Shame doused my anger like a bucket of cold water. “Ugh, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it that way, I just—”
“Shut up, I wasn’t finished,” King growled, stepping close to me so that he could lean down into my face. The only thing that kept his posture from being totally threatening was the hand that found its way to the back of my neck, under my hair. I realized that he did it when he wanted to connect with me, when he needed to reassure both of us that I was his. It scared me how much I liked it. How much I needed it too.
He is your fucking student, Cressida, the adult, respectable, and moral side of me reminded myself.
He is also hot as fuck when he’s like this, the other side, the darker, deviant one that had always lived deep inside me but was steadily clawing closer and closer to the surface of my being.
“Second, you’re right. I’m not your fuckin’ boyfriend. Children have girlfriends and boyfriends. Idiots let their women walk around unclaimed, secured by a fuckin’ hope and a prayer because they don’t make their women feel owned, cherished like the ultimate prize. No, I am your man, babe. The fuckin’ man that sees you strugglin’ to make ends meet because of your prick of a soon-to-be ex-husband so he calls in his brothers to help her out even though he knows they’ll give him shit for being pussy whipped. I’m your fuckin’ man because I love being that for you. Now, do you hear me?”
My breath panted out in the sliver of air between us. His words had me wound up like a toy, ready to spring further without any thought to the consequences. I tried to think of all the reasons I couldn’t let this man be my man and the first one that sprang to mind was, stupidly, what I went with.
“You can’t be my man because you’re still a boy. You’re eighteen, King.”
Even though his eyes were pale, like sunshine on ice, they were perpetually affable. He was a happy, social guy with innate charisma and a wealth of charm, a guy who loved life and was generally stoked to be living it. So, it was with actual terror that I watched those eyes drain of all warmth.
His hand on the back of my neck squeezed almost painfully.
“I got work to do, so I’m going to ignore your repeated attempts to piss me off until after the guys leave and I can show you just how much of a fuckin’ man I am.”
I swallowed painfully at the look of disgusted reproach in his eyes as he pulled away from me, already shouting orders at the men.
“It’s real hard to piss that boy off, but sure looks like you succeeded,” the deep rumble of a familiar voice came from behind me and I knew before I even turned around that Zeus Garro was standing there.
He looked as enormous and dangerous as ever, too hot for anyone’s good, hotter even than his son if you liked a man who looked like he could literally and easily kill someone with his bare hands.
Unlike the other guys, he was still leaning against his bike, wearing his leather jacket, smoking a cigarette in a way that said he knew how to make love to a woman and, conversely, that he didn’t give a fuck about your opinion of his cancer stick.
Still, I said, “Those will kill you.”
Because I was looking for it, I saw the flash of humor light his eyes, nearly the same color as his son’s but more silver than pale blue.
“Maybe it’s not such a surprise you piss him off,” he amended.
I shrugged helplessly and went over to his bike to lean on the huge metal beast with him. There was something about King’s father, someone whose very posture dared anyone to fuck with him, that put me oddly at ease. I knew he wasn’t interested in me, that he didn’t condemn me for lusting after his son or having an ugly yard or a messed up marriage. Zeus Garro didn’t give a fuck about anyone until he did, and then he didn’t care who you were or what you’d once done.
I had a feeling that I was edging into the latter category and it made me warm inside the way pleasing my parents to keep their affection, or obeying William because it was my duty as his wife, had never done.
Zeus offered me the damp tip of his cigarette. When I raised my eyebrows at him dubiously, he hitched a shoulder and said, “Can’t hate it if you’ve never tried it.”
I peered at him, thought about how I’d never done drugs, not even smoked a joint, never had sex in public, stolen a lighter from the gas station or kissed a stranger. I thought about how I’d left William so that I could finally live, let the darker me finally breathe, and I’d barely done that.
I took the cigarette and put it to my lips, drawing in a tiny puff. Zeus watched me, his lips already curled before I started coughing like my lungs were on fire. He chuckled deeply as he thumped me on the back with a meaty paw.
