by Nina Levine
Lily located the container and shot me a smile and a “Thank you” before saying to her mother, “Ma, why don’t you go and hang with Brynn? I’ve got everything under control in here.”
Her mother lifted her brows. “I really don’t think you do, darling.”
As Lily pulled another face, I pushed off from the counter and said, “Hannah, I’ll help Lily.”
A smile spread across her face. “Oh, you are a good man, King. Thank you.” With that, she exited the kitchen, leaving us in peace.
Lily came straight to me, gripping my jacket. She leant in close and inhaled deeply. “Oh, good God, you smell good.” She then face-planted against my chest and said, “Between her and Zara, I’m not sure I’ll survive this weekend.” She lifted her head and met my gaze. “You’re free tomorrow, right?”
I curled my hand around her neck. “What for?”
“Ah, smart man. Don’t agree to shit until you know what it is. So, Zara has a date with this new boy, and I was thinking you could get eyes on her.” She bit her bottom lip waiting for my reply.
My lips twitched and I let her neck go. “Get eyes on her? When the fuck did you start talking like that?”
She smacked my chest lightly. “Since I met you I’m saying all kinds of shit I never used to say, thank you very much. You’re a very bad influence.” She paused. “So is that a yes?”
“Where are they going?”
“To the movies. I’m dropping her off and picking her up, and I’ve told her only one-hour extra time after the movie finishes. It’s that hour I’m concerned about.”
I didn’t tell her she should have been worried about a fuck of a lot more than that hour. I tipped her chin up. “Is this how you want every date she goes on to go down?”
Her eyes widened. “You were the one who told me you wouldn’t let a daughter out without eyes on her.”
“Yeah, but just because I would do shit a certain way doesn’t mean it’s how you would do it.”
“You don’t think I should do this with Zara?”
“You’ve started talking to her about this shit. You’ve got open lines with her. Don’t fuck that trust up.”
She thought about that for a moment. “That was totally not what I was expecting from you. You were supposed to be my go-to guy for this heavy work.”
I grinned. “I never said I wouldn’t take on the job of sorting out the kid she’s dating.”
Frowning, she said, “You’ve lost me.”
“I’ll drop her off, and while I’m there, I’ll find the kid and have a chat to him. I’ll lay the fucking law down with him. And if you’re not happy with how something goes down, I’ll handle it.”
She moved close, pressing her body against mine. “Now we’re talking. This sounds like a good deal.”
I placed my hand on her ass and bent to kiss her. “Fuck,” I murmured after I’d had her lips, “I’ve been thinking about that for hours.”
Pushing me away, she said, “Okay, you need to take your ass out of here so I can finish getting dinner ready.”
I watched her for a few moments while she located a saucepan and filled it with water. Fuck, I could watch her for hours and never grow bored, but I needed to leave the kitchen so we had half a chance at eating dinner tonight. My need for her body was intense tonight.
I grabbed a beer out of the fridge and headed into the lounge room.
Jamie was on his way out as I entered. He grinned at me. “Hey, man.”
I jerked my chin at him as he walked past, and sucked back some beer. I then took a seat on the couch next to Robbie who sat watching his favourite show on his iPad.
He glanced at me. “You wanna watch?”
I smiled and shook my head. “I’m gonna check out the footy.”
“It hasn’t started yet.”
“Who’s playing?”
“The Bulldogs and Raiders.”
“You gonna watch with me?”
He nodded. “Yeah.” He went back to his show for a few moments before looking at me again. “We should get a movie tomorrow night.”
“Yeah. Your pick.”
He grinned. “Cool.” And then he was back to his show, and I flicked through the channels on the TV until I found what I was looking for.
Our peace was shattered when the girls all came in about fifteen minutes later. The couches filled with Lily, her sister, mother, and daughters, and the noise of their conversation drowned out the television. Robbie looked at me with a frustrated expression, and I nodded my agreement while taking a swig of beer.
