The F King:A Bad Boy Romance(53)

I took my hands from his thighs and put my palms together like I was  praying, before pushing my hands and arms up between his. Once my arms  were over my head, I spread them to each side, kind of like the breast  stroke in swimming, which broke Austin's grip on my neck.

With his hands semi-trapped under my armpits, I heaved upwards and to  the side with my hips. As he had no arm free to brace himself, we rolled  until I was on top. For a second I felt pleased with myself, but the  exercise wasn't complete as far as Austin was concerned.

"Don't wait for me to recover! Get up! Get up! Go!"

I sprang to my feet, feigned a stomp between his legs and backed off, as  he had shown me. Austin rose to a sitting position and gave me the  thumbs up.

"Where do you think you're going?" he asked.

"I'm goin' over there, over here!" I said in my best Robbie Johnson impression, which always cracked Austin up.

This was no different, and Austin laughed, holding out his hand for me to help him up. "Come over here, over here!"

I reached out and for a moment had no clue which way was up. When I  gained my bearings again, I was lying on top of Austin, but facing the  ceiling. He had his legs wrapped around me, feet hooked into my inner  thighs and his arms wrapped over one shoulder and under the other. I  could feel his breath on my neck just below my ear, but I couldn't turn  around to face him.

"Never let them recover. If you're out on the street, there is no giving  up, no tapping out. You hold the submission until you hear bones break,  until they lose consciousness, until they're in so much pain that  they'd rather fight the devil than fuck with you again."

"Yes sir," I said.

"Sir? I like that."

He loosened his grip on me with arms and feet, letting me turn to face  him. Brushing my sweat-soaked hair from my face, he cradled my head and  pulled me towards him, planting a kiss on me that tasted faintly salty.         

     



 

"I'm glad I married you," he said.

I closed my eyes and let myself float in the beautiful, exhausting …  but  beautiful, moment for a few seconds. I loved being around him, I loved  how he made me feel like some kind of sexy badass chick instead of the  timid wallflower I'd tried to be my whole life. Most of all, I loved  him.

"Me too."

"I was thinking. You wanna move in with me? Like, officially?"

My mouth dropped open and I must have looked like some kind of stunned  idiot. My first inclination was to squeal like a schoolgirl, kiss him  again and say yes. Then I thought of my uncle.

Sure, I was already spending most of my time at Austin's house, but I  was still using my uncle's apartment as a kind of home base for myself.  It was closer to the campus, for a start, and I kept most of my stuff  there, because I had this idea that guys didn't like it when their  girlfriends …  or wives I supposed …  started leaving toothbrushes in the  bathroom and doing laundry in their houses.

I was surprised at just how much I wanted for us to have a place that  was ours, instead of feeling like a visitor there. My heart ached for  the chance to build a home.

The only thing holding me back was the fact that if I gave up on my  uncle's apartment, packed away all his things and moved out, well, that  would be like giving up hope on him ever coming back. Could I do that?

It had been over a year now, and the police had basically pulled the  plug on the investigation. They'd framed it as a "reallocation of human  resources," but giving up was what it boiled down to.

What would he want me to do, under the circumstances? He'd put his neck  out for me, defying his brother, my dad, and vouching for me at NHBFC,  all so I could make a life for myself. Given how much effort he'd spent  trying to help me escape the past, would he want me stuck in it?

"You don't have to, you know … " said Austin, after waiting as long as he could for an answer.

"No …  I mean, yes. Yes, I'll move in," I said as fast as I could before I changed my mind.

Austin took a stab at the source of my reluctance. "If your uncle turns  up, we can get him a better place than that apartment. OK?"

I gave a tight-lipped smile and nodded.

"OK?" Austin repeated, and tickled me just below the ribcage.

I giggled and squirmed, fighting the impossible fight against the submission specialist. "Ahhh! OK! Stop! OK! OK!"