“Not for everyone,” he admitted.
“You,” I said between fits of hacking, “knew I would hate it.”
“Woman, there isn’t much I don’t know and most I learned, I learned from tryin’. Purest way to live life.”
“Why don’t you stick to the biker marauding and I’ll do the teaching,” I advised drily, tossing the cigarette to the ground to stomp on it with my bright pink flip flop.
When I was done, I stared up at Zeus with a sassily tipped chin.
He burst out laughing; throwing his head back the way King did, exposing his thick, beautifully corded throat. I was shocked into silence by the magnificence of the man and of the privilege I knew it was to see him laugh.
“Hey, old man,” King shouted from the side of the house. “Just ‘cause I’m mad at her doesn’t mean you can hit on my woman. Find someone uglier who’s willin’ to put up with your horrible mug!”
“For Pete’s sake, I am not your woman,” I yelled back, hands immediately fisting on my hips.
Zeus stared at me, humor forgotten. “Boy’s got it bad for you, teach. He’s made no fuckin’ bones about it. He wants you. In his mind, it’s a done deal. Raised ‘em spoiled but you can’t blame me. My ex-wife is a crazy cunt, so I mighta overcompensated, but he’s a good kid, a good son and brother, and one day he’ll be a good man for The Fallen. He’d make a damn good partner too, all that love and loyalty wound up in him just waitin’ to unspool and attach itself to the right people.”
“I see where King gets his poetic talent from,” I said quietly, because I wished I didn’t have to say it. “But I’m his teacher. No matter how we met, it doesn’t negate the fact that being with him would not only be unethical it would be socially unacceptable.”
“Never grew up carin’ about what people thought of me so can’t speak from experience when I say, who the fuck cares?”
“Ugh, the school board, maybe? I need this job,” I reminded him. “Not everyone can run a marijuana empire.”
Zeus’s eyes flashed. “Like your sense of humor, teach, but that ain’t something you should joke about, ya hear me?”
“Yeah,” I swallowed back my instantaneous fear. “I hear you.”
He nodded curtly, uncrossed his arms to rise fully to his impressive height and faced me. “Point is, I don’t give a fuck if you wanna be with my son. Far as I’m concerned, you’re both consenting adults and you seem like a decent broad, a little skinny for my tastes but hey, if my son likes it,” he shrugged, humor dancing in his eyes as I drew up to snap at him. “Easy, teach, I get you. Life’s tough when you care what people think. You got a job, friends who might judge you. Just sayin’ you can always get another job, new friends. The bitches at the MC aren’t bad women. You’d like ‘em. Decide you want to do this, I’ll get Maja, Buck’s woman, to give you a call. She runs the MC bitches.”
“This is the weirdest conversation I’ve ever had,” I admitted. “And, just to say, calling women bitches in 2017 is totally misogynistic.”
He shrugged one huge shoulder. “Like I said, don’t really care ‘bout those kinds of things. She’s a fuckin’ peach, changed Buck’s shit luck for the better. I think the world of her, so what difference does it make?” He watched me absorb his compelling but bizarre biker philosophy and nodded. “And, just to say, you’ll probably have more of ‘em, you stic
k with my son. The kid’s a piece of work.”
“Thank you, by the way,” I said quickly, sensing he was about done with me. “For yesterday. William is being surprisingly tenacious.”
His eyes swept over me. “Not so surprising.”
“That’s nice but really, he didn’t care much about me when I lived with him so I don’t really get why he cares now.”
“Men don’t like losin’ what’s theirs, especially if it’s a pretty little teacher with sass but a serious thirst to please. He’s pride hurt and a man like Willie-boy can’t stand that. I’m workin’ on something so he gets the fuckin’ picture but for now, he thinks you’re with me and, he’s a lawyer and a smart man, he’ll back off.”
“I think more than just William thinks I’m with you,” I ventured, thinking about those noses pressed to the glass while we had our parking lot altercation.
