The King

by Taylor Danae Colbert

  “Well, I should go clean up for dinner,” I tell him. He nods as I walk by.

  “Scar?” he asks, and I freeze and turn back on my heel.

  “Hmm?”

  “I know you’re trying to get me to not want you, but walking around here in those leggings is not the way to do that.” His lips tug up into that grin again, and I shake my head and playfully roll my eyes as I turn back and walk toward the stairs. And I just may be jiggling my ass a tiny bit more than normal as I go.

  An hour later, I’m showered, blow-dried, and dressed in this form-fitting sundress I made sure to bring with me when we left my apartment. I make my way down to the kitchen and see Dom leaning against the counter as he talks to Silla. He eyes me up and down then presses off, walking toward me. His eyes scale my body until they reach mine.

  “Hmm,” he says. “Turns out, it wasn’t the leggings. Looks like you’re shit outta luck,” he whispers then walks out. I shake my head again, fighting a smile, and make my way to Silla.

  “Can I help with anything, Silla?” I ask her. She has her long gray hair tied up in a neat bun at the base of her head as she chops away at a boatload of tomatoes.

  “No, honey.” She shakes her head. “I get paid for this. Go relax.” I smile as I watch her. Silla’s been with the Castianos since Marlon was a teenager. I remember Dom saying she’d never married, and her family was still in Romania. The Castianos were her family. And after all the madness that I know has gone down in this brownstone, she has stayed. Sort of like me. After all these years, after all the insanity, the danger, the heart-stopping lifestyle that my father and Dominic subjected me to, I’m still here. And the second that man smiles at me, I know why.

  I walk back out of the kitchen toward the foyer just as the front door bursts open, and I hear her before I see her.

  “Jesus, would it kill you guys to trim the fucking rose bush? It about took me out when I got to the top step,” I hear her say just as we make eye contact. Immediately, her spine straightens as Leo appears in the doorway behind her. “Scarlett.”

  “Hey, Ave,” I say with a modest nod. Avie has this voice, smooth like glass, deeper than you’d expect, but sharp like a knife. The kind of voice that slices right through to your heart the second she opens her mouth.

  “What are you…” she starts to say just as Dom appears at the bottom of the steps, arms outstretched in her direction. He wraps them around her tight and kisses the top of her head, a move that palpably annoys the shit out of her. He lets go and hugs Leo then closes the door.

  “You’re here!” he says with that killer smile as he nods in my direction.

  “We’re here,” Avie says, a suspicious look on her face. Her eyes dart from him to me as he creeps around them and steps next to me. “And it appears, so is Scarlett.”

  “She’s staying here for a bit,” he says to her, shuffling his feet so that our arms are touching. I swallow, but he keeps his cool. She may have been a boss, but he’s still the big brother. The egos in this room are almost suffocating, and Leo and I exchange awkward glances as the siblings peer into each other’s eyes, her trying to figure out the story, and him warning her not to.

  “So, should we take this party into the dining room?” Leo says, clapping his hands together. He’s apparently had enough of the sibling rivalry for power of the house, just as I have, and I happily turn on my heel as Dom puts a hand to my back to lead me in.

  We take our seats—Dom at the head of the table and me to his right—and Avie pauses for a moment before taking the seat to his left as her eyes graze across us one last time. After a few moments, Silla brings in a huge spread: her homemade lasagna, garlic bread, a big bowl of salad, and all the fixings. My mouth starts to water at the sight of it.

  “So,” Dom says after we’ve all had a chance to pass everything around and fill our plates, “how are the new digs?”

  Avie takes a bite of her lasagna and puts her fork down. She looks at Leo, who flashes her his winning smile, and she seems to ease up a little bit at just the sight of him.

  “I love it,” she says, her eyes never straying from his. “Living with your best friend is kind of fun.” They hold each other’s gaze for a moment longer before she breaks it and turns to me, instantly growing colder.

  “How are your new digs, Scarlett? Since it seems I moved out and you moved right on in,” she says with a fake giggle as she takes a sip of her wine. I clear my throat as I feel Dom tense up next to me.

