King of Me (27 page)

Six months later.

My beautiful king and I were married on an unusually warm winter day, standing over the same spot where we’d first made love roughly three thousand years earlier, near his home in Crete. At first, I wondered why he’d insisted on this location—after all, we were busy making new memories now. But he’d simply said it was the one memory he would never replace: the moment he fell in love.

No woman in her right mind could argue with that.

It was a simple, quiet ceremony with a minister, my mother and father as witnesses, and Becca acting as both maid of honor and best man as Mack was…well, I didn’t know where, and King wouldn’t talk about it. Yes, more secrets. But I’d learned I would have to accept that about King. He wasn’t evil anymore, but he was still King. The man would always have his secrets.

Anyway, despite the obvious absence of both our brothers, the event marked a new chapter in our lives, one filled with a quiet joy that we’d made it.

As for the Spiros family, King had not wiped them off the face of the earth as I’d thought, but I didn’t doubt King had shown no mercy to Stefanos or his brother. I didn’t know what to think about it, but King assured me that the family was no longer a threat. I’d simply have to trust him on that.

As for the 10 Club, King had decided to come clean the night after he’d found me in the club. He was, in fact, the man behind the giant smoke screen, the wizard secretly pulling all of the strings. I suspected that the psycho Vaughn had figured it out and that was what he’d meant to say before I killed him.

“But why in the world did you start something like that?” I’d asked King.

“It began after I tried to kill you in Athens,” he’d explained. “You disappeared, and I needed to find a way back to you. I needed a cure for this curse.”

I cried after hearing that news, but it was what it was. The silver lining was that King was in a position to slowly dismantle the Club and “deal” with the members. I suspected, however, that his monster-slash-curse had created a monster of its own that would never go away entirely. Corrupt people like that, with more money and power than they knew what to do with, would exist whether he charged a membership fee or not.

But, again, it was what it was.

As for facing all of the lies and deceptions cursed-King had orchestrated around me during his quest for the Artifact, there were simply too many to count, and it was now a moot point. King, my King, simply explained it as such, “I loved you, and when
he
was in control, I never wanted him to know how much you meant. But every step of the way, I did what I could to show you, to tell you I was there. I hoped you’d see past his evil and see me. Waiting for you. Waiting for the chance to end him.”

King also explained that had I surrendered to my own darkness and demons, I might have ended up loving the cursed King more than him. If that had happened, the monster would have come to life in his place. Thankfully, I’d fallen in love with the right King, for the right reasons.

After that revelation, we made a promise to put the past in the past. I knew, however, that King still carried a tremendous amount of guilt for everything he’d done, despite knowing he’d not been in control. Anyway, that became my unspoken quest: to help him forget and fill that arrogant, sexy, cocky head of his with new, beautiful memories.

So, that left us where we are today: our extended honeymoon. Six months traveling around the world on a five-hundred-and-thirty-foot yacht. Turns out that King did own one, something he’d denied once. And it was a floating slice of heaven, staffed with a gourmet chef, three butlers, an eight-person crew, one Ypirétria, and a helicopter pilot. Yeah, it was really, really over-the-top extravagant, but I wasn’t going to complain. I needed some serious pampering.

“Mia? Are you coming or not, woman?” King screamed from the aft deck, his voice pouring into our suite above through the open balcony doors.

I smiled and finished tying up my too-tiny white bikini and then strolled outside onto the private terrace. There, standing shirtless in black board shorts—too cute—was the most beautiful man in the world. He was also loyal, determined, loving, and dangerous as hell. Yeah, like I suspected, removing the curse only made the damned man that much more powerful. I wasn’t going to complain. His powerful side—now not so evil—gave me a sort of comfort that allowed me to feel safe, allowed me to lick my own wounds and heal.

I sighed and beamed down at him.

He lifted a pair of diving flippers and jiggled them at me as if to say, “I’m waiting.”

We were anchored in the Bahamas this week, and he’d promised to teach me to dive today.

“Almost ready!” I held up my index finger, watching as his smile melted into a look of pure irritation.

