Chapter Four #4
"My mom took that. Back when she had to sell the house after our father died to cover expenses. It was our first day in our new home. She told us she wanted to remember the day our new life started. I wanted to remember her. Back how she was in those days. Before she got sick."
"What was she like?" I asked. "I mean, you don't have to tell me. It seems like a sore subject with your brothers and Scotti."
"Maybe because they didn't have as long with her before she got sick as I did," he figured.
"Mom was how you picture moms, y'know? Like old school TV moms. Always smiling, light, singing.
We'd wake up on weekend mornings to brownies cooking.
And she'd pile ice cream and whipped cream on them.
And we'd all have ice cream brownie sundaes for breakfast. Or she would keep us home from school to go on a little field trip.
There wasn't a ton of money when we were kids since only our father worked, and the budget was tight.
But we'd go to a public park or something and she'd teach us about weather or animals or flowers.
I think that was how Scotti got the flower gene," he added.
His sister owned a floral store in town, had a thriving fruit and vegetable garden every summer, often driving around town to all the Mallicks houses to drop off fresh produce, leaving big packages at the soup kitchen when she had too much to give away.
"She sounds like a great mom."
"She was," he agreed, giving me a sweet and sad smile. "Too kind-hearted to be raising four pain in the ass sons."
"I heard about how Rush used to be a bit of a prankster."
"Christ, I can't tell you how many times I would come home from work to Scotti shrieking at him, or him taunting her. Those two seemed intent on out-annoying each other."
"Was it hard?" I found myself asking, always having been around him when he was around his siblings, knowing he would never say anything negative about the situation in front of them. "Being, essentially, like a father to all of them once your mom got sick, once she passed?"
"You ever hear parents call raising kids a labor of love?
It is that. I mean, that makes it sound like it is long days full of patient talking-tos and long hugs.
When, in reality, it is picking up clothes strewn all over the place, trying to find nickels to rub together to grab groceries, and listening to the endless fighting between a bunch of half-grown people.
It was surreal. And hard. But I wouldn't trade any of it. "
"Has it been weird, starting over?"
"No. Yet very much so yes," he said, shrugging.
"The plan always was for us to retire from that old lifestyle, start fresh somewhere new.
Though, we were pretty sure that would be in Russia," he admitted.
"No extradition," he added, reminding me just how severely they could have been punished had they ever been caught. I couldn’t—or maybe simply didn't want to—picture Kingston behind bars, see his light sucked out of him little by little day by day for years.
"But even if you did prepare to restart everything somewhat late in life like I had to, every step of it makes you feel like a clumsy kid.
Like you're always stumbling about. But I think things finally seem to be falling into a rhythm.
It's easier since Scotti shacked up with the Mallicks. "
"Because they're criminals?" I asked, cringing a bit at the phrasing, no matter how true it was. "So you didn't feel like you guys had to hide or lie about who you were?"
"Exactly," he agreed. "And it gave us all an immediate sense of familiarity and roots."
"They're good at that," I told him, smiling a bit. "Making you feel like family, like you always belonged there," I added. "I haven't even known them that long, but as soon as they invited Peyton in as part of the extended family, it was almost like they expected me and Jamie to be too."
"Go on, you can say it," he said, eyes twinkling. "They've got big hearts for a bunch of kneecap-breakers."
The laugh bubbled up and burst out, making his lips curl up as well.
"Yes, that," I agreed. "Huge hearts." Suddenly uncomfortable for reasons I didn't even understand, I moved to stand. "I'm gonna go fax..."
My foot clipped the side of the desk, shooting pain through my toes, making me stumble forward.
Hands sank into my hips, quick reflexes, as my upper body pitched forward, my shoulders whacking into the solid line of his chest, my head slamming into his shoulder.
"That floor just reached up and grabbed you," he declared with a low chuckle.
"The desk," I clarified, catching myself taking a deep breath of him, forcing myself to press backward.
"That fucker," he agreed. "Need me to kiss it and make it better?"
My head jerked up, breath catching in my chest. My eyes found his, watching the light slip away, seeming to sense the way my system had tripped into overdrive at the mention of the word kiss.
