King's Ransom (Oil Kings Book 2)

by Marie Johnston

  “Mr. King, I think it’s what comes after the breadsticks that you’re after.”

  It was. But not quite in the way she thought.

  We ate like we always did. At the island, turned into each other. I was rewarded with a moan, only she did it all the way through both breadsticks.

  “God, Eva. You’re killing me.”

  “Then I get what you didn’t eat.”

  When had a relationship ever been this effortless? I’d been reluctant to date before and always kept my exes at a distance. I didn’t blame them for wanting more. It was what healthy relationships progressed to.

  This was the only relationship I wanted for the rest of my life and I couldn’t hold it in anymore. “I love you, Eva.”

  She stopped midchew and swallowed. “Beckett?”

  “I love you and I want this. I want you. And we don’t have to change anything, and hell, if you’re not ready to marry in two and a half months, we won’t marry. But I want what we have forever.”

  “Are you…proposing…again?”

  I gave her a small smile. “I guess I am.”

  She brushed her hands off and gave me her full attention. “I love you too, Beckett. And for now, I don’t want to change anything. I want to take care of Adam and I don’t want to let your dad down.” She snuck her hands into mine. “I think we can keep our arrangement and keep on going. We can work it all out.”

  I lifted her off the chair into my lap. It wasn’t easy on the stool, but I wasn’t staying here long. I wanted to make slow, sweet love to her in my bed.

  “You’re everything I ever wanted.” I nuzzled her neck.

  “You’re everything I never thought I could have,” she murmured.

  I carried her upstairs, leaving our soup half eaten.

  I removed her sweater and she took off my shirt. I rolled down my pants and she rolled off her leggings. We worked in sync, anticipating the other’s next move. I wanted to take my time with her bra and underwear. Unwrapping my fiancée was the greatest gift I could get.

  When she was bare before me, I took my time putting the condom on, watching her chest rise and fall and her legs fall open, waiting for me. Climbing onto the bed, we didn’t bother pushing the covers back or turning the lights on. She was bathed in shadow, her silky skin ready for my attention.

  I dropped kisses all over her until I was settled between her legs, making her scream my name. Her knees were up to her chest and her back was arched and like my mind was a camera, I took a snapshot. She was so beautiful. Passionate. Because of me.

  “Beckett.” She laid her hands on my shoulders as I crawled back up her body. “That was intense.”

  I pressed a kiss to her neck, then to her lips. “I wanted to show you how I feel.”

  Her face filled with everything I felt about her. She felt the same.

  I entered her, so slow it was painful. There was no rush. The way her body wrapped around mine, we were a perfect fit. “You’re mine, Eva. You were made for me.”

  She put a hand on each side of my face. “Don’t forget it. No matter what, please don’t forget it.”

  Whatever she was getting at, it was important to her. So I set about showing her again. My muscles were tight and my body rigid, but I wasn’t going to come without her.

  I kept my pace relentless, stoking her passion until she was breathless and wiggling under me for more. I drew out the pleasure and watched her come. Ecstasy exploded across her face and her eyelids dropped shut and her mouth fell open. Her breasts strained against me and I kept pumping in and out of her heat, coated with her release.

  Only when she was coming down did I let myself go. A hard thrust and I was spilling inside of her. We were closer than we’d ever been.

  I wanted nothing more than to curl her in my arms and pass out with her at my side all night, but we’d each wish to clean up. Rolling to my side, I cradled her in my arms, my chin in her hair, our fingers entwined.

  “Let me know when you need to go home.”

  She stroked a foot along my leg. “I can sleep over, but I’ll need to run home before work in the morning for fresh clothes.”

  “Or you could just do laundry and walk around the house naked.”

  Her laugh made her shake in my embrace. “I guess. No one would see me. I assume you have a spare toothbrush.”

  “A King is always prepared.”

  “Then I’ll steal one of your shirts and put my clothes in the wash. No one will notice I’m wearing the same thing.”

  “Only me, and I won’t complain. But you should put those boots on. Just the boots.”

