by Levine, Nina
King was gone for ages, but I hardly had time to miss him. The girls had me laughing over stories of the funny stuff they’d done together, and I realised they must have spent a fair bit of time with each other to have all these stories. I liked the sisterhood that it felt like they had. I’d always been drawn to having friends who liked to get together often, and I hoped this might be the beginning of some new friendships.
“When are you and Nitro getting married?” Evie asked Tatum.
Tatum sighed. “We’ve put it off for now, while everything has been so up in the air. Honestly, at this point, I’m just glad to have him home again.”
“But you guys are still getting married, right?” Hailee asked.
“Yeah. We’ll just wait for the dust to settle.”
I wasn’t sure what they referred to, but it sounded like she and Nitro had been through something recently. I wasn’t the kind of person to pry, so I didn’t ask any questions.
A dark-haired man who was built like an I-don’t-know-what-except-he-was-freaking-huge joined us at the table where we’d relocated. With his gaze glued to Tatum, he said, “Vegas. You ready to go?”
Her eyes snapped to his and her body reacted to him. She nodded and stood. Glancing at me, she said, “It was great to meet you. I’m sure Roe will organise drinks or something soon, so I’ll see you at that.” She then moved into the man’s embrace, their bodies connecting like they were made for each other. He had to be Nitro. I wasn’t sure I’d ever seen a couple so in sync before.
As they left, King entered the bar and caught my attention. He made his way over to us, and I stood to meet him. Something had happened in between him leaving me and now returning. Gone was the relaxed King, and in his place was the wired King. His face was a mask of intensity and determination as he placed his hand on my hip and said, “I have to head out to take care of some shit.”
“Okay. I’ve had a few drinks, so I’m gonna call an Uber. It’s okay if I leave my car here, right?”
“Yeah,” he said, looking around the room. “I’ll get one of the boys to run you home.” He called Mace over and organised him to do that before turning back to me. “Depending on whether I get shit done tonight, I might be over later.”
With that, he left. No goodbye kiss, no other words exchanged. But I didn’t care, because each passing day with King in my life showed me that sometimes those things weren’t what mattered. The backbone of a relationship came down to more than displays of affection and fancy promises; it came down to actions that showed respect and care. Sometimes those actions consisted of words as well as deeds, but sometimes it was mostly the things we actually followed through on and did that meant the most.
Chapter Eighteen
Lily
“How much have you had to drink?” Adelaide asked me on the phone later that night when I told her about something weird that had happened to me during the day.
“I swear to you this happened. I’m not saying it because I’ve been drinking. And besides, most of the buzz I had is gone now. The guy looked like a younger version of John Travolta, and he watched me leave the hospital and then followed me to my car. I thought he was going to stop me and tell me something, but he didn’t. He just kept walking.”
“And he was there yesterday, too?”
“Yes! I remember him because he was sitting outside the ward Brynn is on, and as I walked past him, I thought about how much he looked like John Travolta. You know how much I love Grease. Anyone who even kinda looks like John catches my attention.”
She laughed. “Was he wearing tight black jeans and a leather jacket?”
“Ugh. If you were here right now, I would poke my freaking tongue out at you.”
“Lil, he was probably visiting someone at the hospital, too,” she said, her voice softer, less amused at me. “I think you need about a week’s worth of sleep at the moment. Go to bed now and get an early night.”
“Well, King might be coming over, so I might wait up in case he does.”
“Text him and tell him not to come.”
Adelaide still wasn’t on Team King. I knew she was just being a good friend and waiting for him to prove himself after he hurt me, and I didn’t blame her, but I also didn’t pay any attention to the cooler tone she took when she mentioned him. I had confidence he’d prove himself over time and that she’d come around. And I was glad to have a friend who looked out for me.
“I’m going to take a bath. If I fall asleep before he comes, I fall asleep.” I didn’t tell her King still had a key to my place from when he’d cleaned it for me.
