I pretend not to notice.

"Wow, you've already fixed the top?" There's a fresh coat of black paint on the roof of the Camaro, not a trace from yesterday's exhilarating race.

"It took all night." King stretches his hands up into the air, lifting his shirt a little and showing off his bumpy abs. I take a snapshot of his bod, letting a slew of naughty images run through my head. I shake my head and plop down into my seat.

King and I don't talk on our way to the loft. I want to bring up the kiss from after the race, but there never seems to be a good enough time. There's so much that I want to know about him and yet don't. If I get him to open up to me I know its only a matter of time before I'm back in his world.

As soon as I step into the building, my heart almost drops. Each step up the stairs reminds me of what I have to face up ahead.

A broken home and dreams.

My hand shakes at the front door lock. I can't bring myself to open the door. It would mean facing everything that's wrong with my life right now.

King grabs my jittering hand and holds it still. I flash him a smile before turning the lock. Even from outside, I can hear the click on the broken inside of the loft. It's weird how sound bounces off the walls when there's nothing on them anymore.

Chips of glass crack under my footsteps. The morning sun shines through the broken blinds, illuminating the pieces and mangled clothes on the ground. It's going to take hours upon hours to fix all of this.

King walks toward the broom closet and takes out his trusty sidekick. For once, I'm glad that he's here by my side and I don't have to do this alone. I miss the alone time between us.

The shards of glass hit the back of the metal dustpan like heavy raindrops down a gutter. He sweeps a couple times before he looks up at me, opens his mouth, and reconsiders what he wants to say.

I walk down the hallway and pick up torn garments along the way. "What is it?"

He stops, palms the top of the handle, and rests his chin on it. Those blue whirling orbs of his look my way, his hunkering body resting on the small wooden stick. "So, how's Portland been treating you?"

Portland. The place I went to get away from him. The city that hasn't loved me back like the way he once did.

I can feel the tears welling up. Not because I'm feeling sorry for myself, but because I'm here because of him. The hurtful memories of why I left and where I am now flood inside of me.

"It's been interesting," I say, masking all the hurt and wasted time up here. The only good thing that's come from Portland is Jean and my art career. Everything else is non existent.

Everyones too wrapped up in their own problems to give me the time of day. It's been harder to make meaningful friends than I thought. I'd made acquaintances through work, but no one that I could call a true friend.

King nods his head, sets the broom aside, and picks up the dustpan. He saunters over to the garbage bin and empties the pan. "Anyone of interest in your life?" he pretends to ask nonchalantly. Not even looking my way, as if it's the most unimportant question he's ever asked.

But I'm sure he's been trying to find a way to ask me for the last couple days. Curious to see if he can still win me over.

There's a tightness in my chest. I want to throw something at him, but there isn't anything to throw. Everything is already broken and ruined.

"No, there hasn't been anyone of interest in my life. It's kind of hard to be with someone when..." I stop myself. This time I catch him looking my way, a glimmer of hope in his eyes.

He sets the dustpan to the side and makes his way toward me. "When what?"

I can tell that he wants to touch me, his hands standing out in front of him with open palms.

I walk away toward the overturned couch. I grip the bottom and rock it back into place, setting the cushions back down. I plop myself down and stare out the window to the waking city of Portland.

I don't want the next words to come out of my mouth. They would give him too much satisfaction. It would make the last couple years seem like nothing.

King lets out a sigh and walks over to me, setting himself on the opposite end of the couch. His fingers pluck at the corners, his eyes switching between me and the cityscape. He doesn't press on with the questions.

"I haven't moved on since I left Long Island. And nobody in all of Portland seems to want me, besides one night stands." I choke up for a moment, but hold myself strong.

I don't want to cry in front of him. I've done that too much lately just by myself.

Deep inside my stomach, something awakens. I grip the cushion and turn my hate toward him. "How could you do this to me? Were we that bad together?" Tears gloss over my eyes, but I hold myself together.

I need to be strong. I need to get the answers to the questions that keep me up all night. It's always haunted me, not knowing why he cheated on me.

Constant thoughts in my head have made me doubt myself over the years. Blaming myself for everything that went wrong. I know it's wrong, but when a person doesn't have any answers, their mind plays tricks on them. Makes them out to be the problem, when logically there's no way that it all fell on my shoulders.

King stares at me, not saying a word. He turns his head away from me and looks at the rising sun. When it's been a couple of minutes and it's clear that he won't give me an answer, the anger comes roaring out of me.

"Are you just going to sit there all day? Don't I deserve to know?" I launch myself off the couch and at his chest. I turn my hands into tight fists and unleash on him.

