The Risk (Kings of Linwood Academy 3)

My whole body feels exhausted when I walk out of the visiting area and head toward the prison entrance, my muscles shaking slightly like they do after a hard workout.

Dax drove me, and he’s waiting for me at the front. The second he sees my face, his whole body tenses.

“Low? What’s wrong?” His gaze shifts behind me, in the direction I just came from, and he looks like he’d take on anyone—whether it was a prison guard or my own mother—if they hurt me.

“Nothing.” I shake my head, anxious to get out of here.

He shoots me a look like he knows I’m full of shit, but when I say, “It was just mother-daughter stuff,” he lets me leave it at that for now.

Taking my hand possessively, he leads me outside to his car. I can feel him shooting glances at me as I get in the passenger side and he walks around the front of the car to get in behind the wheel, but he doesn’t say anything until we’re halfway home.

“You sure you’re okay?”

“Yeah.” Deciding to keep up my trend of not holding things back from the people I care about, I add, “I told my mom about you guys. About us.”

His brows fly up, and his blue-green eyes shine with curiosity and worry as he cuts his gaze to me. “What’d she say?”

“Well, nothing at first. Then I ranted for a while about how great you guys are, and…” Tears threaten again, but I clear my throat, pushing past them. “She said if four people care out here about me, that’s a good thing.”

He reaches over the center console to take my hand in his, brushing his thumb over the back of my hand.

“I like that.” His gaze slides over to meet mine. “And it’s true, you know. It must’ve been scary as fuck to tell her though.”

“It was.” I let out a breath, then turn to face him. “Did you ever tell your mom? Or your dad?”

Dax scoffs under his breath. “Nah. I mean, they probably know. Unless they’re slowly going blind and haven’t told us. They’ve seen me and Chase with you, and they’ve seen River and Linc with you when they come over. I don’t think any of us are all that subtle about our feelings. But it’s different with our parents. They don’t give a shit. Your mom… cares. So it means more if she approves.”

I hold his hand tighter, clasping it in both of mine. “Yeah. I think she does. I mean, there’s still so much more we have to talk about, but for now, she’s just happy I have people on my side.”

“Good. ’Cause you do.”

I glance down at the hand encased by both of mine. It’s bigger than mine, the palm slightly calloused and the fingernails neatly trimmed. Just like everything else about Dax, there’s a rugged, rough-around-the-edges beauty to it that I love.

Loosening my grip on it, I slip my hand out from his and rest his palm on my thigh instead. Heat spreads outward from the place where he’s touching me, slow and steady and strong, like lava. The radio plays quietly, filling the car with music, but we don’t talk the rest of the way back to the house.

His hand stays were it is though, that single connection between us burning hot as a flare until he pulls up the drive and into the garage.

He turns the car off, and the music dies with the engine.

It’s quiet.

Still.

Neither of us move. We don’t even look at each other. Like we’re both held in suspense, waiting for something.

The sensor on the garage door activates, and it slides closed.

And as if an invisible string has snapped, Dax and I turn toward each other, our lips colliding in a frantic kiss.

17

I don’t know what’s driving Dax, what’s spurring on his desperate movements as he kisses me with bruising force, one hand cupping the side of my face while the other slides farther up my thigh, squeezing and kneading the flesh of my leg through my jeans.

But I know what’s driving me.

Everything I told Mom about these boys back at the prison was true. I said it all to try to comfort her, to make it a little less terrifying to hear that her teenage daughter is dating four guys at once. But in trying to convince her it was okay, I finally admitted to myself how much this connection I have with the kings of Linwood means to me.

These boys were my tormentors once.