My husband pulled me close and whispered in my ear. "Now, the first  thing you do when you move in, is you get down on your knees and you  suck. My. Cock."

"I'm listening," I said.

My facial expression wavered between scandalized and ecstatic as he gave  some very specific instructions. It sure sounded like the first steps  to a happy home to me.





Austin





Fucking Bertolini cocksuckers.

I was driving around a heavy industrial district of New Ashby I wasn't  overly familiar with, looking for the depot of some shitty construction  company that nobody, least of all me, gave a fuck about. Why? Because  Enrico Bertolini had called me in for a meeting.

This should have been all settled the last time they visited Ross' gym. I  knocked out Sanchez in the third for free, and they were supposed to  back me to win against Brenton Southgate. Having another talk could mean  only one thing: they were fucking around with the arrangement again.

I wouldn't have been surprised if there was a dark cloud hovering over  my car as I drove along. Bending down to look up at the street sign, I  spotted the one I was looking for and turned the steering wheel to the  right.

"At fucking last," I said to nobody, because Ross wasn't invited to this little get-together.

There was no obvious parking lot near the gates of Bulgarelli and Sons  Construction. I pulled up in a clear space in the stock yard near a few  other cars. They were all parked at odd angles near a little building  that announced itself as ‘Office' via an old sign with peeling paint  that looked about as shitty as the rest of the place.

Two guys who looked like they couldn't build a sandcastle, let alone any  kind of large-scale project, sat on a stack of prize-winning rust-farms  that used to be heavy steel I-beams, eating their lunch. One of them  would probably win employee of the month, because I couldn't see anybody  else doing anything.

As I stepped out of my car, a mob guy in a suit that looked completely  out of place in a dump like this came out of the office. He held the  door open as I approached. Somehow, I resisted the urge to run my keys  along the immaculate black paint of the car parked next to mine.

I gave the guy a dirty look as I passed. To his credit, he seemed  unfazed despite the massive size difference between us, and piled as  much contempt as he could into his own expression. He was obviously old  school mafia who had seen a lot in his time.         

     



 

He followed me in and closed the door. Counting him, there were five  guys in cluttered little office and I had only met one of them before.

Two of them were ratty-looking wiseguys flanking the desk to either  side. Leaning by the window was some guy about my age dressed a lot more  casually, who looked like he could be recruited as an offensive tackle  in college football if he could ever pass the drug tests.

He puffed himself up as much as possible when I walked in, muscles  twitching as if he was on edge. If they thought he was big enough to  impress me, they were sorely mistaken. That was the joy of being at the  top of my game. If he was any good at fighting, I would have heard about  him already.

You had to be more than just big to stand a chance with me. If he wanted  to find out what it felt like to have a broken leg, then he could try  his luck.

Still, the very presence of somebody like him, like the guy now standing  behind me by the door, and the lack of Enrico Bertolini was definitely  concerning. Sitting behind the desk itself, looking smug as fuck, was  the one person I recognized. Renato Picolli.

"Nice place you've got here. Where's Enrico?"

"Thanks. It may not look like much now, but it's about to win some very  lucrative contracts from the city. Amazing how things can change so  quickly, isn't it?"

"Yeah. Where's Enrico?"

"Why don't you take a seat?" Renato gestured at the chair in front of the desk.

"No thanks. Something tells me I'm not going to be here very long."

He chuckled. "Well you might just be right about that. Suit yourself."

Roid Rage, over by the window, snickered quietly under his breath. I decided I might have to fuck him up on general principal.

"So, like I was sayin', things can change, and change pretty fuckin'  fast. Take today for example. Big change. Don Bertolini has kindly  accepted my proposition to buy into certain sectors of the family's  business here in New Ashby. Hence this fine construction company being  under new management."

Renato gestured around the general area and I gritted my teeth, already  having a good idea where this fucking stupid speech was going. My  fingers were tingling and I resisted the urge to bunch them into fists.  The air was already thick with tension; everybody was ready for a fight.