There was a commotion inside. The door to the bar swung open. A woman’s screams followed King as his massive shadow emerged from the bar.
Less than an hour ago, he was pining for life where he could have his sister in it. Shortly before that, he was helping his elderly friend find relief during her last days.
Now, he walked back to the truck in long strides, an explosively angry look in his dark and dangerous eyes. It wasn’t until he was within ten feet of me, standing under the buzzing street light, that I was able to take a good look at him.
King clutched a wooden baseball bat tightly in his grip. Dark spots were splattered across both him and the bat, droplets splattered across his chest and face. When he turned to put the bat back into the bed of the truck, he stepped fully into the light, and my breath hitched.
Both King and the baseball bat were covered in blood.
King tore out of the parking lot. When we hit the highway, he pulled off on the first exit and parked the truck under an overpass that was under construction. My heart was beating in my chest, quick and heavy.
Thud. Thud.
Thud. Thud.
The light of the moon shone through the front window, making the dried blood on his forehead look like it was shimmering.
“What the fuck just happened?” I shrieked, unbuckling my seat belt.
“Business,” King said with no discernable emotion.
“You’re covered in blood! Did you kill…whoever it was?”
“No, I didn’t, but he’ll think twice about fucking with my shit again.”
“Who was that?”
“Someone who used to roll with Isaac. Preppy found out he was the narc who told Isaac about our granny operation. He needed to learn a lesson. He doesn’t need to be running his mouth when he doesn’t know shit about shit.” King ran his hand over his head. “About starting wars that don’t need to be started.”
“Is that what’s going to happen? A war?” I asked. “What are we going to do?”
“There won’t be a war if I can help it. I’ve reached out to Isaac’s people, asked for a meet. I want to get in front of this thing before it gets any worse.” King turned to me. “You’re not going to do anything. I’ve got this handled. And you should not be worried about any of this. I promise that nothing will happen to you. I told you I’d protect you, and I meant it.”
“You think I’m worried about myself? Preppy’s car got literally blown up. Bear lives in the garage ten feet away. You’ve got a guy, a dangerous guy by the sound of it, after you, and you think it’s ME I’m worried about!?” I huffed. “How fucking selfish do you think I am?”
“You’re worried about me, pup?” King teased, cocking an eyebrow.
“No! I mean yes. Why are you so fucking irritating?” I yelled. King cut the engine. “And why are we parked under a—”
King interrupted my tirade by grabbing my hips and roughly sliding me down until the back of my head landed on the bench seat.
“I love that you worry about me,” he said, covering my body with his, his mouth crashing down against mine. His were lips soft and full, but hard and needy at the same time. “Your lips are so fucking sexy. I’ve imagined them wrapped around my cock a thousand times.” He slid a hand underneath my shirt, cupping my breast, kneading it with his palm. “I love your perfect fucking tits.” His knee parted my legs, and he settled between them. His hard cock rested against an area that was already hot and wet with need. “I can’t wait to be inside you.” He trailed his lips to my neck where he licked and sucked and teased while he rolled my nipple between his fingers and rocked against me.
I arched my back off the seat. His every touch sent shock waves of need rippling through me, crippling every thought of resistance that ever floated around in my head.
“Tell me you want this, pup. Tell me you want this as much as I do,” he panted against my neck. With one flick of his fingers, he opened the button on my jeans and pushed his hand down the front until he found what he was looking for. I moaned when he reached the spot already humming from the friction of his erection. “You’re so fucking wet. You want this. I can feel it.” He used my own wetness to rub circles against my clit. “You’re so ready for me. Tell me you want me to fuck you. Let me hear you say it.”
I threw my head back, unable to form the words. He was right. He was so fucking right. I wanted him. I wanted this.
Maybe, Grace was right when she said that he could be both a bad boy and a good man. That one didn’t necessarily dictate the other.
My brain may not have been on board with the idea, but my body reacted to his every touch like it was made to be pleasured by him, like it couldn’t get enough. Like I was going to wither away and die without him inside me. I liked him on top of me. Touching me. Wanting me.
No. I didn’t like it. I loved it.
I loved sleeping with his big body next to me. I loved the way he made me feel so small. I loved the way his nostrils flared when he was about to kiss me, and then when he did, I loved that he kissed me like he was mad at me. Like it was my fault I was so desirable that he just had to put his lips to mine, his hands on me.
King sat up, and I had to hold my thighs together to stave off the ache that started building the second he’d touched me. King reached behind him, pulling his shirt up and over his head. He tossed it on the floor.
My hands went to his chest because there was no way they couldn’t go there. It was glistening with his sweat, heaving with his labored breaths, and covered in the most fantastic art. I leaned up and licked his nipple.
He groaned and fisted my hair, forcing my head back roughly. His lips came back to mine. His tongue slid in and out of my mouth, moving in sync with my own. He rocked against me, and I no longer felt like my body was my own.
“I need to hear you say it, pup. Say you want this, and it’s yours. Tell me you want me,” King panted.
