Dirty Little Secrets (Kings of Bolten 1)

“Of course,” he scoffed. “I was horny, not stupid. Your turn.”

I sighed, shaking my head at his secret. “Fine. Um … I don’t know.” I swallowed thinking about Dom and Levin. I knew this was Vincent’s way of getting me to talk without forcing it out of me. “I’m scared I mean nothing to everyone. My mom doesn’t seem to care. She hasn’t even checked on me since they dropped me off here. I love her and miss her. I miss the way she used to be. She changed with David. My dad’s gone. Hail hurt me. David hurt me. Everyone hurts me.” My mind flashed to losing Fallon too. I hated this game.

“And Dom and Levin hurt you,” he said quietly.

I nodded, my throat tight.

“For what it’s worth, B, they do care. It’s just hard for them. Neither one has ever given a shit about a girl before. Then you came here and obliterated everything they ever knew.”

“I did nothing but become a plaything.”

“You’re more than that. So much more. They just haven’t figured it out yet.”

I huffed out a breath and continued, letting the words tumble out of my mouth before I could stop them. “I told Dominic I loved him.”

Vincent stiffened beside me, wordless.

“He. . .he didn’t say it back. He told me it was the wrong answer,” I whispered. “And Levin, I-I feel something for him too. I never imagined he’d want me back though. Then he did. But he told me flat out it was a one-night thing. I’d be stupid to think otherwise, but my heart…” I twisted my fingers in the hem of the t-shirt I wore. “It still wants him. Dom too. And neither wants me.” My voice cracked before I fell silent. It felt good to get the words out.

“They’re idiots,” Vincent said gently after an agonizing minute of silence. “Fucking idiots.”

“I fell for someone else too. Someone I shouldn’t have. He left me because it couldn’t work because of all the shit involved. It hurt so much, and

maybe that’s why I did all that stuff with Levin. I think we were both hurting and acted too quickly. Now, whatever we could have had is ruined.”

Since I was messing everything up anyway, I decided to cut the head off the snake. At this point in the game, it didn’t much matter.

“Then there’s you… Always nice to me. Always acting like you give damn when no one else does.” I turned my head to look at him and found he was already staring back at me.

I reached out and traced my fingers along his plump bottom lip. “I-I want you too. But I’m scared if I make the leap, you’ll let me fall just like they did and then not help me pick up the pieces.”

He was quiet for a moment before he spoke, his voice soft. “Baby B, you told more than one secret. That’s not how the game works.” He reached out and drew me closer to him as he rolled onto his side. “But I’ll keep playing.”

My heart thundered in my chest as he leaned in and brushed his lips against mine. His kiss was soft. Gentle. Sweet. Tentative. Like he was testing me to get a reaction.

“For the record, I like you a helluva lot too. And if you fall, I’ll be there to catch you. I’m not a runner.”

My heart skipped at the prospect of what he was saying to me.

“Tell me more,” he said, pulling me closer.

I rested my head onto his chest as he held me.

He hadn’t pushed me for more. He didn’t demand anything of me. Instead, he wanted to know more.

“I miss my dad. I’m scared something terrible happened. I have no answers.”

“Nor do I,” he said. “I’ve checked. I never heard of him before I met you.”

“My mom said he was in trouble with gambling. That he owed Dominic’s dad money. I’ve gone through a lot of crap to not get any answers. Before I left home, I snooped through all my mom’s stuff, looking for clues. Any unknown number, I called. Any unexplained address, I checked. I asked all his old friends, co-workers. No one knew anything. I called hospitals seeing if he’d been admitted. I even asked if there were John Does there. I’ve spent hours on my computer reading articles about bodies found within a hundred-mile radius of here in the weeks he first disappeared, seeing if any of those unclaimed people might be him. All of them … dead ends.”

“Maybe we aren’t asking the right questions.” Vincent ran his fingers through my waves, soothing me. “Granted, I haven’t been digging as much as I should have. I’m sorry for that.”

“I understand,” I murmured.

“I’ll start looking harder, OK?”

I nodded against him. “Levin said he hadn’t heard of him either.”