King rested his arm on the back of the seat over my shoulder.
Then, we were lifting up into the air. Higher and higher we rose, stopping every so often to allow for other riders to board. Once we were almost at the top, we started to move more fluidly. Round and round we went, watching the city lights beneath us flicker and glow.
“Wow,” I said, watching the people scurry around below. “They all look like ants from up here.” I glanced over at King but he wasn’t looking at the lights of the city or at the crowd.
He was looking at me.
The depth of his stare pinned me to the seat. “Pup, what I learned from being in prison is that we’re all just a bunch of ants.”
“How do you mean?”
“I mean we’re all scurrying around, doing insignificant bullshit. We get this one life. ONE. And we spend too much time doing shit we don’t want to do. I don’t want to do that anymore.”
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t want to be remembered as the notorious Brantley King.”
“Then, how do you want to be remembered?”
“I don’t. I want to be forgotten.”
“You can’t mean that.”
“I do. I used to want to go out in a blaze of glory. Now, I just want to live in my house, fish on a weekday, and tattoo when the mood strikes. And when it’s my time to go, I want to fade out like the ending of a movie and be quickly forgotten.”
“That sounds lonely.”
“Not if you’re with me, it won’t be.”
“Please, you already told me that I’m gone the second you get tired of me.” I laughed.
King wasn’t laughing. “I’m serious. What if I said I changed my mind? What if I wanted you to stay for real?”
I shook my head. “I wouldn’t know what to say to that. I don’t even know if you mean that or not.” I sighed. “It’s just not that simple. You know that I have to look out for her.”
“Fuck that. Fuck HER,” King said, raising his voice. “As I said, we get this one life. One. As of right this fucking second, I’m no longer going to spend it doing anything other than what I want to do. I don’t want to grow old and look back and realize that I may have had a life, but I forgot to live it.” King brushed his lips against mine. “Are you with me, pup?”
“What are you doing?” I asked, my breath shallow and quick. King leaned into me and kissed the spot behind my ear, his lips igniting my skin. I felt the kiss to my very core, and I trembled.
“After everything, you still have no idea. Do you?”
“No idea of what?” I panted.
No sooner were the words out of my mouth than his lips crashed onto mine. His kiss was harsh and demanding. His tongue parted my lips, gaining entrance into my mouth, licking and dancing with my own. I moaned into him.
I was on fire. King’s hand slipped up under my dress and found the place where I was already wet and ready for him. He groaned and pressed a finger into me, his thick cock nudged my thigh. He ran a hand up my neck and fisted a handful of my hair, turning me up to him so he could gain better access to my mouth while his fingers pushed in and out of me. I clenched around him, my orgasm building, when he suddenly pulled away.
“Why did you stop?” I asked, flustered, my legs still parted for him.
“Because, pup, the ride’s over.”
I hadn’t even noticed that we were at the bottom. The carnival worker came over and let us out of the bucket. I adjusted my dress and stood on shaky legs while King retrieved my deer.
We walked to the parking lot in complete silence.
We passed some sort of tool shed on our way to the bike. King suddenly grabbed me and dragged me into the shadows, pinning me hard against the wall of the shed.
“This is the last time I’m going to ask you this, pup. Do you want me?” King asked, his lips finding mine again, asking the same question with his demanding kiss. My skin came alive and danced with anticipation. “I can’t stay away from you anymore. I tried, and I can’t do it. I want you. I need you to tell me all that hesitation bullshit is over and that I can have you. Stop being alive, and start living.” He pulled a hairs’ breadth away and sought the answer in my face.
“Yes,” I answered breathlessly. Because it was true. Every part of me wanted him. I’d been fighting it for too long for reasons that the longer I was around him seemed less and less important. “I want to be alive.”
“I want you so fucking bad,” King said, pinning me to the wall with his hips pressed against mine. His erection hard and ready against my core. My dress was up around my waist. Only his jeans and my panties separated us.
