by Rose, Callie
When she finally speaks, her voice is a raw, stuttering whisper.
“I’m so scared, Low. I’m so scared I won’t get out of here. Ever.” Another tear slips from her eye, and she reaches up to swipe at her cheek as she pulls herself back together. “I’m terrified of leaving you alone. I think about it sometimes, and it feels like my heart just dies inside my chest, like I can’t breathe, I can’t live.”
My heart clenches, and we both lean toward each other, our faces so close but so distant.
“I hate it,” she says. “I hate that they took me away from you. I hate that you’re out there on your own trying to navigate this insane, messed up world we live in. I want to be there for you, Low.” She smiles sadly at me. “For everything.”
“Me too, Mom.”
My voice is small, and I feel like a little kid in a cancer ward again, leaning on my mother for support when it all becomes too much.
Mom presses her lips together, her nostrils flaring as she draws in a slow breath. Then she presses her hand to the glass, and my hand is moving to meet hers before it even touches the smooth surface. With our palms pressed together, she meets my eyes. Hers are sad and tired and glassy with tears, but they’re still so full of love it makes my chest ache.
“I wish I could be there for you,” she murmurs, her voice falling directly into my ear through the old-fashioned phone receiver. “I wish I could be there with you. But if there are four more people in the world who care about you—that’s a good thing, Low. It’s a good thing.”
The certainty in her voice cracks open my heart, spreading something warm and comforting through my entire body.
I don’t have to choose.
I won’t have to choose between the boys I’m falling in love with and my mother, my best friend.
We keep our hands pressed to the glass, fingers splayed, as we talk in low voices, letting out a whole mess of emotions we’ve both been holding back for too long. And with every word we speak, I feel lighter somehow. As if acknowledging our fears made them a little less terrifying.
“I love you, Mom,” I whisper.
“Love you too, Low. So much. Always.”
When I finally lean away from the partition and stand up to leave, the pane of glass between us seems thinner somehow, and it occurs to me that maybe the plexiglass isn’t the only thing that’s been separating us for the past few months. Maybe it’s been the lies and the secrets too.
There are still some things I can’t tell her, but I resolve that I will.
Someday soon.
My whole body feels exhausted when I walk out of the visiting area and head toward the prison entrance, my muscles shaking slightly like they do after a hard workout.
Dax drove me, and he’s waiting for me at the front. The second he sees my face, his whole body tenses.
“Low? What’s wrong?” His gaze shifts behind me, in the direction I just came from, and he looks like he’d take on anyone—whether it was a prison guard or my own mother—if they hurt me.
“Nothing.” I shake my head, anxious to get out of here.
He shoots me a look like he knows I’m full of shit, but when I say, “It was just mother-daughter stuff,” he lets me leave it at that for now.
Taking my hand possessively, he leads me outside to his car. I can feel him shooting glances at me as I get in the passenger side and he walks around the front of the car to get in behind the wheel, but he doesn’t say anything until we’re halfway home.
“You sure you’re okay?”
“Yeah.” Deciding to keep up my trend of not holding things back from the people I care about, I add, “I told my mom about you guys. About us.”
His brows fly up, and his blue-green eyes shine with curiosity and worry as he cuts his gaze to me. “What’d she say?”
“Well, nothing at first. Then I ranted for a while about how great you guys are, and…” Tears threaten again, but I clear my throat, pushing past them. “She said if four people care out here about me, that’s a good thing.”
He reaches over the center console to take my hand in his, brushing his thumb over the back of my hand.
“I like that.” His gaze slides over to meet mine. “And it’s true, you know. It must’ve been scary as fuck to tell her though.”
“It was.” I let out a breath, then turn to face him. “Did you ever tell your mom? Or your dad?”
Dax scoffs under his breath. “Nah. I mean, they probably know. Unless they’re slowly going blind and haven’t told us. They’ve seen me and Chase with you, and they’ve seen River and Linc with you when they come over. I don’t think any of us are all that subtle about our feelings. But it’s different with our parents. They don’t give a shit. Your mom… cares. So it means more if she approves.”