“Good. And what about Linc? Is he still being a dick?”
I headed out of the kitchen to walk into my bathroom and get the bath started. “Yeah. I figure he’s gonna be a dick until old age and then some. I’ve decided to ignore his bullshit. Especially since I’m trying to quit smoking again. That’s hard enough to do without having to also be thinking about Linc.”
She chuckled. “How many times are you up to now?”
Sitting on the edge of the bath, I flicked the taps on. “Shut up and don’t be mean to me.”
This was an old argument between us, and Addy never let up about it. She knew I was way into double digits on this. She also knew my attempts were only half-assed, because smoking was something I really didn’t want to give up. I knew I had to, and the smart side of my brain knew I was a freaking idiot for not having made more of an effort, but what was hard to explain to someone like Adelaide, who’d never smoked, was the enjoyment I got from it. That first drag of a cigarette was like the first hit of caffeine in the morning or the first bite into a warm, fresh doughnut. It made me smile and it helped take the edge off from all the stress and pressure I felt being pulled in a hundred directions between work and family. I liked smoking. And who wants to stop doing something they love? That was the switch in my brain I had to flip, but I knew that would only happen when I was ready and wanted to. I also knew that until then, I’d have to put up with Addy giving me a hard time.
“You know I’m never gonna shut up about this, Lily. I want you by my side in the nursing home, and I worry you won’t be around for that if you keep smoking.”
“I know, babe.”
“Okay, enough of that tonight. Go have your bath. Get your meditation on. I’ll call you tomorrow to see how you’re going. Love you, girl.”
“I love you, too. Talk to you tomorrow.”
After the call ended, I lit the candles in my bathroom, set my phone up with my guided meditation open on my Spotify app, and stripped. Five minutes later, I was immersed in the warm water, hair up in a messy bun, eyes closed, meditating.
Perfect.
I chose a forty-minute meditation, and it was almost finished when a text came through from King.
King: I’m letting myself in.
I smiled. Mostly because he was here, but also because it appeared he realised I would freak out if I heard a sound I wasn’t expecting. Closing my eyes again, I listened to the last few minutes of the meditation. When I opened my eyes again, King stood resting against the doorjamb, arms crossed, watching me.
“Hey, you,” I said, not shifting from under the water. It was warm and cosy in the bath, and I wasn’t ready to get out yet. Not even for King.
He didn’t speak, but rather moved to the bath and sat on the side of it. As he watched me, I took in the fierce energy blaring from him. From the hard set of his shoulders to his tight jaw, to his eyes that flashed with a storm of emotion, King was wound up. On edge. And from previous experience, I knew that when he turned up like this, he wanted the kind of sex that would wear me out in the very best ways.
Shifting his attention to my body, he dipped his hand into the water and found my stomach. As he reached down to my pussy, a low growl came from him, and when he pushed two fingers inside me, he met my gaze again and held it steady while finger-fucking me.
Arching my back, I bit my lip and closed my eyes. His touch relaxed me in ways no medita
tion could, but at the same time, it excited me to the point where I couldn’t get enough from him. With King, I wanted him to hurry the hell up and make me come already while also wanting him to take his sweet time and send me over the edge in a complete and utter mess of bewilderment and frantic need.
“Lily,” he rasped, “Give me your eyes.”
They fluttered open, and I gave him what he wanted, which he liked, because it caused him to reach deeper inside me and work me harder. His strokes were demanding, and with each one, the heat between us intensified.
He bent forward and curled his free hand around my neck. Fingers digging in hard, he pulled me to him and kissed me. It was savage, and while mostly it pushed me into a desperate state of need, I wondered at the back of my mind, what caused him to become so fiercely aroused.
He ended the kiss, but he didn’t let my mouth go fully. His teeth nipped at my bottom lip while his fingers continued fucking me, and he growled, “It doesn’t fucking matter how often I have you, I can’t fucking get enough. Your cunt, your body”—he bit my lip harder—“this mouth… You’re in my head twenty-four-fucking-seven.”