Lily snuggled up to me on my other side, her hand curling over my thigh dangerously fucking close to my dick. The woman was lethal in her moves when she wanted to be.
“I’m just saying that maybe you should give the library dude another chance, Ma,” Brynn said.
It had been just over a month since she’d been shot, and she was doing well with her recovery. Lily had told me yesterday she was going back to work part-time next week.
“No,” Hannah said, “he didn’t open doors for me. You know I’m fussy about that.”
“God, Mum, I’m concerned you’re going to be single for the rest of your life with all the requirements you have,” Lily said.
Her mother’s lips pursed before she said, “Well, if you can find a man like King who looks after you the way he does, I can certainly keep searching until I do, too.”
Lily’s hand squeezed my thigh as she chuckled. “King doesn’t open doors. In fact, I doubt he would satisfy any of your requirements, so that just shows you that men can still be right for you even if they don’t tick boxes.”
I stretched my arm across the back of the couch as I ran my eyes over Lily’s body. She had on the tightest fucking T-shirt, and I struggled to keep my eyes off her tits.
“What do you think, King?” Brynn asked, drawing my attention to her. “Do you think Mum should hold out for her perfect man or acknowledge that perfection doesn’t exist?”
Fuck, how had I been wrangled into this conversation? “Check out how he is with his family. That’ll tell you a lot about how he’s likely to treat you down the track.”
Lily fucking squeezed my thigh again. That was after she slid it even fucking closer to my dick. And before she pressed a kiss to my lips and murmured, “I love you.”
I lifted her hand and removed it from my leg. Moving my mouth next to her ear, I muttered, “I’d love you a fuckload more if you stopped fucking with my dick when I can’t do anything about it.”
She curled her hand around my neck and blasted a smile at me. “Tonight we play five fucking questions and then you get to do whatever you want to me,” she said softly enough so only I heard.
I finished my beer. She didn’t know that tonight I’d only be playing one fucking question, and if she didn’t give me the answer I wanted, I’d fuck it out of her.
I stretched my legs out on Lily’s bed and rested my back against the headboard while I watched her fuck around getting ready for bed. We’d just taken a shower together where I’d warmed her up for the night. I planned a long night, but first I needed to get her to stop screwing around doing whatever the fuck she was doing.
“Lily,” I said, and waited for her eyes.
She didn’t give them to me, though. She carried on rifling through drawers.
“Lily,” I barked.
Her head snapped up and she turned to me instantly. “What?”
“Bed.”
“I’m just looking for the T-shirt I wanna wear tomorrow.”
“Leave it.”
My tone registered with her, and she hit me with a glare. “No. I don’t wanna be running around in the morning, stressing over finding shit. You can wait five minutes for me. And besides, you’ve already had your way with me tonight.”
I moved off the bed and closed the distance between us. Standing behind her, I wrapped my arms around her and gripped both her wrists, halting her movements. Mouth to her ear, I growled, “I haven’t had my way
with you yet, not even fucking close. I need at least two hours with your cunt before we’re even talking close, so stop what you’re doing and get your ass on the bed.”
She finally fucking did what I said, and I positioned us so she straddled me while I sat how I had been before. Placing her hands on my bare chest, she said, “You’re lucky I like your bossy, filthy mouth. I’m not sure there are many women out there who would put up with it.”
“I only want one woman, and she’s the one who can’t get enough of my mouth.”
“Let’s not get carried away.”
I arched a brow. “I stop giving you my mouth in any way for a month and you’d lose your shit.”
She wiggled her ass, grinding herself against my dick. Gripping my face, she said, “You stop giving me your mouth for even a day and you’d lose your shit.”
She wasn’t fucking wrong.
“Okay,” she said, letting go of my face, “let’s do these five fucking questions, so you can get to your favourite part of the night.”
I wrapped my hand around her neck and rubbed my thumb over her throat. “It’s my turn to ask the questions tonight.”
