“I wasn’t even fighting, and I feel like I could take on the world,” I admit to him. He laughs and walks toward me.
“It’ll wear off,” he says. I sit and fidget with my hands, not knowing what to do with myself. I’ve never felt like this. This kind of energy buzzing through me.
I stand from the chair, and Royal watches me. He doesn’t say a word as I walk toward him and grab his face in my hands. I drag him toward me, pressing my lips to his and kissing him. Right now, he isn’t the man who kidnapped me. He’s the man who sent a shock through my system. He’s the reason I feel like this. The reason adrenaline courses through my veins.
Royal kisses me back, and I almost melt on the spot. His lips are warm, and the hint of blood invades my system. His hand wraps around the back of my neck, pulling me into him, and I gladly go. What am I doing? Does it even matter right now? No, it doesn’t. I feel like I’m on the high of my life.
“You better stop this now,” Royal whispers against my lips. I don’t want to stop this. I want more. I need more. I try to pull him closer to me, but he doesn’t let me. He steps back instead, putting distance between the two of us.
“It’ll wear off,” he says once more.
Chapter 9
Royal
Her taste still lingers on my tongue long after that kiss. I know it was the excitement she felt, but fuck me, that kiss was something else. The way she walked over and took what she wanted? That’s what I need in a girl. Not her, though. We kidnapped her. I don’t know shit about her except her name. Not that it would matter. She isn’t going to be around for long.
“We call again,” Jeremy says as we sit at the local diner getting something to eat. River laughs.
“He isn’t going to pay you.” She repeats her words from earlier tonight.
“Then what the fuck do we need with you?” he growls at her.
“She’s staying,” I say immediately without thinking.
“What? No. She isn’t. We don’t need her if we’re not making money,” Jeremy adds.
“We fucking took her, Jeremy. Where’s she going to go?” I ask him. Maybe this is stupid. Maybe this is wrong, but I don’t want to let her go just yet.
“Back home to her mommy and daddy.”
“No,” she states.
“You don’t get it, River. We’re not the good guys here. We’re not here to save you. We are fucking homeless. We don’t even have a place to stay, and we’re not adding an extra person to that,” Jeremy tells her. Her eyes widen as she listens to what he’ssaying. It’s not that it isn’t true. We make our way with what we have, and right now we have a little to live on. The majority of it will be sent to my sister, but I did keep out enough to keep us fed until next week and probably enough to keep our room at the shit hotel.
“I can’t go back there,” she says. Now Jeremy laughs.
“Well, you can’t fucking stay with us,” he snaps.
“If she doesn’t want to go back, she doesn’t have to.” Jeremy’s head jerks in my direction, and his eyes hold mine.
“What the fuck are you saying? Huh? We can barely feed the two of us,” he snaps at me before grabbing his food and shoving it in his mouth.
“I didn’t make you go back,” I remind him. Now his eyes linger on mine.
“That’s fucking different, Royal.”
“Is it?”
“You got a thing for this girl already?”
“Fuck, no. I’m just not one to make people go back to something they don’t want,” I tell him with a shrug. I lived a shit life once. I know how it feels not to want to return to it, even if that meant a roof over my fucking head every night. I’m not willing to do it, so who the hell am I to make someone else?
“Fine. You can share your half with her ass. I’m not,” Jeremy informs me. River looks over at me, and I shrug. Then I nod at the food in front of her so she’ll go back to eating.
She picks at her food, and that annoys me. We don’t have the money to pick at it. When we eat, we eat.
“Listen. I don’t mind letting you stick around, but we don’t have unlimited funds like you. When you eat, you eat.” She looks at me and then back down at her food. I guess she understands because she picks it up and begins to eat it.
