by Levine, Nina
I’d already told Mum I was leaving, so I followed King out to his bike. He handed me a helmet and waited for me to put it on before settling himself on the bike. Motioning for me to get on behind him, I extended my leg over the seat and slid onto it. King grabbed hold of my legs and showed me where to place my feet. He then took my hands and placed them on his hips.
He turned his head to the side, half facing me. “Grip me with your knees, soles on the foot pegs rather than your heels. Keep your weight centred and watch for turns. If I’m turning right, look over my right shoulder and keep your body in line with mine. Do not lean out of a turn. Keep your front pressed to my back and do not wiggle around at a stop.”
I heard every word he said and took it all in. This was my first time on a bike, so I was a little nervous. If I hadn’t been in a state over Brynn and the priest, I would have been a whole lot more nervous. And a whole lot more turned on. Because, holy fuck, sitting on the back of King’s bike with my body pressed against his and my hands on his hips was hot.
He fastened his helmet in place and took off. I clung to him, my hands sliding around from his hips to circle his waist. I wasn’t sure if that was okay, but he didn’t respond in any way to let me know it wasn’t, so I kept them there. I wasn’t scared of the ride or lack trust in King, but I did feel a little unsure of what to expect. Holding onto him for dear life eased some of my jitters.
We rode for a long time. Well, it felt like hours, but when we finally stopped, I discovered it had only been just over an hour. It didn’t take me long to settle into the rhythm of the ride. The steady vibration of the engine calmed me. It was almost hypnotic.
King took us out on the highway, along the Old Road to Cowan where he pulled into the Pie In The Sky café. The scenery along the way soothed me just as much as the bike did. By the time I hopped off, I felt a thousand times better than I had before the ride.
I removed my helmet and passed it to King with a smile. “Thank you,” I said softly. Being so close to him on the bike, legs and arms around his body, combined with the way he watched me now, had my tummy in a flutter. I wasn’t nervous with him, but my feelings were definitely heightened.
He jerked his chin towards the café. “You want a drink?”
I nodded and followed him inside. My eyes were firmly on his ass, because no one filled out jeans quite the way King did. They fit snugly against the hard muscle he’d packed onto his body, and I found it difficult to drag my gaze away. I was so engrossed that when he came to a stop at the café counter and turned to face me, I ran into him.
My hands went straight to him as we collided, grasping his leather jacket. His arm came up and around me, and he pulled me close to steady me. His scent hit me, stirring the butterflies in my belly. King smelt like leather and sandalwood and something else I couldn’t quite put my finger on. It wasn’t overpowering, but it was completely him, and it aroused my memories of the times he’d made me come.
I gripped his jacket harder and attempted to push those thoughts from my head. I mean, they were good thoughts, amazing thoughts, but right now was not the time for them.
He looked down at me, still holding me close. “You good?”
I nodded and let him go. Moving out of his embrace, I said, “Yeah, I just wasn’t watching where I was walking.” Heat stained my cheeks as I thought about what I had been watching.
Good God, why did he make me so flustered?
It wasn’t like I was a freaking virgin who’d never had sex before or who’d never seen an ass before. And yet, here I was, my cheeks turning red just thinking about having sex with the man.
I was sure he noticed, but full points to him, he didn’t mention it. Instead, he asked, “What do you want to drink?”
Happy for an excuse to concentrate on anything but him, I turned my attention to the menu board. “Ooh, I’ll have that chocolate milkshake with extra ice-cream and Oreos. And I’m gonna want extra chocolate syrup on top, too, please.”
His eyes flared with what looked like heat, but he didn’t say anything.
“What?” I asked. King was so damn guarded with his thoughts, and I wanted to know them all. I knew he’d never share everything, because that seemed like the man he was, but I was going to push to get to know what I could.
Bending his face to speak against my ear, he said, “I was just filing away that chocolate obsession for later use.”
My core clenched with need, and not just because of what he said. With King, it was so much more than that. It was the way his voice always seemed to have that growly tone, and how he exuded masculinity like no other man I knew, and how he just said what he wanted, regardless of how bossy or filthy it was.
King blazed with sex and a wild, untamed side I was helpless to say no to. It wasn’t just a glimmer or a flash here and there; he walked and talked it every second of the day. To me, it was magnetic and irresistible.
Being with him distracted me from Brynn. Every time he came near, my focus shifted, and for the time we were together, I was able to put the worry aside for a while. I couldn’t decide if I felt guilty about that or if I welcomed the distraction.
He ordered our drinks and guided me to a table in the back where we had some privacy. It was still early in the day, so there weren’t many people here yet.
Once we were sitting, he eyed me with that intense gaze of his. “How’s your sister today?”
Not wanting to have this conversation, I glanced down and fiddled with the salt and pepper shakers on the table.
King rested his arms on the table and leaned forward. “Lily.” He uttered just one word, but delivered it with his signature bossiness. I wondered if he ever stopped being bossy, but quickly dismissed that thought. King only knew one way in life.
