20. Kingsley #2
We’re a few feet away from a house full of people, a mere glance through the large windows away from being seen, but I couldn’t care less. Something about Rip changes my brain chemistry, and I don’t have the energy to resist it tonight. If he wants my mouth around his thick cock, he’ll get it.
“King, hold on.” He pushes away from me, then gently pries my hand from his pants. “Not yet.”
I let out a half-scoff, half-bitter laugh. “You walked away like a sad puppy yesterday because I didn’t want to suck you off.”
Rip adjusts his pants with a grunt. “I know, and trust me, it’s taking a lot of restraint not to take you up on that offer.”
Rolling my eyes, I lean over the railing. “Then fuck off.”
Keeping my eyes ahead of me, I wait for him to leave. Instead, he comes closer, and I can smell his strong cologne.
His blonde hair shines in the moonlight. “What happened to your fiancée?”
My head snaps toward him. What is he playing at with a question like that?
I eye him. “You ask me as if that isn’t public knowledge.”
“It’s what’s bothering you, no?” he asks. When I raise a brow, he shrugs. “I might have listened to your conversation back there.”
He’s been here the whole time? Before he came out here, I forgot he even attended. Dad brought them in to take photos and videos, as always, but I hadn’t seen Rip and his humongous camera all night. He must have ditched the camera, because it isn’t out here.
Not only is he out here when he isn’t supposed to be, but he was eavesdropping.
It’s ridiculous that none of us noticed.
Now, after hearing, he’s asking questions about Sylvie.
I’m sure he’s been wondering, like everyone else, and now he can finally ask.
I shouldn’t even entertain Rip, but it’s like I can feel Sylvie’s gentle touch on my back, urging me to open up.
Maybe I should listen to her.
“Sylvie was murdered,” I state.
His blonde strands fall before his eyes as he leans forward. “I know, Kingsley. What else?”
“What else?” I ask incredulously. My fingers tighten around the bars. “What else is there to say?”
“It’s your dead fiancée, not mine.”
My mouth twists downward, a frown settling on my face as a hot flush spreads across my cheeks. Fuck, Rip has a way of pushing my buttons that no one has had before.
“She was shot dead in front of me,” I seethe. “Her blood splattered all over my face at the altar as I was giving my vows.”
The cool expression on his face falters, his eyes going wide as if he’s seen a ghost. “Shit. That’s not what the articles said.”
“Well, it’s what happened.” A heavy ache settles behind my eyes, and I let my head rest against the fence.
I imagine lifting my head up and smashing it against the fence over and over. Will that pain finally get rid of this constant feeling of worthlessness? Will that be enough to erase the persistent, belittling thoughts from my mind and gain redemption from the woman I failed?
Can a bit of pain fix the hollowness in me the way Rip does?
“I should’ve pressed the police more to find her murderer,” I mumble the lie.
“Why didn’t you?”
And for the first time, someone asked the question. I should be happy someone finally did, right?
“Are you playing therapist now?”
“Answer the question,” he states.
My dick twitches in my pants, and I silently curse myself. I should saw it off for even feeling something as I talk about Sylvie.
“Because I couldn’t,” I spit out. “I couldn’t do anything after she died, Rip.” I couldn’t even feel.
I keep that last part to myself. Rip is like a truth serum, compelling me to share my life’s story, but there are some things I can’t say aloud.
I never loved Sylvie. She was a bossy control freak who made my life hell.
Buster’s daughter wanted me to follow her many rules because she was so adamant about marrying someone who was her perfect match, which I was not.
At first, I tried to get out of it, but it was an arranged marriage thought up by our fathers, and it was necessary for me to one day take over the Crown.
But even in Sylvie’s many flaws, she was only a girl raised by an abusive father and an abused mother who turned a blind eye and shunned her.
So, I complied with her crazy regulations.
I got to know her, took her on dates, and made her feel like the beautiful woman she was.
By the time we got to our wedding day, I was content with marrying Sylvie Crenshaw.
And then someone took that from me, and I didn’t know how to process it. But I knew I didn’t want to spend months plotting revenge, because that wouldn’t change anything. Sylvie Crenshaw died, and I let that happen. Me.
“Her death killed me,” I sigh. “The man I was when she was alive is long gone, and no one wants to accept that.”
