Tease: A Kings of Korruption MC Novel (11 page)

She smiles softly.
 
“Not really.
 
Just a survivor.
 
Anyone can be a survivor with the right attitude.”

I don’t like how she’s downplaying it.
 
She’s a fucking miracle, and she won’t acknowledge it.
 
Turning my body toward hers, I squeeze her hand tightly and place my other hand around the side of her neck.
 
“That may be true, but not everyone can be a fuckin’ inspiration to so many people.
 
You are.
 
Don’t dismiss that shit.”

My eyes are boring into hers, waiting to see if she is listening to what I’m saying, so I’m caught off-guard when she grins.
 
“You told me that you aren’t nice, but you never told me that you’re sweet.”

I stiffen and squeeze her neck, growling, “I ain’t fuckin’ sweet.”

She laughs out loud, the joy on her face breathtaking.
 
“I hate to tell you, tough guy, you work hard at hiding it, but you are.”

Gritting my teeth, I remove my hand and move to stand up, but her hand on my arm stops me.
 
“Thank you, Travis.”

I stare into her face, the sincerity in her words right there for the world to see, and I can’t fucking stop it.
 
I need to connect with her.
 
To touch her.
 
To
claim
her.

Placing my hand back on her neck, I lean forward, pulling her face toward mine.
 
Just as our lips are about to touch, I pause.
 
“I’m gonna kiss you, Laynie.
 
If you don’t wa –“

She crushes her lips to mine, stopping my words before I can speak them.
 
They’re soft and sweet and taste like the strawberry wine she loves so much.
 
My heart is hammering, and my dick swells instantly.
 
Groaning, I pull her closer, demanding more from her sweet lips.

I never knew that kissing could be like this.
 
The emotions that are warring for first place in my mind are overwhelming, taking a backseat only to my desire to make this woman mine.
 
When her tongue slips in and slides smoothly across mine, I grasp her hips, pulling her over and onto me, straddling me.
 
I can feel the heat of her pussy through the zipper on my jeans.

Her hands slide up and into my hair as she presses herself against my erection.
 
I’ve never been so fucking turned on.
 
She moans long and deep, grinding down on me slightly.
 
Her hands slide from my hair, and before I can stop them, she slides them down the sides of my cheeks.
 
When she reaches my scar, she stops kissing, stops grinding, and gasps in horror.

I don’t even give her a fucking chance to say anything.
 
Gently but quickly, I lift her from my lap and place her on the couch once more.
 
Standing, I walk swiftly to the door and without a second glance, get the fuck out of there.

JUMPING ONTO MY RIDE, I rev the motor and peel off down the quiet street.
 
My vision is blurred by rage.
 
I wish more than anything that I could go back in time to the day that motherfucker cut me and rip his black heart right out of his scrawny chest.
 
I’ve always prided myself on not caring what others think about my face, but when Laynie had touched my mangled cheek, I’d fucking cared.
 
And when she’d gasped like that ...
fuck
!

I knew she’d be disgusted.
 
I’d wanted her to know who I really am – how we don’t fit — but now that she knows, and I turned out to be right, I don’t know what the fuck to do with it.
 
I’ve gotten to know her a little.
 
I’ve kissed her sweet as fuck lips and captured her moans with my tongue.
 
FUCK!

This is why I never fucking put myself out there.
 
This is why I stick to myself and don’t worry about anyone else.
 
It’s been that way since he fucking ruined me.
 
That’s when I realized that everybody else was going to let me down too.
 
The only person I could count on was myself.

After that life-changing night, I thought for sure my mother would leave him.
 
I waited.
 
And then I waited some more.
 
Without Buddy there, I was miserable, and my face took forever to heal.
 
He never stopped cuffing me on the side of the head every time he walked by me, and that didn’t help me heal either.
 
I needed to get away.
 
I knew if I didn’t, I was going to die in that house.

But she never left.
 
She never even fucking acknowledged what had happened.
 
If anything, she got worse.
 
She started drinking more and sleeping all the time, leaving me alone with Rick.
 
One night I was in bed sound asleep when Rick came into my room.
 
He’d smelled strongly of booze and could hardly stand up.
 
He’d walked to the side of my bed, undoing his belt as he moved.

I bolted upright, knowing he was going to beat me with that belt, but he didn’t.
 
He’d come to the edge of my bed directly in front of me and dropped his pants.
 
“You’re fucking mother’s passed out and can’t suck my dick, so guess what, you little fuck … it’s your turn.”
 
I’d stared at him in horror as he’d grabbed the back of my head and tried to press my face into his fully-erect and foul-smelling cock.

That was when I lost it.
 
Bringing up my fist, I punched that drunk fuck right in the nuts, and when his knees gave out from the pain, I ran.
 
With nothing but the pajamas I was wearing, and the shoes I managed to grab on my way out, I ran like hell.

I didn’t know what the fuck to do.
 
I was only nine years old.
 
For days, I lived on the streets, eating out of dumpsters and sneaking into the basement of the public library to sleep.
 
It didn’t take long for me to get caught, but when my mother came into the station, she wouldn’t even look at me.
 
I watched her through the window of the interrogation room as she cried and told the police she couldn’t handle me anymore; I was a trouble maker.
 
I’d like to think this was her way of saving me – of giving me an out.
 

So I went into foster care.
 
Nobody wanted a nine-year-old delinquent in their home, so I ended up in a group home for boys.
 
Most of the kids there were in their teens.
 
It was like moving from one level of hell to another.
 
Those boys took one look at my mangled face and my scrawny frame and decided that my life wasn’t shit enough — they needed to make it even shittier.

Every day they teased me.
 
They called me names, kicked me, punched me, and stole my food.
 
I tried to tell the social workers, but they didn’t believe it was that bad, and besides, their hands were tied.
 
Where else was I going to go?
 

I took that shit until I was sixteen.
 
By then I had grown a lot, and I was starting to fill out and gain more muscle.
 
One of the kids that had been harassing me for years thought it would be funny to embarrass me in front of the hottest girl in school, and I lost it.
 
Grabbing my pencil, I’d jammed it straight through his hand and beat the fuck out of the son-of-a-bitch until the police showed up to pull me off him.
 

I spent the next two years in juvie.
 
Juvenile detention centers are not a place for kids to sort their shit.
 
It’s a lot like prison, but on a smaller scale.
 
I never made any friends there.
 
I kept to myself, and I fought when I had to.
 
I quickly earned a reputation for being a guy you didn’t dare fuck with, and that worked for me, so I keep that reputation and wear it like a goddamned shield to this day.

All those years and all those experiences should have taught me not to fall into the trap I fell into tonight.
 
I don’t blame Laynie, I blame myself — I’d been charmed by her.
 
She couldn’t see me to know who or what I was.
 
I was the ass that kissed her as if I had some right to claim her.
 
For the first time, I’d forgotten who I was …
what
I was.
 
I won’t let that ever happen again.

My face heats as I hear the door to the apartment close softly.
 
He left.
 
We were having an incredible time, and he left.
 
I can’t believe I had gasped like that.
 
It must have sounded pretty awful for him to leave without a word.
 
I’m so angry at myself.

Tears fill my eyes as I sit, waiting for him to come back.
 
It’s not until I hear the roar of his motorcycle as he speeds away that they fall onto my cheeks.
 
What have I done?
 
I knew he was broken somehow, but I didn’t know how or why. I still don’t, really, but I know it has something to do with that long scar I felt on his cheek.

God.
 
What had happened to him to cause that?
 
It wasn’t overly thick or rough feeling, but I could feel its length and that it was smooth with age.
 
That was an old scar.