  “Ave,” he warns under his breath, but she merely lifts an eyebrow in his direction then turns back to me.

  “They’re great,” I say, turning to Dom. “Can’t complain too much. The roommate is okay.”

  “So, what brings you to the brownstone?” Avie asks, and I look at Dom.

  “Ave, don’t worry about it, okay?” he says, sipping his own wine and looking at me with a reassuring smile. Avie takes another bite, followed by another sip of wine.

  “Well, I’m just curious. She disappears for over a decade after she turned your heart into mush when you were teenagers, comes back with some news on how to find our mortal enemy––which failed, by the way––and now she lives here? I mean, it’s a little––”

  “Ave,” he warns again, his voice a deep growl now. But her eyes meet his, and a fire ignites.

  “A little suspicious, don’t you think?” she asks with a daring head tilt. “That she––”

  “She is sitting right here, and she can hear you,” I finally say, my heart beating a mile a minute. “You might have been the queen of your world for some time, but you are not my queen, Avianna, and you won’t talk to me or about me like that.”

  Avie drops her fork to her plate and leans back in her chair, dabbing at her lips with her napkin. She looks at me, then Dom, then back to me.

  “Well,” she says, looking at Dominic, “you certainly made yourself comfortable the moment I left, didn’t you?”

  She pushes her chair out from the table and walks out of the dining room toward the back door, slamming it shut as she goes out into the yard. I turn back to Dominic.

  “Don’t worry,” he says, “she’ll come around.”

  Leo looks up at us with a questioning face.

  “I’ll go talk to her,” Dom says. “You two finish eating.”

  For a few minutes, there’s a long, awkward silence between Leo and me as we take bites of our food and sip our wine.

  “You and Dom were, uh, a thing back in the day, then?” he asks. I nod slowly.

  “We dated a bit in high school,” I tell him, “but things kinda fell apart.”

  He nods slowly.

  “They’re intense, aren’t they? The Castianos.” I smile and nod.

  “Very.”

  He looks past me toward the doors.

  “But they love pretty intensely, too.”

  I turn my head and look toward the door, too.

  “They do.”

  A little while later, the back door opens and shuts, and Dom and Avie walk back in, his arm draped over her shoulders. I hate the feeling of knowing he probably just told her my whole life story. And I hate the idea that she probably knows more about my life than I do. I draw in a deep breath and tell myself that it’s all to keep me safe. And the less I know, the better I can keep him safe. As she makes her way to the door, Leo pulls her coat off the rack, and she turns around to stick her arms in. Dom bends down to kiss her cheek and shakes Leo’s hand. Her eyes find mine, and I feel my stomach flip. But I’m determined to hold my ground. She might have embraced the whole mafia princess role when I didn’t, but that doesn’t make her the ruler of everything.

  “I hope things are okay for you and your dad, Scarlett,” she says with a nod. I nod back in her direction.

  “Thank you, Avie.”

  As Dom closes the door behind me, he turns around to me slowly, leaning up against the wood. His eyebrows are raised as he looks at me.

  “What?” I ask.

  “It’s been a long
time since someone has put her in her place like that,” he says, nodding his head back in Avie’s direction. “I’m impressed.”

  I swallow and tuck a piece of hair behind my ear. It feels so silly being so intimidated by a girl I met when she was ten. She was a mere child, but so quickly, she became this one-woman storm with the force of a thousand men. And truth be told, as much as I have never wanted this life, or to be immersed in it, I always envied the way Avianna dove in headfirst and took it over. She took the world we were born into and started to make it her own.

  She just needs to remember that not all of us belong in her world.

  I shrug.

  “I hope she wasn’t upset,” I say. He smiles as he crosses his arms over his chest, narrowing his eyes at me.

  “I explained some things,” he says. I nod.

  “You told her about my dad?”

  He shakes his head.

  “Just the basics. She doesn’t work for the family anymore. The business that goes on here is a need-to-know basis. And she doesn’t need to know anymore.”

