by Nina Levine
Mum met his gaze and smiled. “Thank you.” She then glanced at me again, still seemingly trying to wrap her mind around what I’d said. With a quick shake of her head, she turned and left us alone again.
King let me go, and I faced him, smacking him lightly on the chest. At the questioning arch of his brow, I said, “That was for laughing at me and my dry spell.”
His mouth spread out in a smile. “I was laughing at your mother, not at you. She comes out with some fucking funny shit.” He shrugged. “And if it’s about you, I like it even more.”
My mouth almost dropped open. I had never seen him like this. And I really freaking liked it. “You just like the fact I was almost a virgin again by the time you got to me.”
And just like that, his sense of humour vanished and his heat returned. Yanking me to him, his mouth brushed my ear as he growled, “As far as I’m fucking concerned, you were a virgin when I got to you because you had never been fucked properly.”
I put my hands on his chest as his possessiveness rolled through me. It hit me in all the right places and had me desperate for him. God, but now was definitely not the time for that. Pushing against him, I stepped out of his hold. “You need to stop talking, and I need to go inside and get Brynn’s room set up for her.”
“You need a hand with that?”
I held my hand up at him and shook my head. “God no. I need you as far away from me as possible right now, otherwise, I might start climbing you.”
“Fuck,” he muttered.
“Yes, exactly,” I agreed. “You get to go sort dinner out with my mother.”
With that, I quickly headed inside to Zara’s bedroom where I was setting my sister up. I’d brought her home from the hospital this afternoon, telling her she would be staying with me until she’d recovered fully. She’d told me that King had rubbed off on me, because I was far too bossy for my own good now. I’d told her to shut up and just do what I said, to which she’d just looked at me and said, “Case in point.”
The doorbell sounded, so I made a detour to answer it.
“Hi,” I said to the dark-haired guy standing on the other side holding a bunch of flowers. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t take a little peek at his body. Dude was built. And had the face of a god.
He smiled, and I knew by the way it was almost a smirk that he’d seen me checking him out. But full points to him for not getting all cocky about it. “I’m looking for Brynn.”
“And you are?” As the words came out, though, it hit me. “Oh God, you’re the fishing dude, aren’t you?”
His smile turned into a grin. “I like the reference to me being the fishing dude rather than the other kind of dude. Classy. You must be Lily.”
I reached for his arm and pulled him inside. Turning my face towards the lounge room where Brynn was, I called out, “Brynn! Fishing dude is here!”
He leant in close and said, “Fishing dude’s name is Jamie.”
I returned his grin. “Oh, I like you! You should stay for dinner. We’re having Thai.”
“I love Thai.”
I dragged him into the lounge room and didn’t miss the way Brynn’s eyes lit up when she laid eyes on him. My sister liked more than just fishing with this guy.
Taking the flowers from him, I said, “I’ll find a vase for these while you two catch up.”
Jamie’s eyes didn’t leave Brynn. “We’ve been catching up for days over the phone.”
The way he said that, and the way he watched her told me that he also liked more than just fishing.
“Okay kids, it’s time to leave Auntie Brynn in peace.” When they grumbled about that, I said, “Anyone still in here in one minute will be on dishes duty all weekend.” With that, they all scrambled out of the room faster than I’d seen them move in weeks.
Brynn met my gaze with a smile and mouthed, “I love you.”
I could be a good sister sometimes.
Jamie stayed for dinner. He also convinced Mum and Zara to play a game of Scrabble with him and Brynn. King and Holly ended up in front of the television watching some sport while she grilled him some more about bikes. Robbie helped me with the dishes while my heart did a little dance over all the happiness in my house.
“Dad said he’d take me to karate on Saturday if you’re busy,” Robbie said as he wiped the last plate clean.
“Do you want him to take you, baby? I’m good either way.” I held my breath a little. This was the first conversation he’d initiated all week, and I hoped he’d spend some time opening up to me.