  She rolled away from me, but she was smiling. “I’ll go grab them.”

  I enjoyed watching her select a T-shirt from the dresser. She grabbed her clothing and rushed out.

  I lay on my back, staring at the ceiling, wondering how in the world I’d gotten to be such a lucky guy. A faint buzzing caught my attention. My phone was in my pants.

  I slid down from the bed, grabbed my phone, and without looking at the screen shut it off. No one else needed to intrude on this night with Eva.

  Chapter 21

  Eva

  “Fuck. Eva.” His hips bucked off the bed.

  I was bent over him, giving him morning head as my own way to show him how I felt.

  His knees were spread, his ball sack tight, and he was propped on his elbows to watch everything I was doing to him. Then his head dropped back and he groaned.

  I swallowed his hot release as it came, glad I could make him come apart like he did to me. When he was done, I snuggled into his side. He was splayed across the bed like I’d sucked all the energy from him.

  “I need to—” He had to catch his breath. “I need to take care of you.”

  “You did last night. Several times.” I hated to leave the cocoon of his body, but we both had to get to work and he was my ride. “Did you tell Rick that he didn’t need to pick me up?”

  “I’ll do that while you’re in the shower.”

  My clean clothes were already in the bathroom waiting for me. Even the boots were in his bedroom from last night. I couldn’t quit smiling through the shower. No matter what happened, I was confident that we were good. We were tight. We were a couple.

  Engaged. Holding up my hand, I admired how the ring twinkled under the shower lights. When was the last time I’d taken it off? Not since that disagreement with Adam.

  Letting the six showerheads pummel any residual soreness out of me, I pushed my hair off my forehead. It was time to go back to work. Officially engaged.

  I toweled off, and—damn, no hair dryer. After getting dressed, I found a spare toothbrush, then I was done.

  In the bedroom, Beckett was perched on the edge of the bed, his slacks on but his pale blue shirt hanging open. He was hunched over his phone and the frown on his face cut straight to my gut.

  It’s about me.

  No, that was just me being paranoid. We’d made love last night. He’d made promises.

  “What’s up?” I sat on the spare chair he kept in his room and slipped my boots on.

  His gaze lifted and I stopped what I was doing, my breath stuck in my throat.

  He knew.

  This wasn’t me being paranoid. He. Knew.

  Without a word, he turned his phone so I could see the screen.

  The sight of Terra Scalia on her insipid morning show made me sick. I fought the urge to vomit and forced myself to watch the video clip that began to replay.

  Terra’s grating voice carried across the otherwise stone-silent room. “And in other wedded-bliss news, big congratulations to tech giant Becket King, CEO of King Tech. He is engaged! We’ve learned his future bride is Eva Chase. She’s the sister of Adam Dickerson, who developed the home organization app Organize You. Mr. Dickerson was charged for petty theft and breaking and entering and served a year in jail.” She pasted a sickly sweet smile on her face and turned to her cohost. “Allegedly, when King Tech discovered Mr. Dickerson’s criminal
record, Mr. King withdrew his bid and Organize You floundered.”

  “Interesting.” The cohost wrinkled her pert little nose and crossed her legs. “I guess all’s well that ends well, huh?”

  Terra nodded, her smile unwavering, but her expression was so smug I wanted to rub her face in the rug. “We wish them the best. You know, I had a chance to meet Ms. Chase. She’s also Mr. King’s executive assistant. Talk about a working relationship.”

  The two hosts let out throaty laughs. Terra lifted a shoulder and threw the camera a coy glance. “But I guess a guy can break the rules, even his own, when he’s the boss.”

  Beckett threw the phone on the bed. “I can tell by your face that Terra’s not lying. What the fuck, Eva?” He rose and paced the room, his hands on his hips, a storm raging on his face. “Is this what you haven’t been telling me?”

  “Yes.” I could barely get the word out. I hugged my arms around myself. “Adam was devastated when you retracted your bid and the others pulled out.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” He stopped and pinned me with a glare. “Why?”