Every wallop on his chest feels like I'm beating against a concrete wall. He only stares at me. Not one word or grunt to be given.

He can't even give me that satisfaction.

By the time I stop there are tears running down my eyes. And yet King sits there. Not saying one word. No explanation or anything.

I want to rip him to pieces. I know that it won't do anything to change the past, but it doesn't mean that it won't feel good.

King reaches out and takes my hands. He turns them over, runs his fingers down their sides, before he starts to massage them.

I want to pull away.

To unleash on him again. To show him what it means to hurt.

"I've ran this moment through my head every day since your graduation," he says, letting out a big sigh. "But I'm still not ready." He lets go of my hands and lifts himself off the couch, pacing in front of me. There's still a fire burning inside of me, but at least now he's trying to say something. I'm about to say something when he turns toward me.

"I loved you more than life itself. I would have given anything to be with you forever." He brings his fingers to his eyes and rubs them hard. I can tell that he's being careful with his words. That he doesn't want to mess this up. "And I know that doesn't make any sense after what I did." His mouth opens, lip quivers for a moment. " How much I hurt you." He turns his body away from me, his strong, muscular shoulders drooping. He brings a hand to his face and wipes something away.

I've never seen him like this. Not in all the time that I dated him or since. Usually the only emotion King showed to me or anyone else was the tough guy persona. I didn't mind it, back when I was young.

I can feel my heart ache for him. Just a little bit.

"I know my actions don't speak to how much I love you, but I really do." He turns around and faces me, his eyelashes wet and gleaming from the sun behind me. He comes back and sits down next to me, the cushions sinking and making me slide toward him.

I don't stop myself from getting close to him.

"I was young, scared, and jealous. You had the world at your fingertips and I felt like I wasn't good enough for you. Every time I was with you everyone would just look at us and whisper about what you were doing with me. I... I just couldn't silence them. Couldn't get them out of my head."

I lift myself off the couch away from him. His words echoing in my head.

There's anger welling up inside of me. I want to hurt him. Instead, I just let go. "Who the fuck cares about any of them? I loved you. I wanted to be with you. Didn't I get a choice?" My hands are flying around. I'm trying my best to make sure that they don't connect with his face.

He looks up at me and back down at the ground, ashamed with himself. "You do get a say in it, but I didn't want to hold you down anymore. It was the choice I made at the time and instead of letting you go, I stringed you on and hurt you more than I should have." He looks out the window as if suddenly realizing the impact of his choice. "I was a high school dropout who spent his days high on drugs and illegally racing through the back streets of New York. I thought that I would only be holding you down."

There are tears falling down my face by the time he finishes. Everything inside of me is breaking and I don't know how to hold the pieces together.

I want to be strong. To show him that I've moved on and he doesn't have this hold on me anymore, but I can't lie to myself.

When I look back at him, he's pulling at the frills on the couch pillows. He doesn't want to look at me.

How can he?

"Never did I feel like I was too good for you. Instead, I felt like I was the luckiest girl in the world at the time," I cry. I grab the pillow from his hands and force him to look at me. His blue eyes sparkle for a moment and his lips look soft and welcoming. "All you did was push me away, fulfilling the warped image in your mind. You made it hard to love you." The words escape my mouth and I can't keep myself together. "It shouldn't have been that hard."

Surrounded by the broken pieces of my apartment, my knees buckle and I fall to the floor with a thud. King's quick to my side, and his arms wrap around me and bring me to his chest. The chest that I mercilessly beat only minutes ago.

"When I needed you the most you broke my heart." My head falls into the crook of his chest and I let out a whimper. I hear the beat of his heart thumping along faster and faster, his fingers curling behind my head.

"I'm sorry," he says into my ear. "I'm so sorry."

I curl up between his hips and his body starts to rock side to side. Everything flows out of me. All the hurt and anger that's built up over years melts out of me.

I grab hold of his shirt and tug at it, scared that in a second I might wake up from this dream.

"I'll never ever hurt you again." His soft lips touch the top of my forehead and a chill runs down my body. I wrap my arms around his massive body and hold him tight, pressing his chest against mine. There's a heat inside of me that's spreading faster than a bush fire.

I haven't been held like this for the longest time. The soft, gentle touch of another human is something that I sorely missed. It's even better that it's King's body that is holding me tight.

King's hand moves down the side of my cheek and touches my chin, propping it up towards me. A smile appears on his face.

I look into his eyes. With his big thumb he wipes away the trail of tears on my face. My body shakes one final time and it feels like a mountain of weight has been lifted off my shoulders.

