Royal has pretty much disappearedinto thin air. I’ve opened every fucking door in the hallway where we last saw him, and there’s no sign of him. I even asked the couple that I interrupted fucking if they’d seen him. The answer had been a resounding no.
I climb out one of the windows, thinking maybe he’d gone outside, but if he came out this way, I sure don’t see him, and I’m not running around the entire grounds of the house looking for his ass. He’s gone. He could have gone back to SIN for all I know. Grimacing, I pull out my phone and shoot him a text.
Hey. Where’d you go?
We’re still dealing with this situation you created.
I reenter the KDK house through the front door and am stunned by the wall-to-wall bodies. One glance down the main hallway into the living area tells me this party has taken an out-of-control turn with people jumping up and down to the music. It’s so many bodies at once, I’m afraid they’re going to punch a hole in the floor and fall into the basement.
So, now that the party has officially reached rager status, it’s going to make everything more difficult. Hopefully, Beckham managed to follow Echo and keep tabs on that situation. I have faith that Beck is handling things as best he can, but that Davis asshole is still a mystery to us. I don’t like it, and I definitely didn’t like his body language, his facial expression, or his tone of voice. The way he was hounding her made my blood boil. It doesn’t even matter that I don’t know what he was saying to his sister. It still pissed me right the fuck off to see her cringe and push away from him.
My gaze sweeps the room before I move toward the kitchen. And, oh shit. I hear them before I see them.
“You’re going home. Now, let’s fuckin’ go.” Davis’s deep voice grabs my attention.
“Protecting me and bossing me around are two very different things, you ass. If I want to stay, I will,” Echo argues, and it’s clear from her tone that she’s very upset.
I turn the corner in time to see him grab his sister by the elbow, and none too gently either. It has my jaw immediately locking tight and my eyes blazing.The fuck.
And then he makes a terrible, awful mistake: he gets in her face to berate her. “Look at me. Don’t be fuckingstupid.”
Oh no you didn’t, motherfucker.Fury blazes hot inside me. My fists clench.
“Don’t,” she bites out, wrenching her arm from his hold. She shakes her head, backing away. The hurt in her eyes both guts me and sets me off.
The second she leaves the room, I stride forward. Temper flaring, I narrow my eyes on him. “What fucking right do you have to put your hands on her like that?” I grip him by the throat and slam him into the wall at his back. The shock of the impact has his eyes widening as he stares at me. I lean in close and growl, “Stay outta her face. I don’t care what you think about her choices. There are other fucking ways to talk to a woman you supposedly care about to get your point across. She’s your sister.” My hand squeezes involuntarily, and blood pounds through my head. “Yoursister.”
His eyes bulge. He sputters a bit. But I’m not fucking done. “You will treat her with the respect she deserves, or I will take strips off your fucking hide.” I can’t handle the mental anguish he just caused her. And the thing is, he’s angry because Royal was here and Royal chose to grab her to have their talk. She’s at an event required of her by her sorority. She did nothing wrong.Dammit, Royal.My brows flick up as my jaw twitches hard. “Do you understand me?” I give one last vicious squeeze that has him clawing at my forearm before I bring him forward by the neck, then smack the back of his head against the wall. Letting go, he slides to his ass, and when he hits the ground, he sits there, dumbstruck.
I must be radiating some serious don’t-fuck-with-me attitude because I swear the sea of drunk people part for me. Looking left and right, I don’t see her, so I turn around to go back the way I came, but then, there she is. She isn’t far from where she’d exited the kitchen, almost as if she’d rushed out of the kitchen and immediately stopped to lean against the wall right outside of the room. Her hands cover her face, and her shoulders jerk.Fuck.I can’t tell whether she’s overwrought and having trouble breathing, or if she’s actually crying.
There’s no way I would ever leave her like this. No motherfucking way. I cross the space between us and stop in front of her. “Hey. Legacy. You okay?” Using supreme caution, I reach out, barely grazing the outside of her upper arm with my fingertips.