“Why do you call me pup?” I asked breathlessly while he lifted the sides of my dress so his hands could dip into the back of my panties. He dug his fingers into my ass cheeks and I gasped.
“Because when I first saw these wide, innocent eyes, you looked like a lost puppy dog.”
I was disappointed with the comparison to a puppy, especially after Preppy had called me a stray.
“And,” he continued, “I knew at that very moment when you stood in my doorway, that I wanted to keep you.”
He emphasized his statement with a thrust of his hips. I let out a guttural moan, and he laughed softly into my ear, his tongue licking and sucking along my jaw line and back to my mouth.
“Not here” he said, pulling away from me and adjusting my dress back down to cover my ass.
He led me back to his bike, making quick work of putting on my helmet. When I hopped on behind him and wrapped my arms around him, I felt him shudder under my touch. I let my hands slip just under his belt onto the bare flesh of his abs, and I heard him groan over the roar of the engine.
He wanted me.
Whoever that was.
And I wanted him.
As crazy as that was.
At least for the night, I wasn’t going to think about what the girl with the memories would do, the girl who I tried to please on a daily basis. I was going to be selfish, and I was only going to think about what I wanted.
Who I wanted.
I’d made the decision to live.
Twenty
Doe
When we pulled up to the house, I didn’t expect to see a party in full swing. Bikes lined the street, blocking our entrance to the property. King drove past them and turned onto another small dirt path I hadn’t noticed before that led us right up to the garage.
King parked the bike and cut the engine. I took my helmet off and passed it to him so he could set it on the seat.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“It seems my hospitality is being taken advantage of,” he muttered. King dragged me into the house by my hand and up the stairs to the main floor. In the living room, we passed a bunch of bikers standing around, watching an older, dark-skinned woman bounce up and down naked on the lap of a boy who looked younger than me, his pants around his feet. The patch on his vest read PROSPECT. His face was turned up to the ceiling, his eyes hooded in ecstasy, his mouth partially open.
“King!” Bear shouted, motioning to him. “Come over here, and watch this. Billy’s just popped his cherry.”
“What the fuck, Bear! What is all this?” King growled. His fist was clenched at his side, and the hand that held mine grew tighter and tighter. I could feel his pulse racing in his wrist.
Bear smiled and held out his arms. “Dude, it’s a party. It’s Saturday. We used to throw ten of these in a seven day week. Didn’t think you’d mind.”
“Don’t go anywhere. I’m coming back down. You and I need to talk.” King pointed at Bear then dragged me upstairs to his room.
“I need you to stay in here while I talk to Bear. I’ll be right back.” For once, he wasn’t barking orders at me. It sounded more like a plea. “Close the door. Keep it locked.”
“Okay,” I said, stepping into the room and shutting the door. It was the first time he’d told me to do something that I didn’t feel the overwhelming need to argue with
him.
Three hours later, there was still no sign of King, and the music seemed to be getting louder and louder. I’d read for a bit, clicked through some channels, and done my best to distract myself, but my curiosity was getting the best of me.
I didn’t want to disobey him, but maybe, I could at least change locations. I figured going into the tattoo studio in the next room wouldn’t be disobeying his orders too much. Besides, King’s sketchbook was in there, and it could help occupy me until he came back.
I crept out of the room. The party downstairs still raged although none of the party-goers had made their way upstairs like last time. I pushed open the door and stepped inside.
I wasn’t prepared for what I found.
My jaw fell to the floor along with my heart and any faith I had in King and his promises. My heart disintegrated in my chest.
It was dark in the room except for the neon lights beating in time with the bass of the Nine Inch Nails song playing on the iPod dock. King was perched on his chair with his eyes closed, a joint at his lips. His jeans were down around his ankles. A topless brunette was down on her knees in front of him, reaching for the waistband of his boxers.
