and dropped to his knees again, tugging on his cock.
“No!” I screamed, “Look at me.” I jumped off the coffee table and got on my knees, pressing my forehead to his. “Samuel Clearwater, you are a good man. I see that in you. Everyone sees that in you. Don’t let him take that away from you.”
Preppy stared straight at the wall. “I hate him. I hate her. I hate them so fucking much.”
“I do too,” I said, not realizing that I’d started to cry along with him. “I do too,” I repeated, because I truly meant it. “I hate that man and what he did to you. If he were still alive I’d kill the fucker myself and if I were here when she came I wouldn’t have stopped you if you tried to kill her.”
Preppy stood up abruptly, knocking me back onto my ass. He slammed his open palms against the wall, and dropped his forehead against it, the blood from his eyebrow splattering on the light blue paint. I jumped to my feet and again hopped up onto the coffee table, needing the height in order to put myself at his level. I grabbed his face again and when he tried to rip it away I dug my fingers into his cheeks and pulled harder, until he had no choice but to look at me.
“Go away, I’m just going to hurt you,” he said, his eyes bulging from his head.
“Then hurt me.” Preppy was staring right at me, but he was looking right through me. “Hurt me. Let me make this better for you.”
I pulled him closer and felt his cock hardening against my thigh.
“I…” he started, wrestling with his words and feelings, and unable to communicate to me what he needed, but thankfully I already knew.
“It’s okay,” I assured him, tugging him back. “You need me?”
“Yes,” he choked out. “I need you. So much.”
“Then use me,” I said, putting every ounce of determination I have into my voice. “I WANT you to use me.” I took a step back and lifted my shirt over my head. I unclasped my bra and tossed it to the floor.
I stepped down from the table and stood in the middle of the room, my breasts exposed to him. I unbuttoned my shorts and Preppy’s eyes roamed down my body. Up on the table he looked very much like an evil demon, a gargoyle high up on a castle wall. The moonlight from the window behind him casting him in an eerie shadow.
Preppy jumped down and stalked over to me like a crazed animal. He grabbed my hips and spun me around, pushing me roughly against the wall, my cheek landing with a painful thud as it connected. He pulled down my shorts and panties, and then he was on me. His chest against my back. One hand grabbing my breast and the other between my legs.
This wasn’t about me or my pleasure. This wasn’t sex. This was a motherfucking exorcism. But the second his finger swiped over my folds I became wet. So wet, I knew Preppy’s fingers had to be soaked. He growled, thrusting his cock against my lower back.
Kicking my legs apart he lined up his shaft with my pussy. He grabbed a fistful of my hair and yanked so hard I felt some hairs tear from my scalp. Wrapping his other hand around my throat he surged inside me, pushing into me like he was pushing into his salvation, forcing himself past my tightness, groaning and growling until he was seated inside of me as far as my body would let him. He squeezed my throat, and although I could still breathe, I started to see stars as he began to pull out of me slowly, pushing back into me like he was punishing me.
There was no foreplay. No sweetness. There was nothing but us in that room. Preppy was haunted and I was willing to let him fuck me to death, if it meant he’d be free from the demon within.
It hurt. But with the pain came a pleasure I never expected, a jarring bolt of lightning that had my pussy squeezing his cock tighter and tighter as he fucked me harder and harder. Furiously, he pounded into me, slamming my head against the wall, squeezing my throat tighter. My pleasure escalated as he slammed into me one final time and I came and came and came as Preppy pulled out. And as he released, he screamed and cried, “Fuck him. Fuck all of them Fuuuuuuucccckkkk!” He spread my ass cheeks apart, shooting hot spurts all over my freshly fucked pussy while he continued to squeeze my windpipe tighter, until everything started to fade.
“Doc?” Preppy’s voice sounded a million miles away. “Doc!” he shouted, and suddenly the blackness faded away and the blue wall again came into focus. He spun me around and grabbed me by
the shoulders. He stared down at me as if he were just realizing I was there. His pupils were still dilated, a shit ton of coke will do that to a person, but now they were focused. Intense even. “Doc?” he asked again, lifting me into his arms. He carried me over to his bed and laid me down, climbing onto the mattress beside me and pulling me against his chest.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
“Yes,” I said, still catching my breath.
