by Nina Levine
He tore his mouth from mine and found my eyes. The ferocity in his should have scared me, but it didn’t. I may have been scared he would walk away from me again, but I was never scared of him.
Working our fingers inside me, he commanded, “Tell me, Lily. Tell me you want this.” His voice deepened. Grew more forceful. “That you want me.”
I bit my lip, not wanting to give him that. Admitting it gave him all the power. And yet, we both knew the answer. I was dripping for him. Would have been begging for him if he pulled his finger from me. It was clear just how much I wanted him.
“I want you.”
Approval flashed in his eyes and his mouth crashed down onto mine again. He was like a crazed man, kissing me and stroking our fingers deeper and harder inside me. The pleasure became almost too much. I was so close to coming. It was divine and urgent and amazing and too fucking much.
“Oh my God… oh… fuck…” As I came, and as the words tumbled from my lips, he covered my mouth with his hand to muffle it.
I swore I stopped breathing. It was like I was floating, not breathing, unable to think. And as my orgasm shattered through me, I found King watching me with a level of heat I hadn’t seen from him before. It was like his eyes hid a storm of need and fury.
He pulled our hands from my pants, and with his gaze firmly on mine, he sucked my fingers into his mouth. Licking them clean, he grunted his pleasure and said, “You can lie to me as much as you want, but the truth is plain to see in your eyes. I’m not going anywhere. You will be mine.”
He then let me go, stepped away, and with one last look, he walked out of the kitchen and out of the house. He left me in a state of need like no other I’d ever been in. And I knew he would get what he wanted. Because if I stopped lying to myself for even a second, the truth was right there to see and feel.
I wanted King just as much as he wanted me.
10
Lily
I’d never spent much time thinking about death. Having never lost anyone close to me, grief wasn’t something I’d ever experienced. Brynn being shot brought up a lot of new emotions I had to work through, but up until last night when my mother talked about calling a priest, I’d pushed away thoughts of death every time they came at me. Today, that was proving difficult. Today, my mother was hell-bent on getting the priest.
As she made plans for him to come this morning, I dialled Adelaide and put the phone to my ear waiting for her to pick up. Sitting on the chair in the far corner of the intensive care waiting room, I bounced my leg up and down, mentally begging Addy to answer. I didn’t understand my response to all of this. All I knew was I had to get out of here. And I didn’t want to be alone with my thoughts.
The call went to messages. I ripped the phone from my ear, muttering, “Shit,” as I searched for Quinn’s number. I shot her a text to see if she was working this morning. Georgia definitely was, so there was no point asking her to come rescue me. She worked with brides. No way would they understand if she cancelled on them so she could help a friend out in her hour of need.
Quinn rang. “I’m so sorry, babe, but I can’t get out of my shift today.”
My heart sank. “It’s okay. It was a long shot.”
“Shit. Is Addy working, too?”
“Yeah.”
She didn’t bother mentioning Georgia. We both knew she was a workaholic. “Okay, I’m gonna try to find someone to do my shift. I’ll let you know how I go.”
“I love you, girl, but honestly, I’m just being dramatic. I’ll be fine.” Even I didn’t buy that as the lie fell from my mouth.
“Yeah, no. Hang up so I can go look for someone.”
We ended the call and I scrolled my phone. Skylar’s name appeared, and my mind went straight to King. It wasn’t the first time I’d thought of him today. He’d been on my mind from the minute I woke up. And as soon as Mum had brought up the priest again this morning, I’d thought of calling both him and Adelaide at the same time.
I gripped the phone harder.
Do not call King.
That would send the absolute wrong message to him.
Just like I had last night.
My legs squeezed together as the memory of him finger-fucking me filled my mind.
Of him bringing food for my family.
Of him cleaning out my fridge.
King didn’t say a lot and he certainly didn’t make apologies, but his actions meant more than words.
Yeah, like that time he walked away right when you needed him.
I closed my eyes and slowly exhaled in an effort to calm myself. Sometimes people made mistakes. God knew, I’d made many. If I was really honest with myself, I knew the feelings of confusion and hesitation that went along with the early days of a new relationship. Maybe King felt that way. Maybe that was why he did what he did. I just had to answer one question now that he was back and making it clear what he wanted—could I understand and give him another chance?
I could hold onto my hurt and keep my heart closed to something I wanted, or I could choose to let that hurt go and embrace the possibility of a relationship that may grow into something I cherished. That’s what life ultimately came down to—the choices we made. I’d always believed clinging to hurt and suffering wasn’t productive. And had always chosen forgiveness over holding onto stuff.
That I was being stubborn about this only told me just how much King meant to me already. It told me I’d found someone who had the power to hurt me, and that spoke to how much I wanted this relationship.
I opened my eyes and looked down at my phone.
I took a deep breath and called King.
He answered almost immediately. “Lily.” His voice rumbled through the phone, gravel and grit. It was the trace of concern it held, though, that affected me the most.
My heart raced. “What are you doing right now?”
He didn’t hesitate for even a split second. “What do you need?”
“You.”