It occurred to me that a lot of life changing events happened to me in parking lots.
Zeus shrugged his mighty shoulders. “What do I care if people think I got myself some hot teacher ass?”
“King’s, um, okay with that insinuation?”
“For now.”
I swallowed painfully but didn’t question his vague and terrifying response.
I stood up and moved away from the bike because even though I was reeling, it was clear he had said his piece and was going to leave. The Prez of the club had more important things to do than help a lady in her garden, but I deeply appreciated, in a strange way, his taking the time to comfort me, to give me his take on the situation. It also disturbed me to know I essentially had his parental consent to fuck his son.
It was later, after an entire morning and afternoon spent working in my mess of a garden side by side men who were, convicted or not, criminals. Still, I’d found myself charmed by one after another as we toiled away in the soil. I wondered if it had to do with bonding over something as elemental as the earth and a hard day’s work, if it was because I felt beholden to them for their charity and they were curious enough about my relationship to King to be attentive or if it was because King had rallied the most charismatic of his troops in an effort to woo me to the dark side, to convince me that at least one of the obstacles in the way of our relationship—his criminal family—was inconsequential.
It was after I’d made them all my famous pulled pork, which I’d fortunately had already marinating in the fridge and popped into the slow cooker before helping the guys in the yard. They’d inhaled the pork, slaw and brioche bun sandwiches I’d made them, decimating the food that I’d planned to use in my meal plan for the next few weeks in under half an hour. I’d never seen a group of grown men eat and it was both a terrifying and heady thing to be the one to feed them. They’d all grown silent as they devoured the food and chips I’d laid out, most even ate a bit of the simple green salad I’d made, and then complimented me with grunts, belly pats and sincere smiles. It was more satisfying than any gourmet meal I’d made William during our marriage.
So, when Nova continued to hit on me despite King’s growls, Buck belched so loudly it literally shook the table, a crazy biker named Lab Rat got drunk as a skunk on some mysterious liquid he kept in a jeweled skull encrusted flash at his hip and started speaking in really bizarre riddles, I only laughed. I laughed because it felt like living, and I loved it.
King watched me the entire dinner, his anger banked or forgotten, his eyes star bright as he showed me a slice of his family. They seemed to beckon me closer, enticing me to adopt his family as my own. He would, I knew, give everything in his life to me, unashamed, totally generous. Just as I knew that he wouldn’t expect blind obedience in return, dinners on the table at six p.m. sharp, laundry done and folded back in its drawers as if it had never been dirtied. King wanted me to live and he just wanted the opportunity to help me do it.
The men hadn’t lingered after dinner, only to respectfully leave their dishes by the side of the sink (they weren’t heathens but they were bikers so they weren’t going to do the dishes for me). I closed my eyes where I sat at the dinner table, listening to King murmur quietly to Mute while the roar of bikes started up outside. I was tired after the long day and the socializing, physically exhausted but also mentally, it was hard work struggling through a lifetime of preconceived notions to see the men who dedicated their Saturday to helping me on the other side.
So, I knew I was prepared to face King, to have the conversation I needed to have with him about boundaries, about me being the teacher and him the student. I didn’t have it in me to lie to him.
The truth was, I’d fallen in love with him in the parking lot of Mac’s Grocer five months ago and since then, I’d only sunk further. He was it for me, and it could have been the book geek in me, the eternal romantic suffering from a lifelong lack of romance, but I really believed that. King was everything I’d dreamed a man should be; a real man built of loyalty, tenacity and verve, who laughed like the world was made just to entertain him and loved like crazy. I could never have known that the other things, his youth and its resulting vigor, his lack of morality and the liberation it gave him and, by extension me, would be my kryptonite.
I was a good woman who had fallen in love with the ultimate bad boy.
Now, I just had to figure out what to do about it.
“I could hear you thinkin’ all the way in the kitchen,” King said, and I knew he was standing beside my chair, hands in his pockets, faux-casual, while his eyes burned hot on my face.
