King's Passion (24 page)

All the King brothers' brows lifted in surprise.

Quentin smiled. “What? I can be deep.”

Nodding, a smile hooked Eamon's lips. “That you can, cuz. That you can.”

 

“God, it's hot,” Victoria complained and rolled the windows down. She was tired of the same question circling in her mind and she was tired of this growing dread that was spreading up her body.

“Looks like we're here,” Kent said just as their vehicle rolled to a stop.

“Thank goodness.” She couldn't wait to get out. It was hot as an oven.

The valet opened the door and she calmly stepped out. But when she had to accept Kent's arm again, she thought that she was going to be sick all over again.

Within minutes they were smiling and mixing with the other guests. Iris and Grace came with their latest dates, but immediately flocked to her side to check in with her.

“How are you holding up?” they asked in unison.

“Fine. I can handle being around people for one night.”

They flashed a sympathetic smile and encouraged her to be strong. And she was. When it came to putting on a brave face, no one did it better than she did. But while she was mixing and mingling, she felt a charge of energy in the room. She ignored it at first, but then she felt as if there was something or someone closing in on her.

Then Victoria recognized his scent and then slowly started to turn around. When she did, her heart fell down to her feet. “Eamon.”

Sexy as hell in a black tuxedo, Eamon King had captured more than just her attention. From the corner of her eye she could see more and more women slowly turn their heads.

“What are you doing here?”

One side of his face quirked up. “I came to take you back home, where you belong.”

Victoria's heart started to flutter wildly in her chest. “I am where I belong.”

Eamon glanced up at Kent, a man who looked like a pebble standing next to Eamon. “You can go now.”

Kent's mouth dropped open. But for some reason, he didn't say a word.

“What in the hell?”

Eamon gently but firmly took her by the elbow and started escorting her away from the thick of things.

“Eamon, unhand me,” she hissed.

“In a minute.” He turned and looked at her. “And if you're thinking about causing a scene, I can get crunk with the best of them.”

She didn't doubt it. But it was only because this was an event for her father that she didn't test him on this.

Finally they arrived at a secluded corner and Eamon turned toward her.

“Now that you've got me over here, what do you want?”

“The truth,” he answered. “Do you love me?”

The question was so direct and unexpected that she actually started sputtering. “W-what?”

“You heard me, so answer the question.”

“I don't see what the hell that has to do with anything.”

“It has everything to do with it. Because I love you and I think that sixteen days is long enough punishment for me not having told you that you look like an old girlfriend of mine. You were right. I was wrong. But if that's the only thing that's keeping us apart, then I have to say it's insane. With all the real problems in the world, this is nothing. I
know
that you love me. So what are we doing? Playing games? Is that it? Fine. I'll play them with you if that's what it takes to win you back.

“You don't believe that I love you? How about I shout it to the whole world right now?” Eamon turned and with a booming voice announced, “Excuse me, everyone. Can I have your attention?”

Victoria's eyes bugged out. “Eamon, what are you doing?”

“I just wanted to announce to everyone that I love Victoria Gregory. I'm totally, insanely in love with this woman!”

The entire ballroom fell silent.

“And I came here tonight to ask her if she will marry me!”

Red with embarrassment, Victoria belatedly caught that last line. “What?”

Eamon turned back toward her and slowly lowered himself onto one knee. “I said, Victoria Gregory, will you marry me?” He lifted up a jewelry box and nestled inside sat an emerald-cut diamond ring.

Victoria's mouth sagged open. “You can't mean… I mean…are you sure?”

Eamon chuckled. “Of course I'm sure. The question is will you have me?”

Don't think.
“Yes,” she said simply, her face exploding with a smile. “Yes! Yes!”

Eamon quickly removed the ring from the box and slid the diamond onto her finger. When he stood up, he opened his arms just in time to catch her in his embrace. The entire ballroom erupted in cheers.

“I always liked that one,” Mondell said, nodding.

Ceyla rolled her eyes at him, but smiled proudly at her daughter who had never looked happier in all her life.