Looking up, I found his eyes again. “The doctors are weaning her off the ventilator.” I wrapped my arms around my body, suddenly chilled. “That’s why Mum was so intent on calling the priest. She’s scared that won’t go to plan, but she fully believes God will make everything okay.” My tone made it clear where I stood on that, but he asked me anyway.
“You don’t?”
I swallowed my Catholic guilt. “No, I don’t. I stopped believing in God a long time ago.” I paused. “Well, that’s not true. I didn’t stop believing in God. I just don’t think he makes everything okay, and when people like my mum rely on him to do something he can’t do, I get a little cranky.” I cocked my head to the side. “Do you believe in God?”
He slowly shook his head. “Fuck no.”
I didn’t know what compelled me to ask, but the question popped out without thought. “Did you ever?”
He shifted, resting his back against the chair, contemplating that. “If I did, it would have been at an age I have no memories of.”
“That makes me sad.” Because it told me he hadn’t been told not to believe, but rather, someone had stolen that from him.
A dark look crossed his face. “Yeah,” he said gruffly.
I studied him silently for a few moments, curious as to the things he’d lived through, but not ready to quiz him on it yet. Finally, I said, “Thank you for today. I needed to get out of there, and it turns out I love being on the back of a bike. It was exactly what I needed.”
The waitress brought our drinks out, cutting into our conversation, but I did notice the hint of a smile on his lips at what I said.
After the waitress left us, I watched King sugar his black coffee. “You don’t drink milk?”
“Yeah, but not in my coffee.” At my questioning look, he added, “Skye had to give up dairy for a while when she was a kid, so I didn’t have it in the house. Got a taste for black coffee from that.”
“Skylar lived with you when she was growing up?”
He drank some of his coffee before answering my question. “Our foster mother died when she was eight. She came to live with me after that.”
This gave me an insight into their relationship that had been missing before. It was a piece
of the puzzle that made up King. And goodness, it revealed so much about the man sitting across from me. “How old were you?” My guess was he couldn’t have been much past twenty, which if true, amazed me even further.
“Twenty-three.”
“So you were her father figure,” I murmured, my mind spinning at this new information about King. He’d done for his foster sister what my own father hadn’t done for me, and I had so much respect for him for that.
He glanced around the café, seemingly uncomfortable with this conversation. “You could say that.”
I drank some of my milkshake, a smile dancing across my face.
At my smile, he said, “What?”
I picked up the Oreo biscuit from my drink. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you like this, where you don’t wanna discuss something. I kinda like it, because it shows me a different side to you.”
His intense expression returned. “What kind of side?”
“You’re always so in control and demanding and directing the conversation and what we do. But here, just now, you let your guard down for a bit and you allowed me to run the conversation.” I leant forward, my gaze pinned to his. “And even though you didn’t seem completely comfortable talking about that time in your life, you still answered my question and shared something personal with me. You showed me a little bit of vulnerability, and I liked that.”
He remained guarded for a couple of moments longer before giving me something unexpected. “Our foster mother was the only mother we each had worth a damn. There was no fucking way I was putting Skye back into the foster system when Margreet died, so I raised her like she was my own child. She gave me far more than I ever gave her.”
I reached my hand across the table and covered his. “That’s the blessing of children, and if parents are too fucking stupid to cherish that or their children, they don’t deserve them.”
He glanced down at my hand over his before meeting my gaze again and nodding. “That’s the fucking truth.”
We stayed like that for a beat before I pulled my hand away. To me, we’d shared something meaningful, and I hoped it meant something to King, too.
“So,” I said, “changing the subject, how often do you get out for a ride?” It was the lightest thing I could think of asking him. I had so many other subjects to broach with him, but I didn’t want to throw them all at him today. I figured with a man like King, who didn’t like to talk a hell of a lot, I had only a small window of opportunity to get him to open up here, so I ran with the option I felt he’d be most willing to discuss.
He drank some more of his coffee. “Not fucking often enough lately. Used to be weekly, but not these days.”
“Well, just so you know, I’m up for a ride again whenever you want to get out. I loved it.”
Heat flickered in his eyes. “I plan on getting you on that bike soon.”
Lust whooshed through me, because I was fairly sure King wasn’t referring to a long bike ride. “That sounds like fun.”
He arched a brow. “Fun?” It was a growl. A sexy-as-fuck growl.
I grinned and changed the subject again. Otherwise, this was about to go down a path that would get both of us worked up in ways we didn’t have time to take care. “So who introduced you to your first bike?”
He moved from subject to subject with ease. Something else I liked about him. “The father of one of my schoolmates had a Harley and taught us how to ride. I was seventeen and fucking obsessed with bikes after that. He had his own business fixing bikes and taught us how to fix them and rebuild them.” His eyes lit up as he continued. “There’s nothing like getting your hands dirty and losing your time to a bike. I worked for him for years, learning from him and saving cash so I could buy parts. Built my first bike when I was nineteen.”
“And your second?”
The smile in his eyes couldn’t be mistaken. “Six months after that.”
“How many have you built since then?”
His eyes dulled a little. “Two.” He drank some coffee. “Life got in the way.”
