My chest fills with dread.
"Where are you going?"
"Rhode Island."
"What's in Rhode Island."
"Not you. Not my father. A new job. A fresh start. A man I can trust."
"What the fuck are you talking about, Ariana. What man?"
She smiles, but it's not a genuine smile, it's the kind you make right before you go in for a pleasurable kill.
"The one good thing to come out of this is that you taught me well, and now I'm a pretty good lay. I plan on fine tuning those skills with Bill. I'll have plenty of time for fucking since my job is practically half the hours and double the pay. It's a sweet gig. Be happy for me, son of Jack."
She's purposely trying to fuck with me and it's working.
My normal reaction would be to slide my mask back down.
Or shake the shit out of her.
But I'm not going to do either.
I'm going to show her who I really am.
A man who's in love with her.
"Don't do this."
"Don't do what? Be happy?"
"I can make you happy." I walk up closer to her. "I will spend my life making sure of it."
"I'm leaving. It's done."
I vigorously rub my hand up and down my face. This being a better man shit is hard. I'm desperately looking for the right words. Words that will make her see.
"Nothing is done. You are right here. Standing in front of me, and I'm telling you that I love you. That I will keep loving you. That I will become the better man that you deserve. The man your father became for your mother. We will have that kind of love."
Heavy tears start to fall from Ariana's eyes.
I walk just a bit closer to her.
I wipe one of her tears with my thumb then lick it off.
"I will swallow all of your tears if you let me, baby."
"You've never talked this much in your entire life."
"I'm an eloquent motherfucker when I want to be."
I move in closer.
Dwarfing her sweet curves with my body.
"Don't leave me, Ariana."
I slide one of my hands against the side of her face and into her hair. Pulling it gently, so her head can naturally tilt back and her eyes can fall into mine.
"Stone."
"I love you."
"I don't love you," she whispers.
"You're lying."
"I hate you."
"I can fuck all that hate right out of you."
She starts to pull away.
Maybe I should talk about fucking later.
"I will die for you!" I blurt out.
Her arms slowly encircle my waist.
"I don't want you to die."
"Do you want me to live?"
"Yes."
"Then never talk about leaving me again."
I'm not sure when they left, but I notice that Nate and Bucky have disappeared. That can't be good, but it doesn't matter right now. I have to talk some sense into my girl. I think I'm breaking through.
"Everything is a mess."
She falls into my arms.
"Life is complicated," I say in her ear. "But I've learned a big lesson since I've met you. Things are not always black and white. Life is full of grays. Your father is not the villain and neither really is Bucky. We will work it out."
"But Silas–"
"Is not going to kill me. I know that finally for the first time today. If he was going to do it, he would have done it by now."
She squeezes me tighter.
It feels like home.
"I missed you, Stone."
"Not as much as I missed you. I've been lost without you. You're my north star, baby. Without you I'm totally adrift."
She reaches up and pulls my head down to hers.
Our foreheads meet.
Then I move in for a kiss.
Sliding my tongue home where it belongs. Home. Inside of her masterful mouth. When we break for a breath, she giggles.
"You've been reading some of my books, haven't you?"
"Uh-uh," I lie. "I don't read."
"The hell you don't. When I threw you out of the house, I think you stole some of my books. That line is from a novel I read about three months ago."
"Could be."
"You don't have to borrow other people's words, Stone. You talk to me in all the ways that matter. Better than any character in my romances ever could."
"Then let me take you somewhere where I can talk to you in every way that fucking matters. I've got a lot to say."
Thirty-Six
TINY
AUGUST
We stumble into Stone's small hotel room on 13th Street. The place we've been making love and that he's been living in ever since I threw him out.
I'll never understand it, but thanks to his new relationship with crazy ass Jake and The Chosen Riders, he's been able to earn money repairing and restoring many of their bikes. In fact, they've worked out a deal where he is on the club payroll and can use one of their safe house addresses to show his parole officer.
He said that he will never return to the shop, even though I told him how my father ended up giving Silas the money to settle his debt. It wasn't close to seven million dollars, but it was a substantial amount. Enough to send him on his way and leave us alone. But like Stone said, maybe it was never about the money. Maybe he just wanted to rattle my father's cage.
I laugh when I trip and fall over a pair of Stone's size thirteen work boots. He hikes up my skirt and lifts me up on the slick wooden desk in the room.
"Guess what I got," I say as he pretty much yanks off my top and rips open my bra.
"A good pussy."
"No...guess again."
"Spread your legs," he growls.
"The City of Philadelphia sent me a check for five thousand dollars."
"For what?"
He slides my butt forward and slides one of his beefy fingers inside of me.
"The partial strip search the police officers did when they arrested me was illegal. I was automatically included in a class action suit someone filed and that was the payout!"
"Nice."
