American Street Kings: The Complete Series

by Bella J

  I cleared my throat. “What are prospects?”

  Neon placed a glass of water in front of me. “They’re like little babies, and it’s our job to raise them right.”

  Onyx snickered. “What Neon is trying to say, if you want to join our club, you need to prove yourself first. Hence why prospects are cleaning up your vomit right now.”

  I bit my lip, my gaze sweeping across the kitchen.

  “So,” Neon sat next to me, “what’s the deal? Why don’t you like eating? You anorexic? Bulimia? What is it?”

  “Jesus, Neon,” Onyx muttered.

  “What? I’m asking a straight question.”

  I rubbed my hands together nervously. “It’s not that. I just need to watch my weight.”

  Neon took a sip from her coffee. “Because you’re a ballerina?”

  “Yeah.”

  “So, you’re saying when you have curves, you can’t dance?”

  “No. That’s not what I’m saying.” I reached for the glass of water. “Being a ballerina is all about balance and technique. If you’re overweight, it makes it difficult.”

  “So you starve yourself?” Neon looked at me all serious, like her question wasn’t intended to take a hit at me and my eating habits.

  “Every career has its sacrifices,” I replied simply.

  “Sure,” Neon shrugged, “but yours is, like…unhealthy.”

  “Leave the woman alone, Neon.” Onyx got up and placed his bowl in the sink.

  Neon lifted her feet, putting them on the table as she leaned back in her seat. “Why the fuck are you so uptight?”

  “I’m not.” He turned to face her. “I just don’t get why everyone is so fucking obsessed with her and her eating habits.”

  “We’re not obsessed with her eating habits, we’re just concerned.”

  Onyx snickered. “Yeah, her being here is all about our concern over her eating habits.”

  Neon frowned. “Just because she’s here under these circumstances doesn’t mean I can’t show a little compassion for her situation.”

  “A situation we put her in.”

  Neon sat up straight. “Because we had no other fucking choice.”

  “I fucking know that. But that doesn’t mean we have to have so much fucking fun while we keep her here against her will. God, you’re like a little girl who got a baby doll for Christmas, and all you want to do is play fucking dress-up.”

  “Fuck you, Onyx.”

  “Who the fuck do you think you’re talking to? Show some goddamn respect.”

  Neon snorted. “You haven’t earned it yet.”

  The atmosphere turned from uncomfortable to hostile. Their words flew like poison darts, each aimed at the other’s head. Onyx seemed angry. Neon seemed determined. It was a toxic combination.

  I got up from my chair while they bickered. They didn’t even notice. With a deep breath, I stood straight—tail down, spine up. Shoulders and hips faced the same direction. My head erect and centered. I balanced my weight on the triangle of my feet. It was one of the first things they taught you in ballet, to equally distribute your weight with the least amount of energy. For any ballerina, balance should be as easy as breathing.

  I closed my eyes, shutting their voices out. I extended one leg, straightening it behind me, supporting my body on the other leg, then lifted my arms.

  And then I started dancing.

  There was no music. Just the natural rhythm of my body guiding me, taking control. I twirled, my toes pointe.

  Balance. Balance. Balance.

  Every muscle worked its way through the rhythm.

  Strength. Strength. Strength.

  The jeans I wore made it difficult to execute each move perfectly, but that didn’t keep me from trying.

  More and more, I lost myself to the dancing, my body light, like the air around me. My hands grasped the end of the table, and I lifted my leg behind me. With every ounce of strength and flexibility, I performed the perfect arabesque penché. Every muscle pulled as I extended my knee up behind and above me. It was a classic ballet move, but one of the hardest to perfect. If it wasn’t for the goddamn jeans, it would be a perfect one hundred and eighty-degree penché.

  Sweat beaded on my forehead, and a few drops trickled down my spine. My chest was tight as I focused on my breathing, trying to keep my heartrate steady. Slowly, I brought my leg down, exhaling as my foot finally touched the ground.

  It felt good to dance again, even just for a few seconds. My body needed it to loosen up and shake off some of the stress it had endured the last few days. My mother might have been able to dictate my life, but not even her manipulative ways could make me fall out of love with dancing.

