Her Way (Kids of The District, #3)

by Nicci Harris

“I wouldn’t kiss you if you were the last girl on earth.”

Then a slow cocky-arse smile slides across his lips, and he mouths, “I love you.”

“I’m so proud of you, baby. All grown up and wearing your scrubs like armour.”

“Stop.” I press back against his advances with my knuckles. “I work here. Don’t do this.” His tone drops further, his smile in his voice, along with something else, something dangerous and him. “How do you want me to act, Shoshanna? Like I don’t know the colour of your pussy? Like I don’t know the way your sweat smells and tastes? Like I don’t know you have a bite? Where’s my crazy girl in there?”

“Where are you taking me so I can talk to you like that? And I’m not a cheap date. I want romance, baby. Or I’m not putting out.”

“Thugs need hugs too.”

God, I want to kiss those lips. That scoff. I want to kiss it until I can’t breathe.

But I do know this... I know that a man needs to be present. I know this to the depths of my marrow. He needs to look after his family. Watch them. That is a fucking truth.

You two...” She shakes her through a sigh. “You move like magnets. When you are together, it’s like—" Her eyes dart around, searching for words. “Like, no one else in the world exists to you. It’s dangerous and unnatural.”

She is mine. She was mine the moment I saw her five months ago. She’ll be mine ‘til the day I die. But I’ll be hers for even longer. Fuck, I’m a romantic dipshit.

“Each time you let him touch your skin, your hair.” He cups me between the legs, and I press myself shamelessly against his palm. “This pussy, you have cheated on me. He owes me a debt, baby. As do you.”

“What do you let him do to this body? My body? Do you let him run his tongue over it?”

A fire, once so intense, it burnt us both up. Now, embers lay between us. There’s no longer a flame, but what’s there is just as ready to scorch our flesh should we dare touch it. I can’t let that happen.

In all his madness and shadows, he is the only person who gives me the confidence to be myself. I always thought that a good relationship was when two people made each other better versions of themselves... but it’s not. It’s when they are content enough together to let all their crazies shine. And maybe he is mad. Me, a little crazy. But we are mad in love and crazy about each other.

“You have been my distraction from the moment I saw you by the pool, baby. On your belly. With that slip of olive skin between your jeans and your shirt. From the moment I open my eyes in the morning to when I close them again at night, you are my beautiful distraction.”

Time has been cruel to me since the last day I saw him. All my crazies had to die. To cope with the loss of him. They had to die.

“Mine. Every part of you, baby.”

“I’m going to claim every part of this body. Remind you who you belong to.”

She doesn’t have anyone to blame but herself. My baby... She knows me better than this. Did she really think I was going to let her go back to him?

“You’re not a kid, baby. I lady-naped you.”

“I wasn’t crying because I took you, baby. Or because I drugged you. I was crying because I had to.”

“Don’t fight me, baby,” he orders. “I know you’re a lioness. I think he may have caged you. I don’t want to cage you... I want my wild girl back. But I really want to spend tonight making my lioness purr. Making her remember.”

“I’m nothing if not a romantic... now, baby. Ready to purr for me?”

“I want to hear you purr,” he says. “And I won’t let you come until you do. I want to see your back curve. Tits jiggle. Hips roll.” I let out a moan. My pelvis lifts on its own accord. “That’s good. Good girl. Give me more. I want your pussy in the shape of my fingers tonight.”

I’m dreaming about gouging every man in here’s eyes out of their sockets just for being in this room with you in that.”

kiss her stomach, and she groans into her hands. She thinks I’m nuts. But I think... I think you’re smiling behind your palms, baby. That roguish smile that shows her true feelings because she is bat-shit-crazy. Just like me.

She chuckles through a little sigh because she’s crazy and I’m mad and we love it.

“You know... good things don’t happen to people like me.”

“My brother breathes for you.”

“Keep these beautiful eyes on me. I want to watch them shine when my Glock makes my fierce baby purr.”

“I was fucking selfish,” he whispers. “I want you. I want you slapping me across the face, hitting me with pans.” His voice is coarse and uneven while his arm moves between our bodies, keeping his rhythm. “I want you to be my beautiful distraction from this goddamn chaos I’ve managed my entire fucking life.”

I seek pleasure when bad things happen.

“I. Am. Here!” he grunts, fisting my hair tighter, curving my spine further, fucking me harder with his powerful body. “Can’t you feel me, baby?” he hisses, tugging on the long dark strands in his unyielding fist, causing a sting to race across my scalp. “Feel. Me. Fuck. You. Deep inside you. You’re not alone. You’ll never be alone again.”

“You’re not alone. Neither of you. I’m going to take care of you. You just have to fucking let me.”

I grin as I picture her body gyrating as I fuck her hard in water stained with her fiancé’s blood.

“You are perfect. My perfect Shoshanna. I’ve seen the bitch and angel in you, baby. I’ve seen you crazy. Sexy... Kind. I know you. And you know what you are... someone who tries. Someone who fights. No matter the obstacle. No matter the damage. You fight.”

“Guess I thought maybe you had Cockheimers.” I reach up and rub my temples. “What?” She laughs. “Memory and mental abnormalities from the excessive consumption of cock.”

“Are you giving me the choice to stay?” I ask, my breaths laboured from the air deficiency his fist causes. “What if I say no?” “Try me,” he growls by my ear, suddenly releasing my throat.

“I’ve been with plenty of girls, baby,” he admits. “I care about a lot of them. But you’re my girl.”

I breathe him in, trying to bank the scent of my first love into my memories. Forever. I wish I could bottle it. Bottle Bronson Butcher. The way he makes me feel so precious. Beautiful. Interesting. Unique. The one for him. And the way he accepts all my crazies. That is what love is.

“You up for playing with me today?” His eyes and hands awaken the butterflies that seem to hang out in my stomach these days. “There is no word more ambiguous than playing when it comes from your mouth, Bronson Butcher. It could literally mean having a tea party with dolls and teddy bears, shooting something, or fucking, so I’m going to need you to be more specific.”

“Like we are going to have a tea party, shoot something, and then fuck?” A wicked grin slowly spreads across his lips. “And that is why you’re my girl.”

I smile through a long, slow exhale, sensing the person he is today. The person he is to them. The clown. The one who brings them nothing but easy fun times. But I know that tightly wrapped within that facade is the weight of responsibility, the burden of possessiveness... and his own madness. I sigh, realising he is the one looking after them all the time, which is why he needs me. He pulls his hat on and he’s what they need him to be —their big brother.

“Because even though I might fucking melt... I still want to know the warmth of the flame.”

“Daddy loves you. Daddy won’t forget you.”

I watch my peace swallowed up and incinerated. Peace. Hope. Bio waste.

Words become inaudible as I drown in all the things unsaid —like I love you, like I want to be with you, I won’t ever leave you again. I never told him he is my world, that my mind finds peace in his madness, that his madness allows me to be me. That without him, I was just half of a person. Half a heart. Allowing fear to weigh me down, I sink deeper and deeper into hopelessness.

“I do need you, baby. But not just now, always. You’re it. You’re my peace. My quiet place.”

“I’m bones, blood, muscles, and movement, but nothing else, nutcase. With you though, I’m loved and loving and aware and awake. And I can be, me. Crazy. A bitch. An angel. Me.”

He’s a beautiful work of art, my Bronson Butcher. Dark. Fun. A killer and a clown.