  Business. There’s something about that word that makes this––whatever this is between he and I––feel a little less real. Like a transaction more than anything else.

  And then it hits me. Is it a transaction?

  “What?” he asks, reading the change in my expression. I pause for a moment.

  “Is my dad...are you...getting paid for”––I motion between the two of us––“this?”

  He narrows his eyes at me, the smile running away from his face. It’s silent for a minute while he tries to figure out if I’m being serious or not. And when he realizes I am, he pushes off the door and walks toward me.

  “You think I need money to make sure you’re safe?” he growls once he’s right in front of me, the rumble of his voice sending a chill down my spine. I swallow and look up at him, our eyes locking.

  “I...I don’t know. I don’t know how much trouble he is in, and––”

  “It doesn’t matter how much trouble he’s in. Frankly, I don’t give a damn about his trouble. I give a damn about you, Scarlett.” He takes a step forward and leans his head down so that it rests on mine. He closes his eyes, and I do the same, inhaling him, relishing in the feeling of him being in my space. “I will do anything to keep you safe,” he whispers. “I hope you know that.”

  He steps around me and walks up the stairs, taking them two by two. The hurt on his face leaves my jaw dropped. I turn around and make my way up the stairs, following behind him as he opens his bedroom door. I take in a deep breath and step into his doorway just as he’s reaching down to tug the hem of his shirt from his pants, sliding it up over his head.

  He drops it in a heap on the floor, but I barely notice it when my eyes land on his tan skin, the ripples of his abs, the curves of his chest. His eyes land on me just as I feel myself starting to salivate. When our eyes meet, I slam my mouth shut and stand up straight.

  “I need to say something,” I say, mustering up some courage. He tilts his head back, ready to listen. “I hope you know that all I’ve ever wanted was to keep you safe,” I tell him. “And now it seems like it was all for nothing. Because here we are, all this time later, and I’m here. With you. Putting you in more danger than you’re probably already in. I know I don’t understand all of it, all of what you all do. And I know I’ve said I don’t want to. But I just...I want you to know that walking away all that time ago was still one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. It still is.”

  He narrows his eyes again, drawing in a sharp breath and letting his eyes trail over my lips as he parks himself just inches from me.

  “I know why you did it,” he says, his hand reaching out and entwining with mine. “No one has ever given a shit about me the way that you have, Scarlett. Even if it was the fucking worst thing I’ve ever had to go through.” He chuckles softly, and I bite my lip.

  “I still give a shit about you, Dom,” I tell him, my voice steady and strong. “That has never changed. Nothing has changed. Our...situation...has only gotten more complicated. But another thing that hasn’t changed is how you make me feel. How badly I…” My voice trails off for a moment, and I let my eyes drop. I take in another breath before I look back up at him. “How badly I want you.”

  I feel my chest rising and falling as our eyes lock. He takes another step closer so that my nose is practically touching his chest. It’s all I can do not to taste the skin in front of me, scour it with my hands, run my fingers through his hair.

  “Scarlett,” he whispers. “I will be yours however, whenever you want me. Always have been. Always will be. When you want me, I’m here.”

  I suck in another breath, letting my shoulders rise and fall again.

  I need him.

  I’ve wasted the last decade-plus of my life depriving myself of him for his safety. And it turns out, I can’t keep him safe. I don’t know how this is going to end, but I know I’m done letting these days without him slip by.

  I press up onto my toes and grab onto his face, pulling him down to me until our lips meld together. He tastes exactly like he always has. Exactly like he did that night in the alley. Like everything I ever needed. Like home.

  We break apart for a moment, my eyes boring into his.

  “I want you now,” I tell him, my chest heaving up and down. His eyes bounce back and forth between mine for a moment, and then he pounces. He weaves his fingers through my hair, our lips crashing together again as he wraps his other arm around my body. He hoists me up, and my legs wrap around his waist, feeling the bulge that’s already making itself known as he swirls me around into the bedroom and kicks the door closed. He gently pushes me up against the door as we kiss, our bodies becoming reacquainted with each other.