From the other side of the room, Xavier, Jeremy and Quentin watched Eamon and Victoria's reunion with unusually large smiles on their faces.

“I told you that there would be tears,” Xavier said, nodding.

Jeremy shrugged. “I said that there would be another dude here with her, too.”

Q and Xavier glanced over at him.

“What?” Jeremy's eyes widened like a deer caught in headlights. “I'm just saying.”

Xavier shook his head. “I swear. We can't take you nowhere.”

While the brothers gave each other the evil eye, a slow smile crept across Quentin's face. “You do know what this means, boys?”

“What?” Jeremy asked.

At seeing the twinkle in Quentin's eyes the brothers were suddenly able to read his mind and they all said in unison,
“Bachelor Party.”

“S
o all's well that ends well?” Dr. Turner said, smiling.

Quentin shrugged. “I guess that all depends on how you look at things.”

“Let me guess. You just view it as another fallen soldier?” the doctor surmised.

“Look at that,” he said, peeking at his watch. “After two hours, you know me so well.”

She shook her head. “I doubt that. You strike me as a very complex man who deflects tough questions, laments about the absence of true love while doing all he can to avoid even being in its presence. You're proud of your business success though you're surprised by it. You miss your family, though you choose to remain in a self-imposed exile.”

He sat up from the chaise and looked at her stunned. “You mean all I have to do is click my heels three times and everything will be fine?”

Dr. Turner waved her pen at him. “Oh, yeah, one more thing. You think you're funny.”

Alyssa sat down next to him. “Oooh. She's good. I think I like her.”

Q frowned and cut his eyes toward his imaginary Alyssa, only to have her shrug her shoulders.

“What are you looking at?” Dr. Turner asked.

“No one,” he answered too quickly and watched as his therapist's brows hiked in the center of her forehead.

“
No one?
It's a person?”

His smile stretched from ear to ear while he casually glanced at his watch again. “I've definitely gone over my time for the day.”

There was a long silence before Dr. Turner nodded her head. “Very well.” She closed her tablet and stood up from her chair. Their awkward silence continued as she walked him to the door. “Same time next week?”

Quentin hesitated. After two hours of talking, he didn't feel any different—or any better.

“Who knows,” the doctor said, crossing her arms. “We might even get around to talking about you.”

He shrugged. “Or I can tell you another love story.”

Interest lit her eyes. “Another fallen soldier?”

“Those damn love wars.”

“I'll be waiting here with bated breath.”

Quentin winked and strolled off, catching the receptionist's eye again as he made his way to the office door.

“One question,” Dr. Turner asked, holding up a finger. “Are Eamon and Victoria happy?”

“Disgustingly so. But I think that it has a lot to do with the incredible stripper we got him on the last night of his bachelorhood….”

“W
elcome to The Dollhouse, Las Vegas!” Quentin shouted, raising his glass to the raucous bachelor party as nearly two hundred men poured into the doors of the club. Because the number was so great, Quentin, Xavier and Jeremy elected to close the club for one night only to regular patrons so that their guests could enjoy the entire club. They were going to take a small hit, but in their minds it was more than worth it in order to throw one of their own a hell of a party.

The only problem was that they had to literally drag Eamon to his own bachelor party. Given what had happened during Victoria's last fiancé's bachelor party, Eamon had a hell of a time allaying her fears that the same thing could happen again. Sensing her unease, Eamon tried to get his brothers to call off the party.

They laughed in his face. And then kept him in the dark about his own party until tonight when they kidnapped
him from the back office of his restaurant, threw him into a trunk and brought him there. As he glanced around, he saw that his brothers…and Q…had spared no expense for the elaborate seventies' disco theme that had waiters and waitresses sporting everything from platforms shoes to large hoop earrings and enormous Afro wigs.

Even Quentin looked ridiculous with thick, glued-on sideburns and vintage aviator sunglasses. But clearly the guys were into it, so he put on his best face and tried to go with the flow.

