Page 41 of Dirty Crown
“Are you gonna be okay?” Ryker asked on the drive home. “This has gotta be hard.”
“It’s weird,” I said. “I haven’t thought about her that much because of everything we’ve been through. I also thought she was safe with our mom, but finding out that I dropped the ball with that and she was having trouble? That bothered me more than anything else lately.”
“You didn’t drop the ball, princess,” Archer said, taking my hand in his. “You’re so busy making sure everybody else is taken care of that when you think about yourself, it feels selfish.”
“Your parents made you look after Nat from day one, so no wonder you think she’s your responsibility, Evie,” Kingston said.
Valen rubbed my knee to comfort me, he didn’t need to speak, I knew that he agreed with the others.
When we got home, there was enough time to make dinner and get some studying done. We’d all caught up as much as we could, but I still had a couple of things I needed to finish.
Once I was done, I stood and stretched and looked around the room to where my Kings were reading or on their laptops.
“I think it’s time for bed,” I said deliberately, and none of them moved.
“I said, I’m going to bed,” I said louder, looking around. I cleared my throat and said, “It’s time for—”
Kingston reached out from the couch behind me and grabbed me by the hips. He pulled me back onto his lap and I wiggled around, laughing and breathless at his quick moves.
“Did you think I didn’t hear you,” he growled and nuzzled my neck. “Of course I did, I had to close my laptop, Evie, love.”
His hand slid down the front of my yoga pants and he cupped my pussy through the fabric. He gave a quick squeeze and nibbled my ear.
His hot breath heated my skin and sent shivers down my spine. I closed my eyes and felt his hands on my body and listened to the ragged sounds of his breathing. His scent engulfed me and the love I felt for him was all around me.
I felt another hand join his, and then another, and when I woke my eyes I found the rest of my Kings around me on the couch, their eyes burning with lust and desire.
“I definitely think it’s time for bed,” I said and stretched again before wiggling to sit up on Kingston’s lap. “I’ve finally reached the age where I want to fall asleep after we have sex, and I don’t want to move.”
“I think we’ve all reached that point, princess,” Ryker agreed with a chuckle.
We stood up together, but before I put my feet on the floor, I was swept up in Archer’s arms.
“We’ll make sure you’re taken care of, love,” he said and the intensity in his eyes took me off guard. He loved me deeply, they all did. They loved me with the fierceness of protective guardians, like loyal bonded mates, we’d be together until the very end.
I still didn’t know what I’d done to deserve such devotion, but I felt it right down into my bones. At the cellular level. Their love and care had become part of me from the physical to the emotional and spiritual. I was nothing without my Kings, and they were nothing with me.
I tucked my head against Archer’s chest as we went upstairs for a much needed release of lust before falling into a slumber in each other’s arms.
I didn’t know where our lives would take us, and I didn’t know if we had decades or days left together. I could hope for years and years, until we were all old and wrinkled, but life wasn’t predictable. That was one lesson I’d learned the hard way in the time I’d been alive.
I didn’t even know what had happened to some of the worst people in my life, like Thackeray’s wife, the others in the Organization, Ilya, Maksim or even Avery. I didn’t want to know what was going to happen with my mom or with Reg.
But when I was with my Kings and we were safe at home, none of it mattered. I would spend a lifetime forgetting about the bad people I’d known and focus on the ones I loved.
I would see Penny when she came to visit, and I would see Nat and Amara and Ivan when I returned to Oakville for Christmas.
Archer put me down at the top of the stairs and I walked into my room with my Kings by my side. Before I had any more time to ponder our existence or the outcomes of those who had wronged me, Valen dropped to his knees in front of me and slid my pants down over my hips, completely distracting me from anything else.
They stripped me naked in no time, and as I was placed gently onto the bed, I could feel their mouths all over my body. I took a deep breath and sighed, allowing myself to sink back into the bliss.
Nothing else mattered, only love and what we had here in the moment.
The world outside disappeared and I let myself go as they kissed me to the heights of ecstacy that I could only find with my Kings.
EPILOGUE
EPILOGUE