  “Jesus, I’ve missed you,” he whispers between kisses, our tongues becoming entwined as our hands explore each other. He swirls me around again, this time putting me on top of his dresser, one hand on my face, the other sliding up my thigh. “You taste the same.”

  I smile as his lips trail my jaw and down my neck.

  “I was just thinking the same about you,” I tell him. I narrow my eyes at him as he leans his head back. His fingers trail down to the hem of my dress, sliding it up over my thighs then up over my head. I feel exposed, but at the same time, I feel home. Like he’s exactly who my body was made for.

  He licks his lips again, moving in to kiss my neck and my collar bone. His fingers slide down my arms till they reach my hips, then he freezes as he slides his thumbs up under the lace of my light-blue thong. His eyes lift to mine, a devilish eyebrow raising.

  “Let me have you,” he whispers, and as if my body knows it’s being touched by him, my legs open wider, and I lean my head back against the mirror behind me. Slowly, he tugs at the lace, sliding it gently down my legs until it’s off, and tosses it onto the floor. His hands slide back up my legs, his lips soon to follow. He kisses the insides of my legs, his tongue drawing lines until he’s almost at my center. Then, he goes in for the kill, his tongue tracing its way up and down my center, making me writhe in place as he holds me still by my hips. I reach a hand into his hair, holding him steady as a moan escapes my lips. As he moves his head from side to side, I feel his finger circle me then slowly push inside as it moves in sync with his tongue.

  “Jesus Christ, Dominic,” I whisper, my body moving under his touch, my hips bucking in his direction. But as I feel the explosion building inside of me, I tug his hair gently. “Dom, wait.”

  He stops immediately, looking up at me.

  “What’s wrong?” he asks, the concern in his eyes endearing despite the fact that I want to let him do the dirtiest of things to me right now.

  “Nothing. I’m just getting close,” I tell him. “And I want more.”

  A devilish half-smile tugs at his lips as he looks up at me.

  “There will be more, baby,” he tells me. “As much as you want. But let me finish.”

  He bends back down, pu
lling me closer to his face, pushing my legs farther apart as he dives back in, feasting on me like he’s starved. He slides a finger in again, then one more, pulsing them in and out as the orgasm builds inside of me.

  “Dom,” I mutter, my head tilted all the way back, “Dominic, I...I’m...Dominic,” I moan, my legs dropping to the sides as I pant. He comes up for air, grinning as he licks his lips. He bends down and presses his forehead to mine while I catch my breath and wait for the spots I’m seeing to clear.

  “Jesus,” I say once I’m seeing straight again. “I don’t remember that.”

  He smiles and shrugs.

  “I’ve honed my skills a bit,” he says.

  “That’s for fucking sure.”

  He chuckles as he reaches for me, sliding me toward him off the dresser. But just as he leans down to kiss me, his phone buzzes on his nightstand. He lets out a disappointed sigh before walking toward it.

  “Hello?” he answers, short and straight. I watch as his body language changes from loose and sexy and free-moving to stiff and rigid. “I’ll call you right back.” He turns to me, walking toward me and pausing to pick up my panties. He hands them to me. “Can we finish this later?”

  I look up at him as I slip the lace from his hands, then I grin.

  “I might finish by myself while you’re gone,” I tell him. His eyes widen as he bites his lip, fighting a smile. He wraps his arms around me, pulling me into him for a long kiss.

  “Save some for me,” he whispers into my hair as he holds me. “Now that I have you again, I don’t plan on letting go.”

  I squeeze him tight before we break our hold.

  “Good,” I tell him. “Go get the bad guys, and then get your ass back here.” He smiles as he kisses my fingers, the sensation of his lips on my skin sending chills down my spine.

  “What if I am the bad guy?” he asks.

  My eyes widen for a second, and I swallow.

  “You’re not. Now go so you can get back,” I tell him, kissing him one last time. “And Dom?”

  He turns to me.