There was nothing sweet in the way he spoke. It was straightforward and matter-of-fact.
“You believe in fair play. When you talked to me about your work, you didn’t give up your client’s name.” I didn’t interrupt to mention he was the client. “You told me enough to get my advice, but kept everything else confidential. You play by the rules.”
I felt my cheeks flame, embarrassed at how he’d easily read me.
A sly grin crept on his face when he said, “See, there’s that vulnerability I mentioned.”
Not wanting to give in to my growing weakness for him, I spat out a snarky response,
“That’s the undeniable sexual attraction between us. I feel like I need a shower and you’ve barely touched me. But you know that too, don’t you?”
His mouth quirked, but nothing was funny. I pointed a finger at his chest and advanced. Humor lit up his face as he took steps back from my fury.
“You think this is funny, but maybe that’s all we have is sex,” I deadpanned, with a questioning quirk to my eyebrows. “And I refuse to be your consort, Mr. King.”
The curve of his mouth flattened to a straight line. Though his back was flush against the wall, he moved like a snake strike.
“Consort,” he snorted. “If you haven’t already realized, you rule my heart.” The damnable organ stuttered in my chest. “That’s one thing Margaret had right.” When had he spoken to her? A hot spike of jealousy lanced my gut. “You are a queen. You could checkmate me right now.”
I’d never learned chess but knew the term and laughed. “I don’t even rule your dick,” I mocked, remembering that picture of him with the woman, not believing him for one minute.
Embers of fire burned in his eyes as he held on to my gaze. We could have been in Scotland by the thickness of his brogue as he spoke.
“Yer don’t rule it. Yer own it.” He snagged my hand and cupped it against the hard muscle between his legs straining to break free. “I want to fuck yer and spank that pretty ass of yers. In fact, I want to yank up that peasant skirt from the dirt and ball it up around yer waist with yer legs wrapped so tightly around me there will be no beginning and ending to us as yer gaggin fer it. In fact, what I really want is yer smart mouth filled with my cock so yer dinnae say any more mince. Damn right, we have sexual compatibility. That’s not all we have, though,” he retorted.
He was pissed, slipping more into his native tongue. Yet somehow I got the gist of what he was saying and couldn’t stop myself from egging him on.
“You really think so, because I think it’s that damn commanding voice of yours that makes me want to follow yer every order,” I mocked, in a half-convincing Scottish accent toward the end and pulled my hand free. “That’s part of the reason I left this place. I do-nae want to be told what to do.”
His lips twitched,but he held on to a glower.
Gruffly, he shook his head and said more to himself, “Tha gaol agam ort. A bheil thu a' tuigsinn na tha mi ag ràdh?”
Before I could ask him to translate, he went on and said, “There’s nothing wrong with wanting to lose control, lass. For yer, maybe it’s just in the bedroom where you like to be dominated.”
That word. I’d heard all about that word recently. I gave him another. “I’m no sub.”
“No, lass, yer not.”
“And what do you know of it? Is that your thing? Because if it is, this can’t work.” I’d hold firm to that.
“This?” he questioned, pointing between us. “Yer admitting there’s an us?”
Damn him for his accent. When it was thick like this, as if he’d stepped out of the pages of a historical novel set in the Highlands, I couldn’t have wanted his arrogant bodice ripping arse more.
But I wasn’t ready to admit defeat.
“Are you going to translate what you said?” I asked, quirking a brow.
“You said us, not me,” he challenged, sidestepping my question.
“I didn’t say that. I’m just letting you know that’s not me.”
“Aye. That’s not what I’m about either,” he said. “Though I admit I like orchestrating what happens in the bedroom. But I don’t want to totally rule over any woman I’m with.” His tone changed like we were speaking conspiratorially and he lost some of that Scottish accent I adored. “You have that fight in yer, but in the bedroom you want me to take control. I’m fine with it as are you. It works for us.”
I didn’t deny it. “I need tenderness too,” I admitted.
“Yes, lass,” he said, touching my cheek. “Right now after you’ve made me chase yer, I want to fuck you hard and fast. But after, I can give you slow and steady.”
“Kalen,” I said, removing his hand from my face.
“I know. As much as I want all those things, I won’t fuck yer until I know that you’re finished with him.”
He straightened as if he were going to leave me there.
Unable to look at him, I stared off at the darkening sky. The sun had never made an appearance, so dusk came a lot faster.
He didn’t leave. Instead, he asked me a question so slowly, the danger in it became tangible. “Have you let him have you?”
If I could tell a lie, I knew he might have walked away, making things so much easier.
“I haven’t…” After the words were out of my mouth, I remembered what Turner and I had done.
“At least my thoughts of murder one have lessened to manslaughter.” He chuckled at his own humor.
“I really should go find him,” I said, turning to leave.
He held up a hand. “We should leave tonight.”
“I haven’t agreed to go anywhere with you.”
His eyes darkened. “You can run, lass. But you can’t hide.”
I stepped off the porch, needing distance from this man before I gave in to my growing need to be closer to him.
