15. Rip
Rip
“Your stance says… please kill me now,” Thomas remarks, adjusting the camera to capture Kingsley more effectively.
King nods solemnly. “That’s how I feel.”
It’s always like pulling teeth trying to get Kingsley to act like he enjoys his life when recording. Every movement is stiff and forced, and our only good clips come when he’s so exhausted from repeating lines he delivers one outstanding, fluke of a take.
Thomas ponders. “Hmm. Maybe we can distract from your lackluster performance if you take your shirt off.”
Kingsley wastes no time speaking. “No.”
My brother doesn’t notice the firmness in his voice. “Alright, but if we want a shot in the hot tub, then you’ll have to.”
“Then we don’t get that shot.” His tone is unyielding, fostering an unsettling air between us. It’s silent for a moment before Thomas finally gets the hint and moves on.
Kingsley has his reasons for keeping his shirt on, and it has to be the same reason he’s always wearing clothes twice his size.
We’d seen him without a shirt at Fight Club, but he doesn’t know that. The crowd’s expressions and hushed whispers showed they weren’t used to seeing that King. I had to bite my tongue from lashing out at strangers.
What makes them so entitled to gossip about someone else’s body? Even if Kingsley had been a whole bodybuilder last time they saw him, it doesn’t mean they needed to open their yappers, especially when he’s right there getting ready to fight.
But Ryland is right: Kingsley isn’t as hard as people try to make it seem. Where some men would’ve turned to destruction and revenge, he turned to retreat. And it looks like he hasn’t fully gotten out of it.
Is this the intel the Requiem is looking for? Should this be the information I give to Mother when she asks what we’ve learned in the month and a half we’ve been here? Fuck, it’s driving me crazy being in the dark. It’s like putting together a puzzle piece blind.
“Hey, King, if we get this last clip, you think I can go down a couple of slides?” Thomas asks. “Or am I not allowed since it’s technically closed?”
Kingsley shrugs. “Go for it.”
Suddenly, the next subpar take we get off Kingsley is good enough for Tommy, and he rushes off to the biggest slide without a goodbye.
We’re left in awkward silence. King and I haven’t been alone together since Thanksgiving, which has become another situation added to the list of things we don’t talk about. They’ve happened often when we’re alone, lately.
I wouldn’t mind it as much if it felt like they were bringing us closer, but sometimes I think I’ve cracked the code inside his head, and other times I know as much about him as a random fan. If we don’t speed this job up, I’ll go mad.
“Hot tub?” I suggest. “Beats watching Thomas have a blast.”
Kingsley’s lips roll together, contemplating. Then, he says, “Sure.”
The jacuzzi is close to the water slides, in its own little area. I toss my shirt on the floor, drop my phone on it, then dip my toes into the bubbling water. It isn’t as sizzling as I expected, but it’ll have to do. I sink into the hot tub and let out a relaxed sigh as the warmth soothes me.
Thomas and I haven’t had a relaxing day at the spa in… ever. So, this? This is heaven.
When I look up, Kingsley is standing above me, staring down.
“Like what you see?”
His eyes widen slightly, but then he rolls them. He joins me in the water seconds later, his white tee becoming transparent and clinging to his chest. King doesn’t leave much room between us, making us so close our knees keep bumping.
King leans back, shuts his eyes, and lets his arms float in the water. It’s probably been a long time since he’s relaxed like this, too.
He looks much more peaceful than usual. Kingsley strikes me as laid back, like nothing bothers him because he never cared in the first place, but I wouldn’t describe that as peaceful.
But as he lies in the water, his jaw is slack, and his breaths are even, as if he’s not moving through life as if it’s a chore.
The cut on his lip from Victor has healed over the last week. Good. Victor’s ugly mug pops into my head, and my teeth clench. I wish I could join and show Victor how much worse I can do than rip the skin off him.
King’s lips part slightly as he breathes. Has he fallen asleep? We’ve only been in for five minutes.
A low grumble breaks me out of my thoughts. “I can feel you staring.”
I suck on my piercing in place of a response, because the response that comes to mind isn’t kind at all.
When Kingsley opens his eyes, the first place they look is my chest. “You have so many tattoos.”
My tats decorate most of my body, especially the upper half. They’re my most attractive quality, if I had to choose, and it’s not an easy choice with competition among my other qualities being so stiff.
“I’ve been getting them since I was young.” Maybe too young.
He chews on his bottom lip, and it’s hard for me to look away. His gaze is still roaming my chest. “You got color in some of them, but can you even tell what colors they are?”
