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“Fine, but we’re not staying long.” His thumb presses down gently before his lips touch mine.
“Whatever you say, King.”
* * *
An hour later,Hudson is standing behind the main bar on the first floor of Kingdom, singing along to “American Pie” with a microphone in one hand and a drink in the other. His smile stretches wide across his face as he feeds off the wild energy in the bar.
“What the fuck, Sawyer? Don’t you have some ownery things to do or something?” Chloe glares at Hudson’s brother, who hasn’t left my side since Hudson was pulled away earlier. “Or have you turned into a stalker?”
“Ownery?” I ask, then turn to Sawyer, who’s ignoring Chloe completely.
He laughs at Hudson’s kinda awful singing voice, then flicks his eyes over Chloe. “Listen up, firecracker... My brother asked me to make sure his girl was taken care of tonight. It’s called loyalty. Not stalking.”
“Firecracker,” Chloe bristles. “What the hell—” Luckily, Carys interrupts Chloe’s tirade and walks over just then, grabbing her to go dance.
“Come on, Mads. Let’s dance.” I look between the girls, then at the man behind the bar and shake my head no.
“I’m good. You have fun.” I raise my bottle to my lips and take a long sip of the cold water, hoping to cool down as I watch the girls get lost on the dance floor. “Why do you antagonize her?” I ask Sawyer. The two of them have been snappy toward each other since we got to the fight earlier.
His grin evokes reminders of a devilish little boy who probably enjoyed torturing his sisters. “Because it’s fun.”
“Well, I’m a big girl, Sawyer. You don’t need to babysit me all night. But thank you for the offer.”
He laughs at me.
Legit—laughs in my face.
“It doesn’t work that way, Maddie. You came with Hud. He asked me to make sure you were good because he knew he’d be pulled in a million directions tonight. So that’s exactly what I’m doing. You’re one of us now, and we take care of our own.”
I’m sorry. What?
I shake my head, certain I hadn’t heard that right. “I’m not one of you, Sawyer. I’m not sure anyone can really be one of you.” The Kingstons are intimidating individually. But when you put them all together... They rise to an entirely different level.
“Tell yourself whatever you need to, Maddie, but I know my brother.” His patronizing smile is easy to read and not so shockingly confident.
My stomach does a weird flip before the song ends, and Hudson hops over the bar, landing in front of me. His big arm wraps around my bare shoulders, and my skin breaks out in goosebumps at the contact as I’m pulled against him, like it’s the most natural thing in the world. “Don’t let Sawyer try to steal you away, Mads.” Then he stage-whispers, “He’s got a micropenis.”
“Fuck off, Hud,” Sawyer laughs before he brings his eyes back to mine. “Remember what I said, Maddie. See you guys at the game tomorrow.”
I ignore Sawyer and look up at the sinfully sexy fighter beside me. “The game?”
“Yeah...” he shrugs. “Scarlet asked me to bring you to the family’s box at Kings Stadium tomorrow to watch the game with us. I figured since you go every week, anyway, maybe you’d be okay watching with us this time.”
The overly confident, animated man who sang to a bar full of people a minute ago is gone and replaced by someone willing to show he’s nervous to ask me this. And that, by itself, is incredibly attractive. He’s a contradiction. Strong and fierce. Willing to beat someone unconscious in a cage, but he’s careful with me.
Soft. Gentle. Patient.
I love it.
That thought flashes across my brain in neon yellow lights, and I nearly choke on it.
I reach up and gently touch the bruise under his eye that’s been deepening for the past two hours. “You’re lucky I have my Dixon jersey in my bag.”
His brows shoot up. “You were planning on leaving me for your brother tomorrow?”
“Nope. I told Brandon I didn’t know if I’d make it to the game but I’d watch it on TV. It’s a shame you made plans because we could have had a lot of fun during the commercial breaks.” I lift up on my toes and softly press my lips to the bruise.
“And then there’s half-time.” I kiss the small cut on his cheek bone, then the tender spot under his ear before I drag my teeth along the shell and squeal as I’m lifted in the air and thrown over his shoulder.
