Fierce King by Ivy Mason

Six

I wanted her.

I wanted her almost as bad as I'd wanted Lily, from the very moment Rose stepped into the room.

For a brief, insane moment, I thought she was Lily, back from the dead. Come to punish me for all the ways I didn't protect her like I should've.

Come to reveal the truth, the truth I could never reveal, even if my very life depended on it.

I could tell by the look on Coulter's face that he thought he had me.

I hardened my gaze, and his confidence began to falter. To any other person, including his closest friends, he would still seem so self assured. But I know my brother more than any other person alive, and I saw the slight hesitation in his eyes.

Good.

Because he couldn’t know how badly I wanted this girl.

I couldn’t believe his arrogance. He’d never worked as hard as I had for this company. This family. I'd done all the hard shit because I wanted to protect him. And now, he had no idea what he’d just done.

If the Bratvas were to ever discover the truth, this would start the war of all wars. It would negate everything I'd done to set this deal in place.

I'd given up a lot to even get the Bratvas to the table.

I'd killed to keep them at the table.

I wasn’t a good man. I'd become the very devil to keep my family safe, and now, with one spontaneous, idiotic decision, Coulter had ruined it all.

Because he never fucking thought, except for what was best for him and his stupid dick.

Before I could answer him, before I could berate him for ruining all my hard work, there was a shaking at the door. It was Rose, and she was trying to get out. She’d grown quiet in the past minute but now she’d renewed her struggle with vehemence.

We turned and stared at it in horror, both of us wanting to keep her in as badly as we wanted her out.

When the handle didn’t work, she slammed her fist against the wood, screaming out her frustration.

And the sound sent a thrill through me.

God I wanted her.

I wanted to watch her writhe under me. To feel my cock sliding through her wet cunt. To see her surrender herself to me, in every possible way.

Unlike Coulter, if I fucked her, she would be mine.

I didn’t just want one night.

And that's why I couldn’t do it.

And even though the sounds of her pleading made my dick hard, I had to refuse this offer. Because if I fucked her, I would be hers, just as much as she would be mine. I would never let her go.

I steeled myself, giving Coulter a glare. "Get the fucking key. We're taking her back. Now."

"What?!" He gave me a disbelieving look. He thought he'd convinced me.

I stepped closer to him, pointing my finger right into his chest. "Give me the fucking key. if I take her back now, I can fix this."

He shook his head. "No."

I froze. Coulter rarely stood up to me. Not like this, when it was something important. He knew that I always did what was best for the family. He trusted me.

But with this one word, he drew a line in the sand.

He was going to choose his cock over his family.

I gave him one more chance and tilted my head to the side, studying him with an intensity that I knew he’d understand. I lowered my voice, giving him my most deadly tone. "You're saying no? To this?"

He hesitated for only a second, but then he straightened, his gaze blazing into mine. "Yes."

I didn’t get angry. I didn’t yell or scream or throw anything.

No. I was calm.

He’d just declared war between us, because of this woman? She was everything to Dimitri. I didn’t know why, but that was one thing I'd discovered when I did my research on him. The contract for her revealed more than he thought it would ever reveal.

He cared more about her than anything else in this world, and he would kill everyone and everything in his path to get her back.

Even though Coulter didn’t know it, because he chose to be a lazy prick and not get involved like he should.

And yet, that shouldn’t matter.

He knew how serious I was, and he was choosing keeping her over the family.

The selfish, arrogant prick.

I took in a deep breath, steeling myself for what was to come.

Because now, with this decision, war was coming.

No. Death was coming.

And I would do anything to protect Coulter from that asshole, because I considered him to be the only family I'd ever have. I'd promised to protect him when I was a kid, and it was a promise I'd never broken.

It was also a promise I wouldn’t break today, even though Coulter had just done the most selfish thing he’d ever done.

I would keep him alive until Dimitri was dead.

Then I might just kill him myself.

My gaze bore into his, and he met my stare with a steely one of his own. “You will live to regret this,” was the only warning I gave him before I turned, and calmly strode towards the door.

As soon as I was outside, I took in a deep breath. The air was stifling in this god forsaken heat, but I needed to calm myself.

I hated being in that house, with all the memories that it brought.

Coulter thought it only had special meaning to him, but that place had been as comforting to me as it had been for him, except more.

Coulter didn't go there often, so what he didn’t know, what he’d never know, is that I'd been there all the time.

All the times when Coulter thought I was alone in my room, I was here, with her.

I'd sneak out in the evenings, after dinner with the family or even late at night, after I’d returned from work.

Lily’s mother, Angela, would hug me, then welcome me into her home, as if I was her own son. In a lot ways, she’d become like a mother to me. We’d often talk, the three of us, until late into the night.

They were the family I'd always wanted, and even though they never had money, their love was better than anything my father had ever given me.

He may have given me anything materialistic I'd ever wanted but the other side of that was only ever pain.

All the rage I felt inside was caused by his hands, as he took every opportunity to teach me how to be tough enough to live in our world. And when my father was done pounding my face in, this was the place I would come.

Angela would dote on me, muttering soothing words of comfort, trying to heal the cuts and bruises, the broken bones. She’d even learned how to dig out a bullet and sew me up, out of necessity.

And then, after she would go to bed, it would just be me and Lily.

We didn't even have sex, not for a long time.

We talked.

And touched.

I held her at night, the nights she wasn't with Coulter.

And then, the simple caresses became longer ones. I grew to intimately know every inch of her body before I ever knew what it was like to be inside her.

I knew the shape of her breasts, the way her nipples responded to my caresses, the way her stomach muscles would clench as my lips suckled and licked over them.

And when she finally opened up to me, I knew the taste of her pussy on my tongue long before I ever knew what it felt like to have her warm, wet cunt wrapped around my dick.

She was my salvation and my destruction, because her death destroyed me in ways that no one would ever know.

And the sight of Rose brought all those feelings back in one rush, making me ache to be with her. To know if her body would respond to mine the same way Lily's had.

Would she fall apart at a more tender touch? Or did she like it rough and hard? Did pain turn her on, like it did Lily?

Would she beg me to hurt her? To take away all her control?

Would I come undone for her? Grow to care for her?

Would she see through the broken man I'd become, and learn to love me as I was?

I wanted all this and more.

I did want one more night. And another and another, until the days blended into months and then years. I wanted it all, for the rest of my short life.

And now, I had to clench my hands into fists to keep myself from turning back around and going to her. From giving in to Coulter's pleas.

To take her and fuck her.

And then kill her, just to get rid of the torment.

The prickling sensation on my neck alerted me to eyes on my back, and I knew that Dante was watching me from the window.

The man saw everything, and he was super protective over Coulter. Even though Coulter trusted me, Dante didn't.

Which was good, because Coulter would need someone at his back when I tried to kill him for what he did here tonight.

I pulled my phone out of my pocket and, finding the number I needed, pressed send.

My feet automatically found the path I'd taken thousands of times before, the path that led from Lily's house to mine.

Grant answered immediately. “Yes, boss.”

"I need you."

“You got it."

"Meet me in my office in fifteen minutes." I hung up, then walked away, turning my back on the only chance I'd ever have to find happiness in this life because I knew I would never deserve it.