Her eyes lit up. “Ooh, okay.”
I kept my hand around her neck. “Beard or no beard?”
“Beard.”
“Good fucking answer.”
She grinned.
“Morning or night?”
“You are so freaking predictable with your sex questions.”
I gripped her neck harder. “Morning or night?”
“Night, but only because there are more hours for you to get your mouth on me at night.”
I eased my grip a little. “July or August?”
She frowned. “Huh? What’s in July or August?”
I pulled the blue box from my pocket and opened it. “July or August?”
Her eyes widened. “Holy fuck, King.” She glanced between the ring and me. She stared at me for the longest time, and then she crashed her lips to mine, her hands grasping my face with the kind of grip that turned me the fuck on. When she’d had her fill, she tore her mouth from mine and said, “Oh my freaking God, yes!” She looked at the ring in the box again, bending her face close, her eyes lighting up, and then looked up at me. “This ring is fucking beautiful.”
Jesus, I’d been hard for her all fucking night; I wasn’t convinced I’d make it through this proposal without ripping her clothes off and sinking my dick as far inside her as I could.
I pulled the ring out of the box and got it on her finger before she changed her mind. As she held her hand up to her face, checking out the ring, I growled, “Lily.” When she gave me her eyes, I demanded, “July or August?”
A smile spread slowly across her face. “You mean you’re actually giving me a choice? You’re not gonna just boss my ass into one of them?”
Fucking hell, this woman.
“You have exactly three seconds to choose one. After that, I’ll boss your ass into a fuck of a lot more than just the month.”
She leaned in close and brushed her lips across mine before saying, “July, but only because it comes first. If I had my way, I’d choose September because it would be warmer.”
“July it is.”
She looped her arms around my neck. “I love you, King. You might be a hard-ass out there in the world, but for me, you’re everything I need.” She studied the ring for a moment. “And this ring is perfect. Thank you.”
I’d taken a photo of her grandmother’s necklace that Holly had sent me, and asked a jeweller to design me a ring that matched it. A diamond bow, it matched not only her necklace, but also half her fucking belongings.
I took her face in my hands and kissed her. Deep and slow to begin with, it quickly became the usual demanding kind of kiss we both craved. When we were done, I rasped, “I fucking love you, woman. If I could, I’d marry your ass tomorrow.”
Fuck, as long as I lived, I’d never get my fill of this woman.
She’d breathed life into me when I hadn’t thought there was any life beyond what I already knew.
She’d given me hope after I’d forgotten what it was.
She’d fucking helped quiet the demons raging deep inside me.
And I was holding on tight.
Wherever Lily went, I would follow.
She may have thought I was running this fucking show, but she was wrong.
She owned the fucking show.
Epilogue
King
4 Years Later
I stood on my back deck and watched the kids running around the backyard as I sucked back some beer. Holly pushed Cade on the swing I’d built last weekend while Zara carried Meredith on her hip, laughing at something Lily said. Robbie and the girl he’d invited over for the party sat on the wooden bench I’d built for the back corner of the yard. Lily’s meditation bench. The one she spent a good fucking half hour on every afternoon while I played with the kids inside. She called that half hour her Sacred Pause. I didn’t give a fuck what she called it so long as she had it. Lily without that pause was wired for my blood. With it, she was wired for my dick.
“Hey, brother,” Hyde said, stepping out onto the deck. “We finally made it.”
I glanced at him, my gaze going straight to his daughter, Sage, who held her arms out to me. Letting her climb across to me, I said, “Your dad being an ass today?”
“King,” Monroe said as she and Tatum walked past us to head downstairs. Her voice held a warning like it always did when I had her daughter. I cut back my language around the kids, but as far as I was fucking concerned, ass wasn’t a word I needed to watch.
“Mama,” Sage called out as she spotted Monroe. I put her down, and she ran to her mother who scooped her up and carried on towards Lily.