He lowered himself down onto the mattress, resting his cheek against my stomach, smearing the blood on his eyebrow onto my skin. “Are you?”
She shook his head against me. “I don’t think I’ve ever been okay,” he admitted. His shoulders rose and fell. His inhales were erratic, and that’s when I realized he was quietly sobbing against me. He wrapped his hands tightly around my thighs as if he were holding on for dear life. “He made me this monster. I’m sick and I’m twisted, and it’s because he couldn’t keep his fucking hands to himself!”
“He’s gone now, he’s dead,” I reassured him, smoothing back his hair from his face.
“He’s dead, but he’s not gone,” he pointed to his head. “In here, that fucker is very much alive.”
I pressed my hand over his heart which was beating a thousand miles a minute. “He’s not here, though, and that’s a start.”
Preppy slowly looked up with red rimmed eyes, white powder caked in his nostrils. “No room for him in there,” he said, resting his chin on my stomach. “Because you’re in there, and for a tiny thing you take up a fuck of a lot of space.”
My heart warmed at his admission, but it could have been his pain talking. Either way, it gave me a flash of hope that he could climb out from the depths and overcome his demons.
“I need to take care of that,” I pointed to his forehead, where the blood had stopped oozing from the wound but still needed to be cleaned and covered. I made a move to get up to go get a washcloth and a bandaid, but he stopped me.
“No, don’t go,” he pleaded, grabbing my hand and pressing my palm to his cheek. He then pressed his own palm to the center of my chest between my breasts. “Am I here?” he asked.
There was no denying that Preppy was there. Not anymore. Not after this. “You are.”
“I’m sorry,” he said, and coming from the man who didn’t apologize, it meant everything.
“There isn’t anything to apologize for,” I said, because there wasn’t. “I wanted you, too,” I admitted.
Preppy looked up at me with glistening eyes, his pupils the size of the moon. “I know what will make me feel even better,” he said, releasing me. He climbed over my body, his face hovering just over mine.
This time is was him taking my head in his hands as he looked down at me, his thumbs tracing lightly over my lips and my cheeks, his fingers threading in my hair.
“What?” I asked.
He lowered himself on top of me, the bridge of his nose brushing mine. “This,” he said, pressing his lips against my lips in the softest, most demanding kiss that ever existed. He opened his mouth and I followed, moaning into him when our tongues finally touched. The softness quickly turned to furious passion when he molded his lips to mine, and I know he was giving me everything he had in that kiss because I felt it all. His frustration, his sadness, his hurt, his desire, his anger, his confusion, but there was something else there.
Something stronger. More powerful. More everything.
Above all else, I felt his love.
He’d said he couldn’t keep me.
That didn’t mean I wouldn’t always be his.
Thirty-One
PREPPY
Even when Dre was at her worst, a strung out junkie on the verge of suicide, she was still a better person than I’d ever be. I knew that now, more than ever before. She didn’t need to come to my rescue, but she did. She rescued me from myself and sacrificed her own safety and happiness for mine.
I also knew now, more than ever, that I wanted to keep her. Unfortunately, I also knew now, more than ever, that I couldn’t.
I don’t know exactly how long we stayed there in my bed, locked away up in my room. For days we got up only to eat or shower. We fucked, watched movies, and we fucked some more. I couldn’t get enough of Dre or her tight as fuck pussy. I spent my time coming in and on every part of her body.
We left the house once for me to take her over to Mirna’s so she could grab some of Dre’s things and then visit Mirna, who was still in stable condition. After, we’d come right back to my place where she taught me how to make pancakes properly, using one of Mirna’s recipes while wearing this lacy red apron… and nothing else. I’m not a religious man, but I saw Jesus when I tasted those pancakes and almost cried when the fluffy deliciousness touched my lips. I vowed to her right then and there that I’d never make pancakes from a box ever again.
And then I bent her over the counter and fucked my gratitude into her.
