Page 20 of Dirty Crown
“Must be nice,” Kingston said. “I don’t have a rich dad, I don’t even know where mine is.”
“I know where mine is, but he probably owes money to some crack dealer,” Ryker said with a grim laugh. “It’s not like he’d help me even if he did have the cash or the influence.”
“Ivan offered but I said no,” I told them. They turned to me, incredulous, and I continued. “I know, I should have taken the help but I thought it would be better if I tried to do it on my own. I’m stupid and stubborn I think.”
“Not stupid or stubborn, just wanting to get things done on your own,” Ryker said.
“Hey, I don’t know about Stubborn. I could get behind stubborn, because holy shit, you know how she is when she gets her mind set on something,” Archer said with a laugh.
“Okay, stubborn in certain ways,” Valen agreed.
“Yeah, like when she’s horny,” Ryker agreed. “Remember? She wouldn’t leave me alone until...”
“We all know about that, we were there, dude!” Kingston laughed loudly and clapped Ryker on the shoulder. “We saw the whole thing, you were like no, no, it hurts, I can’t, don’t stop, harder, harder, baby!”
That left us wheezing with laughter and Ryker was red faced but enjoying it as much as us. He was embarrassed because it was true. He’d gone from being reluctant to being a complete and utter butt slut.
I had to stop laughing when I thought about the nature of my stubbornness, though. Was I just punishing myself somehow? Why didn’t I use Ivan to get me back into school? I wasn’t as poor as Ryker or Kingston, but I’d grown up like them. Maybe that’s why I still clung to my fierce independence even if it might cost me my schooling.
“I’ll get Ivan to speak for you two,” I told Ryker and Kingston. “It’s not fair that you have to suffer because of my family. It’s not right.”
“Your family?” Kingston asked, seemingly hurt. “I thought I was part of that family, princess.”
“You know what I mean,” I said, suddenly shy at his declaration. I always thought of them as family, my husbands even, but had never said as much. “I mean Ivan. I’m sorry you guys got dragged into Ivan’s fuckery.”
“We didn’t get dragged anywhere, we do whatever we feel like,” Ryker told me. “You should know that by now. We aren’t exactly timid creatures waiting for you to tell us where to go, we go where we want to.”
The car pulled into the driveway of our college mansion and I instantly felt exhaustion and stress leave my body. It felt like home at last, somewhere to let my hair down and let my Kings take care of me.
We thanked the driver and dragged our luggage to the front door. Archer took mine, so I only had to drag my ass as we walked slowly. The grass was overgrown and there were flyers and bills stuffed in the mailbox at the front door. The front veranda desperately needed to be swept and there were leaves piled in every corner, from the wind blowing them around.
“It’s not as bad as I thought it would be,” I said, withdrawing my keys. I clicked one in the lock and opened the door, stepped in and almost fell to the floor as the month away caught up to me all at once. My legs felt boneless and I could barely hold the keys in my shaking hand.
“That was so fucking intense,” I said and exhaled loudly. Tears formed in my eyes and shook my head. “Did that even just happen?”
Flashes of the torture and capture haunted my head and I couldn’t escape some of the images. The worst being Avery, of course, and Maksim’s gun against my head. I didn’t know how long it would take for those images to disappear forever, or if they even would.
“You okay, babe?” Ryker asked as he sidled over to me. He dropped his suitcase and wrapped his arms around me. “You look like you could use a hot bath and something to eat.”
“I need that,” I said. “And I need to fuck. I need sex to alleviate this persistent feeling that I’m about to explode. I need us all to reconnect again, I crave it.”
“I get that,” Ryker said. He kissed the top of my head and held me like that. Kingston, Archer and Valen joined in, the best group hug in the world. My Kings surrounding me with their tall, muscled bodied, their collective masculine scents, the press of them holding me, and the safety of their support and physical presence.
I didn’t know how women did it with just one man, that felt strange to me at this point. I knew society would judge the hell out of me for being like this, people would call me slut or freak or many other things, but the way I felt between them all was the most natural thing in the world to me.
I wouldn’t have it any other way.
* * *
“You realizeyou’ve been gone for a month and you were implicated in the disappearance of one of your professors, Miss Hayes,” Fincross’s dean of students told me over her desk. She was an older woman with a mass of grey curls and kind brown eyes behind wire framed glassed. She was looking over them at me and I put on my most pleading face to appeal to whatever goodness she had in her. “This application to rejoin is going to be a tough one to handle.”
“I understand all that, but we have a family emergency in Europe and it was a matter of life or death. I could get my father in here to discuss it, but I’m trying to do this on my own. And you might notice that I’ve been cleared of all suspicion in Miss Seymour’s disappearance.”
“Yes, I did see that,” she replied and narrowed her eyes as she looked me up and down with suspicion. “I don’t know how you will handle this academically, though. You’ve missed so much.”
“I think you’ll find I’m an eager learner with a quick mind,” I told her, leaning forward to look into her eyes. “I really, really want this, and I’ll do anything to make it happen. I can catch up in class by doing extra work in the evenings and on weekends. I’ll make school my top priority.”
“I’ll take it to the board and we’ll rule at tonight’s meeting,” she replied, and sorted some papers on her desk. “I can’t say with any certainty that the board will got either way. You’ll have to wait until tomorrow.”