“You’re at the hospital?”
“Yes.”
“I’m on my way.”
He didn’t give or wait for a goodbye; he simply disconnected the call. And got on with business. He did exactly what I needed him to do. And for the first time in days, a hush fell over the chaos of thoughts in my head.
King arrived at the hospital twenty minutes later. That told me he’d hustled to get here. He found me sitting alone in the intensive care waiting room. His eyes held the same concern I’d heard in his voice on the phone. Taking the seat next to me, he said, “Talk to me.”
I gave him a small smile as I placed my hand on his leg. “For a man who doesn’t talk much, you seem to want to do a lot of talking lately.”
His serious expression didn’t change. “Your mum called the priest.”
With those five words, my heart opened.
I nodded and gripped his leg. “I need you to take me away from here. I can’t be here when he comes.”
He searched my eyes before nodding. When he stood and held his hand out for me, I knew I’d made the right choice calling him.
I’d already told Mum I was leaving, so I followed King out to his bike. He handed me a helmet and waited for me to put it on before settling himself on the bike. Motioning for me to get on behind him, I extended my leg over the seat and slid onto it. King grabbed hold of my legs and showed me where to place my feet. He then took my hands and placed them on his hips.
He turned his head to the side, half facing me. “Grip me with your knees, soles on the foot pegs rather than your heels. Keep your weight centred and watch for turns. If I’m turning right, look over my right shoulder and keep your body in line with mine. Do not lean out of a turn. Keep your front pressed to my back and do not wiggle around at a stop.”
I heard every word he said and took it all in. This was my first time on a bike, so I was a little nervous. If I hadn’t been in a state over Brynn and the priest, I would have been a whole lot more nervous. And a whole lot more turned on.
Because, holy fuck, sitting on the back of King’s bike with my body pressed against his and my hands on his hips was hot.
He fastened his helmet in place and took off. I clung to him, my hands sliding around from his hips to circle his waist. I wasn’t sure if that was okay, but he didn’t respond in any way to let me know it wasn’t, so I kept them there. I wasn’t scared of the ride or lack trust in King, but I did feel a little unsure of what to expect. Holding onto him for dear life eased some of my jitters.
We rode for a long time. Well, it felt like hours, but when we finally stopped, I discovered it had only been just over an hour. It didn’t take me long to settle into the rhythm of the ride. The steady vibration of the engine calmed me. It was almost hypnotic.
King took us out on the highway, along the Old Road to Cowan where he pulled into the Pie In The Sky café. The scenery along the way soothed me just as much as the bike did. By the time I hopped off, I felt a thousand times better than I had before the ride.
I removed my helmet and passed it to King with a smile. “Thank you,” I said softly. Being so close to him on the bike, legs and arms around his body, combined with the way he watched me now, had my tummy in a flutter. I wasn’t nervous with him, but my feelings were definitely heightened.
He jerked his chin towards the café. “You want a drink?”
I nodded and followed him inside. My eyes were firmly on his ass, because no one filled out jeans quite the way King did. They fit snugly against the hard muscle he’d packed onto his body, and I found it difficult to drag my gaze away. I was so engrossed that when he came to a stop at the café counter and turned to face me, I ran into him.
My hands went straight to him as we collided, grasping his leather jacket. His arm came up and around me, and he pulled me close to steady me. His scent hit me, stirring the butterflies in my belly. King smelt like leather and sandalwood and something else I couldn’t quite put my finger on. It wasn’t overpowering, but it was completely him, and it aroused my memories of the times he’d made me come.
I gripped his jacket harder and attempted to push those thoughts from my head. I mean, they were good thoughts, amazing thoughts, but right now was not the time for them.
He looked down at me, still holding me close. “You good?”
I nodded and let him go. Moving out of his embrace, I said, “Yeah, I just wasn’t watching where I was walking.” Heat stained my cheeks as I thought about what I had been watching.
Good God, why did he make me so flustered?
It wasn’t like I was a freaking virgin who’d never had sex before or who’d never seen an ass before. And yet, here I was, my cheeks turning red just thinking about having sex with the man.
I was sure he noticed, but full points to him, he didn’t mention it. Instead, he asked, “What do you want to drink?”
Happy for an excuse to concentrate on anything but him, I turned my attention to the menu board. “Ooh, I’ll have that chocolate milkshake with extra ice-cream and Oreos. And I’m gonna want extra chocolate syrup on top, too, please.”
His eyes flared with what looked like heat, but he didn’t say anything.
“What?” I asked. King was so damn guarded with his thoughts, and I wanted to know them all. I knew he’d never share everything, because that seemed like the man he was, but I was going to push to get to know what I could.
Bending his face to speak against my ear, he said, “I was just filing away that chocolate obsession for later use.”
My core clenched with need, and not just because of what he said. With King, it was so much more than that. It was the way his voice always seemed to have that growly tone, and how he exuded masculinity like no other man I knew, and how he just said what he wanted, regardless of how bossy or filthy it was.
King blazed with sex and a wild, untamed side I was helpless to say no to. It wasn’t just a glimmer or a flash here and there; he walked and talked it every second of the day. To me, it was magnetic and irresistible.
