Page 30 of King

A muscle twitched in his jaw as he reminded her, “It wasn’t a good place at my worksite the other day, either.”

Mia winced at the bitterness of his tone but held her ground.“I’m not going to do this with you here—” She felt panic begin to set in.Causing a scene was the last thing she wanted, and she sensed that Sheila was in the background watching them.“Your family is here, and Sheila...”

King frowned and swung his head to look at where Sheila was sitting with their daughter.Against her better judgement, Mia looked too, and she’d been right.Sheila was watching them with a pinched face and a warning in her eyes.Mia was thankful that King’s daughter was busy changing her baby.

There was suspicion in King’s gaze when it came back to Mia.“Did she say something to you again?”he growled, not giving Mia a chance to respond.“Never mind.Sheila has nothing to do with you and me.She’s not my family.I know she planted some shit in your head, but—"

Mia tried to pull away from the tight hold he had on her wrist without being obvious about it.“Look, we had sex.”Amazing sex, she thought to herself.King’s nostrils flared, reminding Mia how he’d looked when he came inside her.She tried to will the image away but everything about King was too overpowering and affected her whether she wanted it to or not.

“No big deal.If you’re a player, I get it.I misunderstood our situation.”Mia could tell that calling King a player had pissed him off.

“I am not a fucking player, Mia.There isn’t a woman in this town that got to me as fast as you did, and that includes my ex.”

Her eyes rounded with disbelief.She wanted to believe him, but she was afraid of being hurt more.How could he say that about Sheila when he’d been married to the woman for twenty years?Sheila’s words had been toxic and had caused so much doubt and confusion that Mia felt sick inside.But her instincts were telling her the woman was insecure and desperate to get King back, and that she would say and do anything to accomplish that.

She knew better than to give a scorned woman that much power over her, but her confidence had taken a hard hit when she’d discovered Jerry’s infidelity.She knew she owed it to King to hear him out, because there were two sides to every story.

A low, animalistic growl erupted from King that revealed the extent of his frustration.The next thing Mia knew, he was dragging her toward the path that led to the front of the house and on to his truck, which was parked further down the road beneath a huge oak tree.He opened the door and pushed her inside before hopping in behind her and slamming the door shut.Reaching out, he grabbed hold of Mia and placed her onto his lap.

She finally found her voice, “What—”

“You’re going to listen to me, you stubborn woman.You’ve got me so mad that I don’t know what I’m saying.We have something special, and yes, it happened too damned fast, but when I see something I want, I don’t waste any time.And I wanted you.Iwantyou.I don’t fool around, and I don’t play games.In time you’ll know me and trust me, but until then you’ll just have to believe what I tell you.”His anger started to subside as he softly tucked some of Mia’s hair behind her ear.

“What happened to you, baby?What’s made you so quick to believe a rejected woman over what we have?”

Chapter 17

Mia

What they had was something that had consumed them so rapidly that Mia was still trying to understand it.Understand the whirlwind of their actions and their emotions that had led them into the situation they found themselves in now.If she could find one word to describe what had happened between them, it would be “instant.”

Instant attraction.

Instant lust.

Instant satisfaction.