  Resentment snuck into my tone. “It’s your business acumen. And the way you dropped Dr. Herrera. I was scared of how you’d drop me.”

  “So you lied? Like that was going to fix it.” He swept his arm toward his phone. “I didn’t know what to fucking say when I listened to all those messages. Your brother broke into people’s houses?” The torment was clear on his face. It was like I was the sister of the man who’d beaten his mother.

  “I told you he was innocent.”

  “And how do you know?” He tsked and spun away. “Why am I even asking? You won’t tell me.”

  This was the moment I’d feared for six weeks. But he loved me. We’d work through it. “Because I did it.”

  He pivoted around, his astonished expression full of horror. “What?”

  “I fell in with a bad crowd. We liked to think of ourselves as a lower class Bling Ring.”

  Comprehension worked through his tight features. “A bling ring. You broke into people’s homes. Did you do drugs too?”

  I lifted a shoulder. Might as well be honest about that too. “A lot of people have tried weed.”

  He reared back. “I told you everything and you kept this from me.”

  “I was going to tell you.” My words were empty. Would I ever have told him?

  He seethed. “You knew what this would do to my business.”

  “Your business is going to be fine.”

  “Is it? This is what the other companies have been waiting for. The crack in King Tech that makes me less desirable than them. My company is built on integrity. I was prepared to deal with any blowback about you being my assistant because I lov—” He cut his gaze away, the muscles in his jaw flexing. Too soon, the hostile glare turned in my direction. “What would it have looked like if I had married a criminal?”

  “I’m not a criminal.” My words rang empty. I was a criminal.

  “Is your last name really Chase?”

  “Yes.” I rose, my volume creeping up to match his. “Adam has a different dad. He was six when our parents got married.”

  He stared at me, his hands digging into his hips. “It wasn’t a coincidence that we met. Were you casing the place?”

  “No.” He thought I’d rob him? “No.”

  “Then what, Eva? How did you end up outside my building at the moment I pulled up?”

  And I thought telling him Adam had taken the fall for me was the worst. But I was going with the truth. “I wanted to learn more about you. To find a mistake you made that would cost you everything like it cost Adam. But once we met—”

  “God, save it. Get out, Eva. You got what you wanted. It’ll take years for me to regain the brand trust I’d built.”

  He was exaggerating. He was still the one with the most money and the least to lose in the room. “Beckett—”

  “I don’t want to hear it. I don’t trust a single word out of that deceitful mouth.” He grabbed his phone and dialed a number. I could only stand and watch and hope he didn’t mean what he said. “Rick, come get Eva as soon as possible. She’s to go straight home.” When he clicked off, he said. “I don’t ever want to see you around here again. I don’t want you around my family or talking to anyone in my circle.”

  His circle. Which didn’t include me. “Beckett—” He was shaking his head and my patience snapped. “This is exactly why I didn’t tell you. You’re uncompromising. People make mistakes.”

  “Then take responsibility for your own this time.” His voice was cold, no hint of the love we’d shared just an hour ago. “Consider yourself fired.”

  He was serious. He wanted me gone. I thought he’d grown past my fear, but he was the same Beckett King that I’d met months ago. He didn’t want to know why I hung out with people who’d want to break into rich people’s houses and steal valuables. He didn’t want to know why I’d join in. My desperation and the gaping hole my parents’ death had left behind were nothing to him. While he’d built a successful company off the back of his grief, I’d hung out in the gutter. Terra had been accurate. He thought he was so much higher than the rest of us.

  “All right then,” I said rigidly. “Goodbye.”

  “And leave the damn ring.”

  That last request stabbed through my heart worse than when he’d told me to leave. I slid the ring off and placed it on his dresser. Part of me had thought that maybe he’d seek me out after his temper died down. But the ring that he loved seeing on my finger, the ring he couldn’t ignore while he was fucking me, was no longer mine.

