Page 72 of The Broken Queen
“I’m reminding you because it is what it is. I need to know what you want to do moving forward. Boss us around, tell us what to do, but don’t hesitate on what you want to do to Scotty James. He’s a threat to you, so he’s dead.”
Her lips smashed together while her eyes shuddered. “Yes. He’s dead. I want the hackers to try and locate Markos, and then I’m going.”
“We are too, then,” Gio advised.
She shook her head. “I can’t ask?—”
Leaning forward over the mess of everything on the ottoman, I gripped her chin firmly and kissed her. “Stop it. We’re fixing things. We’re here. Use us.”
“Thought you didn’t like to be used,” she snarked back.
With a laugh, I nipped at her lip. “You can use me as often as you want, just make sure you’re also willing to be kept while doing so.”
She rose up on her knees and began kissing me back, and when our kisses turned heated, I pulled her over the ottoman and set her between my twin, and then we allowed her to use us for the rest of the morning however she needed to.
I watchedover the next few days as Presley continued to acclimate to the three of us. We were slowly getting back to how things were, and I had no doubt that every one of us were panicked over one small mistake ruining the entire thing.
Gio brought marigolds for her every morning, and the two would take time together that didn’t include me, where they’d go off in Gio’s room and I’d hear giggling sounds or the sound of them fucking. Later, I’d see them in the barn, putting up chicken wire andinstalling feeders. My brother was happy, and in turn, that made me happy.
This was all I wanted for him, but it was never just Gio that Presley sought out. She’d spend plenty of time with him, and they’d act like the most in love couple that I had ever seen, but anytime I began to withdraw, Presley was there demanding time from me as well. She wanted darker things from me, and I discovered, I enjoyed giving them to her. While we were sentimental, and I was in love with her, I liked when she crawled into my lap and took off her shirt. Any time we spent together ended with us fucking, and I wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing. I wanted to be like Gio, I really did, but the second I got her alone, I craved the taste of her.
I was obsessed with being inside her, and in her own way, she was inside me, growing like a flower that begged for the darkness and basked in the moonlight. It wasn’t often that my brother and I took her at the same time, which I preferred. While I would always do it for her, I loved when I had her to myself, and I knew my brother felt the same way. Regardless of that need, we were both in her bed every single night, holding her so she’d sleep.
Yet, there were times she seemed sad or like she wasn’t quite past everything that had happened. I felt like it was less about what my brother and I did, and more about what Scotty and Markos had done to her, and all the things she didn’t get to say to Adrian.
Which was why I had finally put the finishing touches on my project at dusk and shot off to see Presley. I found her in her room, swiping through her phone while blinking away tears.
“Hey.” She looked up and gave me a wobbly smile.
I walked in slowly. “You okay?”
“Not really. My birthday is tomorrow, and all I can think about is how last year, Adrian was the one who showed up for me and made it so special.”
That was a barb in the fucking heart, but I understood why she’d said it.
“I’m sorry, Pres.”
She swiped at her eyes. “I don’t think I was supposed to fall for him, but my heart was so wounded by you two it was like it had been rescued by him…I was happy with him, King. He wasn’t the love of my life, but I’d already cut my heart down the middle for the two of you, what was one more chunk reserved for someone else?”
I sat next to her on the bed and put my arm around her. “Adrian was a good guy, in the end…and I don’t doubt that you cared for him. But, Pres, baby…you’ll never be able to chop up your heart and serve it to various lovers. Your heart would have never beat properly for him. It would have failed over time, and deep down you know that. Your heart was split in two, and we’ve never given it back to you. We might have broken it, but you were never in possession of it again.”
Her head found the spot between my shoulder and neck while she cried.
“If I can’t say that I loved him, then what do I have?”
I pressed a kiss to the top of her head. “Getting the chance to love you, Presley James, is quite the gift. If you haven’t realized it yet, you’re worth starting a war over. You’re worth being loyal to, so much so, you defy familial ties. You don’t just encourage love, baby, you demand it with each breath you take. Every smile. Every time you find something that gets you excited. You’re like consuming sunshine. Fucking addictive.”
She sniffed while more silent tears slipped down her face. In the quiet, I finally decided to tell her. “I did something for you. I know…” I struggled to push the words out, but I swallowed around the nerves and tried again. “I know I’m not as good at big gestures as Gio, but I feel like I have my own way of showing how much you mean to me and how serious I am about fixing what I broke.”
She sat up and swiped at her face. “What did you do?”
“I need you to put on something nice, but warm, and it should be black.” I kissed her on the nose, seeing her freckles and blue eyes.
Home.
“Okay.” She watched me as I left her on the bed and wandered downstairs.
I had shota text to my brother to join us, and a few minutes before Presley walked downstairs, he joined me by the front door.