“Now, I don't have to ask which one of you poor bastards is getting married in the morning,” Q said. “Because we all know and we're all grieving in our private way. We're losing a formidable player. A man's whose black book will be going on the auction block after we get him so drunk that he passes out.”

The men laughed.

“But while we look on as this noble Casanova jumps off a cliff, undoubtedly each and every one of you are calculating in your minds right now just how much higher your booty ratio is going to go up after tomorrow. Let me put your minds to rest, for I have the answer for you.” Quentin lifted his glass even higher. “The number for each of you is exactly—
two.
”

All the men grumbled and then exchanged confused looks among themselves.

Quentin wasn't finished. “Two for each of you while I, humbly, sacrifice myself at the altar for promiscuous women everywhere.”

The grumbling grew louder.

With his free hand he tried to gesture for them to lower their voices. “No. No. Please don't try to talk me out of it. I
want
to do it.”

Xavier finally stepped up and grabbed Q by his over size
collar and pulled him off the stage. “Don't pay him any mind.” He dismissed Q with a wave. “Where's Jeremy?” He scanned the crowd. “C'mon up, bro.”

Jeremy made his way through the crowd.

Once on stage, Xavier wrapped an arm around his neck and then together they turned toward Eamon. “As you know, tonight is our big brother Eamon's night. And we really wanted to take a moment to tell him just how proud we are of him. Clearly, he's marrying one hell of a woman. She has to be if she wants to spend the rest of her life with you.”

Jeremy bobbed his head and grabbed the microphone from Xavier. “Yeah, it's one thing to have to put up with you because of blood. It's a whole 'nother story for it to be a choice.”

Eamon refrained from flipping both of them the bird.

“Ladies,” Jeremy yelled. “It's time to make it rain up here!”

On cue the music jumped up another five decibels while DeShawn, Brittani, Cassie, Delicious and Cotton Candy all made their grand entrances on their assigned poles and the men all flocked to their favorite girl's station.

But before Eamon could take a step, a black sack was slipped over his head and once again, he was being kidnapped, this time seemingly from his own bachelor party.

“Wait. Where are you taking me?”

“That's for us to know and you to find out,” Q said.

A second later his two brothers appeared at his sides to help lead him upstairs. Before long, he realized they were taking him to the V.I.P. room.

“Guys, I don't know what you got planned, but I'm not going to cheat on Victoria. So if y'all have a hooker up here—”

“Will you pipe down?” Xavier mumbled. “Nobody said anything about you cheating on anyone. Geez. Is that invisible collar already on?”

“Yep,” Jeremy answered for Eamon. “It has a two-inch leash on it, too.”

Eamon rolled his eyes under the black bag. “Ha. Ha.” He was shoved in a chair and his bag was snatched off his head.

“Enjoy,” his brothers said. They patted him on the back and then turned and marched off the stage and out of V.I.P.

“Wait!”

The DJ hit the turntables and T-Pain's auto-tuned song “I'm In Love With a Stripper” blasted over the speakers.

Eamon jerked back around.

A second later, Victoria stepped onto the stage, dressed in skimpy, purple belted hot-pants that looked more like a pair of panties, with a matching banded tri-top. But what really put a smile on Eamon's face was the huge Donna Summer hair. He remained stunned for a few seconds until Victoria made her first swing around the pole. Then he realized that his baby had been practicing.

He eased back in his chair as Victoria met his steady gaze while simultaneously rolling her hips. From that moment on, he was caught up in a trance, and when she climbed the pole and did her first introverted V-pole slide all the way down to the floor, he was as hard as a rock. Hips swinging, ass clapping, Eamon had transformed into Gollum himself. Once again, he broke the club rules and reached out and squeezed her luscious, golden butt when she waved it one too many times in his face.

Victoria laughed and pulled away, but only so that she could strip out of her top and toss it onto his face.

Eamon quickly snatched it off so that he didn't miss a
move and good thing, too. Because the next thing he knew, his baby was sitting on his lap and grinding back on him like the rent was due in the morning. Breaking another house rule, he reached around and cupped her full breasts, loving how her hard nipples rubbed against his palms.