I peeked at him from under one eye. “I’ve got a lot to think about, King.”
“Care to share with the class?” he taunted me, referencing our professional relationship because he could be an asshole, especially when he didn’t think he was going to get what he wanted.
“I’m too tired to do this right now.”
“Fuck that.”
I sighed. “If I told you that your cursing bothered me, would you stop?”
“If you were my woman, I’d think about it. Hard habit to break after eighteen years, but I’d give it a shot,” he responded instantly.
Rage suddenly burned in my gut, rushing through my throat and onto my tongue like acid reflex. The unfairness of the situation, of loving a boy and of him pursuing me with this doggedness, of my husband refusing to divorce me and holding his money ransom, of my brother relying on me to somehow secure him a job through my nonexistent relationship with King… I opened my mouth and wrath spilled off my lips.
“Jesus, King, how can you expect this from me? I’m a grown woman, I’ve been married for Christ’s sake, and you’re still just a boy.”
King’s pale eyes narrowed on me, glinting in the moonlight streaming through the huge windows like the light off a blade.
“Do I look like a boy to you?” he asked, his eyes locked on me while he drew his hand, a hand I knew to be strong and rough with calluses, along the ridges of his abdomen I could see even through his shirt.
I was arrested by the sight of him as he unfastened the first few buttons on his jeans. He paused, his eyes pulsing like a beacon. It was a dare for him to continue. I gritted my teeth against the desire that lived between my thighs, burning hotter than lit coal. It was irritating that King always pushed me, forced me up against the boundaries of my propriety like he wanted to fuck me from behind in front of an audience of my personal demons. It was even more irritating that it made me feel electric with tension and vitality, that the colors of the world grew neon and sharp.
He took my hesitation as the positive encouragement it was and dipped his hand under the denim. “A boy knows how to please a woman like you? How to make her feel like a Queen?”
I swallowed drily as he wrapped his fingers around the ridged length trapped against his thigh beneath the unforgiving denim. Slowly, deliberately, he tugged himself upwards so that the swollen purple tip of his cock appeared above the waistband, the head wet with precum that I wanted badly to paint across my panting mouth, lick off with my eager tongue. I licked my lips
, lost to the fantasy.
My gaze clung to his groin but I knew he watched me, knew his eyes would be bright with power and longing. He played me perfectly, manipulating me with his beauty, teasing me until I was on the precipice of begging to see his dick.
“You want this cock, babe?” he growled.
My God, but I did.
My mouth was too dry to answer so I nodded.
“Grown women don’t get on their knees for boys, do they Cressida? So, you have a choice. You can tell me to get out or you can get on your knees for me now and I’ll show you how a real man treats his woman, starting by letting you worship my dick with that beautiful mouth of yours like I know you’re aching to.”
My mind emptied of everything as the power of his words, his stance and challenge washed over me. Unconsciously, my body swayed towards him, caught in the current of his persuasion. Before I could help myself, my knees were hitting the cold hardwood at his feet and my mouth was open, tipped up and waiting for him to grace it with his dick.
He stared down at me, his face fierce and harsh with longing but touch gentle as he reached out to slide his hand around the back of my head, tangling in my hair as he brought me closer.
“Good girl, you made the right choice. Now take me in your mouth and show me just how much of a man I am.”
My tongue flicked out to lick the bead of moisture off his tip, the flavor exploding on my tongue as a low groan exploded from King’s throat. I stared up at him as I gripped the edge of his jeans with my teeth and tugged hard. The denim fell to the ground, his belt dropping with a clang, and I was rewarded with the sight of his gorgeous cock, thick and long against his hard belly.
“Fuck, that look in your eye,” King groaned, both hands sinking into the hair above my ears. “You look like you want to fucking worship me.”
“I do,” I breathed. “I shouldn’t want to but I’ve never wanted anything more.”
Lessons In Corruption (The Fallen Men Series Book 1) Page 15