It was right about then that I realized that his hands were still at my hips, fingertips digging in with an almost possessive type of pressure.
My breath shuddered out of me, my heart feeling oddly like it was buzzing instead of beating.
Kingston's fingers slid from the sides of my hips to my lower back, pulling as his legs slid open, inviting my body inside. His thick jeans scraped my thighs as I was guided inward.
My gaze held his, my heart seized in my chest, sure this wasn't happening. This couldn't be happening.
But even as I thought it, his right hand left my lower back, teasing slightly over my ribcage before lifting, swiping some of my hair off my neck, placing his palm flat there instead.
Warm.
His hands were always warm.
But the touch somehow sent a shiver coursing through me. And this time, not just on the inside.
As though that had been what he had been waiting for, both hands pressed harder, pulled until my chest brushed his, until I had to tilt my head back to keep eye contact.
His dark eyes, already hooded with need like my own felt, went even more heated as my own fluttered closed, waiting, expecting.
The second my lashes hit my cheeks, his head dipped. His breath was warm on my nose for the shortest of seconds before his lips pressed down on mine.
Hard, but tentative.
As if waiting for me to pull away.
Like every ounce of my being hadn't been dying for this moment since the second I laid eyes on him.
Like he had been fully unaware of the chaos that coursed through my system whenever he was close enough to breathe the same air as me.
Not bothering to stifle a needy whimper, my hands started to rise, grabbed hold of the strong caps of his shoulders, holding on as my lips pressed harder, demanded more.
It was then that the control Kingston was widely known for snapped, his fingers pulling harder until there wasn't a whisper of air between our bodies, until my breasts crushed to the hard lines of his chest, until it was nearly hard to breathe as his arm folded across my back, trapping me to him as though I had any ideas of trying to get away.
His lips pressed harder, got hungrier. His teeth nipped, pulled, dug in hard enough to make an unexpected moan escape me as my arms moved to fold across the back of his neck.
A low rumble moved through his chest, vibrated into my own as my lips parted, his tongue moving inside to mate with mine.
This, my body seemed to sigh, this was what I had been needing for so long, what I had been waiting for.
Not bruising, impatient drunk kisses with a stranger, not hands too impatient to stay still, not the rush that spoke of an expectation of more.
Just slow, expert exploration.
Just lips searching, finding, just hands holding on through it as the fire kindled, started licking toward a raging flame.
No urgency which seemed to allow every little sensation to amplify, become something nearly overwhelming.
This was why I personally couldn't partake in the hookup culture, why casual sex never worked for me.
I didn't want a hurried orgasm.
I wanted this.
I wanted connection, intimacy.
I wanted someone to slowly get to know the workings of my body while I got to know theirs.
This was what all those old love songs were made about. Back when sex wasn't a means to an end, but a journey to take with your partner, something that showed you about not only them, but yourself.
King's lips slanted over mine again, harder, nearly bruising.
But all I could do was demand more as his fingers slid up, sifted into my hair, fingertips gently massaging my scalp like I would often catch myself daydreaming about in stressful or lonely moments.
I was barely aware of the beeping until the barking started.
Kingston jolted away from me, hands pressing into my hips, shoving me back a foot as he got off the desk, reaching into the drawer, pulling out something long, shiny, lethal.
My body couldn't seem to process everything that was happening at once. It was too overwhelmed by the pulsating, aching desire flooding my system to put two and two together until Kingston was pushing me down.
"Get low. Don't come out," he demanded, all the hunger gone from his eyes, replaced instead with something I wasn't sure I had ever seen there.
A primal-ness.
A hunter stalking prey.
It was equally terrifying and completely intoxicating in a basic, cavewoman sort of way.
With that, not wanting to waste time to see if my brain was even able to convert his orders into actions, he moved toward the door, silently pulling it open, peeking his head out.
"Oh, good," a voice called, airy, flustered, but familiar. "I can never remember this code. Would it be so hard to use the same one as the one for your apartment?"
Scotti.
That was his sister Scotti.
That was the first real thought that seemed to break through the stupor my brain found itself in.