“You jumped out of a window? Jesus Christ, Kins, you could have been killed,” I roar as her words hit me, taking my boner by storm as the thing just deflates like a leaking balloon.
She shrugs her shoulders and looks away, giving me an opportunity to look at her properly for the first time since I opened the door. Her hair is very un-Kinsley in a messy, unbrushed nest on top of her head, and she’s wearing sweatpants she wouldn’t ever own, never mind get caught dead in.
Closer inspection reveals a nasty scrape on the underside of her jaw, and now that I’m looking at her properly, I can see that her nails are dirty and her eyeliner is making raccoon rings around her blue eyes.
She looks so unkempt it takes me long minutes of just standing there before I can pull myself together and force my feet to respond to my brain.
“Kinsley—”
“I’ve had a really, really bad week, King, so please stop yelling at me, okay? I just found out I was engaged to a pig. I had to call over three hundred guests and personally tell them that the wedding is off and endure hours of explanations that made me feel like a total loser. My life has turned into a circus, and to top it all off, I was almost asleep when men broke into my house and tore it apart looking for me. Someone tried to kidnap me. I had to throw myself and another man out of a window to get away and…and he died!” she wails, dropping her face into her hands with a sob.
She starts crying so loudly—so not Kinsley once again—that I can’t stop myself from siting down beside her and dragging her into my arms as sobs rack her body.
My chest hurts some from witnessing her pain, and I feel myself soften and weaken when she pulls herself together with a visible struggle and pushes away from me, scooting back onto the couch with a hiccup.
“I need your help, King. Please? I can’t do this right now with Lex and the rest of my family. I’m already dealing with enough stress, and when he finds out about this, things will only get worse for me. He’s going to go into overprotective mode—just like Jericho did with his sister, Evie—and I’ll end up at home locked up like a virgin in a nunnery. Please…”
She’s fragile, I think as I watch her struggle to regain and keep her composure, her face contorting before she looks up at me.
“Coming to you for help was the last thing I wanted to do, King, trust me, but I’m logical enough to understand that I have you or Lex.”
“Kinsley, Lex is not going to—”
“Going to like this? Oh, come on, King, you think I don’t know all about Lex and his pimping skills? Yeah, I’ve been there too recently, so don’t look so surprised by this. He’s been trying to get me with you since I announced my wedding date. I think he’s under the impression that my old crush on you was still enough of a problem to make me do something stupid like jump you the minute I laid eyes on you.” She snorts, giving me a once over that leaves me feeling lacking in some way.
Damn woman. She’s got the tongue of a harpy and the eyes of Medusa. And yeah, she’s seriously testing my manhood right now with the way she’s snorting and giggling a little.
“Kins—”
“I’ve had a really bad week, King, and I could use your help here. I can’t go home because it’s still a crime scene and I only just—”
Someone starts banging on the door, cutting her off as the door starts jumping on its hinges.
“King! Open up, we need to haul ass to the city! She’s gone and done it now. Open up, or I’ll use the key you gave me.”
I’m feeling a little like the bone between the jaws of two fighting dogs when I hear the key slide into the lock. I’m ready to stand and move away and just let Lex deal with this mess when I’m suddenly tackled to the couch and a mouth lands on mine…just as a hand shoves down my pants.
The feel of her, that soft skin hitting my hard dick almost has me shoving into the touch, and I do groan when her fingers swipe over the crown just as her tongue breaches my lips.
“Well, hell, Jesus, I am not surprised, and yet I am floored.”
Pushing Kinsley away is one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do, and I groan as her fingers scrape against my shaft before pulling her hand away and pushing her gently back to the couch.
Lex looks equal parts pissed and smug as I look up, only to close my eyes and realize what Kinsley just did. Sneaky female. Sneaky.
“So, you and Kin are like a couple now? Cool beans, bro, cool beans. Seeing as I’d really have to fuck you up if you’re about to tell me that was just a little meaningless groping. Sure would hate to have to kill my best bud for screwing with my little sister. And you!”
Ignoring his rants as he grabs her and pulls her into a hug, I close my eyes as the realization of what she just did hits me. Christ.
***
Kinsley
I really should feel guilty about trapping King into letting me stay, but—you know—I just don’t. Sure, it’s awkward, and I almost died of embarrassment when I threw myself at him for the second time in my life, but it’s totally necessary.
For more reasons than you may think. First off, I’m tired of missing out on seeing Lex at family holidays. Either I avoid them when he drags King along, or he just doesn’t come at all.
I’ve been doing a lot of thinking since the Malcolms saved me by opening their door and calling the cops…
I almost died. I’m not like some women who break down in tears. I mean, that’s just…not logical since tears won’t help. I have cried, but I mean it’s been baby tears compared to what I’ve actually been feeling. But neither am I a superwoman wannabe.
I know I have physical limitations that my height and weight can’t overcome if some ape attacks me. Plus, I mean, I was terrified, and if that’s a measure of my flight-or-fight response, I am so not up for a repeat.
The point here is most definitely that I almost died. In the hospital, after the cops broke the news that my body pillow guy died on impact, I started thinking and re-evaluating a few things.