His tongue moves along his lips and I can't help but take him in. I run my hands to the back of his neck and play with his hair. My grip tightens and I pull him in, my mouth opening slightly.

Our lips meet and there's an wave of emotion running through me. Gone are the feelings of anger and sadness. In their place is the love that I've always felt for him.

Chapter 11.

The touch of his lips sends a swirl of emotion through me. My head gets dizzy and I don't want to open my eyes. His tongue touches the side of my lips, moving through the middle. A shiver rolls through me and I hold him tighter than ever before.

I don't want to let go. There's a fear inside of me. That if I let go, I'll wake up from some dream. That he's not here and I'm facing this cruel world by myself.

His lips are soft and supple against mine. He teases me for a moment, pulling away and watching me follow his lips. He smirks at me. "Hook, line, sinker."

"Stop teasing me and get over here," I say, annoyed with him. I grip his shirt and pull him, forcing him to fall down on my chest. I let out a huff of air right into his mouth, making his cheeks blow up like a puffer fish. "Got you," I laugh.

"Oh, really?" He presses his lips onto mine and blows air into my mouth, forcing my mouth open. The air sputters out of my mouth and I wipe away the taste of him.

"How about we move this to the bedroom?" he says, lips pulling away from me. He runs a hand through my hair and looks me over.

There's a hunger in his eyes. A hunger that I haven't felt in the longest time.

I nod.

His hands move down my back and grab at my cheeks, forcing my legs to wrap around his torso. With a subtle grunt he lifts the both of us up and turns around. I have my hands around his neck and sink my teeth into his neck like a vampire. There's a soft wince in his body, but he doesn't give away anything else.

Just like King to pretend to always be so strong. No sign of weakness or human emotion. Putting away the feelings he shared only moments ago. Instead letting his hunger for me come through.

The door to the bedroom slams against the wall. I bounce up his body as he guides all my weight to one of his hands, while the other pushes the clutter of clothes off the bed. Satisfied with himself, he drops both of us down like a sack of potatoes, sending the pillows and covers flying around us.

He doesn't waste any time. His hands leave my ass and move up the sides of my body, tugging at my clothes. I let out a soft breath and feel his lips touch my shoulders. The hard bristles of his beard digging into my skin.

"We should take it slow," I murmur. That's my brain talking. My other half, the evil side, wants nothing more than for him to rip off my clothes. My eyelids flicker and I can barely contain myself.

I've been neglecting my body for so long. The soft but hard touch of King's lips tells me that much. Right then and there, I make a little promise to myself to live a little.

"That sounds like a plan." He moves up the side of my neck, his teeth grabbing hold of my earlobe. My shoulder instinctively move up and nudges him away.

Fuck!

He still remembers my weak points. He takes one little nibble of my ear and I turn into putty.

I sink into the sheets and let him do his dirty work. My legs spread open for him as his body pushes down on me. And that's when I truly feel him.

My eyes open wide and a moan leaves my mouth, his rod digging between my legs. I had forgotten how long and thick he was. I can almost remember how he broke me into pieces every time he fucked me.

King's the only man that I've ever been with, but I didn't need more than that to know he was the best at what he did. He might be rough on the outside and seem like a selfish asshole, but that couldn't have been further from the truth when it came to the bedroom.

King's the kind of man who gives and gives, until I can no longer utter a word or move for hours. Even now, just remembering the good old days, my knees begin to shiver with excitement. And I'm completely drenched between my legs.

"Is this slow enough for you?" he says, his lips moving down to my collarbone. He stops and nibbles at different parts of my neck. Sometimes; pulling away and taking me in.

I can't find the words to answer. Instead, I grip his shoulder and push down, urging him forward.

He shoots me a smile before his hand snakes up the underside of my shirt. With two fingers, he walks up my stomach and makes his way to my breasts. He runs a finger under my bra, letting me shake with anticipation. All the while; watching my every reaction.

The sound of tearing fabric fills the air as my shirt splits in half, giving way to his bulging hands.

"That was my favorite shirt," I say, closing my eyes as his fingers peel back at the cushion of my bra. My tit bounces out, and his fingers are quick to contain it in his grasp. He rolls a swollen nipple between two fingers and eyes me.

"I'll buy you a new one." He lifts his head, purses his lips together, and lets loose a hot breath on the tip of my nipple. "Or a dozen. Whatever you want."

My fingers dig into the sheets, taking hold of the mattress. I try to move, but he holds me down. My body is fighting against the heat that's rushing through me.

Four years is a long time to go without any attention.