He shrugged. “I don’t know. I just thought you might be busy with King.”
I stopped wiping the counter so I could give him my full attention. “Does it feel like I’m busy with King all the time lately?”
He met my gaze, and I saw the hesitation in his eyes. “Maybe.”
“I’m sorry if it feels that way, but I want you to know that I am never too busy for you. I have Saturday blocked off for karate and ice cream. I really want to take you, but it’s up to you, and I promise I won’t get upset if you want Dad to take you.”
“If you take me, will King go, too?”
“I haven’t asked him to go. I figured it would just be you and me.”
“Okay. I want you to take me, unless we spend the weekend at Dad’s.”
Shit.
Now I was confused about his feelings over King.
“Robbie, do you like King?”
He nodded. “Yes.”
“No, really, you can be honest with me. If he’s done something to upset you, I want to know so we can fix it.”
“I like him.”
“But you don’t want him to go to karate with us?”
He glanced down for a moment before giving me back his eyes. “I think Dad would be upset if he went there with us. But he can hang out here with us. I asked him about hiring Thor to watch again, and he said if it was okay with you, he’d hire it again for us.”
Well fuck. My kid just broke my heart with his thoughtfulness and King patched it back up with his.
I nodded. “Okay, I understand what you’re saying, and I think you’re so thoughtful to consider your father’s feelings. And I am 100 percent on board with you guys watching Thor again.”
He grinned. “You’re gonna have a bath again while we watch it, aren’t you?”
I laughed. “You know me too well.”
“Mum!” Zara yelled out. “We need you!”
Robbie and I exchanged looks. “When does Zara ever need me?” I whispered.
He gave me a look that said he wondered the same thing, and then we headed out of the kitchen to look for her.
We found her in the lounge room with everyone. King sat on the end of the couch with Holly next to him and Mum next to her. His arm lay extended across the top of the lounge, and his long legs were stretched out in front of him, crossed at the ankles. I wasn’t sure I’d ever seen him so relaxed. Brynn and Jamie sat on the other couch, while Zara knelt in front of the coffee table. A cake sat on the coffee table. And not just any cake. It was my very favourite six-layer chocolate cake with toasted marshmallow filling and chocolate frosting.
I looked at Mum to find her watching me with love, and it almost made me burst into tears. I held my shit together, though, and asked, “You organised this? And why? It’s not my birthday.”
She smiled, but it was Brynn who answered. “I asked her to organise it as a thank you for everything you’ve done for me. It means the world to have you for a sister.”
“Oh God, now I really am gonna cry,” I muttered.
“I organised it,” Mum piped up, “and King picked it up for me while he was out getting dinner.”
My gaze went straight to him, and I found him watching me with that intense look of his I loved. While we shared a moment, the kids scrambled up off the couch and the floor, and Mum cut the cake. When the space next to King became free, I curled up next to him, wrapped an arm around him, and said, “Thank you.”
He looked down at
me, still with the intensity that told me he was going to fuck me just the way I liked it tonight. “I didn’t do anything. This was all your mum and sister.”
I smiled. “I know, but I’m still thankful you picked it up.” I dropped my voice. “Maybe I’ll save some of it for you to lick off me later.”
His hand moved to my neck, and he swept my hair out of the way so he could run his fingers along my collarbone. “That dirty mouth of yours will get you in trouble one day,” he murmured softly enough so that only I heard.
I snuggled in closer to him. “I hope so.”
He threaded his finger under my necklace that I’d finally located. “You found your grandmother’s necklace.”
“Yeah.”
“Good.” With that one word, he’d given me a taste of his soft again, and butterflies filled my tummy. I would never have enough of his kind of soft.
“Do you want me to cut you some cake, Lily?” Mum asked.
I nodded and sat up straight, still pressed against King’s side, with one leg folded so it rested on his thigh. “Yes, please.”