As I walked away, he said, “I won’t watch him touch you.”
Before I could think of a snarky response, a yell broke in the night. “Fire.” And then the bell from the schoolhouse rang.
I looked back at Kalen, and we both turned to look in the darkening sky and spotted the rising smoke. Before I took off at a dead run, I saw him bend and pick up the satchel I’d forgotten he had. What could be so important that he had to bring to the scene of a raging fire?
Twenty-Seven
A billow of black mixed with the gray clouds above. A chain of people were already working as a team, sending buckets of water from the pump to toss onto the fire that threatened to get out of control.
Sick with the thought that Mary’s house was lit with flames, I didn’t think but took action. I snagged extra buckets from nearby houses and filled them with their pumps to help stop this before it turned catastrophic. It was possible another house would be consumed if one burning ember in the growing breeze reached a dry spot.
Then Kalen was there, taking over the job of pumping while I held the buckets to be filled. His impressive muscles worked as if he was familiar with the task.
I’d spotted Turner at the front of the raging blaze, tossing the water onto the hot spots. I didn’t have to count to know everyone was here. If it was one thing our community did well, it was come together as one to overcome a crisis.
What I hadn’t let myself acknowledge was that I hadn’t seen Mary or her baby. I couldn’t allow myself to think they were caught inside.
By faith and by all the helping hands, the fire was extinguished before anything else could burn. Full-on darkness had almost settled in when Mary, carrying her son, came to inspect the damage to my relief. Her husband, Thomas, at her side, was covered in soot but appeared unscathed. He’d obviously been among the men who had been working hard to save their house.
Though everyone had been urged back to their homes to clean up and go on with dinner, when I caught Mary’s lips trembling, it didn’t matter how she annoyed me at times. She was my sister and I went to her, gathering her in a hug, being careful not to squeeze my nephew a
s her quiet sobs broke my heart.
When she finally pulled back, it was just family left to stare at what was left of the house.
“His room,” Mary cried, pointing to the part of the house that had taken the most damage. “This is where his room is. What if he’d been in there?”
Mother went in and took my place holding Mary as I thought about her question.
My nephew was still small, and I suspected he still slept in a cradle in the room with his parents. Grief, however, was understandable, so I didn’t feel the need to make that point.
“It can be fixed. It’s mostly external,” I said, though I was far from an expert. “Thank goodness for the rain we got last night. The wood was moist and not prime for fire.”
My father agreed and he and my brothers made promises to Thomas they would be among the first to help them rebuild.
Which only begged the question as to how her house had been utterly consumed by fire.
She nodded. “Who would have done this?” she wailed to no one in particular.
That was the question. With no electricity, faulty wiring couldn’t be to blame. The steady rain we’d gotten last night hadn’t included a thunderstorm that could have produced a lightning strike. Furthermore, the fireplace wasn’t on this side of the house. This most definitely had been deliberate.
The answer that came to me wasn’t one I wanted to believe. Mary called after me. “Where are you going?” There was no time to wait, no time to explain.
My breathing was labored when I reached the house. I banged on the door until it opened.
Kalen stood with wet hair with a towel slung around his waist.
“Eyes up here,” he said with amusement.
I quickly shifted my focus from the towel and the bulge there to the smirk on his face as he tapped at the corner of his eye. I pulled it together and ignored the fact that he’d caught me.
“Do you think the fire was because of me?”
It sounded stupid in my ears. How and why would this invisible person want to hurt me so badly?
He shrugged. “Like I said, it’s best you leave tonight.”
“And what if I brought this on? Isn’t it too late for that? How can I leave them unprotected?”
“I can bring people in to watch over the place.”
I pictured an army of security guys in fatigues surrounding the community.
“Kalen, you can’t,” I said.
“Can’t what?” Turner asked, stepping into view from what must have been his bedroom. “And I thought his name was Jeremy?”
As he glanced between us, I could see his wheels turning. If he hadn’t already figured it out by now, he was putting it all together.
“My full name is Jeremy Kalen Brinner King,” Kalen said, not looking away from me.
“He’s the guy?” Turner said.
They both waited for my answer. I nodded and Turner mimicked my action but not for the same reasons.
“He’s come for you,” Turner said more to himself.
“He came to warn me, and I should have listened. Mary’s house is destroyed.”
Turner seemed to snap out of it. “You don’t know that,” he said, being his levelheaded self.
Kalen ignored him and focused on me. “You need to leave and now.”
Turner’s head whipped around to face me. He had been watching Kalen talk. Now I saw hurt mar his beautiful face. “You were leaving without telling me?”
He didn’t have to say the word again for me to hear it at the end of what he said.
“We don’t have time for this,” Kalen protested. “I will protect you even from yourself.”
Turner came over and demanded an answer. “You're leaving with him?”
“What choice do I have?” A sob threatened, but I managed to hold it back.
Kalen just stood there, smug in knowing that he’d won.