My phone rang, and I pulled it out to see it was Mum calling. And just like that, I was thrown back into real life. My distraction from worry ended.
“Hey, Ma,” I answered.
“Lily! Brynn is awake! Hurry and come back!”
A huge wave of emotion engulfed me and tears streamed down my face. “She is?” I managed to get out in between sobs.
“Yes!”
“I’m on my way.”
King had already stood. “She’s awake?”
I smiled through my tears, an emotional wreck of happiness, relief, and adrenaline. “Yes.”
He took two steps toward me, reached for my hand, and strode out to his bike with me in tow. Within a few minutes, he had us both on the bike and on our way back to the hospital. This was King back in charge, and I couldn’t deny that I liked him like this. After years of me having to take on most of the responsibility for my family, it felt good to have a man help me in this way.
Chapter Eleven
King
I eyed the clock as I scrubbed a hand over my face. It was just past 8:00 p.m. and I still had a few loose ends to tie up here before I could check on Lily. After her sister had woken up this morning, I’d stayed at the hospital with her for a couple of hours before she’d kicked me out and told me to get back to work. I fucking appreciated a woman who had the sense to ask for help when she needed it and then the strength to deal with shit on her own later. She’d called me just after six to let me know she was heading home for the night and that I should drop by when I was done with work. That she’d put some dinner away for me in case I was hungry. My gut had tightened at that. It had been years since a woman had put dinner away for me.
“Johnny called,” Axe said, entering the office. “He’s agreed to your terms.”
“Good. Keep on him for that info. We can’t afford to drop the ball on this.”
Axe’s contact in the feds, Johnny, was now Storm’s contact. We’d put him on our payroll in exchange for names of any witnesses the feds had in relation to the case against us. I’d pay those motherfuckers off to keep them quiet, or if warranted, something a little more permanent.
“Also, Zane and Griff have started pulling more surveillance of the area from the day of Jen’s murder like you wanted.” To see if Romano had been bullshitting me about not having a hand in that.
“And Brant?”
“Still looking, but nothing yet. He’s an evasive motherfucker.”
“Yeah.” I narrowed my eyes at my brother. “You look like hell.”
He nodded. “We both do.”
“Justine giving you grief at the moment?”
He rubbed the back of his neck and stretched it. “When isn’t she?”
“Fuck,” I muttered. “That bitch has a lot to fucking answer for, brother.”
“She also has my child in her belly, King, so I can’t just fucking walk away.”
This was an old, recurring argument of ours. Me telling him to leave; him telling me he loved her. Except he was right—he now had his child to consider, and my brother had the same convictions I did, so he would never walk away from that responsibility.
I jerked my chin at the door. “Try to get some sleep tonight. Or find someone to take the edge off.” At his scowl, I said, “Fuck, she screwed around on you and fucking walked out. You don’t owe her any loyalty.”
I knew his stance on this, though. If I considered myself a loyal bastard, Axe was a motherfucking nun when it came to this shit. Women threw themselves at him, fucking begging him to let them suck his dick. Not once had I ever seen him so much as look at them if he was with someone.
“I’ll see you in the morning. And I’ll check in with Johnny first thing. Hurry him along.”
After he’d gone, I thought about Justine. She’d had her claws in my brother for five long years, and just when I’d thought he was finally rid of her, she’d announced her fucking pregnancy. Axe had wanted a child
for as long as I could remember, so he’d been over the fucking moon. And then he’d discovered her infidelity. I hadn’t thought I’d ever see my brother lose his shit, because Axe was the guy who held himself together when everyone around him couldn’t. Fuck, if there was an apocalypse, Axe was the one I’d want in my corner. But he had lost it for a while there and had only recently pulled through that.
A text came through, distracting me from my thoughts.
Lily: If you’re coming over, I need milk please.
Me: On my way soon
Lily: Thanks.
I stared at the messages, at the simple and uncomplicated way with which Lily acted. She’d put up a fight when I’d told her we weren’t done, but I’d expected that. I’d anticipated that would continue longer than it did, but something had shifted in her since last night, and she appeared to have let it go. I’d fucking make shit up to her for what I did, but that she didn’t play games or screw me around meant a fuck of a lot.
* * *
I left the clubhouse an hour after she’d messaged me about the milk, grabbed some on the way over, and arrived just after she’d had a screaming match with Zara. I knew this because she yanked the front door open with the force of a crazed woman, eyes wild, stepped outside, and dragged me onto the front lawn before producing a cigarette and begging me, “Do you have a lighter on you? Zara may be fucking pregnant, which may mean I’m about to kill some fucking teenage boy who should not have chosen my daughter to mess around with. And I need a fucking smoke to deal with this, which means I will have to kill that little fucker twice, because I’m supposed to be quitting cigarettes, and if he got my kid pregnant, I am most definitely not quitting cigarettes.”
I eyed her, trying like hell not to smile. Lily had a way of lighting my fucking world, just by being her. She didn’t have to do shit for me or work any special magic. All she had to do was look at me or smile at me or go on about the shit she was dealing with, and I felt better than before I saw her.