King's Wrath (Sydney Storm MC 5)

Men!

I marched out to the front door and checked to confirm it was him. I mean, I knew it would be, but checking was a habit.

It was most definitely him standing out there dressed in the jeans and leather that made me weak at the knees.

Shit.

Opening the door, I stepped outside, pushing past him so I could close the door, and the

n grabbed his arm and pulled him with me to take our conversation away from the house. I then turned to him and, eyes wide, whisper-yelled, “How did you get my address? And why do you feel it necessary to drop by unannounced so damn late? I thought you were an intruder!”

My heart hammered with bewilderment.

King was here.

It was late.

I was wearing a towel.

What the freaking heck did he want?

And oh God, why did he have to affect me so much?

Focus, Lily.

This is not the moment to lose your shit.

The street lamp threw just enough light over us for me to see his eyes skim over my body before meeting mine again. “I have a guy who’s skilled at finding people. Let’s just leave it at that.”

My eyes bulged some more. “Umm, no, King, let’s not just leave it at that. That’s too casual for me. And I feel a little violated, to be honest. What else is your guy skilled at? Should I be expecting—”

Before I knew what was happening, he slid his arm around my waist, lifted me and walked me back to my door and inside my house. Once we were in, he let me go and quietly shut the door behind him. It happened within seconds, completely throwing me off-kilter. Looking down at me with those intense eyes of his, he rumbled, “I needed to know where you lived and he could help me with that. That’s all. Now, do you wanna put some clothes on for this conversation?”

Holding my towel in place, I stared at him, almost at a loss for words. If I’d felt bewildered before, I wasn’t sure what to label how I felt now. Being manhandled by King had shaken all my thoughts and emotions into disarray.

I need a smoke.

Shit, I gave them up.

You can start not smoking again tomorrow.

But clothes first.

Grab the smoke on the way.

Shit.

Pointing at him, I said, “Stay here. I’m going to get dressed. And for the love of God, if you wake my kids, I will hurt you.”

I waited for his response, but he gave none. Well, none that was clear. He simply continued watching me in silence, waiting. It threw me further off balance. I liked it when people didn’t beat around the bush, but this was a whole new level of not wasting breath on words that had no importance. And with King, I would have preferred a little more insight into what he was thinking.

Leaving him, I hurried to my kitchen in search of my handbag that held the pack of smokes I hadn’t dumped yet. My hands shook a little as I lit it, but I ignored that and took a long drag. I hated that it was exactly what I needed. What I really needed was to find a way of dealing with stress that didn’t involve cigarettes, but that was a job for tomorrow. Tonight, I had only one thing I needed to do, and that was to get through this conversation with King without agreeing to his demands.

His request to help Skylar had been rattling around my brain all day. It had taken willpower to say no to him in the first place because I could do with the cash he offered. I mean, who turned someone down when they told you to name your price. I had turned him down, though, because I didn’t want to get any closer to King than I already was. Not only did the man intrigue me, I was more attracted to him than I wanted to admit. And with what I had going on in my life, I didn’t need to get distracted by a man.

After I changed into my jeans and a T-shirt, I went back to him, ignoring the way his gaze travelled my body again. I liked his eyes on me, but I certainly wasn’t encouraging it. “If you came here to ask me again to work with Skylar, you should just leave now. I won’t be forced into doing this.”

“You don’t strike me as the kind of woman who can be forced into doing anything.”