Like my family life…and King.
Yes…King. Most definitely King, since it’s been made blatantly clear to me that if he was the first person I thought of with regrets when I almost died, well…we have unfinished business.
I’m not saying anything like marriage or something, I mean….that’s probably not even…possible…is it?
Whatever. No, I spent the time that they were putting a boot on my ankle thinking things over, and I need to be here with him for a lot of reasons. I need him to protect me, first and foremost, and no matter how things are or have been with him and me, I know he’d kill or be killed to keep me safe.
And, as I said, unfinished business. I don’t know if that involves us, you know, doing stuff, or whatever. I can’t even say that I want anything—
Yeah right! The first thing you whined about when you lost consciousness was never having the opportunity to bone the man. It’s like number one on your regrets for not making a bucket list thingy.
Oh God, whatever. It’s simple, okay? I don’t want to live this second chance thinking that I have hidden and run for years from someone who may not want to be my lover, but has always been my friend, no matter what.
Plus, I would rather rewind and go back and die in my house than spend the next while cooped up with my parents. Or Lex. You don’t understand; you haven’t met them. They’re stifling when they go into protective mode. I almost went nuts planning the wedding with the way they carried on, and that was just them trying to protect me from myself.
Can you imagine what would happen if they thought that I was in mortal danger?
I’d have to explain it all to them. How Jon robbed me blind and fooled me. How he hit me….
Lex would end up in prison, because the minute my brother finds out that scumbag raised his hand to me, he’ll be dead. As good as dead. Okay, just plain dead, and made that way in possibly one of the most gruesome and bloody ways my brother can think of.
So no, what I’ve planned is to come here and stay with Ki
ng, who freaking owes me. He owes me after all the family holidays I missed after he rejected me and made it clear he didn’t want to see me again.
And….
Darn it, I don’t know exactly what I’m doing or why I even decided on this course of action, okay, but here I am. And here is where I am going to stay, I think, as Lex finally takes in my appearance and his face goes stone cold.
“What the—?”
“Calm down. Do not freak out, and for goodness sake, please do not start having a meltdown before I explain,” I interrupt, scooching closer to King for some sort of much needed physical comfort, as Lex goes deadly still.
“What. Happened. To. You? And why are you here with King?”
Oh snapalapa. This is going to be so bad and downright awkward if King doesn’t play along, and darn it, I’m about to lie to my brother for the first time ever and I feel like hell about it.
“Don’t freak out, okay? Someone broke into my house and tried to grab me.”
That’s true. I can’t help it if my brother and King both assume that my face is a result of that and not Jon’s slappy hand. Man, I wish I could have ripped that bastard a new one for this.
Lex starts, and his expression turns deadly before he lowers himself to a seat and sits staring at me, his jaw grinding.
He’s always been this way, even when we were kids. His idea of anger is going so dead silent and intimidating I swear I’d rather face a screaming, gun-toting maniac than look him dead in the eye right now.
“Again. Why are you here at King’s when you should have called me the first chance you got?” he asks, making me sweat.
I see King glaring at me from the corner of my eye and have the sinking realization that maybe, just maybe, he’s going to toss me out on my ass without so much as thinking about my request or considering my feelings.
What I say next, you have to understand…I haven’t had my pills in days, I’m emotionally and physically wrung out and stretched to the limit. And plus, my temper, that vile thing I’ve kept under lock and key for a long time, is just not leashing the way it should.
I’m tired, scared, heartsick, and so damn fed up with other people telling me what do that I just lose it.
I blame the drugs they pumped into me at the hospital to calm me down, the car ride, and that damn cop with his skeevy eyes that saw more of my boobs than the road on the way down here.
“Uh, so you know how I called off the wedding and haven’t told anyone the reason yet…?” I start slowly, leading in with a hesitancy that has King tensing and staring at me in shock. “Well, blame your buddy King over here. Seems…true love just can’t keep this girl in her panties.”
Chapter Six
Kinsley
“Stop glaring at me,” I mutter, avoiding King’s eyes, as he continues glaring at me silently from the couch while I pace the filthy floor beneath my feet, biting into my fingernails with a nervous tension that won’t leave me.
It’s been an hour since he tried to deny that we’re having an affair, an hour since Lex got so threatening with him that the poor man just eventually gave up and sat in silence.
And it’s been an hour since Lex left—with a warning to King to do his duty—after I confessed that we’ve been having a raging sexual affair for weeks and that I just could not go through with my wedding since I’m so in love with the man that it would break my heart to lose him without a fight.
You can just imagine what happened when he tried to deny that, especially after my brother walked in on us “about to fuck,” as Lex snarled at him, calling him a few choice words before smiling and very nicely informing King that he took me from my fiancé…and now he could keep me.
“What the hell is wrong with you?”
I look back at him and swallow, willing my breath to calm as I try not to flinch beneath his brooding stare and give up the slight control I still have. See? What happens to me when I’m not in control is not pretty.
One time, the summer they were home, Lex decided it was a good idea for him and King to tag along with me on a planned shopping trip. It was stressful from the get-go with them window shopping, laughing, and making such a freaking spectacle I almost ripped many girls’ eyes out when they refused to stop staring and flirting with them.