I couldn’t stop myself. I moved without thought, just feeling. Pure need. It was like a frenzy of arms, legs, and water as I scrambled to my knees so I could take hold of his face and kiss him. I didn’t even care how uncomfortable it was to be in this position; I needed King’s mouth on mine, his face to mine, his breath in me. I needed to get closer to the core of him, to his soul, and right now the only way I knew how to do that was to kiss the hell out of him.
I may have started this kiss, but he took charge of it. His tongue became as demanding as his fingers had been inside me. I wasn’t sure I’d ever kissed anyone the way I kissed King. It was like we were forcing each other to go deeper, to give more. It was hard and rough and violent. Neither of us wanted it to end; we just kept pushing for every last piece the other had to give. When he finally tore his mouth from mine, his eyes flashed with a level of desire I’d never seen in a man. And when he scooped me into his arms and carried me into my bedroom, I craved him in ways I’d never imagined possible.
Dropping me on the bed, he yanked his clothes off before gripping my ankle and pulling me to the end of the mattress and off the bed. A shiver ran over my skin as I watched the muscles in his arms flex. I didn’t care that I was still wet from the bath; I didn’t want anything slowing this down.
Positioning me in front of him with my back to him, he placed one arm around me, his hand splayed across my stomach, fingers so hard against my skin it felt like he might gouge holes in me. His other hand slid around my hips and he took hold of my pussy, his whole hand covering me, his fingers curling under. He held me so tightly against him I felt like we were fused skin-to-skin.
He then did something unexpected. He swept my hair to the side, bent his head, and pressed his mouth to my shoulder, kissing me. The pressure was the complete opposite to that applied to the lower half of my body. He moved along my shoulder slowly, trailing kisses as he went. His beard tickled me, and his tongue licked me, and holy hell if the slow, steady way he moved didn’t turn my legs to jelly.
He covered both my shoulders with kisses and then began making his way down my back. Letting go of me, he glided his hands around to take hold of my hips, grasping me there until his mouth found the dip of my body right above my ass.
His kisses turned rougher, and his teeth joined in. The slow moves disappeared as he found the rough rhythm he favoured. Straightening, he ran his hand up my back to my neck. Taking hold of me there, he forced me to bend forward, placing my hands on the bed. At the same time he nudged my feet wide apart.
“Do you want my mouth on your cunt?” The gravel in his hard tone hit my core. God, how I wanted his mouth there.
“Yes.”
He squeezed my neck, his body to mine, his mouth against my ear. “Say the words, Lily—I want your mouth on my cunt.”
With that order, King stripped another layer between us away.
I had never uttered words so dirty to a man before.
“I want your mouth on my cunt.”
He grunted. It was such a deeply masculine response, and it drew an equally feminine one from me.
I moaned. It was long and loud, and a sound unlike any that had ever escaped my lips.
Everything he said and did felt so good.
“Fuck,” he rasped. “Say it again.”
I spread my fingers out and clutched the sheet as I arched my back and pushed my ass higher in the air. When I gave him the words he wanted, they practically purred out of me. “I want your mouth on my cunt.”
His restraint snapped.
He crouched behind me, taking hold of my ass, and buried his face in my pussy. It seemed to be one of his favourite places to be, and I wasn’t complaining, because King knew what the hell he was doing. He knew his way around that part of a woman. Hell, he knew his way around a woman, full stop. But he had skills when it came to using his tongue. And his beard only heightened the pleasure. I couldn’t get enough of it.
I lost track of time while he brought me to orgasm. It was one of his specialties. Being with King, I shut off all my thoughts and feelings, and simply clung to him for the ride.