I hold his hand tighter, clasping it in both of mine. “Yeah. I think she does. I mean, there’s still so much more we have to talk about, but for now, she’s just happy I have people on my side.”
“Good. ’Cause you do.”
I glance down at the hand encased by both of mine. It’s bigger than mine, the palm slightly calloused and the fingernails neatly trimmed. Just like everything else about Dax, there’s a rugged, rough-around-the-edges beauty to it that I love.
Loosening my grip on it, I slip my hand out from his and rest his palm on my thigh instead. Heat spreads outward from the place where he’s touching me, slow and steady and strong, like lava. The radio plays quietly, filling the car with music, but we don’t talk the rest of the way back to the house.
His hand stays were it is though, that single connection between us burning hot as a flare until he pulls up the drive and into the garage.
He turns the car off, and the music dies with the engine.
It’s quiet.
Still.
Neither of us move. We don’t even look at each other. Like we’re both held in suspense, waiting for something.
The sensor on the garage door activates, and it slides closed.
And as if an invisible string has snapped, Dax and I turn toward each other, our lips colliding in a frantic kiss.
17
I don’t know what’s driving Dax, what’s spurring on his desperate movements as he kisses me with bruising force, one hand cupping the side of my face while the other slides farther up my thigh, squeezing and kneading the flesh of my leg through my jeans.
But I know what’s driving me.
Everything I told Mom about these boys back at the prison was true. I said it all to try to comfort her, to make it a little less terrifying to hear that her teenage daughter is dating four guys at once. But in trying to convince her it was okay, I finally admitted to myself how much this connection I have with the kings of Linwood means to me.
These boys were my tormentors once.
Then they became my protectors.
And now they’re so much more than that.
Dax’s hand on my leg reaches the apex of my thighs, and I spill a small noise into his mouth as he finds my clit through my jeans, pressing hard against it and then backing off, making me buck my hips to chase his touch.
I didn’t even take my damn seatbelt off, and as I try to reach for more of him, wanting to wrap my arms around his shoulders and press our bodies together, the strap pulls to its limits and suddenly tightens, halting my movement with a jerk.
Dax chuckles, the sound low and sweet. “Maybe we should get out of here.”
No. I don’t want to move. I don’t want to let go of the incredible sensations sparking to life inside me. But he’s right. We’re not gonna get very far strapped into the front seats of his car.
I nod, still pressing kisses to his full lips. “Yeah.”
He draws back and reaches for my seatbelt buckle, pressing it and tugging on the strap to release me.
The green in his eyes seems even brighter than usual, all but eclipsing the blue, as he unbuckles his own seatbelt and slides out of the car. I watch him walk around the front and let him open my door for
me. I’m not the type who usually needs help getting out of a car, but when he extends a hand down to me, I take it. My legs feel a little wobbly as I stand up, and I’m a little lightheaded, as if I’ve got too much oxygen flowing to my brain.
I expect Dax to lead me out of the garage toward the house, but instead, as soon as he slams the passenger door shut, he picks me up and deposits me on the hood of the car.
Thanks to spending the entire winter parked in a garage, there’s no snow on the hood, but the metal is cool on my ass, even through my jeans. The contrast between the cold steel and the heat burning through me makes me gasp, and Dax steps back, cocking his head as he takes in the sight of me perched on his Mercedes.
It’s not like I’m a perfectly tanned bikini model posing tits-up on the hood of a Firebird—I’m dressed in my winter coat, my hair is messy, and my cheeks are flushed from cold and arousal—but Dax looks at me like I’m something even better.
When he steps forward and takes hold of the zipper on my coat, I feel my breath catch against my will. It’s just a fucking coat, for crying out loud, but as he tugs the zipper down, revealing the soft blue sweater I’m wearing underneath, I feel like a present being unwrapped.
