Page 47 of Tempting the King

His hand darts out so fast I barely see it. I have no time to react with anything except a gasp as his fingers shoot under my skirt, and his fingers dig in, taking a handful of my mound.

“Firecracker, I’ve told you to call me King. Do I need to teach this soaked little cunt what happens when you don’t follow the rules?”

I shake my head. “Please, this is hard for me. I feel like I still need to be your therapist.”

His knuckle drags down my slit, making me moan. “You want to know me? The parts no one knows?”

“Yes… I want that.”

He grins and pulls away, smoothing down my skirt and taking my hand in his to pull me to my feet. “That’s not going to happen locked up in this hotel room. I’ve got somewhere to show you.”

“King books?” I ask, as he helps me down out of the truck.

“You wanted to know the real me, it’s here in this bookstore.” He laughs at my expression. “You think I can’t read?”

“No!” I laugh. I remember him telling me he reads, and me telling him about my copy of Anne of Green Gables. “I—”

“It wasn’t so much the reading, firecracker,” he says with a smile, pulling me into his arms.

He leads me down the sidewalk in front of the five-story old brick warehouse. This place is a Detroit icon and landmark, but I haven’t been here since I was a kid.

As we step through the doors of the bookstore, I immediately get the same sense of wonder I felt the first time I came here, my grandfather treating me and Benjamin to the outing in a way my parents never would have. I remember the slight musty smell of old books. The dim light as my grandfather let us browse for hours, with the promise that I could pick any book I wanted, and it would be mine. Not for an hour, not for a day, but to keep.

Forever.

Except… the one book I loved more than any of the others, I didn’t get to keep. Because it was a rare first edition of Anne Of Green Gables, and a year later, after I had read it cover to cover at least a dozen times, my parents pawned it for the money they owed their drug dealer.

I blink away the burning in my eyes, trying to focus on what I’m here for: to find out about King. To help him, not muddle through my own messy memories.

“Why a bookstore?” I ask, ignoring the clenching in my chest.

“Before I was adopted, I was bounced around foster families. Nobody wanted to keep me, even though clearly I was a cute little kid.” He licks his lips, cracking a smile. “They certainly didn’t want to try when I became an obnoxious one. I got into fights, I got in trouble.” He kisses the side of my head, as if he can sense my effort to focus on him. “You sure you want to hear all this? We can talk about you—”

“No, please, I… I can’t talk about me…” I blush at the irony in that statement, that I’m frightened to open up this can of worms when I’m expecting him to be honest with me.

“Okay, firecracker,” he says, landing another kiss to my forehead this time. “As a foster kid, you don’t have much. Maybe a garbage bag to take when you change houses with whatever ratty clothes or shoes you’ve got. But one thing I made sure I took with me was this pillow case full of books. It was heavy as hell, especially when I was little, and over time the books changed, but they were the one thing I wouldn’t give up. I fought and ran and lied and did everything I could to make sure, I always at least had that pillowcase.”

“They were your anchor,” I realize. “They gave you something to hold onto when your world was so chaotic.”

He nods, turning and stopping, taking both my hands in his. “Pick one,” he says.

“What?”

“Pick a book. Anything you like. I’ll buy it for you.”

The tears threaten again, and this time they win. We’re so different, but we have this one deeply rooted thing in common.

I try to turn away before he can see me crying, but he catches me up in his arms, pulling me in close and the tears wet the front of his shirt. “Hey, I’m sorry,” he says. “Baby, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” I shake my head. “No, it’s… You took me by surprise, that’s all. You don’t have to do this for me.”

“Baby, the things we’ve done together already, I don’t think me buying you a book is going to make much difference, do you?”

I choke on a laugh, shaking my head.

He’s right. And as I glance around, I realize where we are in the store. Children’s fiction. M.

Montgomery.

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