Brynn caught my eye as she, Jamie, and the kids traipsed back out to the dining room to play more scrabble. “I love you,” she said.
“I love you, too, Brynny. You and me are gonna have a big long D&M before bed tonight, okay?”
She grinned, knowing exactly what I was referring to. “Yup, but I got shit to get back to now if you catch my drift.”
“Oh, I catch your drift, fishing girl,” I said with a laugh.
The doctors had told her she was making good progress with her recovery, and while I knew she was in pain and still had a long way to go, my sister was tough. She’d speed through her recovery and be back out there fishing in no time.
King’s phone rang, and he leaned forward a little to grab it from his pocket. As he did that, he settled his other arm over my shoulders, slipping his hand under the material of my shirt so he could rest it skin-to-skin just above my breast.
“What’s up?” he answered the phone.
Mum brought cake over for King and me. I noticed how she didn’t ask if he wanted any; she just assumed he would. She placed his on the coffee table and handed me mine.
“Thanks,” I said softly so King could still hear the person on the other end of the call.
He’d listened silently for a few moments, and I’d just taken my first amazing bite of cake when he said, “Ivy, stop. You’re working yourself into a state when you don’t need to be. Ask—”
Ivy.
The woman I’d met in King’s office.
An ex of his.
I wasn’t usually a jealous woman, and I trusted King completely, but I couldn’t deny a streak of jealousy shot through me when he said her name. She must have cut him off, because he’d been about to say something before stopping abruptly.
“No,” he said.
His tone had turned a little harsh, and I decided I didn’t want to hear any more of the conversation, so I attempted to stand. However, King had other ideas. He quickly moved his hand to grip my shoulder and held me tightly to him.
I turned my face to his and found him watching me closely. He gave one quick shake of his head, signalling that he didn’t want me to leave.
“I’ll call you tomorrow. Brian will be able to help you with this, so stop fucking worrying about nothing.” With that, he ended the call in the way only King did—abruptly with no goodbye.
I shifted to sit cross-legged sideways on the couch, looking at him. I was going to broach the subject of Ivy, because if I didn’t, it might just send me crazy. And too bad if he didn’t want to discuss this; I needed to. “I know you told me Ivy is in the past, but I kinda need to know how far in the past. Like, is she recent and you guys are still—”
He cut me off. “I’ve had three relationships that mean something to me. Ivy was the first. I hadn’t seen her for over a decade until recently, and now I’m helping her get back on her feet after her husband died. That’s all there is to this.”
“And the other two?”
“Jen was my second one. She isn’t alive anymore.” His eyes searched mine for a long, silent moment. “You are my third.”
My heart beat a little faster and a little louder. I smiled at him and threaded my fingers through his. “You are my second.”
I decided I liked King’s way of discussing stuff—straight to the point with no bullshit and no dragging it out. He simply shared what he felt was important and then moved on. And he didn’t ask for anything more than the same from me.
I squeezed his hand before letting it go.
I then reached for our cake and passed his to him.
We then ate in silence except for when I put my fork down halfway through my piece and said, “I’m leaving the rest for you for later,” to which he muttered, “Fucking hell.”
It was the best night I’d had in a long time, and my heart swelled with happiness at the thought of so many more to come.
23
King
I sat listening to what Axe was telling me, trying not to lose my shit. It had been a hell of a morning already, and now it was shaping up to be the day I’d have to take care of something I’d been putting off for too long. It seemed the feds were closing in on the club, and because of the level of secrecy surrounding their latest witness, we would have no way of silencing them. Detective Stark was proving a worthy adversary, but she was one I didn’t want.
Stretching my neck, I tried to shake the tension there. Knowing we had a lot of business to take care of today, I’d woken with it. Lily had bossed me into allowing her hands on my back and neck, and while the massage had eased some of that tension, it had stirred a fuckload of other tension I’d needed to take care of.