  I opened my eyes and let out a breath. Onyx and Neon stared at me, slack-jawed and stunned. Even Neon, who seemed like she could never shut up, didn’t say a word. But it was the way Onyx looked at me that had me frozen to the spot. That intense blue-eyed stare seemed to look right through me. In awe. Like he had been entranced by the way I just danced.

  I straightened, shyness flushing across my cheeks. “That is why I need to keep my weight in check.”

  There were no arguments from either of them. Only silence. Then I noticed Onyx’s expression as he stared over my shoulder—something between “oh, fuck” and “we’re fucked.”

  Neon, on the other hand, said the actual words as she stared behind me. “Oh, fuck.”

  It was him. I knew it. I felt him behind me, a chill slowly spreading down my spine while it felt like a furnace had been turned on underneath my skin. There was no need to see him to be able to feel his presence. A man like Granite brought a sense of authority and power whenever he entered a room…just like he did now.

  “Granite,” I whispered, closing my eyes.

  “Your room. Now.”

  “It’s not my room.”

  Neon snapped her gaze to me. “Not the time, Swan Lake,” she warned softly. But even though fear was weighing heavy inside my gut, anger was knocking against my skull.

  With a touch of his hand on my shoulder, my body shuddered. “Back to your room. Now.”

  For a moment, it felt like I had a demon stuck inside me, desperate to get out. So I reacted—bravely, yet foolishly, it seemed.

  As I spun around, I lifted my hand, ready to slap some fucking humanity into the man who seemed like nothing but a giant brick wall. But he saw it coming, grabbing my wrist, pushing my arm away from his face. To be honest, I was giving it all I had by pressing back, while he wasn’t even trying.

  I bit my lip while staring up at him, and all he gave me was a half-grin. Green eyes beamed with amusement, yet his features remained hard, unreadable. Unlike Neon and Onyx, Granite gave me nothing—no pieces to put together in order to get a picture of the man he really was. Nothing about him was transparent or predictable. And I had a feeling no matter how hard he kept me—as Neon put it—Granite was an enigma I would never be able to figure out.

  It only took two encounters with Neon, and I already knew she was a misfit hiding behind the safety of pretending to be a hard-ass. And both times she had shown me kindness.

  Onyx was the young man constantly living in his big brother’s shadow. It wasn’t jealousy. It wasn’t your normal sibling rivalry. It was something different. Onyx seemed so…trapped. Maybe he craved freedom…like me.

  But Granite? I had nothing. No pieces. No puzzle. No way to figure him out.

  Granite brought my arm down, his fingers clasped tightly around my wrist. He didn’t say anything, but he didn’t have to. It was all there in his eyes.

  Anger.

  Fury.

  Disappointment.

  His glare cut over my shoulder toward Onyx. Jealousy…?

  “I said go to your room,” he gritted out, his jaw clenched while still looking straight at Onyx. The atmosphere was excruciating. Downright toxic. It was like a goddamn choking hazard.

  I didn’t mean to hesitate. Honestly, I didn’t know what the hell to do with Grani
te towering over me like a two-hundred-and-twenty-pound threat. But I did hesitate. I didn’t move…until Granite grabbed me with one arm wrapping around my waist, hoisting me up and over his shoulder like I weighed nothing. One arm. Just one fucking arm, and I was carried off down the hall.

  “Yo, Granite. What’s going on?”

  Some bald guy stepped aside as we passed him in the hall with me still over Granite’s shoulder. Granite didn’t even look his way. He stomped down the hall like he was waiting for hellhounds to start gnawing at his fucking ankles.

  “Put me down!” My fists slammed into his back, but it was no use. My strength was no match for his.

  Granite walked into the room and slammed the door closed before finally putting me down. When my feet hit the floor, I rushed to the other side of the room, panic and anger reaching the boiling point inside me.

  “Who the fuck do you think you are?” I bit out.

  “You danced for him.”

  I balked. “What?”

  He took a step forward. “You danced for my brother.” The words left his mouth with a snarl, the hard tone of hostility poisoning the air around us even more.