He pushed my jeans and panties down over my ass. He’d only gotten them to my knees when he leaned down and dove in, flattening his tongue against my clit. I almost leapt out of the truck at the sensation, but finally settled when he held me down by my thighs. Over and over again, he licked me and sucked on my folds. His tongue pushed inside me. If it wasn’t for him holding me down, I would’ve crushed his head with my legs.
He wasn’t just licking me to make me come.
He was kissing me down there just like he was kissing my lips, my mouth. He was making out with my pussy.
A pressure started to build in my lower stomach, and I writhed under him, seeking the release I needed.
King mumbled something that I couldn’t quite make out as I neared the edge. I was about to jump off into the most amazing life-changing orgasm when suddenly he was gone, and the cool night air brushed against all the parts of me that he’d made sopping wet.
Suddenly all too aware that I was lying there with my legs spread, my nakedness fully exposed to him. My cheeks flushed.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, breathless like I’d just run a marathon.
King leaned back in his seat. Other than his raging hard-on straining against the front of his jeans, he looked completely unaffected by what we’d almost done.
“I’m not going to take you unless you tell me you want me. If you can’t say the words while I’ve got my tongue in your pussy, then it’s not something you really want. I told you before, when I fuck you, it’s going to be because you want it so bad you’ll be begging for it.”
“When you touched me,” I said slowly, “did it not seem like I wanted it? Did it not seem like I wanted you?”
King shook his head.
“Your body wants me. Just like my body wants you. But if you can’t say the words, there’s an underlying problem. What’s got you so wrapped up that you can’t tell me you want me when you’re obviously about to come apart around me?” King leaned in, tucking a strand of hair behind my ears. “Are you still afraid of me?”
My eyes shot up to his. Is that what he thoug
ht? Sure, he was scary as shit, and at one point, I’d feared what he might do to me. But, he hasn’t hurt me. He hasn’t done anything but give me a place to stay and food to eat.
Because of him, I found a friend in Preppy.
Because of him, I was living in a state of the female equivalent of blue balls.
“No,” I answered honestly. “I was. I mean, you can be a lot to take in.”
“Yes, that I am.” He glanced down at his erection.
I licked my lips wondering what he would taste like in my mouth.
“No,” he groaned. “Don’t you go looking at me like that. We need to have this conversation. If you keep looking at me like that, any resolve I have to stop is going to disappear, and I will bend you over the hood of this truck and pound you into oblivion.” His words sent a spasm to the area still throbbing with want. I almost came right there in the truck without him even touching me. “So what is it? What is holding you back if it isn’t me?”
I squeezed my eyes shut. “It’s not you. It’s me.”
“Said in every cheesy break-up movie ever.”
“No, you don’t understand. I’m not just making decisions for myself. I have to think about her, too.”
“Pup, I like a good threesome as much as the next guy, but I don’t see anyone else in the truck with us. Who, exactly, are you referring to?”
“You know I don’t remember anything before the summer, before I woke up, feeling like I’d just been put through a meat grinder.”
King nodded, dragging me closer so that our thighs touched. I closed my eyes and focused on what I was trying to tell him instead of the rock hard thigh making my spine tingle.
“Go on,” he urged, softly kissing my jaw, trailing his lips behind my ear.
“I’m not going to be able to talk if you keep doing that.”
“Yes, you are. Keep going. I’m listening.”
My insides clenched, and I spat out the rest of my story while being pummeled with the sensation of King’s lips on me.
“Well, I refer to the person I was before, when I had a memory, as HER. Someone else entirely, because that’s who I was. A different person.”
“Get to the fucking point. Because if you don’t have one in the next minute, I’m putting my cock in you. Before I do that, though, I’m going to let you take me in your mouth and give you a taste because I know that’s what you were thinking about just now.”
Again, I closed my eyes and attempted to concentrate as King lifted me by the hips and sat me on his lap so that I was straddling him with my back to the steering wheel. In this intimate position, there was nowhere for me to hide. Although his hard cock was rocking against me, I had to push aside thoughts of him sinking into me in order to finish my story.
“The point is that I can’t do anything that could potentially be life-changing because it isn’t just my life I have to think about. I have to consider that one day all my memories, everything I am and everything I was, will come back to me. It may never happen, but I can’t take the risk. Because the possibility that it might happen is out there. That day, when and if I become HER again, I will have to deal with all the things I did when I didn’t know who I was. That’s why even though I think your artwork is beyond amazing and I’ve imagined you creating something for me since I saw you tattoo for the very first time, I just can’t do that to her. What if she hates it? What if she is morally against tattoos and I’ve left her with something she can’t get rid of? That’s why although my body wants you, and I want you, it doesn’t matter. Because the person you see in front of you is just temporary.” King pulled back and was now staring into my eyes as I spoke. “I can’t help but melt into you when you touch me, but I can’t do this to her. What if she has a boyfriend, a fiancé? What if being with you means ruining her?”
I sniffled. Tears welled up and were about to spill from my eyes. King forced me toward him with a hand on the back of my neck, and just as I thought he was going to kiss me again, he turned my face and licked my cheek, wiping my tears away with his tongue.
“What if she’s a virgin?” I whispered.
King slowly shifted me off his lap and set me back on the passenger seat.
