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Kindle Notes & Highlights
by
Angel Lawson
Read between
July 5 - July 8, 2024
It’s stupid to miss someone I live with. Someone who’s barely been nice to me until recently. Someone I can hardly get off my back now that he occasionally is nice to me. But I do miss him.
Much like when he used to sleepwalk, it feels like I’m being stalked by a predatory animal, that spark of feral heat never far from the rippling surface of his control. It’s dangerous, tinged with the promise of violence. I’ve never felt safer.
“Every night, I think about these,” he mumbles mindlessly. “Wanting to bury my face in them—my cock. See my cum dripping down your pretty skin.”
It’s hard for them, I think, to acknowledge the parts of themselves their father has built over his years of cruelty. Pace, and the way he seeks out isolation. Wicker, and the way he craves to binge on touch. And Lex… Lex wants to create.
“We were both watching,” Wick says, flipping through one of the pregnancy magazines that randomly started appearing at the palace. “And that was a fantastic show, but it didn’t quite confirm if the Princess is off bed rest yet, or if you two just wanted to bust a nut.”
“I said what I said.”
“You two just had sex. Like two minutes ago. She’s still got her sex glow and you’ve got that dumb, post-coital look on your face.”
“So licking the Princess’ pussy is back on the table.” I look hopefully to Lex. “It is?” Wicker answers thoughtlessly, “Of course, and obviously handjobs and blowjobs.” This perks him right up, eyes darting to my chest and then back to Lex. “Where do we land on titty-fucking?” Lex gives a clipped, long-suffering sigh. “Sure, Wick, if Verity feels up to it.” Wicker nods, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. “Cool, but what’s the status on anal?”
“I miss falling asleep inside of you.” He smells like he’s just taken a shower, clean and masculine, and when he grabs the hem of my shirt to push it up, revealing the swell of my belly, I’m not even surprised when he kneels to greet it. “I miss waking up and fucking you. I even miss doing it beside these two fucking headcases.” He looks up to meet my gaze as he brushes his lips against the curve of my stomach. “But it’s worth the sacrifice.”
Behind him, Wicker scoffs, muttering under his breath, “Baby-whipped freaks.”
“Give it a fucking rest. This isn’t some East End debutante we’re dealing with here. She’s West End. She can handle a little blood.” There’s a click, and then the room beyond a grimy glass window explodes with light. “Can’t you, Red?”
Eugene isn’t weak, but he is angry, and that energy runs just beneath the surface. I’m scared. Not of him, but for him. Desperate men and all that.
For one thing, bruised egos make men in this town react badly.
“I’m going to find out what happened to her and who’s responsible, and then I’m going to make them regret it.” I see it then, maybe for the first time. The DKS. My blood runs cold at the casual malignance in his gray eyes, and it doesn’t matter that I know him in my heart as the sweet, scrawny West End pledge who first stumbled into the gym. Right now, I believe he’s capable of the threat. Slowly, I nod. “Good.”
“Family means something different in West End. The Dukes have always been close with the frat. They work together, live together, and fight together. They’d die for each other.”
“You’re not scary, you’re just protective. It’s sweet,” I decide, but then amend, “annoying, but sweet.”
“Fuck, Rosi, I want to be inside you more than I want to breathe.”
“I miss you, too.” I brush my lips across his. “Waking up without you inside of me… I don’t like it.” It’s hard to explain how what had once been an intrusion became so achingly familiar. I think it’s probably a lot like carrying this baby. I can’t imagine anything else. It’s not just the sex. It’s that, for a brief moment, when things had begun feeling more settled between us, their touch became soothing instead of bruising. I want that, more than anything.
“You don’t have to take it all,” he says. But I will. I always do. It’s never about the journey for Pace. He jerks himself off like it’s just an inconvenient prelude to the real thing, and when he jolts to his feet, I know he’s close. I grab his hips, faced head-on with the sight of his obscenely hard cock. “Look at me,” he rumbles, tipping my head back. His hand is warm and gentle on the base of my skull, and I give a long, slow blink at the corrosive heat in his eyes. This is what Pace likes. Something soft and sweet. The innocent sweep of my tongue against the head of his cock, inviting him
...more
In my imagination, the Baron King transcended the others, almost supernatural in nature. One of Death’s emissaries, haunting the nocturnal streets of Forsyth, seeking souls to add to his crypt.
Especially Kings of the old generation. They’re disappearing like smoke.
“If our woman and child are there, then you can bet your ass I’ve got it under surveillance.”
