Dahlia Aldridge
“Angel, I do not expect you to go tonight, not after everything. In fact, I never expect you to come to this stupid shit.” Stratton’s voice was gruff as King tensed underneath my fingers in response to the reminder of what had occurred this morning.
I continued to smooth his hair as we lay on my bed, King’s large frame between my legs, his arms wrapped around my center and head pressed against my stomach. To say the past hour had been interesting would probably be surprising considering everything I’d been through today. But it was true.
Honestly, at this point, I was somewhat just rolling with it… between witnessing a man get shot and finding out Yates was legitimately obsessed with me, something had just snapped in my head. My rational reactions were absent, and I wasn’t positive if it was a coping mechanism or I had just compartmentalized it already. Either way, I actually felt rather good right now.
Personally? I think I’d just hit my limit and now I had broken into ‘if you can’t beat them, join them’ mode.
I would put a pin in that for now.
When we had left Yates’s house, Sterling had led me over to King’s, still in my robe as he ‘apologized in advance’ but didn’t explain why. Well, I realized pretty quickly why when I walked into the Ross family office and found King absolutely furious, more mad than I had ever seen him as he berated security for allowing that ‘motherfucker’ onto the property. They had looked terrified, and I would have to say rightly so considering the glass shattered on the ground—apparently from when he had first come in here, furious beyond words—and the look he was giving them, his chest heaving.
While I wasn’t used to King being that angry, it felt essential that I calmed him down. It felt like he was hanging on the edge of something that was more vicious than his fury at the time. So I had crossed the room, not caring that he was in the middle of yelling at them, and wrapped my arms around his muscular frame.
I hadn’t known what would happen but I was extremely happy when he seemed to snap out of it, backing away from that dangerous ledge. King was done after that and ordered them from the room, the disgust with their performance very obvious. At that point I’d taken his hand and brought him to my house, the others following. I could tell all of them were exhausted, so we all relaxed in my bedroom as half of them dozed off.
Well, until Stratton mentioned leaving for the fight.
“Oh, I’m going,” I assured him as King let out a low rumble in his throat but pressed a gentle kiss to my stomach. When I’d gotten into my room, I’d changed into an oversized shirt and sleep shorts, and he had managed to push up my shirt so he could lay his face on my bare stomach. I had no idea why I found the action so endearing.
“Dahlia,” Stratton warned, his face filled with concern.
“I’ll take her.” Dermot let out a yawn from next to us. King relaxed a bit, making me know he trusted Dermot to keep me safe at this fight.
I imagine he would want to go, but Yates, King, and the twins were going to meet with Callum and show him the video of what happened today, considering the man had threatened me about getting involved. I think King was going because he worked with Callum the most, Yates clearly had videos ofeverything,and the twins were going to do ‘damage control.’
Which translated into mitigating King’s reaction to seeing the video… Although, as I looked at Yates speculatively, I wasn’t positive he would be any better.
My lips pressed up again, thinking about Yates and how insane he was. It did make me wonder where the cameras were.
Suddenly, I blushed, thinking about all the times I’d laid in bed whispering their names as I ran my fingers along my wet heat until I came at the idea of them touching me. Not just one of them, either.Christ. Had he seen that? I wasn’t positive if the thought embarrassed me or turned me on… no, I did know. It was very much the second one.
Clearly he didn’t have one in the bathroom, because then he would have realized just how much I weighed myself. How much I’d thrown up. Thank god for that.
I should have been more upset about the insane invasion of privacy… but instead I found it sort of hot. I liked that he was always watching me. I liked that his feelings bordered, or completely bulldozed into, the notion of ‘unhealthy.’ Was that wrong of me?God.Clearly something was wrong with me, right?
“Princess.” King’s voice was silky and calm, way more calm than I knew him to be. I looked at him as his green eyes inspected my face curiously, the anger from before thinly veiled as he tried to appear relaxed for me. It was a sweet effort, but I also knew that it was probably just going to make this worse in the long run. Maybe there was something else we could do to get his frustration handled…
“What are you thinking about?” he questioned
My cheeks turned pink as I considered the array of thoughts I had just run through. I nibbled my lip. “That is a complicated question. I am thinking about a lot today, and honestly attempting to not think at all.”
There. Honest. Right?
“That sounds dangerous,” Dermot rumbled.
“Me thinking?” I turned my head.
“Dahlia is always overthinking,” Yates pointed out from where he sat with Lincoln, both of them looking over something.
Sterling nodded from where he sat at the end of the bed watching the television. “It’s true, she is.”
I shrugged and turned my head to look at Dermot. “It’s nothing bad.”
Because if I really let everything that happened today seep through, I could end up screaming, and that wouldn’t be good.
“Unlikely,” Yates quipped from across the room as I narrowed my eyes.