I rub my thighs together, doing my best to remain still as he slips his hands inside the jacket, brushing his palms over my breasts as he pushes the thick outer layer out of the way. He tugs it off my shoulders and down my arms, laying it on the hood behind me.
Fuck.
I take off this much when I get home from school. Only my face and hands are bared, everything else still covered with fabric, but I still feel practically naked.
“Dax,” I whisper, reaching for him with desperate hands. “Let me—”
He allows me to pull off his coat, bracing his hands on the hood on either side of me as I work his zipper down, dropping his head to nip at my lips.
When his coat falls to the floor, he stops teasing my lips, swooping in to kiss me with the same desperate ferocity he did in the car. His hands splay across my cheek and jaw, his fingertips sliding into my hair as he leans over me, draping his body over mine as I fall back onto the hood. My feet find purchase on the front bumper, and I press against it to lift my hips, needing him to continue what he started.
To put his fingers back on me. His mouth on me.
When our kiss finally breaks, Dax’s hair is disheveled from my greedy, grasping fingers. His full lips are swollen and flushed, and his eyelids droop with lust. He drops his head again, brushing his nose against the space where my neck and shoulder meet as he draws in a deep lungful of air.
He’s… he’s smelling me.
The thought makes a surge of wetness flood my panties, makes my pussy ache. His own sweet clove scent clings to his Henley and his warm, sculpted body. I close my eyes, letting it drift over me. I don’t know what I smell like to Dax—maybe a little like the pomegranate body wash I love—but I know what I want to smell like.
Him.
I want his skin on mine, his body cradling mine, inside mine, until we’re so fully bound together that his spicy scent seeps into my pores. I want to smell him on me tomorrow, a tangible reminder of this moment right now.
He takes another hit, breathing in once more like I’m his favorite drug in the world, then his tongue flicks out to taste me.
Do I taste the way I smell?
Maybe he likes this even better, because Dax doesn’t stop. The tip of his tongue trails over my collarbone and down the center of my chest until he hits the neckline of my sweater. His hands are already gathering the hem of the fabric, and I arch my back as he pulls it off me in one swift movement.
Then his mouth is back on me again, like he can’t bear to miss a second of it. He drags the flat of his tongue over the swell of my breast, then pulls the fabric of my bra down with his teeth. The garage is heated, but it’s not as warm as the house is, and my nipple peaks instantly in the chilly air, going so hard and rigid that it’s almost painful.
“Fuck!” I gasp, and Dax makes an answering noise in his throat. His mouth closes over my nipple, and I remember this. I remember what his talented tongue can do to me just by teasing my breasts.
Like I did the night we played poker, I grab onto his head with both hands, securing him in place and arching into his touch to give him more of me. His tongue lashes and flicks and swirls around my nipple, and my clit aches and throbs and burns.
“You were the sweetest fucking thing I’d ever tasted, Low,” he whispers, releasing my nipple to stare up at me with eyes like blue-green fire. “You still are.”
I’m breathing like I just ran a fucking marathon, my hips bumping up against his again. I’ve lost track of the fact that we’re in a fucking garage on top of a car. Or maybe I just don’t care.
Dax feels me straining toward him, pressing my clit against the hard outline of his cock, and a wicked gleam lights in his eyes.
“You’re sweet everywhere.”
When he drops his head again, his tongue trails a wet line all the way down my stomach, and as he undoes my button and fly, his mouth follows, tasting every new bit of exposed skin. He drags my pants over my hips, yanking off my shoes before peeling my jeans over my feet. And then he’s kneeling in front of the car, staring up the line of my body at me as cold metal meets the back of my legs, calling up goose bumps all over my skin.
Large, calloused palms grip my thighs, and my muscles tense against him as he spreads my legs. It’s an instinctual reaction, a survival instinct. I want him to put his mouth on me so fucking bad, but I’m not sure I’ll be able to live through it when he does.
