King

  bathtub running and thought maybe he was ringing the mojito out of his shirt.

  “Grace, what’s with the rabbits?” I asked her, needing to know. She smiled and closed the dishwasher. She turned the dial, and it sounded like Preppy’s car exploding all over again.

  “Ed used to bring me home a ceramic rabbit after every business trip.” She looked around at the table. “I know it’s odd, and I know they’ve taken over the house. But each one was a moment my husband wasn’t with me, but was still thinking about me.” Grace looked as if she was getting tired. My heart seized. I wasn’t expecting the reason to be so sentimental, and I hated that I ever thought that she might have been just a crazy rabbit lady.

  “I’ll finish this up, Grace. Why don’t you go lie down?”

  She nodded and wiped her hands on the dishcloth hanging off her shoulder. Setting it around the faucet, she brought me in for another hug. “Thank you. Take care of my boy, will you? He’s been having a hard time since he got out. I worry about him.”

  I didn’t know how to respond, so I took the coward’s way out and went with what I knew she wanted to hear. “Of course.”

  Grace made her way down the hall where I heard a door open and then shut. I finished the dishes and sat at the kitchen table for a good hour. It was getting late. Grace obviously needed to go to bed.

  Where was King?

  I padded down the hall and paused outside a door when I heard voices speaking in hushed tones. The door wasn’t latched, so I pushed it open a little, hoping it wouldn’t creak. Peering through the crack, I caught a glimpse of King and Grace in the mirror of a large ornate walnut dresser that took up most of the small room. Grace sat on the side of the bed in bright orange button-up pajamas with matching slippers. Her feet didn’t touch the floor. King crouched in front of her and held up what looked like some sort of glass pipe.

  “Like this,” he said, lighting the pipe he took a hit and held it in his lungs before blowing out the smoke. Then, he passed the pipe over to Grace who did the same, looking to King for reassurance. When she exhaled, she started having a coughing fit. King held her arm while she laughed and coughed at the same time.

  “Will I do that every time?” she asked when she was finally able to manage a sentence.

  “No, just the first few times.” King assured her with a small smile.

  “Good. I hate coughing,” Grace said.

  “Are you sure there isn’t anything else you need?” He asked.

  “I’m an old lady, and a dying one at that, and you still come over to fix my house and take care of me like I’m still going to be around in six months. You do too much already.”

  “Don’t talk like that,” King scolded, pinching the bridge of his nose. Grace reached out, took King’s hands in her own, and held them on her lap.

  “You are the closest thing to a son I ever had,” she confessed.

  King looked to the floor. “You’ve always been more of a mother to me than…her.”

  Grace’s face grew serious. “I’m only sorry I didn’t kill that bitch myself.”

  It was on those words that I lost my footing and came tumbling forward into the room, landing on my hands and knees in front of the bed.

  “Is she always this graceful?” Grace asked.

  King kissed Grace on the top of her head and turned off the lights. I gave her a sad little wave as he ushered me from the room, closing the door behind us. He turned off all the lights in the house and locked the back sliding door. Just as we reached the front of the house, King stopped and reached into his pocket, then placed something on the edge of the table on the hall. I fell a few steps behind so I could inspect what it was he’d left for Grace. When I saw it, my breath caught in my throat.

  It was a tiny white ceramic rabbit.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Doe

  “We have another stop to make,” King declared, punching out a text on his phone with his thumb as we got back into the truck.

  I looked at him, really looked at him as if I were seeing him for the first time. What I saw was a man who when you stripped away the intimidation and constant mood swings was someone who was taking care of a woman he loved in her final days. The man who I’d started out believing was a monster was capable of love.

  “Why were you showing Grace how to smoke pot?” I asked.

  “She puts up a good front, but Grace is in a lot of pain.” King winced. “All the medications they give her are a bunch of bullshit. It’s all supposed to make her comfortable, but she gets really sick from most of it.”

  “What does she have?”

  “Some fucking bullshit aggressive cancer.” King’s hands tightened around the wheel until his knuckles turned white.

  “Does she really only have six months?”

  King looked uncomfortable, but, I felt like after meeting Grace and bonding with her I needed to know more about her condition.

  He propped his elbow up on the ledge of the open drivers side window, thoughtfully resting his jaw on the back of his hand. “They say six months, but I’ve been told to take that and divide it in half because they usually exaggerate when they tell you how much time you have left.”