He slides another finger inside of me, probably because he thinks I'm talking too much. That one does the trick. I shut up and start clawing at his shoulders.
"Did they search you like this, baby?"
"No," I groan in ecstasy.
He lifts me off the desk, turns me over, and hikes up my skirt even farther.
"Hold onto the desk."
"The lamp is in–"
He slides everything that was on the desk onto the floor. It all falls to the carpeted floor with a thud. Then he smacks one of my ass cheeks.
"Spread your legs wider."
He lines himself up at my entrance and begins to push his way inside. This position is still very new for me, so I'm tight and tense, but the feeling of him hitting me from the back is starting to feel like my new favorite position.
He fucks me fast and hard.
We both come quickly.
Panting from the intensity of our orgasms.
He pulls out of me and carries me to the bed. He sits on the edge and pulls me on top, so that I am straddling him.
"I love you," he says matter of factly.
"I love you too."
I kiss his eyelids, then massage his freshly shorn head. This man makes me so happy.
"What are you going to do with all your extra cash?" he asks practically purring from the massage I'm giving him.
"It's gone."
"What did you spend it on already, greedy girl."
"Our new apartment."
"Our what?"
"I realize that I was suffocating myself. Making myself miserable. All I had to do was leave, so that's what I'm doing. I'll miss taking care of my father, and I'll miss Bottle too, but they will be fine. They have each other. Just like you and I have each other. I want us to live together. I mean...if that's what you want."
"You'r
e going to need to get your money back, Ariana."
My stomach drops.
"What?"
I thought we were on the same page, but I guess we weren't. I try wiggling off of his lap, but he holds me in place by wrapping his thick, tattooed arms around me.
"Everything I'd been told about my birth family was a lie. Jack paid off workers at the agency to make sure that the lie continued."
"Why?"
"I guess Jack didn't want me to go looking for them. Like many adoptive parents, I think he was frightened. I'll never be sure of why, but what I do know is that I was born out of inconvenience, not addiction and hopelessness. I have living, breathing family members, and some of them were looking for me."
"That's fantastic, Stone!"
"I didn't want to tell you until I met with them. Made sure that it was real. My father is dead and I'm not sure who my mother is, but I know that I have two brothers. I like them, babe. And you should see them. I look just like them."
"Wow."
"They said that all the things that I'm good at are all the very attributes that will work well in the family business."
"They want you to work with them?"
"Yeah and I think I'm going to do it."
"So that's why you don't want to live with me?"
"Babe, they're fucking loaded. I'm going to be making three times what you do. I'm not trying to rain on your independent woman parade, but we're going to need a bigger place."
"Ohhhh."
"I can't wait for you to meet them."
"I can't believe that there's actually two other men in the world who look like you. What are their names?"
"Camden and Cutter."
"King?"
"Yeah, how'd you know that?"
"Oh, holy shit. I know them. Well I sort of know them. We have mutual friends. My friend Sloan is seeing your brother, Cutter. And yes...I can see the resemblance."
"Damn, what are the chances. Of course, I'm the better looking brother, right? I am the oldest."
He nuzzles his face in the crook of my neck.
"When they made you, honey, they broke the mold. Those boys are only cheap imitations."
"That, Ariana Carter, deserves a reward from your teacher. I'm going to fuck you right and proper in the shower, and then we'll pick up where we left off with Supernatural. Season five, episode one.”
♡♡♡
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Promised To A King
Introduction
King family drama. King family hotness. Only available in this boxset for a limited time!
You are cordially invited to A King Family Wedding. The question is which one of the Kings will make it to the altar? Follow these three badass brothers as they unapologetically claim their forever after in this sweet and sexy novella.
AUTHOR NOTE
While all of The King Brother books are interconnected standalone romances, this novella is unique in that it asks the question "what happened next" between each couple and who's going to make it to the altar (although you probably already have a good idea if you’ve read all three novels:).
That's why it is best to read after this after you've enjoyed the other books in the series.
Camden and Jade's story in this book falls before the bonus epilogue in their story, Claimed By A King (King Brothers Book #1) which fast forwarded the couple three years.
Cutter and Sloan's story in this book falls after the epilogue in their story, Indebted To A King (King Brothers Book #2).
Stone and Ariana's story in this book falls directly after the end of their story, Broken By A King (King Brothers Book #3).
xoxo,
Lisa
SLOAN
A thin layer of sweat coats my body and the room reeks of sex. I push my hands firmly against a wall of dense muscle which is practically smothering me, in an effort to cool off, but to no avail. My man is heavy as hell and totally unmovable.
Cutter and I have been making love for approximately forty-five minutes, and I know this for sure because I was supposed to be in the shower exactly forty-five minutes ago. I'm meeting one of my clients in an hour for a discussion about a redecorating project of his office located in the Olde City section of the city. It's obvious that now I'm going to be late. My tardiness is beyond unprofessional, but as usual, my "king" wouldn't be denied.