“Everyone here?” Hyde asked, surveying my backyard where club members and their families hung out laughing and drinking.
“Everyone except Fury.”
Hyde met my gaze. “You got him out on a job today?”
“Yeah. I doubt he’ll make it.” Not with the messy shit he was taking care of for me today. Detective Stark would breathe easier tonight thanks to Fury.
“King!” Kick called out. “We need you to settle something for us.” Elizabeth whipped past him, distracting him for a moment. Mostly, though, I figured it was his wife who did that as she chased after their daughter. He’d announced her second pregnancy last week. Fuck, we were having a fucking population explosion in the club these days between Hailee almost ready to pop a kid, Lily two months pregnant, and now Evie, too.
I headed down to where he stood with Devil and Nitro.
“Devil thinks that when you guys built this place, Lily got the final say in everything, because there’s no way you would have chosen half the shit here,” Kick said.
Lily’s hands slid around my waist as she pressed her body to mine from behind. “Wrong,” she said. “Well, kind of wrong. I did get the final say in everything, because let’s face it, King wants his dick sucked at night, but he chose more than half the shit in this place. My man has immaculate taste.”
“No shit,” Devil said, smiling at Lily. Fuck, every fucker in the club had a soft spot for my old lady. A hell of a lot of respect too, which was deserved. The past four years had shown Lily’s grit in ways I fucking wished we hadn’t had to live through.
“No shit, asshole,” I said. “Now give me a minute with my wife.”
As they walked away from us, I turned to face her, my gaze landing on the bruises on her neck. Tracing my finger over them, I said, “Fuck, I need to go easier on you.” Especially now that she had our child in her belly.
“Don’t you dare.”
I found her eyes. The heat in them caused my gut to tighten. I’d had her cunt twice already today, but it wasn’t enough. I’d arranged for her mother to take the kids tonight so I could dedicate a long stretch of time to her. We’d need it before I headed away for up to a week tomorrow. I had shit to take care of in Melbourne. Shit that wa
s giving me nothing but fucking headaches.
“I spoke with Jackson yesterday,” I said, broaching the subject guaranteed to piss her off.
She frowned. “Why?”
I kept my gaze pinned to hers. “Because he needs to hurry shit the fuck along and make you part-time already. He’s been promising you that for months.”
“Fuck, King, I told you to stay out of that. I can fight my own battles with Jackson.”
“You’ve been fighting this one for too fucking long. I’ve sat back and let you handle shit, but I’m done waiting. I told him I wanted a call within the week to confirm your part-time status.”
“King,” she started, but I shook my head and cut her off.
“Lily, you’re exhausted. Hell, if I had my fucking way, you wouldn’t work at all. But I know better than to push you for that, so I’m pushing you and Jackson for what I know I can get.”
She stared at me silently for a few moments, before muttering, “You drive me fucking crazy half the time.”
“You return the fucking favour.”
Moving closer, she jabbed me in the chest. “I’m going to push you on something then, too.”
Jesus. “What?”
“You need to quit smoking.”
“Fuck, woman, we’ve already discussed this. Don’t give me hell over it again.”
“Your doctor said—”
“I don’t give a flying fuck what my doctor said.”
Her face softened. “Yeah well, maybe you should, because I don’t want you to die sooner than you have to.” Tears welled in her eyes, and as she wiped at them, she grumbled, “God, I hate pregnancy hormones.”
That fucking made two of us.
“Daddy!” Cade ran at me, arms outstretched, and I bent to lift him up as he said, “Auntie Skye got me a twuck for my birfday!”
I jerked my chin at Skylar who’d just arrived with her latest boyfriend. I gave him a month at the most before she kicked him to the kerb. Skylar couldn’t seem to find a man who would stand up to her and her bullshit, and this dickhead didn’t fit that category either. I’d told her to get some advice off Annika who had finally married the guy she’d met two years ago. He had some fucking balls on him that I could respect.