  “Who told you that?”

  “Her doctor.”

  “Oh.”

  We spent nearly twenty minutes in silence as we rode to our next stop, which was another residential neighborhood, This time when King parked and I grabbed the door handle, he stopped me with his forearm across my chest.

  “What?” I asked.

  “We aren’t getting out.”

  Killing the engine, he leaned back in his seat. I opened my mouth to ask why, but the dark look in his eyes said that he wasn’t up for conversation. I folded my arms over my chest, waiting for the reason why we were there to produce itself.

  After a few minutes, there it was. A light. Not from the house we were parked in front of but the one behind it. From where we sat, we had a perfect view of the back of the house and the illuminated sunroom. A tall woman with short black hair was sorting through some toys on the ground, when a small blonde girl came bounding into the sunroom.

  King sat up straight.

  We may have been a hundred feet or so away from the house, but I instantly recognized the girl prancing around in her PJ’s.

  “That’s the girl from your picture, right? Is she your sister? Do you want to go say hi? I’ll wait here if you want me to.”

  King remained silent, staring intently at the little girl until the woman found what she was looking for and ushered her back into the house, switching off the light. King looked into the darkness long after they were out of sight.

  “I can’t go see her. I have no rights. I’m her only family. She needs me, but to the courts, I’m just another felon. I don’t even have visitation. I did everything I could in prison, hired every lawyer I could, but there’s nothing they could do to help. I had to bribe a clerk to give me the address of her foster home. It’s the only way I know where she is.

  “I’m sorry.” I said, and I meant it. King knew who and where his family was and they still couldn’t be together. “She really is beautiful.”

  “She is,” he agreed. He turned the key and started up the truck. “Max.”

  “What?” I asked.

  “Max. Her name is Max.”

  “Short for Maxine?”

  King smiled and shook his head, turning back onto the main road. “Like Maximillian.”

  “For a girl?” I wrinkled my nose.

  “Yeah, and shut the fuck up. It’s the best fucking name ever,” King said, still smiling. There was a hint of pride in his tone that I didn’t want to step on. “A strong name for a strong girl.”

  “It’s a great name,” I said softly.

  “Yeah, it is.”

  “Why did you bring me here? And to see Grace?” I asked, using the small moment of vulnerability to my advantage.

  “Because I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing with you, pup,�
� King confessed. “You make me fucking crazy and I feel shit that I can’t—” He paused. “Prison fucked me up, made me rethink things, but you’ve managed to fuck me up more than prison ever did. For some reason, I want you around. And since I’m shit with words, I figured the best way for you to get to know me, the real me, was for you to meet the two most important girls in my life.”

  “Oh.” I bit my lip. I don’t know what kind of answer I expected from him, if any answer at all, but what he said took me by complete surprise.

  He WANTS me around?

  “I’ve been in a maximum security prison. I’ve been around the worst of the worst. I’ve had to sleep with one eye open, thinking my next breath could be my last.”

  “Why are you telling me all this?”

  He turned toward me and our eyes locked. He reached out and ran the back of his pointer finger along my cheek. “Because I want you to know that none of those motherfuckers ever scared me as much as you do.”

  King’s phone buzzed from the cup holder in the console, and he answered it, leaving me with my mouth open in shock.

  “Yeah,” King said, holding the phone up to his ear. “Motherfucker! No, I got it. You stay where you are, and I’ll come get you in a bit. Yes, I know. I’m sure. I got this.”

  King tossed the phone into my lap and turned the wheel of the truck so hard I swear we were up on two wheels.

  “What’s going on?”

  “One last stop,” King said through gritted teeth. Whoever it was on the other end had told him something he obviously didn’t want to hear.

  After a few minutes, we pulled up in front of a small dive bar with a neon green sign that flashed the name HANSEN’S with a symbol of a ship below it. There were only a few scattered cars in the gravel parking lot. King threw the truck in park and jumped out.

  “Stay here,” he ordered. He leaned into the bed of the truck and grabbed something out of it before making his way into the bar. King had to duck to pass through the low doorway.

  I’d seen three sides of him in one day. The dark crazy scary shit. The sexy as hell shit that made my knees quake with the smallest look. And the side that I didn’t think he had, the side that genuinely cared for someone other than himself. It was nice to know he wasn’t a misogynist after all.

  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 nark 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 m
outh, 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 thought? 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.”