I blinked at him.

“I fucked up, Jena, but I will make it up to you. Whatever it takes. You’ll see.”

His words were firm, unwavering. He meant every single thing he said.

Unable to respond, my breath backed up in my chest as he slowly lowered his head and touched his mouth to mine.

Then he got up and gathered our dirty dishes as though he hadn’t rocked my conviction to continue hating him with just a few sentences.

Chapter Eighteen

‡

I sighed heavily and rolled over in the surprisingly comfortable bed, punching my pillow into submission.

I couldn’t sleep.

The only think on my mind tonight was that King’s bed was on the other side of the wall, with King in it. It had been six long months since a man touched me and held me, and King had been that man.

Over the last few days, he’d dropped his guard completely. He talked to me, telling me about his past and so many things about him I’d never known. He told me about growing up an only child with an incredibly strict father and a mother who couldn’t stand up to her husband. I found out he enlisted with the Marines as soon as he was old enough and spent the next five years in the military. To my surprise, this was where he met Wick.

When I finally relented on the silent treatment long enough to tell him that I had difficulty believing he was in the military, King laughed. He admitted he had trouble believing it himself.

It was as if he realized that the quickest away around my defenses was by lowering his own. All the things I wanted to know about him six months ago, I learned in the matter of days without having to pry or continuously ask.

I wanted to hang on to my anger because it would protect me from further heartbreak, but my defenses were slipping. God, I was weak.

Now, in this guest room, all I could think about was climbing out of bed and walking to his room. My body ached with the desire to do that, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t take that step until I figured out if I could trust King again. I’d told him that I didn’t, but now I wasn’t sure I even cared if I could or not.

Unfortunately, that uncertainty was probably due to the rioting hormones taking over my brain.

Groaning, I rolled over again, cramming the pillow beneath my neck. I had to stop thinking about this or I wouldn’t be able to resist the urge to make that trip to King’s bed.

When the door opened, I sat up, watching with equal parts excitement and uncertainty as King entered the room as though my fevered brain had conjured him out of my imagination. My emotions were snarled and twisted until I wasn’t sure if I hated him or loved him or if I just wanted him to fuck me.

Neither of us spoke. My eyes moved over his body and I sucked in a sharp breath when I realized he was naked. He walked toward me in the dark, mostly in shadow, but he didn’t say a word.

My muscles tensed as King came closer. Suddenly, he reached out and yanked the blankets down my body.

“King-”

“Shut up,” he commanded, his voice low and rough.

I scooted back on the bed until my shoulders hit the headboard. King didn’t stop his forward motion, placing a knee on the bed and crawling toward me.

I lifted a hand, which glanced off his hot, bare shoulder. I was no longer uncertain, just excited, but that didn’t mean that this should happen. This insanity had to stop now because I refused for my head to be overruled by my body.

“Alaric!” I snapped.

By then he loomed over me, half his face in shadow, but his eyes glittered menacingly even in the dark. “I said, shut up.”

Kneeling over me, his hands went to the neck of my t-shirt. My torso jerked as he ripped it down the center, baring my body.

Something about the sound destroyed the last of the resolutions I’d created to hold me back. I didn’t care any longer if he hurt me or if I hated him. I desperately needed what he was going to give me. I lunged upward, my mouth crashing against his so hard that our teeth met. The pain didn’t matter. All that mattered is that the emptiness within me would be filled, even if it was just for a little while.

But the pain did matter. It made me feel invigorated and alive. I bit his lower lip and sucked away the sting. I dragged my nails down his spine, and his back arched as he hissed. I knew he liked it, so I did it again.

King’s fingers dug into my hips as he clutched the material of my underwear and yanked it free of my body. He wrestled me out of the tattered remains of my shirt and panties, throwing them off the side of the bed.

King lowered his head and closed his lips around my nipple, sucking hard and deep. My head fell back and I moaned. It ached, but in the best of ways.

I reached down between us, wrapping my hand around him tightly. The edge of King’s teeth closed around my nipple and tugged as I stroked him. It was happening so quickly, the fire building between us until I worried we would both combust.

Impatiently, he shoved my thighs apart with his knees, his hips crowding mine. He reached down and grabbed my hand, pulling it away from his cock. I struggled, but King pinned both my hands above my head.

“Stop,” he growled.

I moved restlessly beneath him, eager to free my arms. “No.”

He pressed me harder into the bed, his lips opening so that his tongue tangled with mine. The kiss was out of control, just like the two of us.

I wrapped my legs around his hips, trying to pull him closer.

King gave me what I wanted. He released my hands and reached between us, guiding his dick inside me. In one quick lunge, he thrust into me completely.

I cried out, my back arching off the bed. King’s chest pressed against mine as he took quick breaths, but he didn’t move. He stared down at me, but I couldn’t see his face clearly.

Lifting a hand, I traced the tips of my fingers over his cheekbone. The air changed then. The wild desperation was suddenly gone, leaving behind nothing but the weight of his body on top of me and the sensation of his breath mingling with mine. I was utterly in the moment.

King withdrew gradually before sliding home just as slowly. He was no longer rough, but it was no less electrifying.

He kept the pace excruciatingly slow until I was shifting restlessly beneath him, trying to urge him on with the movement of my hips. King wasn’t having any of it. He continued to do what he wanted.

“King,” I breathed. “Hurry.”

“No,” he answered.

I frowned at him. “Move faster.”

“No.”

My head lifted and I sank my teeth into the top of his shoulder. He chuckled against my neck.

His lips touched my ear. “Forgive me, Jena.”

My muscles went rigid and I stopped struggling with him. I stared up at him, my eyes wide. Was he asking me what I thought he was?

“Let me back in,” he insisted, punctuating the demand with a sharp thrust of his hips.

My body shuddered beneath him, but I shook my head. I knew what he wanted but I couldn’t give him that. “I can’t.”

“You can. Let me in, Jena. I’ll give you everything.”

He shifted so that he knelt in front of me, my thighs draped over his. As he continued to move inside me, his hand came between my legs.

My hips jerked as his thumb rolled across my clit, firm and quick.

“You can trust me. You can always trust me. I’ll never hurt you like that again.”

Twisting my head on the pillow, I glared up at him. “What is this? You won’t let me come unless I tell you what you want to hear?”

“No,” he growled. “I want you to listen to me, to hear what I’m saying. I want back in, Jena.”

“Well, this isn’t the way to go about it!” I snapped.

His thumb continued to circle my clit, faster now, as the tempo of his thrusts increased.

That’s when it came over me. The orgasm stole my breath, my thoughts, even the anger that overwhelmed me moments before.