  “What? No.” I shook my head. “I didn’t dance for your brother. Well, I did. But I didn’t. Shit.”

  “I saw you dance while he watched you.”

  “Neon watched too.” I pointed to…to…well, fucking nowhere. “I wasn’t dancing for Onyx. I was trying to prove a point.”

  He took another step closer, his face nothing but stone. “And what point is that? That you can dance? That you can bend your fucking body and split your legs wide open?”

  “Good God.” I pulled my hands through my hair. “That’s not what I was doing. I was just…” I stilled. “Wait. What does it matter?”

  Granite didn’t move, and his expression still gave me nothing.

  I moved closer, just a little. “What does it matter, Granite? So what if I danced for your brother?” Curiosity got the better of me. It was stronger than fear. There was a reason curiosity killed the cat.

  Granite rubbed his palm across his beard, his lips pulled in a straight line.

  Of course, being the curious cat, I had to push just a little further. “Do not tell me you’re jealous.”

  Stupid curious cat.

  Like a giant wrecking ball, Granite launched at me, my back hitting the wall as he grabbed my neck, wrapping his fingers around my throat.

  “You’re fucking with the wrong man, Alyx.”

  “I’m not fucking with anyone.”

  His green-eyed gaze searched my face, nothing but disdain and displeasure in the depths of his eyes. “You need to start behaving.”

  “And you need to let me go. You can’t do this.”

  He took another step, and I found it increasingly difficult to draw a decent breath.

  Granite leaned closer, and I clearly saw every hard line on his face. “This is my world, ballerina girl. Here, I do whatever the fuck I want.”

  “Not with my life, you don’t. I’m not one of your fucking club members, and I sure as hell didn’t ask for you kidnap me.”

  “Keep on lying to yourself.”

  “Just because we made eye contact a few times doesn’t give you the right to kidnap me.”

  He bit his lower lip. “I don’t see it as kidnapping. More like a forced intervention.”

  “You’re a depraved fucking man, Granite.”

  His grip tightened. “Yet you still want me.”

  “Now who’s lying to himself?”

  “Am I?” His nostrils flared, his tongue darting out to wet his lips as he tipped his head to the side. “Did you not watch me? Think about me?” I let out a breath when his finger brushed across my lips. “Did you not wonder what it would be like to be with me? To ride on the back of my motorcycle with your arms wrapped tightly around me?”

  I swallowed hard.

  His gaze followed the movement of his fingers. “Can you tell me you never once thought about me…in your bedroom,” he leaned closer, his warm breath dancing across the skin of my neck, “in your bed…fucking you?”

  “Jesus, Granite,” I breathed. My body felt drained of all its strength. Suddenly, there was nothing but a throbbing ache between my legs, something I had no business feeling.

  Abruptly, his fingers gripped my jaw, digging into my flesh. “Tell me you never once looked at me from that motherfucking window, your panties soaked with the thought of me touching you.”

  “Stop.”

  He pressed harder, puckering up my lips as his grip tightened. “Tell me you never touched yourself, made yourself come thinking about me fucking you raw.”

  I clenched my teeth, heart racing and palms sweating. “You’re disgusting, you know that?”

  A smirk crept up at the corners of his mouth. “Oh, that’s right. That pussy of yours is still untouched. It’s still all tight and intact.”

  My eyes widened. “How the hell do you—”

  “I told you, there’s nothing about you I don’t know.” He brushed the pad of his thumb over my lips, and I shivered. “I’ve always been there hiding in the shadows, making sure no man touches what’s mine. And that’s exactly what you are. Mine.” He brought his lips closer to mine. “Ever wonder why your jock boyfriend ended up with a broken leg, never returning to claim what you were so willing to give him? Or why no other guy attempted to come near you? To touch you?”

  Jesus Christ. “It was you?”

  “You thought it was daddy, didn’t you?”

  “You crazy son of a bitch.”

  “I won’t argue that.”

  “You’re fucking insane.”

  He shrugged. “I won’t argue that either.”