I turned away from him, stopped at the foot of the bed, and untied my top, grinning like a fiend as I lay down in the bed.
One, two, three, four, five, six
—

The bedroom door burst open, and there was King, his broad, bare chest heaving, his eyes completely furious.

I smiled up at him. “You are so predictable.” He hated to be kept waiting.

The moment he registered my topless body, breasts waiting with perky hard nipples, his look once again shifted. This time into lust. Pure and simple lust. Topped with a heaping helping of love.

His beautiful blue eyes narrowed, and he cracked a wicked little smile. “That was a dirty trick.”

I shrugged and grinned.

“I might have to punish you for that.”

“I kinda hoped you would,” I said.

King was on me like a hungry wolf, tearing his cock free from his trunks. He positioned himself between my thighs and tugged on the side string of my bikini bottom, effectively removing the barrier between us. Gazing into my eyes, he gripped his long, hard, thick shaft in his hand and watched with erotic fascination as he slowly guided himself into my ready entrance.

I flung my head back on the pillow and savored the sensation of his stiff hot flesh entering my body. Inch by inch he fed himself into me until he could go no further.

Still arching over me, he pillared his arms to either side of my head and gazed into my eyes. “I will never get enough of you.”

“You have no idea how sexy you are, do you, King?” His large lean frame was every woman’s sexual fantasy. He fucking rocked my world in bed. And as long as I wore the ring and he wore his, the one he’d had made—yes, in hopes that this day would come—we’d never grow old. We’d never die.

“I think I like punishing you.” He pushed his hips forward sharply to apply exquisite pressure on all the right spots. I orgasmed instantaneously, gripping fistfuls of sheets.

He watched with pleasure as he repeated the movement and made me come again.

How he did it, I didn’t know. But I didn’t care. The man could practically make me come for him on command.
Okay, yes, his sensual mouth or huge penis is normally involved, but there was that time with his hand when he—

“Silence, woman,” King barked and thrust again. “Or I will not make you come again.”

Oh, yeah. And then there was that. I’d made King put back his mark. I’d told him that whatever pain he had, I wasn’t going to let him live it alone. I was his, and he was mine. Anyway, he was back to listening in. Not always a good thing when he was working…down there.

I snapped my mouth shut. “Silencing. Not another peep.”

He smiled with that sensual, wicked grin and lowered his hot mouth to mine, pumping and licking with a leisurely pace.

I felt the tension coil deep within once again and then…
Heaven
.

Sensing the contractions, King pushed the tip of his hard shaft forward and stoked the flames, making the experience a seemingly never-ending, mind-blowing event. As usual.

The moment my inner walls clenched around him, he began to pump fiercely—one, two, three thrusts—and came hard deep inside me. He released a throaty groan and collapsed.

“Careful,” I said, “don’t smoosh my stomach.”

He chuckled and rolled to my side. “You are far too paranoid.”

I rubbed my tummy and grinned. “Well, he is a miracle.” And I knew that King would make sure there’d be a ring waiting for him, too, when the time was right.

“That he is.” King kissed my bulging stomach and then reached for the phone next to the bed.

He paused for a moment, waiting for the galley staff to answer. “Hello, Paolo,” King said in the deep, velvety voice that made my toes curl. Pause. “Yes, Mrs. Minos and I are fine, thank you.”

Oh, yes. I forgot to mention that. His last name, as it turned out, was Minos. (Mee-nus.) As in King Minos. Homer would later embellish on local folklore and turn my King into a fictional character—a god—who also sparked the legend of the Minotaur. Yes, I found excessive amounts of humor in that he would most be remembered for working for Zeus, but it was weighed down by the historical references tied to Draco, the Lawgiver. Both were extreme fictionalizations of the real man, but I guessed it couldn’t be helped. After all, King was larger than life.

“Yes,” he said to Paolo, “it is a beautiful day, indeed. Could you ask Ypirétria to leave a bottle of sparkling water outside the door for my wife and some champagne for me?” Pause. “Thank you, Paolo. We’ll be down shortly for our excursion.”