Either way,” he grits out, glancing at Killian and Sy next, “I’m not going to Royally father all of you into honoring your kingships. Grow up and lead your goddamn kingdoms!”
“The covenants are very clear about our King’s place as head of this household.”
“I wasn’t a miracle. I was stolen. I was cut away from my real family. I was a fucking pet.”
“But I’m getting a handjob at the very minimum.”
I knew she was horny, her body flush with hormones, but watching her glide her body over Wicker’s reinforces the concept. It reinforces why I can’t be alone with her, because my brother, despite his hypersexuality and impulsivity, knows how to control himself. But this hot, wild thing clamoring around inside my chest? It’s primal, beyond sense or logic or concepts like love. And it’d tear her apart just to find a place to plant its seed.
The hunger is for the way it used to be—even briefly. The sensation of the four of us packed in tight, wrapped around one another, had been an aching comfort. It’s taken me a long time to put my finger on it, but I think it must remind me of home. The warmth of bodies, the press of shameless limbs, and heady breaths. West End has an undeniably physical nature.
“I’ll always care, Wick.”
“Come on, then,” he rumbles, guiding my hips into a slow, aching rhythm. “Ride me.”
“No one touches me like you do, you know,” he murmurs,
“Rosi,
“He belongs with us,” I say, matter-of-factly. “Kayes, Ashby… those are definitions made by other men who never knew you. We’re building our own family. Our own legacy. One where this child will have three fathers, and he’ll know each and every one.”
The sad fact is that Wicker has been forced to be with many women, but this is the first time it’s created something. And though I mean the words, it still sits heavily in my chest, because the two of us have this in common. For a while there, this baby had been a wound for me, too. Painful, festering. The product of abuse. Evidence of hurt. I can’t heal Wicker. Neither can his brothers or our son. But maybe I can give him a place to start.
“You’d think the way Rufus goes on about bloodlines and legacies, that Royal blood would smell different.” I sniff again. “But it’s exactly the same as everyone else’s.”
“First my grandfather, then my dad, and now my son. He won’t stop until he’s exterminated my whole fucking bloodline!”
Jesus, sometimes it’s absurdly obvious that we’re not just Royals, but royally fucked.
“What’s with the Barons’ whole daddy roleplay thing, anyway?” I ask, sipping from my glass. “What, you sucked so bad at the real thing, you have to make up a fantasy about kids who actually love you?”
“Just seems a bit creepy and incestuous, is all. You should consider your public image.” Maddox doesn’t even blink. “You’ve fucked the boy you call your brother.” He tilts his head toward Verity. “She’s fucked the boys her father adopted, and all of you are fucking your sister.” A tsk. “Glass palaces, Pace.”
The crypt always welcomes fallen crowns.”
“Five points,” Maddox says, dragging his fingertip through the pooling blood. He then presses it to the table, drawing a crude star with the blood. “One for each Royal house. North, south, east, west, and nowhere.” The blood smears against the wood as he drags it down, completing the star. “I realize this must be difficult for you to comprehend, considering who raised you, but there’s a reason the Barons don’t claim territory. It’s the same reason I’m wearing a mask right now. It’s why Clive Kayes wore one of his own.” Locking onto my glare, he draws a slow, bloody circle around the star.
...more
“Then let me speak this language you know so well. My son—my real son—sees this girl,” he nods toward where Verity is peeking over my shoulder, “as a sister. Harming her and her baby would be unforgivable in his eyes. That trumps your flimsy motive.”
“A Baron always honors a promise made in blood.” Maddox gestures at the drawing on the table, and then at Verity. “Ask your fists and their fury. She’ll tell you what this means.”
“Fucking drama king.”
“Chill, Red. No one here doubts your commitment to Sparkle Motion.
This isn’t a place of creation. It’s a fucking palace of destruction and it’ll destroy anyone and anything inside its walls.
Maybe Pace hurt me, but he did it with the truth. Nowhere is safe for me. Which means nowhere is safe for us.
Goodness gracious. Jealousy looks good on Lex Ashby.
“It’s the only way he knows to keep the things he cares about safe. He can’t help it, but he’s trying.”
“Trust me, Princess. Things would be a lot easier for both of us if you were.” I turn the lights off when I leave, my heart in my throat, and crawl into bed alone. Ashby’s damage runs deep. He broke his sons in ways they’ll never comprehend. Not just with whips and punishments, but the places inside. Places I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to reach.