“What the fuck,” I gasped. I was going to be sick. The asshole was just toying with me the entire time. He hadn’t meant a word. Maybe, that was the revenge he’d been wanting since Nikki stole from him. Maybe, that was his game the entire time and now that I was humiliated my debt had officially been paid.
King’s eyes opened suddenly, and I half-expected an apology for walking in and catching him in the act. At least, I expected an attempt at pulling up his pants. But it was my fault for thinking that way. Somewhere between the tattoos, the sandwiches on the dock, Grace’s house, and the carnival, I’d forgotten who I was dealing with.
This was the man who held me against my will. Handcuffed me to his bed. Threatened my life.
Killed his own mother.
He was the fucking devil himself. And all it took was a slutty brunette on her knees to remind me of that.
“Get out,” he barked. He took a long drag from the joint, then tugged on the brunette’s hair, tipping her head back. He leaned over until his lips were almost touching hers and made a show of blowing the smoke directly into her mouth.
I slammed the door and ran down the hall. I grabbed a bottle of something off of the kitchen table and headed outside to the dock, ignoring catcalls from some of the bikers I left in my wake.
I walked past the raging bonfire and toward the water.
I sat down on the end of the small pier and dangled my legs over the edge. I tore the cap off the bottle and tossed it into the water. I held up the bottom of the bottle and chugged a few mouthfuls of the amber liquid. It tasted like pure gasoline mixed with pine-cleaner, burning my throat and stomach on its way down. I took a breath and kept on drinking, swallowing one horrible tasting mouthful after another. I didn’t stop until I felt the hazy warmth begin to spread through me.
I wiped my mouth with my wrist and looked out onto the water.
I may not have known who I was in the past, but I knew who I didn’t want to be, and who I didn’t want to be was someone weak.
I’d fallen for it. His words. His body.
I’d fallen for him.
I may have set out to be a whore, but I sure as shit wasn’t going to allow myself to be treated like one.
He may have been the notorious Brantley King to everyone back in that house and everyone in that town, but to me, he just became the asshole. The asshole who just minutes before had broken my fucking heart.
Things were so much easier when I hated him.
“This seat taken?” A deep voice asked. I shrugged. Bear sat down next to me and lit a cigarette. “Something bothering you, pretty girl?”
“Nope,” I lied.
“I may not know shit about shit, but I can tell you that when a girl goes running from a party with only a bottle of whiskey for company, something is most definitely bothering her. In my experience, that something usually has a cock attached to it.” Bear exhaled the smoke.
“Well, you’re not completely wrong,” I admitted. Turning up the bottle again, the liquid no longer burned when I swallowed.
“Easy, girl,” Bear said, grabbing the bottle from me. He took a swig. “What’s going on between you and King, anyway? You his now? Cause he sure looks at you like you are. And seeing as he didn’t kill you and all, I’m thinking what he feels for you might be pretty fucking serious.”
I shook my head. “Right now, he’s in his studio, belonging to a brunette with fake tits.” My eyes welled up with tears, but I refused to cry at my own stupidity.
“Ah, I see,” Bear said, passing me back the bottle. “The kid doesn’t appreciate what’s right in front of him.”
“He’s not exactly a kid, Bear. Actually, I’m pretty sure he’s older than you, and it’s not that he doesn’t see what’s in front of him. It’s that he just doesn’t give a shit.” I was more than tipsy, working my way to more than drunk. My words grew bolder in my mouth before I spat them out. Any filter I ever had was completely gone. “What do you see when you look at me?”
Bear looked out on the water and scratched his beard. “I see a very, very fucking beautiful girl who shouldn’t be hanging out with the likes of anyone up in that house. Or anyone sitting next to her, for that matter. We’re bad seeds, little girl. You’re a good seed. I can tell. Shit, anyone within a hundred miles of here can tell. You don’t belong here. That much is obvious.”
“I don’t belong anywhere,” I admitted. A fog started to settle over the water, emerging from the trees on the other side of the bay, traveling toward, and brushing my ankles as it spread under the pier.