One might wonder why King had insisted on bringing Ypirétria—a seventy-year-old Greek woman who’d served in his house since the age of eighteen. That too was a pleasant surprise. After my trip to ancient Athens, when I’d been taken as a slave, King kept his word and sent his men to give money to those freed slaves. With nowhere to go, many followed his men home and insisted on staying. King said they worked harder and were more loyal than any “help” he’d ever had. From that day forward, he began paying all of his people. “It made good business sense,” he said. But I think a part of him did it because it felt good. Anyway, Ypirétria, as it turned out, earned about one hundred grand a year, plus benefits. She’d paid for college for her six children, and now that they were all grown, she’d decided to stay with King. She liked “the adventure and danger,” she’d told me, compliments of Hagne’s spit tat that ironically translated every language. Yes, I decided to keep the damned thing. It was a handy little piece of magic and reminded me of my time in Minoa, something I never wanted to forget.

I looked at my king and grinned. “You ordered champagne. You haven’t had that in a while.”

“Well, I used to drink it just to piss
him
off, but I find myself missing the taste.”

I laughed. “You’re telling me that all of those bottles you had were there to torment evil King?” That was what I called him now.

He shrugged those bronzed wide shoulders taut with muscle. “Yes. He didn’t much like it. Seemed like a better choice versus whipping him back.”

I tilted my head and stared at this beautiful man, understanding another tiny piece of the puzzle. Evil King had tried to beat the goodness out of him. How insanely righteous that the good King tried to fight back with champagne.

“Drink all the champagne you want. After our son is born, I’ll drink a glass with you, too. But no cigars, they smell disgusting.”

His blue eyes glimmered with joy. “I love you, Mia.”

I cupped his cheek. “I love you, too.”
More than anything you could possibly imagine.

“More than anything?” he asked and placed his warm hand on my belly.

“Okay. You’re tied.”

He laughed. “Well then, are you ready?”

“For what?” I hoped he meant more sex.

“To go diving.” He sounded like a little boy eager to find a hidden treasure.

“I can’t go deep, but yeah. Sure. What are we diving for?”

“It is the Incan Chalice of Life,” he replied.

“Uh-uh. No. You promised your ‘relic hunting’ days were over.”

“But this object is for us. Something we need.”

“And why would we
need
that?”

King was quiet for a moment. “It has the ability to bring a person back to life. Specifically, those who have unfinished business and are tormented souls that remain in limbo.”

“But you’re alive alrea…” My voice trailed off.
You mean…for Justin, don’t you?

King nodded. “Mack and I had been searching for the chalice for a very long time—as a backup, of course. And as luck would have it, I received an email last week, containing the location of the Spanish vessel rumored to have been carrying it.”

“Mack sent you an email?”

King nodded.

“What did it say?”

He scratched his chin. “It simply said, ‘Tell Mia thank you.’”

Wow. I could only assume he’d meant “thank you” for saving his brother. He now meant to give me back mine. There were no possible words to describe how grateful I felt.

“And,” King added, “I suppose it seems only fair that your brother be given a second chance. After all, where would we be if someone hadn’t fought for our souls?”

It was true. King had brought back Mack. I brought back King. King had brought me back. And I wasn’t simply referring to our lives.

“Thank you, King.” I hugged him tightly. “Thank you for giving my family a chance to be whole again.” We’d have to get very creative with the story we told my poor parents, but we’d figure that out.

“You may thank me properly,” he said, with a deep, sinful voice, “after we’ve retrieved the chalice.”

“But it’s going to work, right?”

“Of course,” he said, sounding almost offended that I would doubt him.

“God, I love you.” I couldn’t believe it. After all the pain I’d gone through trying to let go, I would get Justin back. No, he wouldn’t be without his baggage and issues, but it was all anyone could ask for: a second chance. And with King by my side, I had no doubt in my mind that we would set Justin straight. We would fix him.

“However, first we will need to break him,” King said, reading my thoughts.

I blinked. “Did you say ‘break’ him?”

King grinned and then shrugged. “Sorry. Old habits die hard.”

“Let’s just leave the breaking and torture in the past.”