Page 17 of King: Darker Than Romance

He spoke up first. “What were you thinking about doing with the knife, Eden?” His index finger circled the rim of his glass as he watched me with a bland expression, waiting for an answer.

He wouldn’t get one. I shook my head in dismissal. I made my way over to the table and picked up the bottle of brown liquor he’d poured himself a drink from. He held my eyes the entire time without saying a word until I raised the bottle to my lips.

King frowned. “What are you doing?” he asked as he reached out and snatched the bottle from my hand before I could swallow a drop.

“I need fucking a drink,” I said but didn’t bother trying to get the bottle back.

His eyes had narrowed to slits.

“Oh, yeah?”

He picked up the cigarette that lay smoldering in an ashtray next to his arm. After placing it between his lips and inhaling deeply, he picked up his glass, exhaled white smoke. It floated around him like a cloud. He took a sip from his cup, set it down. He watched the thin lines of brown liquid run down the sides of the glass, back to the bottom, then he took another drag from the cigarette. I watched him waiting for what came next.

He said nothing. He cocked his head to the side. He studied me, as if he was trying to see through me, see if I was capable of doing what I had been thinking when I’d picked up that knife.When he dropped his eyes, his gaze travelled down the length of me then back to my eyes.

“Come here, Eden.” His tone was syrupy but dark. It turned my nipples to hard pebbles that strained against my shirt.

I glanced towards the door. Momma and James were still home, plus James had a couple of business associates over.

“It’s okay,” he encouraged waving me over with two thick fingers as he snubbed his cigarette out directly on the Wood of Arditi collection dining table. That table was Momma’s pride and joy. The first time she’d caught King’s father cheating on her she’d guilted him into buying it. She was sure to mention that it cost almost twenty thousand dollars. Imagine that. She had spent twenty thousand dollars on a fucking table, but she couldn’t give me five thousand to cover what my scholarships weren’t for school? Supposedly she and James couldn’t afford another expense now.

Momma would definitely notice the damage in the resin.I sniggered.

Not caring at the moment if we got caught or not, I went to him. He spread his legs to accommodate me. He pulled me to him. His hands went to my hips.

“Kiss me, Eden.” He ordered. I hated kissing him after he’d been smoking but I did anyway. I always found it hard to say no to King. I leaned in, pressed my lips to his. He kissed me back, slow and soft at first. Then he kicked it up a notch. He ran his tongue against the seam of my lips, coaxing me to open for him, when I did, he delved into my mouth. It was a sloppy, nasty kiss, all teeth and tongue and lips. He pulled my arms to rest around his neck. I got lost in. He made me forget I was mad. I felt weightless, and seamless. My clit throbbed, my panties were soaked and clinging to my wet pussy.

I moaned into his mouth. God, I love kissing him. I tried to climb onto his lap. He pulled away. “Please, I want to feel you,” I whined. I would have risked it all in that moment, just to ride his dick.

His hand came up to clasp my chin, harshly.

“What do you have on, Eden?” He didn’t raise his voice, but his demeaning tone caused the haze his kisses had me in to slip away, like fog clearing.

“Clothes?” I answered, confused.

He reached in between us, took my hard nipple between his two fingers and squeezed until it ached. I hissed and snatched away. My hackles rose.

His jaw tightened. He set his mouth in a firm line as his grip on my face tightened.

“These are not clothes. I can see your fucking tits through this thin ass shirt and where’s your bra? Who are you dressed like this for?”

I glanced downed at myself. “Excuse me?” I was wearing a white T-shirt and gym shorts, what I usually wore around the house.

He had to be joking.

I went to snatch away, but he pulled me down onto his lap, trapping me. He arms were like twin vises wrapped around my waist.

“Let me go.” I hissed at him from between gritted teeth.

“I will, if you’re going to go change your fucking clothes.”

“No. I’m not. I’m not a child and you should stop treating me like one.”

“They talk about you,” he said.

“Who?” I asked with an arched eyebrow.

“My father and his associates. They talk about how your ass and titties are always on display. They talk about how hard and in which positions they would fuck you. Do you know how that makes me feel, to have to listen to that when I can’t say anything?”

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