I looked at Axe. “So confirm for me so I know I’ve got a handle on what you’re saying. Stark has a witness that they’re locking down tight. Johnny can’t get at the information to find out who it is. But whoever it is will likely jam more than their dick up our ass.”
“That about covers it.”
I clenched my jaw as the decision I had to make worked its way through my head. “I’ll take care of this today.”
Axe’s expression turned thoughtful. “They’ll keep coming at you even if you eliminate her.”
“Let them. I’ll just keep coming right back. I refuse to allow them to take the club down.”
“Fuck, King, do you ever think life would be a whole lot fucking easier if you turned clean instead? I don’t know how you live like this, always chasing your fucking tail, putting out fires and waiting for the next one to hit.”
This was an argument we’d had for years. I had no fucking clue why he kept bringing it up. This would never change for me, and he had to know that. “Maybe life would be easier, maybe it wouldn’t. We’ll never fucking know, because I’m not gonna step out there and try it. I’ll take my chances getting shit done the only way I’ve ever known—kicking and fucking screaming. And at the end of the fucking day, when I lay my head down, I’ll breathe easy knowing it doesn’t matter what fires I have to put out tomorrow, because my club will be right there by my side putting out the same damn fire. I will never do life without my brothers.”
He leant forward. “You could still do it cleaner than you are.”
“No, we couldn’t. This is what we know, Axe. And the world sure as fuck isn’t interested in helping me today any more than it was interested in helping me when I was a kid. I won’t put my life in anyone’s hands but my own.”
Hyde stepped into the office and glanced between us. “Hate to interrupt, but we’ve got a problem.”
“What?” I asked.
“I still haven’t confirmed what the fuck’s going on, but it seems Black Deeds wanna pick a fight with us. They just undercut us on a cleaning job.”
I shoved my chair back, anger forcing hard, furious breaths from me. “You and me are gonna pay Zero a visit right fucking now. And if we need to make a fucking statement to get this shit s
orted, that’s exactly what we’ll fucking do.”
Hyde nodded. “Agreed, brother.”
The Black Deeds president and I had a long, hard history that I was more than ready to end if he was intent on pursuing this agenda. I hadn’t forced myself and my club on Sydney only to shit myself at the first sign of trouble. Storm’s reign would be enforced with this visit to Zero.
The Black Deed’s clubhouse was tiny compared to Storm’s, but that didn’t mean it didn’t house a formidable club. Zero was known for his ruthlessness, and while at times we’d been at war with each other, I gave him credit for the way he held his club together.
Hyde and I took Devil, Kick, Nitro, and Mace with us. We met some resistance at their front gate, but Zero approved our entry, and five minutes later, we stood in front of him, his VP, and a handful of his men.
He glanced between us, narrowing his eyes at me. “It’s been a while since you’ve turned up looking like you’re planning a fucking war, King. What gives?”
My muscles tensed. Every single last fucking one of them. I did another quick sweep of the weapons I could see, and made some rough calculations of each man’s likely move if I shot their president. Meeting his gaze, I said, “That’s because you’ve handled your shit, we’ve handled ours, and I had some fucking peace. Today, you shat all over that peace, and I’ll happily begin a fucking war to get it back.”
His face clouded with anger and he took a step forward, getting in my fucking face. Snarling, he demanded, “Care to fucking say that again.”
I closed the tiny distance between us, adrenaline spiking in my veins. My hands fisted by my side as I threw back, “You heard it the first time.”
“Yeah, I did, but whoever you got your information from doesn’t know shit.”
“He got his information from me, asshole,” Hyde said, “And it’s solid. Your club cut us out of a deal by going in at 30% less than our price. That tells me you mean business.”
Zero didn’t take his eyes off me. Smart motherfucker. “I don’t know what the fuck he’s talking about. The last fucking thing I need on my plate is to be dealing with the fallout from something like this. So fucking stand down, tell your men to stand down, and let’s get to the fucking bottom of this together.”