Being with him distracted me from Brynn. Every time he came near, my focus shifted, and for the time we were together, I was able to put the worry aside for a while. I couldn’t decide if I felt guilty about that or if I welcomed the distraction.
He ordered our drinks and guided me to a table in the back where we had some privacy. It was still early in the day, so there weren’t many people here yet.
Once we were sitting, he eyed me with that intense gaze of his. “How’s your sister today?”
Not wanting to have this conversation, I glanced down and fiddled with the salt and pepper shakers on the table.
King rested his arms on the table and leaned forward. “Lily.” He uttered just one word, but delivered it with his signature bossiness. I wondered if he ever stopped being bossy, but quickly dismissed that thought. King only knew one way in life.
Looking up, I found his eyes again. “The doctors are weaning her off the ventilator.” I wrapped my arms around my body, suddenly chilled. “That’s why Mum was so intent on calling the priest. She’s scared that won’t go to plan, but she fully believes God will make everything okay.” My tone made it clear where I stood on that, but he asked me anyway.
“You don’t?”
I swallowed my Catholic guilt. “No, I don’t. I stopped believing in God a long time ago.” I paused. “Well, that’s not true. I didn’t stop believing in God. I just don’t think he makes everything okay, and when people like my mum rely on him to do something he can’t do, I get a little cranky.” I cocked my head to the side. “Do you believe in God?”
He slowly shook his head. “Fuck no.”
I didn’t know what compelled me to ask, but the question popped out without thought. “Did you ever?”
He shifted, resting his back against the chair, contemplating that. “If I did, it would have been at an age I have no memories of.”
“That makes me sad.” Because it told me he hadn’t been told not to believe, but rather, someone had stolen that from him.
A dark look crossed his face. “Yeah,” he said gruffly.
I studied him silently for a few moments, curious as to the things he’d lived through, but not ready to quiz him on it yet. Finally, I said, “Thank you for today. I needed to get out of there, and it turns out I love being on the back of a bike. It was exactly what I needed.”
The waitress brought our drinks out, cutting into our conversation, but I did notice the hint of a smile on his lips at what I said.
After the waitress left us, I watched King sugar his black coffee. “You don’t drink milk?”
“Yeah, but not in my coffee.” At my questioning look, he added, “Skye had to give up dairy for a while when she was a kid, so I didn’t have it in the house. Got a taste for black coffee from that.”
“Skylar lived with you when she was growing up?”
He drank some of his coffee before answering my question. “Our foster mother died when she was eight. She came to live with me after that.”
This gave me an insight into their relationship that had been missing before. It was a piece of the puzzle that made up King. And goodness, it revealed so much about the man sitting across from me. “How old were you?” My guess was he couldn’t have been much past twenty, which if true, amazed me even further.
“Twenty-three.”
“So you were her father figure,” I murmured, my mind spinning at this new information about King. He’d done for his foster sister what my own father hadn’t done for me, and I had so much respect for him for that.
He glanced around the café, seemingly uncomfortable with this conversation. “You could say that.”
I drank some of my milkshake, a smile dancing across my face.
At my smile, he said, “What?”
I picked up the Oreo biscuit from my drink. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you like this, where you don’t wanna discuss something. I kinda like it, because it shows me a different side to you.”
His intense expression return
ed. “What kind of side?”
“You’re always so in control and demanding and directing the conversation and what we do. But here, just now, you let your guard down for a bit and you allowed me to run the conversation.” I leant forward, my gaze pinned to his. “And even though you didn’t seem completely comfortable talking about that time in your life, you still answered my question and shared something personal with me. You showed me a little bit of vulnerability, and I liked that.”
He remained guarded for a couple of moments longer before giving me something unexpected. “Our foster mother was the only mother we each had worth a damn. There was no fucking way I was putting Skye back into the foster system when Margreet died, so I raised her like she was my own child. She gave me far more than I ever gave her.”
I reached my hand across the table and covered his. “That’s the blessing of children, and if parents are too fucking stupid to cherish that or their children, they don’t deserve them.”
He glanced down at my hand over his before meeting my gaze again and nodding. “That’s the fucking truth.”
We stayed like that for a beat before I pulled my hand away. To me, we’d shared something meaningful, and I hoped it meant something to King, too.
“So,” I said, “changing the subject, how often do you get out for a ride?” It was the lightest thing I could think of asking him. I had so many other subjects to broach with him, but I didn’t want to throw them all at him today. I figured with a man like King, who didn’t like to talk a hell of a lot, I had only a small window of opportunity to get him to open up here, so I ran with the option I felt he’d be most willing to discuss.
He drank some more of his coffee. “Not fucking often enough lately. Used to be weekly, but not these days.”
“Well, just so you know, I’m up for a ride again whenever you want to get out. I loved it.”
Heat flickered in his eyes. “I plan on getting you on that bike soon.”
Lust whooshed through me, because I was fairly sure King wasn’t referring to a long bike ride. “That sounds like fun.”