  “You had no fucking right to interfere with my life. No fucking right!” With every ounce of strength, I tried to push him away from me, but he didn’t even move an inch.

  His hand moved from my jaw to the back of my neck. “You see, Alyx, you were mine the moment our eyes met for the first time, you staring down at me from your window. You know it. I know it. And we’ve known it for a very long time.”

  “You’re delusional,” I bit out, my stomach swirling with equal parts desire and fear.

  With his hand gripping my neck, I became hyperaware of his touch. His smell. His heat. His presence. Being so close demanded all my senses to tune into him—and only him. The world around us disappeared, and in that moment, he was everything. Nothing else existed.

  His body was inches from mine, the air around us suddenly laden with what felt like raw sexual tension, strong enough to make me succumb. It penetrated every bone in my body. The desire. The need. The fear of being consumed by him. I had never felt so conflicted in my life. My fear of him was real; his actions made sure of that. But the desire I had for him all this time felt a hundred times stronger, as if the fear intensified it, making it impossible to ignore.

  His fingers weaved through my hair right before clutching tight, pulling my head back and lifting my chin toward him, earning a gasp from my lips.

  “You see, Alyx, I’ve owned you long before I took you, and that is why you dancing for my brother fucking matters.”

  Between him and the wall, I felt small and insignificant, like he could crush me with his fucking boot if he wanted to. As his face came within inches of mine, I smelled his familiar scent. Sandalwood—an earthy scent with a hint of soap. It was the smell of my undoing.

  Even though my heart was about to break out of my chest, I couldn’t look away. It was impossible for me to not look at him, to not think of all those nights I used to watch him getting off his bike, roughing his hands through his untamed curls, demanding all my attention without even trying. Maybe he was right. Maybe I did silently beg for him to take me this way. Maybe there was a part of me that wanted him to be this cruel, dangerous man who didn’t think twice without taking what was his. His life was such a huge contradiction to mine, and maybe I craved it. With all the perfection and discipline in my life, m
aybe I craved the chaos of his. But that didn’t mean I would stop fighting, even if it was only for my own sanity. To prove to myself that I wasn’t as depraved as he was.

  I reached to the back of my neck, trying to pull his fingers from my hair. I dug my nails so deep into his flesh, I was sure I drew blood. But he didn’t even flinch.

  “Let go of me.”

  The smirk on his face was a giant “no.”

  “I said let go of me.”

  His grip on my hair only grew tighter, his body moving closer to mine. But I was determined to fight him, to prove to him I wasn’t one of his fucking club minions, and he sure as fuck wasn’t my king.

  I started thrashing against him, pushing and punching at him. Unshed tears stung my eyes, desperation starting to weep from my body. I wanted to get away from him. I wanted to get away from all of them.

  I lost control. It was too much.

  With every ounce of strength I had in me, I launched my fists at his face. But I was too weak, too small for the likes of him. I grabbed at his shirt, wanting to tear it to shreds. “You. Don’t. Own. Me!”

  The words burned my tongue, but then his lips incinerated mine, kissing me. He forced me closer, his hand at the back of my neck pulling me to him. Hard, demanding, and merciless, Granite kissed me in a way that compelled me to allow it.

  My arms flailed as a last lame-ass attempt to fight him, but his kiss weakened me. With every second his warm lips remained on mine, my strength dissipated. His kiss wasn’t anything like I imagined it would be. Never in my wildest dreams could I have imagined it being this powerful, as if steeped in desire and passion, igniting a fire that raged between us.

  He tightened his hold around me, crushing my body against his, his big frame enveloping me. The earthy scent of him was intoxicating while the taste of his mouth against mine wrecked me. The bristles of his beard felt hard and rough against my skin, but it didn’t stop me from hungrily pushing back, wanting more. His tongue didn’t ask. It didn’t beg or coax. It demanded. It claimed what he wanted, and there was nothing left in me to fight with. His kiss took it all, and my body betrayed me with a primal desire that lived in us all. It wanted more and more with every passing second, instantly addicted to the rush of tasting him, feeling him, as if he had only become real the second our lips touched.