If I had been a stronger man and not let her control me, maybe everyone would still have the perfect royal image of me. Though honestly, the more I discover about myself, the more I understand I probably needed her direction. But who wants a puppet as their leader?
Rip clears his throat. “Is that how the eating disorder started?”
Eyes narrowing, I push myself off the railing. “You think I have an eating disorder?”
Rip opens his mouth to say something, but shuts it. Eating disorder? An heir to one of the largest criminal empires in the country can’t have an eating disorder. My eating habits were another thing that changed, but it’s nowhere near bad enough to be what Rip is describing.
But an eating disorder or not, the social media marketer has observed more about me than those closest in my life, and I don’t know if I should be flattered or on guard. For my sanity, I’ll choose flattered.
What drives me to do this, I can’t say—maybe it’s the strangely comforting ease in my chest when I’m near Rip, or the way the moon seems to illuminate his big eyes—but I slowly raise my shirt.
I only lift it slightly above my stomach, enough that anyone who saw my photos from a year ago would notice the lost muscle.
Rip barely reacts. He only mumbles, “Oh.”
I let my shirt drop and hug my torso. I’m back in the gym, pushing hard to reclaim the muscle mass I used to have, so there is no need to let him see how much I’d let myself go. There is genuinely something wrong with me. But then again, there always has been.
Sensing my discomfort, Rip reaches out. I shove him hard in the chest, but he barely budges as his hand snakes around my waist, drawing me closer.
He holds me tight against him. “Shit, I’m sorry.”
“It’s fine,” I try to pull myself off him. “You don’t have to do this.”
Rip’s grip doesn’t loosen, and instead pulls me closer, the firm pressure against my chest as my head rests on him.
I struggle in his arms, letting out a slew of curses for him to let me go, but I may as well be talking to myself.
Eventually, I give in. His arms around me give a sense of peace that I can’t muster the strength to fight, even if it makes me feel like a little kid.
For the first time in as long as I can remember, I feel truly like myself.
“I’m sorry about Sylvie,” he says, his voice low and resonant. “That was traumatic.”
Isn’t everything about my life? Why was her death the last straw that pushed me over the edge?
Rip pulls back, keeping me at bay while looking me dead in the eyes, serious. “I don’t think it’s a bad thing that you didn’t press the police for more about her. Anyone who thinks less of you for it can go fuck themselves. Revenge isn’t always the way.”
That hardened, gritty tone speaks like someone who knows what they’re talking about. It sounds like it’s coming from someone who has experienced it firsthand and isn’t giving bullshit advice. Someone who has dealt with something similar.
“Oh, about your muscles, my view of you is still the same, just so you know. Your body was beautiful then, and it’s beautiful now.
You’re beautiful, Prince. Don’t even think about saying you’re not a woman, so I can’t say that.
I know what you are, and the word isn’t only for women. I’m beautiful too.”
I stare at him, starstruck. My eyes blink like if I do it enough, I’ll unhear his words.
Rip Wright calling me beautiful should not make my heart do a somersault. I should not want to close the distance between our lips.
The universe says, “Fuck what shouldn’t happen,” apparently.
Who would have thought Rip would be the one challenging gender norms so forcefully? “Did you just call me beautiful, darling?”
“You heard me,” he states unapologetically. “Now, get on your knees and take my cock down your throat.”
My lips pull into a tight grin. Gladly.
I drop to my knees like it’s clockwork while Rip unzips his pants and pulls out his pierced dick. Fuck, I can’t wait to feel that in my mouth.
Rip grips the back of my head and tilts it up as he positions his length before my mouth. He fills my mouth with himself, and it touches the back of my throat. I have to will myself not to gag.
I suck once, hard, and Rip groans. With his hand still on my head, his hips buck forward, and he pulls me so close that my nose hits his pelvis.
“Shit, Kingsley,” he curses, exasperated. “You look so beautiful with my dick in your mouth.”
Tears brim in my eyes, but I don’t let up. I couldn’t even if I wanted to, since Rip is actively working my head back and forth on him.
His eyes meet mine, and the blue shines in the darkness. I let my tongue flick all over, and I find the piercing, no doubt making him more sensitive. Rip’s cock jabs me in the back of the throat, sucking and teasing as best I can.