He left my panties on when he pulled off my pants, and I can feel the fabric sticking to me, my arousal saturating the thin material at my crotch.
Still keeping his firm hold on my legs, Dax leans in and drags his nose along the fabric of my panties.
Oh, fuck.
He’s smelling me again. And this time, I’m sure he’s not smelling my pomegranate body wash or my citrus shampoo. He’s smelling me. The musky scent of my arousal, the scent of what he’s doing to me. My whole body shudders, and I press my legs together harder, trapping him between them as I grow more and more certain that this will ruin me.
Dax and I have danced around each other the longest of all four of the kings. Just like Chase, he’s got a funny, easygoing demeanor. But there’s something else in him too. A depth, an intensity that flashes to the surface every once in a while.
For Chase, the lighthearted demeanor isn’t an act—it’s who he is to the core. Dax sometimes uses it as a mask, hiding deep, intense feelings under his casual exterior.
But he’s not hiding now.
I can feel his desire for me burning like an inferno under his skin, can see it making the muscles of his back ripple beneath his Henley as he latches onto my cloth-covered pussy and sucks. The already damp fabric is positively soaked now as he draws it into his mouth, finding my clit through the thin material and circling it with his tongue.
When he draws the small bud between his teeth, a jolt of sensation sears through me, too close to the line between pleasure and pain to say which one it is. I buck against the hood of his Mercedes, my palms slapping against the cold metal and sending a loud bang ricocheting around the large garage.
“Fuck! Dax!”
We’re being too loud. The garage door is closed, but it’s not locked. Someone could come out here and find us at any moment.
But Dax doesn’t seem to give one little shit about that. He releases my clit from between his teeth and yanks my panties off, then buries his face between my thighs and eats me out like his last fucking meal.
There’s nothing for me to grab onto—nothing to hold me steady as the sensations batter me like a piece of driftwood in a stormy sea.
My fingers scrabble for purchase on the slick hood of the car, skating over the bunched muscles of Dax’s shoulders and back before threading through his hair again, gripping so tight I’m sure it must hurt.
&nbs
p; But if it does, it’s a pain he likes.
Rough, deep noises resonate in his chest, and I like the sound of them so much that I pull on his hair harder, trying to draw more of those noises out of him, to make sure he never stops.
My pussy is clenching around nothing, and my entire lower half feels swollen, desperate to come. My hips are swirling and grinding against Dax’s face, but he seems to like that too. His hands move to grip my ass, lifting my lower body off the hood of the car as he eats from me, drinks from me.
I’m lightheaded, as if all the blood has left my brain, and sweet agony is building inside me—
When Dax stops.
His tongue halts its delicious assault, and he pulls back several inches. His lip are wet, and his eyes are dark as he drags his hands down over the curve of my ass, hooking me behind my knees and tugging my body toward him. My ass is practically hanging off the edge of the car, and my legs are shaking, my stomach clenching.
Dax wipes the back of his hand over his mouth and chin, which are embarrassingly wet—if I could find it in myself to be embarrassed about anything right now—and reaches for the button of his jeans.
“Don’t. Come.” His voice is low and ragged, and I get the feeling he’s been torturing himself just as much as he tortured me as he lapped at me. “Not until I’m inside you.”
“Then get the fuck inside me,” I gasp.
“Whatever you say.”
He chuckles, shoving his pants down his legs to free his cock. It’s thick and hard, and he strokes himself as he moves toward me. I spread my legs open wider, hardly caring how wanton I look sprawled across the hood of his car, my bra shoved down and my hair a mess.
He hooks my legs under the knees, lifting my hips easily as he lines himself up.
Then he thrusts forward, filling me up completely.
I make a noise that doesn’t even sound human, and Dax groans in satisfaction. He pulls out and slides in again, letting me feel every inch of him as he wraps my legs around his waist and leans over me, bracing his arms on the car’s sleek hood as he begins to thrust harder.