He’s referring to my colorblindness? Those who know about it usually avoid the topic out of fear of being insensitive. They walk on eggshells around it like the cowards they are, but not Kingsley.
“If you’re thinking I see black and white, you’re wrong,” I state. King’s eyes narrow curiously. Yeah, that’s what he thought. “I have red-green color blindness. It means some colors blur together, not that I can’t distinguish them at all.”
“Oh.”
With a wet finger, he traces the outline of the bat tattoo on my upper chest. He traces over every tattoo I have, as if he’s amazed there are so many on me. It’s not like he’s never seen this many—his dad has more than me, but he still caresses each one as if he’s mesmerized.
His hand moves to the water’s edge, at my lower stomach, and my lower half throbs. I grunt, trying to fight the growth in my shorts, but I wouldn’t mind if his fingers moved a little lower.
Kingsley’s chewing his lip so much he might reopen the cut. With his finger still on my stomach, just above the water, he waits. For a signal? For confirmation? For me to give in?
Hell, I gave in back at the wine cellar.
I stick my hand in the water and under his shirt. When he doesn’t stop me, I let my hand wander up his chest until I find his nipple, and when I pinch, the rise and fall of his chest freezes.
The pool’s heat makes his sweaty skin gleam. Lips parted, I wait for him to say we don’t need to do this again. Just because I established the “no kissing” rule, and he agreed, doesn’t make this any less wrong.
I give his bud another squeeze, and he bites down on his lip. A surge ripples through me, realizing it’s a sensitive spot for him, and I want to push it further. I keep going, squeezing and twisting it underneath his wet shirt, making him squirm against me.
I can see through it, but this damn shirt is in my way. I want to tear it off him and get full access to his top half like he has mine, but something tells me he won’t let it be removed. If he did, it’d be gone.
I reach into the warm water and into his shorts to grip his hardened dick, and it pulses in my grasp.
“Fuck, you’re hard,” I breathe. But I may be harder.
I yank his trunks down, but he has to lift his hips to get them off. The shorts float in the water beside us, and they’re incriminating evidence if my brother sees, but I’ll gamble that he’s too busy with the park to walk in on us.
My finger grazes the tip of his dick. He shivers, and the sight sends tingles in my groin, enhanced by the warmth of the water. Unable to hide my smirk, I do it again and earn the same reaction.
I tease a bit more before I let my hand travel to his long shaft. I stroke him slowly, then faster, tugging and yanking, changing the pressure as King’s brown eyes squeeze shut, and he bites down hard.
“Shit,” he groans, palms pressed against my chest. “I’m close.”
Hearing that, I stop.
King’s eyes blink open, dumbfounded. “What the fuck?”
Something playful buzzes in my chest. “Well, that would have been too easy.”
His lip curls, and for the first time, he’s genuinely peeved. “Don’t fucking tease me.”
“Don’t tell me what to do,” I retort.
While Kingsley gawks at me like a fool, I dip into my shorts and pull my cock into the water. I bite back a moan; the water’s almost too hot, sticking to me, making every nerve hypersensitive.
I look again and see him stroking himself under the water, eagerly.
I swat his hand away. “Don’t be impatient, Prince. Only I can touch you. Got it?”
With his bulging, watery eyes, I expect him to resist. The man looks like he’s about to implode, for fuck’s sake. Instead, he gives a curt nod.
There’s that submissiveness in Kingsley no one gets to see except for me. Fucking amazing.
The water crashes against us as I readjust myself, getting a better angle, and Kingsley’s hands are cupping his balls when I wrap my hand around his rock-hard shaft again. He lets go, letting out a sigh that is a mix of both relief and pleasure, and gives me full control again.
“Bloody hell,” I groan as I pump both our cocks in the water.
Kingsley yelps again, and I hope the walls are thick and my brother is on the other side of the building. I won’t be able to explain my way out of the noises echoing from the room.
White sprouts of liquid swim in the foggy water as Kingsley grunts into me. He rests his head on my shoulder, totally spent, but I keep rubbing as he softens.
He grips the concrete, but doesn’t pull away. “Rip… fuck. I can’t—”
“You can, King,” I grit.
I’m coming as soon as the words leave my mouth, and I ride out my climax before I slump into the water. Kingsey’s head is still on my shoulder, and his chest is puffing up and down as he catches his breath.
I break the silence minutes later. “Too much?”
He shakes his head. “I handled it.”
Pride swells in my chest. “If I know one thing, it’s that you’re nowhere near as quiet as you pretend to be. Like, at all.”
Kingsley laughs wearily. “Fuck you.”
Maybe next time.