As my release shattered through me, I lost the ability to hold myself up, and my arms gave way. King moved swiftly, standing and catching me. He then flipped me over and pushed me onto the bed. Without giving me a moment to get my bearings, he spun me so I was almost parallel to the end of the bed with my ass at the corner. He positioned himself with his feet planted wide either side of the corner, a hand around my throat, the other hand on the top of my head gripping it, my legs up in the air hooked over his while he bent over my body and slammed his dick inside me.
He fucked me with brute force, his hands firmly holding me, not letting go. There was no slow and steady to his pace at all; he thrust in and out with increasing speed and force. His face was near mine, his mouth and beard grazing my skin, his grunts filling the air around me. Everything about it overwhelmed me. All my senses were in overdrive. I tried to take hold of him, but his arms had mine pinned down with such strength I could hardly move. In the end, I held my hands against his biceps and tumbled down into the dark abyss of pleasure he created.
As he inched closer to orgasm, his grip around my throat tightened, cutting off most of my airflow. It intensified every sensation coursing through me, and I madly tried to grasp his arms. My nails scratched him as I did so, and he lifted his head to look at me. Our eyes locked until his were drawn to my mouth when I gasped for air. That pushed him over the edge, and he thrust into me one last time and came with a roar. His grip loosened on my neck and he let go of me as he moved his arms to rest on the bed beside me. I wrapped my arms around his body and searched for that one last bit of friction that would make me come. As the orgasm hit, I squeezed my arms around him hard and arched my body up off the bed.
“Fuck,” he growled, his body almost squashing me, his face buried in my neck.
I didn’t care that his body was crushed to mine. I liked it there. I felt close to him there. Keeping my arms around him, I tried to catch my breath. When he started to pull away from me, I pushed my hands down onto his back, keeping him in place. “Gimme a minute,” I said. I wasn’t ready for the loss of contact yet.
He settled there and lifted his face to look at me. “You good?” I didn’t miss the trace of concern in his eyes or his voice.
I smiled and nodded. “Yeah. I just like you there.”
He watched me silently for a few moments before bending to kiss my collarbone. After another few moments, he murmured, “I fucking like me here, too.”
It was these unguarded moments with King that meant so much to me. He didn’t give them to me often, which only made them more special. But when he did give them to me, the whole world opened up with bright light. I was the happiest I had ever been in my entire life.
After we had a shower, where King fucked me again,
I was too exhausted to go on. He’d been ready for another round, but I just didn’t have it in me, so he’d bundled me into bed and wrapped his arms around me while we lay facing each other.
I reached up and ran a finger down the scar on his face. “How did you get this?” I asked softly. It was so jagged that I knew it had to have hurt him, and that caused my heart to hurt. It was crazy, because King was so strong and capable, and seemed unbreakable, but that scar reminded me that even the toughest men could be hurt.
His features darkened. “My father.”
It felt like he didn’t want to give me more than that, but I was at the point where I wanted more. I hadn’t pushed him for anything yet. This, I would push for. “How old were you?”
His jaw clenched. “This is old shit that doesn’t need to be rehashed.”
“It’s not old to me, King. I hardly know a thing about you. I know you’re bossy and moody and demanding and giving, and that you love your family and your club.” I put my hand to his chest, to his heart. “I want to know what’s in here, too.”
He stayed silent for a beat, and then after exhaling hard, he said, “I was eight and I pissed him off one Saturday afternoon when I didn’t steal the right tins of spaghetti for him from the supermarket. He took a knife to me, letting me know how badly I’d screwed up.”
I stared at him with my heart in my throat and tears at the backs of my eyes, unable to comprehend a parent doing that to their child.
When I didn’t say anything, because I was lost for words, he said, “My parents were the fucking scum of the earth, Lily, and I don’t wanna get into a conversation about them, but for what it’s worth, they both went to prison for kidnapping, raping and murdering teenage girls. She lured the girls, he did everything else. I fucking had to listen to and watch some of that shit. And yeah, he slashed my face and beat me up and burnt his fucking cigarettes into my body, but I refuse to give that cunt another fucking thought, so don’t mention him to me again.”