“Sure you do. First, you have to figure out where that someplace is. Then, you just have to want to belong there.”
I’m not sure if Bear knew my entire story, but what he said was way too simplified of an answer, especially in my case.
I laughed. “Oh yeah? Well, I’m leaving here tonight, and I have nowhere to go. I don’t want to live on the streets again, but that’s where I’m going to be. It takes a lot more than wanting to belong somewhere, or not belong, or whatever,” I said, my words slurring together.
“I remember talking to you that first night. Do you remember what I told you about coming back to the clubhouse with me?” Bear asked.
“Yes.”
“I should’ve never sent you up to King. I should have dragged you away right then and there and made you mine that night before King had his way with you.”
“King has never had his way with me,” I slurred. “His way or the highway, maybe.”
“No shit? Well that changes everything, baby,” Bear said. His smile reached all the way to his eyes which were shockingly bright and beautiful. I was pretty sure his beard hid even more of his good looks, and a very drunk part of me wanted to pull on it to see if it would come off.
“It changes nothing, Bear. I’m still leaving. He’s still with the brunette girl with the…” I cupped my hands in front of my chest. Bear laughed out loud, revealing a perfectly straight line of pearly white teeth.
“It changes everything, actually. Our bro code only goes so far. Seeing as how he’s not claimed you as his, as stupid as that is, my offer is still good. What’s fair is fair,” Bear said, again taking the bottle from my hands.
I looked over at him and half-expected to find him laughing at his own joke, but his lips were in a straight line.
He was dead serious.
He also wasn’t bad to look at. That night was the first time I’d seen his blonde hair pulled into a high bun on the back of his head.
“Listen,” Bear said. “King’s been my friend almost my entire life, but he knows the rules I live by. In my world, you’re fair game, and I would love to put you on your back in my bed.”
“You’re just saying that. The truth is that you’re not gonna want me when you find out that I don’t know what I’m doing
when it comes to—” I darted my eyes to the bulge in his jeans. “—that.”
“Fuck,” Bear swore, biting his bottom lip. “Darlin’, I believe I want you even more now.”
“You’ve got freckles under your eyes,” I said, leaning toward him. He grabbed onto my shoulders before I fell forward.
“Yeah, kid. So I’ve been told.” He laughed. He also had a dimple on his left cheek, which was on it’s own a ridiculous contradiction when it came to the big biker man sitting next to me.
“Why did you send me to him?” I asked. “I would’ve gone with you. You’re nice. I needed a place to stay, and you’ve got freckles under your eyes, and I would’ve been a good biker whore for you.”
Bear’s eyebrows shot up. “Oh yeah?” he asked, a crooked smirk on his face. “I don’t really see you as the biker whore type. But I can definitely see you on the back of my bike.”
“But you said I don’t belong here. That I shouldn’t hang out with you. Or any of those—” I waved the bottle around behind me, missing Bear’s jaw by only an inch or two. “—people up there in the stupid house. Stupid people in the stupid house on stupid stilts.” My shoulders slumped. “Bear, my heart was just getting warm. Now, it’s all cold again.”
Bear grabbed the bottle from my hand and set it down on the dock.
“I said you didn’t belong here. I said you were too good to hang out with me. I didn’t say that I wouldn’t hang out with you. You may be too good for me, but I’m the kind of guy who can live with that.” Bear placed a hand against my cheek. I could see why they called him Bear. He was strong and warm and his hands were so big they reminded me of giant paws. I closed my eyes and swayed into him. He leaned in close, his lips only a breath away from mine.
“Will you come with me, baby girl? I don’t know if I can warm your heart, but I sure as shit can warm your body. I know for a fact that you can warm my bed. Then, maybe, we’ll work on that cold heart of yours. We’ll take it one day at a time.” He assured me.
Bear sounded sincere, and what he was offering was exactly what I was looking for weeks earlier.
King Series Firsts Box Set: King, Lawless & Preppy Part One Page 17