The Risk (Kings of Linwood Academy 3)

“Good.” I trace a line over his chest with my finger. “Because I like you each as your own person. But I also like you… together, if that makes sense. And not in the dirty way,” I add with an eye roll, although if I’m being honest, I do like that too.

He chuckles, and we’re pressed so close together that I feel the movement of it in my own body.

“Yeah, it does make sense. I mean, you asked if you treat us like one person, but truthfully, sometimes it feels like we’re one person. Like we’re two halves of a whole. We know each other so well and are so much a part of each other’s lives…” He trails off and shrugs. “Without Dax, I wouldn’t be me.”

“I think it’s amazing you have that. I think you make each other better,” I say softly.

“Yeah.” He grins down at me, his smile bright as

the sun. “Although sometimes”—he hauls me up so I’m fully draped over him, my legs straddling his hips, his cock sandwiched between us—“I want moments that are just mine.”

“Like this moment?”

Bracing one hand on his chest, I rise up onto my knees, adjusting my position as I use my other hand to guide his already hard cock to my entrance, lining him up and sinking down slowly.

“Yeah. Like this one.”

His words are a raspy groan, and when I begin to rock up and down, rolling my hips as I ride him, he reaches up to cup my breasts, letting me control the pace of our movements.

Our first fuck was hot and hard and fast, but this one is slow and deep as we torture and tease each other, pushing right to the edge but never quite past it.

And when we can’t hold back any longer, Chase sits up and wraps his arms around me, impaling me hard on his pulsing cock. I shudder around him as I come, and he follows me over the edge with a harsh sigh.

We drift off to sleep in each other’s arms, and as I fall into unconsciousness, breathing in the subtle scent of musk and bergamot, it occurs to me that tonight was one of the best and worst nights of my life.

That seems to be happening a lot lately.

So much good.

With so much bad.

16

The kings and I have settled on a plan, a strategy for facing Judge Hollowell. But before we put it into action, there’s one thing I have to do first.

On Saturday morning, I go to the Fox Hill Correctional Center to see my mom.

“Hey, sweetheart. I’ve missed you.”

Her wan smile breaks my heart as she presses her fingertips to the partition between us. She seems tired and… resigned. Like she’s getting used to the orange jumpsuit and the prison food and only seeing me through a goddamn plexiglass barrier.

I hate it.

And it tells me everything I need to know about how things are going before I even ask.

“How’s it been, Mom? Is your lawyer doing okay?”

“Scott is—” Mom breaks off, like even in prison, she won’t allow herself to say the things she wants to about this man. Then she sighs, rubbing a hand over her cheek. “He’s doing fine. He was doing what I asked, focusing on my character in his preparations, lining up witnesses. But now he’s saying it’s a bad idea. If we make it about the kind of person I am, it will allow the prosecution to go after the… other side of my character.”

“What?” My stomach drops out, and my chair scrapes loudly on the floor as I scoot closer to the partition. “What other side of your character?”

My mom is one of the best, kindest people in the whole world, and that’s who she is. There’s no hidden monster inside her, no evil flip side to the coin.

She shakes her head, looking a little haunted, and I realize how fucking hard this all must be on her. To have her name dragged through the mud, her character as a human being denigrated, just to prove she committed a crime she didn’t do. It’s awful.

“Scott says the prosecutors could claim I had motive to kill Iris because she bullied you.”

“What?” My voice is a loud screech, and the guard near the door looks up. I turn away from him, lowering my voice. “What? That’s insane.”