  I went down the stairs. I couldn’t look toward the next level down. I’d break down in sobs at not being able to say goodbye to the kittens. Would he be so angry with me that he’d kick them out too?

  Grabbing my coat, I slipped outside to wait for Rick on the front step. The bitter air permeated every stitch of clothing. I hoped Rick showed up quickly.

  And he did. A few minutes later, he sped into the drive, stopping at the front instead of going around back to where I usually waited. His normally congenial expression was grim.

  I should’ve called a different ride. But I wanted to say goodbye to Rick, and to know that maybe there was one person in Beckett’s circle who wouldn’t hate me.

  The car was warm, but Rick was cold. “Ms. Chase.”

  I sighed. He usually called me Eva like everyone else. “I guess you heard.”

  He pulled away before I was buckled in. Beckett must’ve ordered an expedited ride. “It’s all over the news. You know how this town likes its local celebrities.”

  “If Beckett hadn’t dated a local celebrity, nobody would care about his business.”

  “He would have.”

  There was my answer. Rick didn’t like me either. “Yeah. I guess it was coming either way, whether I told him when we met or now.”

  “Hurts you a lot more now.”

  “Yep.” I laid my head back and watched the city go by.

  He turned the corner that would take him to my complex. “Aw, hell, Eva. Prepare yourself.”

  Frowning, I peered out of the window. How many morning shows were there in Denver? It wasn’t the press mob that swarmed a movie star, but the three TV station vans parked on my street felt just as overwhelming. It was too cold for them to linger outside. They just lay in wait inside their vehicles.

  Glad that I had clean clothing on and had at least finger combed my hair, I steeled myself for the rush to the door. I didn’t have to stop and check on cats. All I had to do was limit the amount of time they had to come at me with their questions.

  “Goodbye, Rick. It was nice knowing you.”

  Hurrying down the sidewalk, the sound of a car door opening and closing quickened my pace.

  “Ms. Chase. Can I have a word with you?” A guy. I’d probably watched him a million times on the news during bar shifts. That channel was now on my will-not-watch list.

  “Ms. Chase, can you c
omment on your relationship with Mr. King? Did you meet through your brother?”

  My boots clicked on the pavement. I was almost to the walk that’d take me to my door.

  “Eva.” That voice stopped me in my tracks. Terra Scalia. That bitch. “How did Mr. King react to the news?”

  Don’t do it. Don’t do it.

  I did it. Spinning on a heel, my gaze landed directly on Terra and that smug twist to her lips. “Ms. Scalia, care to share why Mr. King has it on his security footage that you tried to hack into his computer while you two were in a relationship? Care to elaborate why you broke this story about an ex-boyfriend? The public wants to know if it’s a personal vendetta. He’s the one that broke things off with you, after all. Seems like a conflict of interest.”

  Three large cameras swung toward Terra, her face losing color, then flushing. “You’re just full of lies, Ms. Chase.”

  “Be careful, Ms. Scalia. You wouldn’t want to lose a chance at that spot on your morning show. I hear slander isn’t a good look in your field.” I gestured to the news crews. “Or do you forget when you’re being recorded?”

  With that, I flounced inside, slammed the door, and slid down it until my butt hit the floor.

  Adam was peeking under the curtain. “I didn’t look outside until now or I would’ve warned you.”

  “It doesn’t matter.” I went to push my hair off my forehead but my hand was shaking.

  “I take it he saw the news.”

  I looked at Adam. Really looked. Our talk had been only a few days ago, but his eyes were brighter and he’d shaved. His appointment wasn’t until tomorrow, but his attempts to care for himself bolstered me. “He saw it all.” I hitched my knees up and draped my hands over them. “He knows everything.”

  “And it’s over.” He gestured at my ringless hand. “I thought there was no way he could avoid it, but I’d hoped you two would work it out.”

  “He hates me.”

  “Then he’s an idiot.”

  I didn’t want to talk about Beckett. But at the same time, he was all I wanted to talk about. I focused on Adam instead. “You look good.” He gave me a dubious stare. “Better. You look better.”