There was no way I could ever repay her for what she did for me, no way to tell her “thank you” in a way that would accurately convey how much I appreciated her dragging me back from the depths my mother’s visit had sent me down into. So instead of using my words, I dragged her back to my bed and used my cock. My fingers. My mouth. My tongue. I made her come with everything I had, until my dick was a deep shade of purple and about to burst with need, before I would even think about tickling her woman cave with my man meat.
We did something else I liked.
We talked.
We talked about almost everything. Her family. Her school. Books. Movies. I found out she played the violin in the sixth grade and she had to talk me out of going to the 24 hour pawn in the middle of the night to buy her one, because the image of her playing for me naked wasn’t an easy one to shake.
Seeing her face light up as she was quoting Anchorman was an entirely new level of weird turn on for me.
I knew I needed to come clean with her. Things had changed. Shifted. The feelings I had for her were more than friends and more than just friends who fucked. They were just…more.
She deserved to know the truth about her dad and I planned on telling her.
Later.
She also needed rehab. Proper rehab.
But instead of bringing up what would inevitably break us, I did what I’d always done. I was selfish. I’m savoring every moment with Dre, although I knew we were fucking on borrowed time.
There was no better reminder of how short that time was when reality pulled up, in the form of roaring bike engines rattling the walls like deep thunder.
I knew we didn’t have long.
What I didn’t know was that time was already up.
Thirty-Two
DRE
Preppy took off downstairs when he heard the bikes and told me to stay put, and so I did. But when I got out of the shower and realized that an hour passed and he still hadn’t come back up, I threw on some clothes and went down to find him.
I padded down the stairs in my bare feet. My hair slicked back, still wet from my shower, soaking my tight, white tank top and making my red bra visible underneath. When I pushed open the back door the music hit me first, and I realized that the bikers hadn’t wasted any time. A party was already in full swing. Leather clad men were everywhere. Topless women strewn about their laps. Laughter and dancing surrounded the raging bonfire in the pit in the center of the yard.
A giant of a man with blond hair stepped in front of me, obscuring my view of the party down below. He looked very much like a tattooed viking. His blue eyes were the brightest I’d ever seen. “Hey, beautiful,” he said, with a slow southern accent. He glanced up at the house and then back to me. “Any special reason why you think you’re allowed in there? House is off limits. The party’s out back.” He gestured with his thumb over his shoulder to the people down below.
“I was changing my clothes,” I explained, taken momentarily off guard why this stranger was questioning why I was there. Why was he there?
“In the house?” h
e asked, as if he still couldn’t believe it.
“Uh…I mean…yeah,” I said, unsure why he was so confused. That’s when the recognition hit me. I’d never seen him before, but there was no mistaking who he was from Preppy’s description. But before the words “You must be Bear” could slip from my mouth, Bear’s hands were on me, patting me down.
“You steal anything from in there?” he asked, running his hands over my skirt and up the sides of my tank top. He didn’t stop when he came to my breasts, squeezing them roughly.
“No!” I said, stepping away and smacking his hand. “I was invited by Preppy, asshole. Before you so rudely frisked me, I was about to tell you that I know who you are. You’re Bear, Preppy’s friend, right?”
Bear nodded and was silent for a moment. He looked me up and down, his gaze lingering on the scars on my arms. “Sorry, beautiful,” he finally said, extending his hand. I took it and he pulled me up against his massive wall of a body. “I know who you are, too.” Suddenly, his frown turned into a smile. He draped his arm over my shoulder like we were old friends.
“You do?” Preppy had told him about me? “Well, it’s great to finally meet you, Bear,” I said, craning my neck.
“Likewise,” he said. I beamed like a school girl. My face turned red and my heart fluttered. I felt practically giddy.
“Yeah, Prep said you’d fit in real nicely with the Bastards. Don’t worry about a damn thing. We treat all our girls real good. You’ll love club life. Parties, fuckin’, blow, more fuckin’. Ain’t nothing better than life with the club.”
What in the hell?
“I know the brothers will like you because I’m liking you.” He leaned close and whispered in my ear, “Tonight we can even have a party of our own before you get to know my boys. Get acquainted.”
“Wait,” I said, taking a step back and remembering his earlier comment. “Preppy said that I…” I started, as it all started to sink in.
KING SERIES FIRSTS: King, Lawless & Preppy Part One Page 65