“I hadn’t thought of that,” he said softly. “And while I am both appalled and incredibly turned on by the idea of being the first one inside that pretty pussy of yours, I feel it necessary to point out the holes in your little theory about the person you were, before you came stumbling into my life.”
“What would those holes be?” I asked.
“First, your virginity theory. Who the fuck cares? If your memory comes back and you go back to a life where I’m not around, at least you’ll have enough amazing memories to last you through faking the orgasms with whatever schmuck you’re with.”
“Why is he a schmuck?”
“Trust me. A guy who let you wander far away and hasn’t found you by now, if he’s even looking for you at all, is a fucking schmuck. I didn’t even like you at first. In fact, I downright fucking hated you, and I still didn’t want you more than ten feet from me. Neither did my cock.”
I shuddered. “And the next hole in my theory?” My voice was strained.
“Tattoos. Anyone who doesn’t like my art can kick rocks.”
“It’s that simple?”
“Yes, it’s that simple,” he stated flatly. Then, his face grew serious. “It’s that simple, but not because of some guy who may or may not be out there pining for you or the fear that you will regret letting me fuck you or tattoo you.” King traced a line from the back of my hand to the top of my shoulder like he was creating an imaginary tattoo. “It’s that simple because you can’t live your life for someone you might be. So what if your memories come back and the person you were before comes with them? She will just have to fucking deal with the fact that you were here when she wasn’t. Make your mark while you still can, pup.”
“You make it sound so easy.”
“It is.”
“It’s not. I just…I can’t,” I breathed. I wouldn’t be able to live with myself knowing that I wasn’t protecting her.
“You made a promise that you would protect me. Well, I made a promise that I would protect her,” I said, my voice barely a whisper.
“Have you even thought that who you are now is exactly the person you’re supposed to be? That maybe with the slate wiped clean of bullshit outside influences that you are now more yourself than ever before?” he asked, with each point he was trying to make he grew louder.
“No.” I hadn’t thought of that. King had a point. “But living life thinking that was the truth was a gamble I’m not willing to take.” I looked down to the floor and wished it would open up and suck me down into it.
“So, let me get this straight. You were willing to fuck random bikers, but you can’t be with me?” There was a hint of cruelty in his voice. If his intentions were to sting, they worked.
“That’s a low blow.”
But King continued on as if I hadn’t just interrupted. “So I’m just like them to you? Just like a biker you don’t want to fuck and end up regretting?
King turned the key and started the truck, pulling back onto the highway.
“No, you’re not like them at all,” I whispered, unsure if he heard me.
“How is it that you can see me as worse than them when I know you want me? I can feel it. Don’t fucking deny it. Because it’s bullshit, and you know it.” King looked straight ahead at the road. He turned up the radio until Johnny Cash was singing so loud it rattled my eardrums. The tears in my eyes spilled over onto my cheeks.
I leaned against the window and hugged my arms to my chest. The lights from businesses and signs blurred together as we passed into streams of colored lights.
“You’re right. You’re much worse than them,” I whispered, knowing full well that King couldn’t hear me over the music. “Because with them, it wouldn’t hurt this much.”
Nineteen
Doe
; King hadn’t come to bed in days. I still helped him at night in his studio but our conversation never escalated to anything more than him barking orders at me.
On Saturday morning I’d found a box on the kitchen counter with a note addressed to me. The card read:
FOR OUR DATE. BE ON THE PORCH AT EIGHT-PREPPY
Our date? Why would we go out on a date? Inside the box was a short black strapless dress and a pair of matching heels.
Preppy had made sure I had a bunch of jeans and tank tops to wear on a daily basis. He even stopped at a store and let me pick out some underwear and bath stuff one day, but I didn’t have anything like this.
The clock on the stove read only ten am. I was disappointed I’d have to wait so long to put it on.
At eight o’clock sharp, I stood by the steps and fidgeted with the hem of my new dress. I’d spent hours showering, shaving, and blow-drying my hair. I was beyond ready, thrilled to be doing something new and grateful for the distraction.
I had no clue what Preppy had up his tattooed sleeves.
“You ready, Doe?” he asked, bounding out from the door under the stairs.
He draped an arm over my shoulder and ushered me toward King’s truck, which was already parked in front. “I wish I could take you in my car. But you know, it fucking blew up and shit,” he said bitterly.
His usual short-sleeved dress shirt had been swapped out for a dark blue long-sleeved button down that he wore untucked over a pair of dark boot cut jeans. His usual bow tie carefully in place. He smelled like he’d just gotten out of the shower. Like soap and shaving cream.
“Did you shave?” I asked. His beard looked just as long as it had that morning.
“Huh?” he asked, looking down at me.
“You smell like shaving cream, but you still have your beard.”
“It’s a date, baby girl. I manscaped in case I get lucky.”
I laughed. “You’re not getting lucky.”
“I know. King would kill me, and I rather like my life. So, I think we’ll leave that off the table. For now.” He winked. “Besides, you may not let me get my cock wet, but maybe someone else will take pity on me when the night’s over and let me get it in.”
King Series Firsts Box Set: King, Lawless & Preppy Part One Page 15
