Damaged (Boys of Winter 2)

“Ooooh,” I tease. “Has Grayson touched a nerve? Would you prefer to be the hero?”

“Hardly,” he scoffs. “If that idiot wants to be the guy who steps between Carver and his target, then he can be my fucking guest. Carver won’t hold back with Gray. If he keeps getting in his way and telling him to back off, Carver will eventually snap, and when he does, you better run. Otherwise, you’ll end up with an elbow to the eye.”

I cringe. “Is it really that bad?”

“Yup. Gray and Carver have a history of butting heads. They’re their own worst enemies, but it works out well for me and Cruz because we rarely have to step in. All I’m saying is that Cruz and I have noticed him paying a little more attention.”

“I’m not going to lie,” I murmur. “So have I.” He gives me a blank stare and I narrow my eyes as I watch him a beat longer. “If Grayson and I … you know, would that be a problem?”

King shakes his head. “Nope, as long as he treats you like a fucking queen, then I’m down. But it’s you I’m worried about.”

“Me?”

“Mmhmm,” he says, a grin cutting across his face. “That’s a lot of dick for one chick to handle. I’m not sure that you’re down for the challenge.”

I can’t help but laugh as I pull myself off him and scramble to the side of the bed, knowing damn well that I’m making a mess of his bedsheets. “Trust me,” I tell him, grinning back at him lying gloriously naked in his bed. “I can more than handle it, but if you want to make it a challenge then you better be prepared to lose.”

“Baby, I never lose.”

“Uh-huh.”

I prance across his bedroom and dive into the bathroom before quickly cleaning myself up and splashing water over my face. It’s well into the middle of the night and after the disastrous few hours of trying to fall asleep, I know better than to try again.

I make my way out into King’s bedroom to search for my clothes in the dark, and when I finally pull my pants on, King’s face falls. “Where are you going?”

I let out a breath. “I think I’ll go for a walk,” I tell him, looking back and shrugging my shoulders. “I don’t know, is that weird? It used to help when I was a kid and couldn’t sleep so I figured that I’d give it a try.”

“Okay,” he says, pulling himself out of bed and grabbing his shirt. “Let’s do this shit.”

He starts dressing and I stop and stare at him. “What are you doing? Go back to bed.”

“And have the boys tear me a new asshole when something happens to you out there? No thanks. You’re surrounded by the homes of the men who have sent hitmen against you. I’m not about to risk your life. Besides, I have a challenge to win, and I’ll be damned if you get taken out before I get to see you handle three dicks flying around your face.”

I give King a beaming, innocent smile. “Have I ever told you that you have a way with words?”

He rolls his eyes and presses his hand to my lower back. “Come on,” he says, grabbing one of his massive hoodies and shoving it into my hands. “Let’s get this over and done with.”

I smile to myself as I pull his hoodie over my head. He leads me out the door and we take three steps before he comes to a stop outside Carver’s bedroom. “Are you sure?” he asks. “There’s a simple solution here.”

I shake my head. “No, I’m not going in there,” I tell him. “He’s just going to send me away. It’s not worth the rejection.”

He silently nods and continues down the hallway toward the stairs. “Does it bother you that much?” he asks. “When he pushes you away like that?”

“Sometimes,” I admit, hating the vulnerability. “Before everything happened, I thought something real was building between us and that all just seems to have vanished, but all the feelings are still there. It kinda hurts, which sucks because I didn’t even realize that I was starting to feel something for him.”

“He’s a fucking idiot,” he tells me. “Both Grayson and Carver are. They both want you. I see it all over them, but they’re too fucking stubborn to admit it. Carver though, he’s an extra special dose of fucked up. He’s just sore about what happened and is pushing you away to punish himself. I’ve never seen him like this before, but he’ll come around. He just needs a bit of time to act like a fucking bitch.”

I laugh under my breath because thinking about it too seriously is bound to put me in a mood, and I don’t want that for King. Our lives already revolve around Carver’s bullshit, so when it’s just us, I want it to be all about him.