Page 22 of King of Wands

“No.” All I could find on King was that he was poor and talented, selected by Luis for a special sponsorship. There was no mention of his parents in his biography.

His fingers twitched like he wished they held another cigarette. “I have no clue who my father was but my mum loved her heroin more than she loved her boys. I was eleven when she finally died. My Aunt Melanie took us in but she already had three boys of her own. Six boys is a lot to handle.” He stared off into the ballroom. “We all did what we had to do. Some of us still are.” His gaze sharpened and unfocused, causing his brow to furrow.

And darn it all, I wanted to smooth away the lines. It was like this nonstop irrational instinct to soothe and please—something so completely foreign to me. “And what does that have to do with lust?”

He shrugged. “Boys let their lust lead them around by their dicks. I’ve never had that luxury, nor do I want it.”

I found myself stepping closer and closer. “What do you want?”

“To be the best,” he said simply. “I love being in a car. The speed, the control, the instinct...it’s part of me. I want to break every record, win every race. All these assholes who don’t want me around...they’ll be kissing my ass in the end.”

He wanted revenge. And maybe security, if I were to read under his words to what they really meant. “So you’re focused on a singular goal. You can’t be led around by your dick—to steal your phrase—because you’ve got bigger fish to fry. Am I understanding you correctly?”

“You say funny things.” He reached around my waist and pulled me against him. I liked the warm contact of his firm body against mine. “I like your funny sayings. Yes, I feel lust, Isabel. I feel a great deal of it for you. But that isn’t why I get angry when other men look at you.”

He got angry at looks too? “Then why?” I was whispering now because we were so close. Our bodies touched from hip to shoulder. His lips were only inches from mine. He was so warm and strong and heady to be near.

His eyes traced the features of my face and I couldn’t help but do the same. Those lips...god, how I wanted to know how they felt. “For years you’ve been a trophy, Isabel. Marcy and Luis’s angel. They speak reverently of you. You’re brilliant and nice and kind and wonderful. I thought you must be awful.” He played with one of the waves of hair that kept blowing around my neck. “That first day at the factory, I saw you across the room and I thought,damn, nowthatis a gorgeous woman. I felt lust.” He nodded and smiled while his eyes drank in my body now. “And then we were introduced and I realized who you were. And you weren’t awful—not at all. You really were brilliant and nice and kind and wonderful. And that just made me want you even more. But then you spoke up for me in the meeting. You had a whole plan right off the top of your brilliant, beautiful head, all for me, and I thought...nowthat’sa woman I can really fall for.” His eyes flicked up to mine. “I trust you because it feels right in here.” He patted his chest. “Lust is what I felt when I first saw you...but instinct is what has me standing here asking you to be with me now.”

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