“You don’t even know if the fire is related to whatever’s going on with you. How do you know he didn’t start it to force you to leave with him?”
Turner glared at Kalen.
I swallowed, knowing it was truth time. “He couldn’t have. He was with me.”
Turner bobbed his head once in resignation and turned to go back through the inner door he’d come from.
“Wait,” I called out, shoving past Kalen. I entered the room that turned out to be Turner’s bedroom without knocking.
He stood there with his hands folded on top of his head and his back to me.
“It’s not what you think.”
Excruciatingly slow, he turned to face me.
“And what am I to think? That you lied to me. That your boyfriend showed up to collect you, and you’re leaving with him.”
“He’s not my boyfriend,” I pleaded.
He continued as if I hadn’t spoken. “That you lied about giving us a chance.”
I stepped up to him, determined to convince him of the truth. But he beat me to the punch line. “Do you love him?”
That stopped me dead. I couldn’t look at him. Lying wasn’t my strong suit. He didn’t wait for my answer, seeming to draw his own conclusion from my silence.
“Do you love me?” he asked, voice tight.
“Yes,” but it came out as a whisper.
“You can't have it both ways.”
“I know.”
My heart wanted one thing. My mind another.
“There’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you,” he began, causing the beating in my chest to pick up. “Before I knew you were coming, I’d planned to join a group similar to the Peace Corps. Their mission is to help communities in third-world countries survive with the resources they have.”
Of course, he would. That was the man I’d fallen in love with all those years ago. He gave with all of his heart.
“Growing up here, I’m in a unique position to understand how to accomplish that having lived that way all my life. Most of the volunteers don’t have that knowledge,” he said.
He reached out and took my clammy hands, as I had no idea how to answer his oncoming question.
“Go with me.” When I said nothing, he added, “Or I’ll go with you. I’m pretty sure New York is like the jungle.”
I smiled at his growing grin. “Lions, tigers, bears, and all that.”
“Something like it,” he said.
“I’m willing to go anywhere as long as I’m with you.”
Big words from a man who had no idea who I’d become. I wasn’t the girl he’d fallen in love with and neither was he the boy I’d loved. We were different, yet the same.
I knew I could trust my heart with him even if the traitorous thing had other plans. But that particular part of my anatomy had made all the wrong decisions in the past. Maybe it was time to listen to my brain. If I’d done so from the beginning, Turner would be my husband and Kalen would be a social media headline I would have missed.
“Don’t answer now,” he said. “Think about it. Above it all, I want you to be happy.”
He placed a chaste kiss on my forehead, drawing me close. There, I felt like home.
Unfortunately, there were only flickering sparks, not the all-consuming need to drop my clothes and give myself to him. In his defense, I didn’t feel that hardness I also felt in Kalen’s arms.
What did that matter? Turner and I had passion. I’d given him my virginity and spent many stolen moments finding pleasure with him. I don’t have to be consumed by another man to be happy, I told myself.
Turner’s hand slid down my back and I felt him begin to grow hard.
He stepped back, looking faintly embarrassed. And that was okay. He was a man who’d grown up to treat women with respect, not like the barbarian Kalen was. Yet, I couldn’t deny a little disappointment that he hadn’t lost control because of me.
Every time Kalen needed me with such voracity there was power in it. I felt in control, wanted, desired.
“I should go check on Mary,” I said, wanting to end any embarrassment on ei
ther of our parts.
Turner did something unexpected. He got in my space and walked me backward until we reached the door.
“Make no mistake how much it’s costing me to hold back. I want you. But all of you. I’ve waited years. I can wait another day for you to decide.”
This time, I’d felt all of him and his desire for me as a long, hard fact.
His lips brushed over mine a second before he stepped back.
More confused than ever, I scrambled out the door and found Kalen dressed and waiting for me.
Twenty-Eight
Kalen stood by the table without a smile, smirk, or anything in between. He was expressionless and I sighed, not ready for round two.
“You’ll need this when we leave,” he said, pulling a small purse from the leather satchel.
Curious, which had always been my downfall, I moved closer and took it from his hand.
“What is this for?” I asked, eyeing the salmon-colored Prada labeled bag he handed me. “Do you think because people can’t name the color of this that they’ll be so busy staring at the purse rather than at me?”
The glare he threw at me hadn’t been what I’d been going for. “Open it,” he demanded.
I unzipped the sporty purse whose color was somewhere in the pink family. I decided not to comment on the fact it was a designer bag that probably cost more than the combined wardrobe for the entire community.
He knew that it cost too much. It didn’t need to be said. I pulled out eyeliner and mascara. There was more, but I got the point. “Makeup, really? I don’t wear that much as it is. My guess is that it would draw more attention to me.”
“Keep looking,” he said, sounding annoyed.
Fumbling around in the purse until I felt something that didn’t feel like makeup, I pulled out a bottle. “Hair dye.” Black at that.
“It’s not permanent.”
“Why?”
“We thought it best you hide in plain sight,” he said.
Queen of Men: King Maker Series Book 2 Page 14
