Just Between Us (The Kings)
Just Between Us: Chapter 17

The riseand fall of Royal’s steady breathing seeped into my awareness. The room was dark except for the soft glow of his bedside alarm clock. I was pressed into his warm side, my legs tangled with his. Royal’s arms were banded around me, pressing me into him as he slept.

I used the opportunity to study his features up close. The planes of his face were sharp and masculine. His dark lashes were unfairly long, and his soft lips were parted as he breathed.

I inched back, doing my best to not wake him. My eyes moved to the tattoos that decorated his neck. Each seemed to tell a story I had yet to learn. Royal was vastly different from any man I had ever been with. My type was typically a man in business, clean cut, with a trust fund. Lately, I had been thinking my type might actually be an artist, tattooed, with a great sense of humor and a gigantic cock.

There was absolutely nothing easy and predictable about Royal King, and he had shown me something far more valuable than anyone else had ever dared. He had said his presence would allow me to step into my own feminine energy, and that was exactly what had happened. I turned to mush around him, and instead of feeling disdain, I reveled in it.

Cravedit, even.

Royal was turning everything I knew about myself inside out, but I couldn’t seem to stay away from him. But how much do I even know about the man?

“Now who’s staring?” His soft, husky voice broke through the darkness, and I glanced up to see him peeping at me through one sleepy eye.

Embarrassed, I cuddled into him. “I was just thinking about how I don’t really know anything about you.”

He shifted so we were lying side by side. I tucked my hands under my head, and he mirrored my position. “What do you want to know?”

“Everything.” I grinned.

Even in the dim lighting of his bedroom, I could see the smile in his eyes. “That might take a while.”

My eyebrows went up. “I’ve got time.”

Don’t I?

I hadn’t ever considered making Outtatowner my permanent residence, but there was nothing calling me home to Chicago. My work life had imploded, and without personal friendships outside of work, I felt a depressing lack of connection to the bustling city.

Royal must have seen the questions begin swirling in my eyes, because he held my gaze with a kind appraisal. “I want to show you something. Sit tight.”

He left me in bed while he walked across the room. He was gloriously naked and unashamed—rightly so because his muscled frame was immaculate. My mouth went dry just thinking about how hot he was and the fact he was all mine.

When he returned, he had his wallet. He sat with his back against the headboard and opened the wallet, slipping out an old, faded photograph.

He handed it to me, and I studied it with a frown. “Why do you carry around a picture of a prepubescent boy in your wallet?”

Royal looked at the photograph with love in his eyes. The scrawny boy in the picture couldn’t have been more than ten or twelve years old. He wore thick glasses and already had early signs of acne. His wide, awkward grin revealed crooked teeth and metal braces.

He touched the picture as I held it. “This is Dwayne James King.”

I looked between Royal and the picture. When I glanced at him again, he mimicked the awkward smile frozen in time in the photograph.

No freaking way.

My eyes went wide, and my mouth dropped open. “This is—” I held it up next to his face. “This is you? Are you telling me I just had sex with a man and didn’t know his first name was Dwayne?”

He chuckled and plucked the photo from my hand. “That’s hurtful. There are a lot of cool guys named Dwayne.”

I shot him a flat look. “Name one.”

“Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson.”

My hand clamped over my mouth as I stifled a giggle. “You’re right. I’m so sorry. I’m just—” I shook my head. “I can’t believe that’s really you. You had a major glow-up!”

His forehead creased. “A glow-up?”

I blinked up at him, a smile playing on my lips. “I have to know how this happened.”

He looked down at me with a gentle smile and captured my mouth in a soft kiss. “For a long time after my mom left, life was a struggle. I wasn’t into girls or sports. I was the weird kid who liked to draw.” His shoulders lifted as he looked down at the photograph, and I could see that cute little boy as clear as day. My heart squeezed.

“I got pushed around and picked on a lot . . . likely because I was so quiet. There was this one kid who was relentless. He’d tug on my backpack, wait for me after school to push me around, that kind of thing.”

My nostrils flared as I sat up and gathered the sheets around my naked body. “I want names.”

Royal chuckled. “One day I decided I was done with it. I started working out and taking care of my skin. Started eating healthier. Whip was the first to notice the changes, and he hatched the plan to help.” He tipped his head and whispered: “Around here, you can’t just give yourself a nickname. Whip started calling me Royal and every time the story changed. ‘Oh yeah, so and so came up with that.’ or ‘I don’t know, I overheard someone say it.’ The crazy thing is, it actually worked. Pretty soon I was Royal King, and once I hit puberty, I grew nearly a foot taller, and no one messed with me anymore.”

“That’s incredible.” I shook my head again. “But I still want to know who was mean to you. We could ruin his life,” I grumbled, only half joking.

“What about you?” he asked. “Any mean bullies in your past that we need to take care of?”

My mouth twisted and I shrugged. “Not really. I was an only child, so I learned to play by myself. School and grades were really important to my parents, and I learned to gain their attention through stellar marks and overachieving.”

I rested my head on my hand. “God, it’s wild how much our parents can screw us up sometimes . . . even when they don’t mean to.”

A dark chuckle rumbled through Royal. “It’s worse when it’s intentional.”

My eyes searched his, but he glanced away. “Your dad?” I asked quietly.

“My dad was always cold and callous. Even after everything we uncovered recently, it tracks. It was my mom leaving that really gutted me. She was everything to me. My person.” He shook his head. “It’s taken me years to come to terms with the fact that she could walk away from all of us—that we didn’t matter enough for her to stay.”

I could feel the tension thickening the air. Behind the happy-go-lucky, tattooed tough guy was still a confused nine-year-old boy who missed his mother. My chest ached for him.

Indecision gnawed at me. My teeth pressed into my lower lip when I finally exhaled. “There’s something I need to tell you.”

Royal’s gaze slowly moved across me, and I gathered my courage. “Your brother is up to something. He didn’t want me to divulge to the family the real reason I was hired, but it’s more than business consulting. He’s digging. I think he believes something might have happened to her and your father used the business to cover it up.”

His jaw went rigid. “Abel thinks our father may have killed our mother. He’s flat-out voiced his suspicions. But you need to be careful with JP,” he warned. “My brother has been groomed to take over the family business since he was a kid. He’s so much like my father it’s scary. If he wants to replace something, he will.”

“Okay.” My voice was quiet. Sure, JP had been calculating and stern, but he didn’t strike me as ruthless—not in the same way Russell King had been whispered about. My mind was reeling with the fact that at least one of Royal’s siblings thought Russell King was capable of murder. My heart ached for each of them.

Royal rubbed his hands across his face. “God, I do not want to think about this right now.” He shook his head. “That’s it. It’s going in the bucket.”

“The what?”

Royal leaned over me, his glorious scent and masculinity taking over my senses. His body covered mine. “I’m taking this conversation, and I’m going to chuck it in the fuck-it bucket.”

A giggle rolled out of me as he pressed me into the mattress and peppered my neck with fervent kisses. I was learning that it was what he was best at—Royal was quick to crack a joke and change the subject when things got uncomfortable.

He used humor to numb his pain.

Truth be told, I didn’t want to think about it either—in many ways sharing our secrets felt too intimate, too close—so I leaned into him and allowed him to pull me under.