“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 mouth, 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.”
“Yes, you are. Keep going. I’m listening.”
My insides clenched, and I spat out the rest of my story while being pummeled with the sensation of King’s lips on me.
“Well, I refer to the person I was before, when I had a memory, as HER. Someone else entirely, because that’s who I was. A different person.”
“Get to the fucking point. Because if you don’t have one in the next minute, I’m putting my cock in you. Before I do that, though, I’m going to let you take me in your mouth and give you a taste because I know that’s what you were thinking about just now.”
Again, I closed my eyes and attempted to concentrate as King lifted me by the hips and sat me on his lap so that I was straddling him with my back to the steering wheel. In this intimate position, there was nowhere for me to hide. Although his hard cock was rocking against me, I had to push aside thoughts of him sinking into me in order to finish my story.
“The point is that I can’t do anything that could potentially be life-changing because it isn’t just my life I have to think about. I have to consider that one day all my memories, everything I am and everything I was, will come back to me. It may never happen, but I can’t take the risk. Because the possibility that it might happen is out there. That day, when and if I become HER again, I will have to deal with all the things I did when I didn’t know who I was. That’s why even though I think your artwork is beyond amazing and I’ve imagined you creating something for me since I saw you tattoo for the very first time, I just can’t do that to her. What if she hates it? What if she is morally against tattoos and I’ve left her with something she can’t get rid of? That’s why although my body wants you, and I want you, it doesn’t matter. Because the person you see in front of you is just temporary.” King pulled back and was now staring into my eyes as I spoke. “I can’t help but melt into you when you touch me, but I can’t do this to her. What if she has a boyfriend, a fiancé? What if being with you means ruining her?”
I sniffled. Tears welled up and were about to spill from my eyes. King forced me toward him with a hand on the back of my neck, and just as I thought he was going to kiss me again, he turned my face and licked my cheek, wiping my tears away with his tongue.
“What if she’s a virgin?” I whispered.
King slowly shifted me off his lap and set me back on the passenger seat.
“I hadn’t thought of that,” he said softly. “And while I am both appalled and incredibly turned on by the idea of being the first one inside that pretty pussy of yours, I feel it necessary to point out the holes in your little theory about the person you were, before you came stumbling into my life.”
“What would those holes be?” I asked.
“First, your virginity theory. Who the fuck cares? If your memory comes back and you go back to a life where I’m not around, at least you’ll have enough amazing memories to last you through faking the orgasms with whatever schmuck you’re with.”
“Why is he a schmuck?”
“Trust me. A guy who let you wonder far away and hasn’t found you by now, if he’s even looking for you at all, is a fucking schmuck. I didn’t even like you at first. In fact, I downright fucking hated you, and I still didn’t want you more than ten feet from me. Neither did my cock.”
I shuddered. “And the next hole in my theory?” My voice was strained.
“Tattoos. Anyone who doesn’t like my art can kick rocks.”
“It’s that simple?”
“Yes, it’s that simple,” he stated flatly. Then, his face grew serious. “It’s that simple, but not because of some guy who may or may not be out there pining for you or the fear that you will regret letting me fuck you or tattoo you.” King traced a line from the back of my hand to the top of my shoulder like he was creating an imaginary tattoo. “It’s that simple because you can’t live your life for someone you might be. So what if your memories come back and the person you were before comes with them? She will just have to fucking deal with the fact that you were here when she wasn’t. Make your mark while you still can, pup.”
“You make it sound so easy.”
“It is.”
“It’s not. I just…I can’t,” I breathed. I wouldn’t be able to live with myself knowing that I wasn’t protecting her.
“You made a promise that you would protect me. Well, I made a promise that I would protect her,” I said, my voice barely a whisper.
“Have you even thought that who you are now is exactly the person you’re supposed to be? That maybe with the slate wiped clean of bullshit outside influences that you are now more yourself than ever before?” he asked, with each point he was trying to make he grew louder.
“No.” I hadn’t thought of that. King had a point. “But living life thinking that was the truth was a gamble I’m not willing to take.” I looked down to the floor and wished it would open up and suck me down into it.
“So, let me get this straight. You were willing to fuck random bikers, but you can’t be with me?” There was a hint of cruelty in his voice. If his intentions were to sting, they worked.
“That’s a low blow.”
But King continued on as if I hadn’t just interrupted. “So I’m just like them to you? Just like a biker you don’t want to fuck and end up regretting?
King turned the key and started the truck, pulling back onto the highway.
“No, you’re not like them at all,” I whispered, unsure if he heard me.
“How is it that you can see me as worse than them when I know you want me? I can feel it. Don’t fucking deny it. Because it’s bullshit, and you know it.” King looked straight ahead at the road. He turned up the radio until Johnny Cash was singing so loud it rattled my eardrums. The tears in my eyes spilled over onto my cheeks.
I leaned against the window and hugged my arms to my chest. The lights from businesses and signs blurred together as we passed into streams of colored lights.
“You’re right. You’re much worse than them,” I whispered, knowing full well that King couldn’t hear me over the music. “Because with them, it wouldn’t hurt this much.”