She peeks from between her fingers, a breath shuddering from her. She shakes her head, eyes darting behind me.
“Don’t worry about anyone else. They don’t matter.” I turn around, eyeing the few people who are staring at us. “Get the fuck outta here.” There’s some murmured cursing and groaning, but they reluctantly give us the area, even though it’s obvious they were here to get air because the epicenter of the party is still raging. I pull her to me, and she falls easily into my arms. I inhale the scent of her, even as her body trembles. Fuck, I’m in trouble.
She lets me hold her for a full minute as her body quakes before she looks up at me. “Can we go somewhere else? I don’t want my brother to find me. He makes me so fucking mad.” She lifts a hand for me to see. “Look, I’m shaking with it.”
Fuck, do I tell her I heard the conversation? I feel like I have to. “Yeah. Come on.” I tuck her under my arm, and we move quickly to the stairs that lead to the basement. Normally, I wouldn’t bother venturing from the main floor at a party, but in this case, it’s a necessity to find some quiet.
When we reach the lower level, there are far fewer people, just a handful of dudes shooting pool and one at a pinball machine. I knock on a door that appears to be a bathroom and no one answers, so I try the doorknob. It’s unlocked, and when I duck my head in, it’s empty. “Here we go.” I let her enter first, then follow, pulling it shut behind me. She leans past me, very decisively locking the door behind us before she rests her back against it. Her gaze is focused behind me somewhere, and I can tell she’s still pissed as hell.
“I need to tell you that I heard the argument with Davis. That’s why I came after you.”
Her eyes flick up to mine, and she nods. “It’s fine.” A hysterical laugh bursts from her, and she throws out a hand. “I mean it’s not fine, but I don’t care that you heard us. It’s his dumbass fault. I told him to leave me alone, that I wasn’t going home just because he told me to.” Her lips press tightly together, and I totally recognize the look. She’s so angry with Davis, the tears are welling up, much like they had after the fight when she was so angry with Royal.
I study her while she attempts to keep the tears at bay. Her gaze locks on her linked fingers, and her chest stutters with each intake of breath. I step close to her and grasp her chin with my fingers. Her eyes fly up to mine as I grit out, “I know he’s your brother, but he shouldn’t treat you like that. I don’t carewhathis fucking opinion is.”
She finally gasps for breath, reaching up to swipe her fingers over her skin. “I just—” Her lips tremble and eyes flash. “He made me so fucking mad. I understand where he’s coming from, but I can’t be the baby sister forever.” She exhales hard. “I’ve made plenty of mistakes in the past. But it destroys me that he doesn’t trust me enough to handle myself. I mean, I’m—” She stops herself, shaking her head. “Never mind.” More angry tears streak from the corners of her eyes. “I think the worst part is he told me not to be stupid about it. But I already feel plenty stupid about certain things, so it’s like a dagger to my heart.” She claws at her chest as she breaks. “He’s supposed to see me with all my flaws and accept me for who I am because he’s family… But he used it against me to tear me down.”
Wincing, I pull her away from the door and into my arms. “No man is worth your tears. I don’t care if he’s your brother, boyfriend, or otherwise.” I run my hands up and down her back. “You shouldn’t be made to feel like this. Not ever.”
She nods, her face buried in my chest. “Thank you.”
I ease her away, cupping her nape, and study her. This time, it’s me who reaches up and brushes her tears away. I catch some with my fingertips, but then dip my face to hers to catch a single drop falling with my lips. I find myself savoring it, and it fucking does something to me. A groan rumbles in my chest. I want to sample every fucking part of her. Staring into her emerald eyes, I shake my head, my jaw tense. This is such a bad idea.
But her hands grip the front of my shirt, insistently yanking me closer, and then closer again. I can’t help myself at all. My mouth skims down over her cheek, and my heart slams around in my chest as I slowly flick my tongue over her pouty mouth. There’s something about her luscious pink lips that drive me insane. It might be the perfect Cupid’s bow of her upper lip or the fullness of the bottom one. Either way, I can’t resist.