Lex is a natural flirt, so yeah, I wasn’t even a little interested or fazed by that man whore and his ways. Nuh-uh, what almost sent me into attack mode was King and the way he’d smile at everyone else with a set of boobs and pubic hair. He never once paid a scrap of attention to me, and let’s not even talk about the fact that at that point I was so desperate for just a smile I’d have stripped naked in the mall and stood on my head for one.
Things got worse at the restaurant over lunch with the waitresses flirting up a storm while I may as well have been invisible, and then, well…
Look, I was already tense because they took so long to do a damn thing that I was two hours behind on my plans—which I was dealing with—so when he started eye-fucking everything with girl nipples, I was on the edge.
Introduce Marty Forrester, the yogurt counter freak with a penchant for torturing me, and, well…that did not end well at all. I just snapped, and before I knew it, I was trying to drown the guy in Lime Sorbet Marshmallow yogurt, and Lex and King were yelling and screaming and pulling at me as if that little snot had a right to live after denying me my favorite flavor when I saw him hiding it beneath the counter as I walked in.
That’s what happens when I snap. Therefore—
Dammit, I do not deal well with emotional upheaval, and I’m just not in a good place right now, okay? And then to top it off, Mama left me all these voicemails about how she met this woman King was seeing, and she’s so sweet and…and listening to them in the hospital just sent me to a place I am not proud of, okay?
And—
“Kinsley!” he barks, making me jump and flush guiltily.
“Nothing. Nothing is wrong with me, okay? But I knew you were about to try and palm me off on Lex, and I can’t have that, okay? Please, King, just hear me out. Please. I can’t go home looking like this because Lex and my parents would grill me to the point of madness, and I might let it slip that maybe, maybe some of this bruising is not just from the break in,” I say softly, meeting his eyes this time.
He goes still and narrows his eyes, shoving at a pizza box to clear a space for me on the couch. I sit slowly, sinking onto the very edge as nerves attack me.
“Promise me you’ll keep all that I tell you between us.”
He grunts and snarls at me to talk, and I breathe deeply before continuing.
“So, you know I canceled my wedding.”
“Because we’ve been fucking each other for weeks and we’re so in love,” he says with a snort, laughing derisively.
I flush but refuse to take his bait, licking my lips to still the trembling of my mouth. He’s so angry, and I haven’t missed the disdainful looks he keeps throwing me. That just hurts, ya know? I mean, I may not be all that gorgeous or anything, trust me, I’ve been here with him before and I will never forget how unattractive he must find me.
“Please. I-I had to say something to get Lex to leave, and the only thing I could think was to tell him that we’ve been together. I can’t have him asking me about the wedding when just a day before I called it off, I was so insistent about loving Jon and wanting to get married.”
“Okay. Then explain it to me, Kins, because I am in the dark here—and freaking drowning to be honest. Just days ago, you wouldn’t even talk to me on the freaking phone, and now you’re here, single, beat to shit, and lying to your family. You know that Lex is never going to forgive me for this, and you may have just ruined our friendship.”
“Promise me you won’t say anything. Lex will go nuts if he finds out, and I can’t handle anything more happening right now. Please, King,” I beg, firming my jaw as my eyes start tingling.
He sighs loudly and leans back, blowing out a loud breath.
“I
won’t say anything, but I want some fucking answers, seeing as I’m going to be stuck with you.”
Oh, and there goes another chunk of my self-esteem.
I’m trying hard not to tremble—and also keep my wits—as I smooth the hideous sweat pants over my thighs and look away, avoiding his gray gaze.
“This is so humiliating.”
“Kinsley!”
“Fine. Dang it, Jon was dipping his sticky little fingers into my bank account, and I only realized it the day we spoke, okay? I gave the planner and caterer a check and it bounced, so I started to look into it.”
I so will not tell him that he took it all, or that I’ve been living with a useless parasite for the last few years. I have pride, but I won’t outright lie. I just have to skirt the truth a little.
“I went home and started searching his office, and let me just say that I found out some really annoying things about the man. I mean who doesn’t color code their bills?”
“Kinsley.”
“Fine. Dammit. He lost an account or something at work and the partners are already second-guessing his suitability in the firm. I guess he hasn’t been making all that much money lately, if he ever really did at all, but that’s just…he’s behind on the bills, and I think he took some of my money to pay it. We had this huge fight and he…he lost his temper.”
King growls, and I wince, looking back to see his eyes turn a stormy silver when he eyes my face and starts grinding his jaw.
“He hit you?”
“Yeah. Slapped me real good before I cleaned his clock and kicked his butt out of my house. I called the wedding off after that because there is no way I will bind myself to a man who lies to me and then hits me when he can’t explain his way out of it. That’s why I haven’t told a soul why I called it off—even though, yeah, I get that it’s very strange behavior for someone like me.”
That has him rolling his eyes, and I feel my lips twitch a little because I get it, okay? I’m a little neurotic about things, and everyone knows it. Doesn’t mean I like to hear it all the damn time.
THE WATCHERS: 6 Military Romance Bundle Page 49