At some point in the early morning I became hot and unconsciously slipped off my night tee, which left me wearing nothing but a sheer lavender thong. But my nakedness is like a beacon for Cutter. He can sense it in his sleep. With my eyes still closed, and his half open, I felt the thin strings of my thong being ripped to shreds and his head between my legs.
Ok, so maybe I'm blaming him for things that aren't one hundred percent his fault. Maybe I didn't take off my nightshirt accidentally, and perhaps it's very possible that I knew exactly what would happen when I did. So in actuality, I guess I'm the one guilty of initiating this particular little love making session this morning.
I attribute it to the fact that we have become recently engaged, and that I still must be on some sort of new fiancee high. It's nuts if you think about it. I didn't think I was the girlfriend type, much less the marrying type a few months ago. Yet here I am, promised to the last man on earth I'd expect to be.
My other theory on why I've jumped Cutter's bones this morning, the theory which actually makes the most sense, is the simple fact that he's a certifiable sex god. I've never admitted it out loud because it's not like his enormous ego needs the accolades, but it doesn't matter.
He already knows.
I've never been this strongly attracted to a man like I am to Cutter. I look at his huge, hard, chiseled body and blush almost every single time that I do (especially after he's jumped out of the shower).
When he tells a joke, I laugh hard. Like big belly laughs. I mean the guy is funny without even having to try hard. I can already tell when his top lip starts to hitch up in a certain way that he's about to say something funny. Sometimes I laugh before he's even started talking. That's why he tells me that he's marrying his number one fan. I laugh at all of his jokes.
Just forget about it when this man gets excited. When Cutter gets fired up about something, I get excited. His enthusiasm is infectious. He loves people. He craves experiences. He enjoys life, and he makes me love it too.
Then when he tells me that I'm the most beautiful woman he's ever seen, I believe it. Thanks to my father, I have been in the local celebrity spotlight for most of my life. It isn't unusual for a local paper or blog to snap a shot of me at an event. And when they do, they often comment on what I'm wearing. How I look. And they do it in the most surface and shallow sort of way. But when Cutter tells me I'm beautiful, that I'm his princess, it doesn't feel like just words or a shallow compliment. It feels true and genuine. Right down to the bottom of my soul, I believe every flattering remark that he's paid me.
And when he touches me.
Holy crap.
When he touches me I literally swoon. Sometimes his touch is delicate and reverent. Feeling like he is worshiping every part of me. Then sometimes his touch is firm and frenzied. As if he needs to touch me to breathe, as if he needs to stay inside of me for survival.
Now if I was someone observing from the outside, I would talk all kinds of crap about what a tragedy I was. I would tell that woman to hand in her independent woman card, to hang her head in shame, and to freakin' get a life.
Yeah, I'm totally a walking hypocrite.
Some days I have a really hard time wrapping my head around the fact that I have a ring on my finger. Gifted to me by a man I couldn't even stomach a few months ago.
"Can you please get your big ass body off of me?” I jokingly say through a well satiated grin. "I'm blazing hot."
I let
out a quick yelp as Cutter unexpectedly and effortlessly flips our positions in the bed. Now I'm laying on top of him. I try wriggling out of his grasp, but his strong hands hold me firmly in place.
"Yes, princess, you definitely are hot and speaking of assess–" He taps my butt with his hand then grabs one of my cheeks and jiggles it. "You ready for another round of this good lovin'?" he asks playfully.
"No, sir." I shake my head no. "I'm already late for my meeting."
"I love it when you call me sir," he jokes. His voice dripping with playful lust. "It sounds so right."
"I can't frolic with you anymore today," I chuckle.
"You sure? I'll do that thing with my tongue that you like."
"Uh-uh."
"I'll use an ice cube," he whispers seductively in my ear. "And the cuffs."
I drop my head in the crook of his neck and seriously consider his proposition for a moment. It's very tempting. That ice cube and cuff trick that Cutter does could weaken even the strongest woman's resolve. It's one of my favorites. Maybe I could stop working altogether and simply become his love slave.
"That's my girl," he croons as he begins to slide one of his thick fingers between my swollen folds. "You stay wet for me all the time, Princess. I love that about you among a million other things."
“What would those million other things be again?"
"What are you implying?" He grins. "You think I'm only interested in you for your body? This exquisite piece of art that bends and folds at my will and belongs only to me."
This is exactly why I'm late for my meeting. My legs, my pelvis, and my hips all seem to have a mind of their own right now. Cutter is playing my body like a fiddle, and it's responding instinctively. That is until I see the obnoxious green neon-colored numbers on his retro styled alarm clark out of the corner of my eye.
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