“Hmm. You're going to mess around and get pregnant tonight instead of tomorrow,” Eamon said against her ear.

Victoria shook her head and pulled his hands away. “Sorry, sir. But I'm really going to have to ask you to keep your hands to yourself. Club rules.” She stood back up and this time, her itty-bitty hot-pants came off and those, too, hit him in the face.

By the time he'd removed them, Victoria was back on the pole and hanging upside down by her calves. But as she took her time sliding her hands all over her body, Eamon started finding it more difficult to remain in his chair.

Slowly, she reached for the bar, opened her legs into V formation and glided back down, her pink flower visible for Eamon's eyes only. Trying to keep his butt planted in the chair was bordering on torture. The next song, “My Chick is Bad,” started playing and Victoria was back to grinding on his lap and lifting her breasts high enough so that she could give her nipples a lick.

Eamon's hands came up and Victoria bounced out of his lap so fast, it nearly made his head spin. “Sorry,” he apologized, feeling like a strip-club virgin. The next thing he knew Victoria grabbed her discarded bra from off the floor and then tied his hands behind his back.

“There. That should help you behave.” She smiled and then walked back around the chair and resumed her routine.

He tried the knot and was surprised by how secure it was.

Victoria's smile widened. “Are you trying to be a bad boy?” she whispered against his ear before pulling his lower lobe in between her teeth and sucking it.

Eamon hissed while his cock pressed painfully against his zipper.

“Yeah. You're trying to be a bad boy while I'm trying to give you a nice show. Don't you like the show I'm doing for you, baby?” She pushed her butt down harder for a slower grind.

“Y-yes.” Eamon's eyes damn near rolled to the back of his head.

“Don't you know that there's no touching or I can't dance for you?” Victoria released his earlobe and then ran her tongue down the column of his neck.

He quivered.

“I hear that you're getting married in the morning,” she panted.

Eamon no longer trusted himself to speak so he just nodded his head.

“Do you love your fiancée?” she asked.

“Y-yes.”

“Are you going to love and cherish her?” She reached for his zipper.

“Y-yes.”

“Through sickness and health?” She slid the zipper down.

“Oh, God, yes.”

She reached into his pants and pulled out his cock. “For as long as you both shall live?”

Eamon swallowed and tried to slow his heartbeat down, but her silky fingers made that nearly impossible.

“Hmm? I didn't hear you, mister.” Victoria reclaimed his earlobe.

“Yes. Yes. Yes.”

“That's a good boy.”

Before he could draw another breath, Victoria eased down onto his steel-like erection until she was seated completely into his lap. For a few seconds they remained still, sharing each other's breath until Victoria started working her hips again. “From now on, I'm the only one that dances for you.”

Eamon's chest heaved up and down while his head kept spinning.

“You got that, baby?” She stopped circling and started bouncing.

He opened his mouth, but no words came out of his mouth.

Victoria bounced and grinded. “Look at me, Eamon.”

Their eyes locked while she continued screwing his brains out. “No one. All of this belongs to me. You got it.”

The chair started creaking.

“I—I got it.”

She reached up and grabbed the back of his head. “Let me hear you say it all belongs to me.”

A smile crept across his face. “Every inch of me belongs to you—forever and ever.” With one great yank, he freed his hands and then grabbed her hips so that he could slam her body down onto his cock. Before either of them knew it, they were flying as high as their tangled emotions, while their bodies met each other thrust for thrust. By the end of the fifth song, they were on the stage floor, Victoria with one leg wrapped around Eamon and the other one wrapped around the golden pole. When her third orgasm detonated, Eamon was right behind her, growling her name.

For several songs afterward they just laid there, holding each other and smiling contentedly.

“You know,” Victoria said. “I think I'm going to have one of these installed in our bedroom.”

“Then I'm going to make sure that I keep plenty of dollar bills tucked away in the nightstand drawer.”

They laughed and then sealed the deal with a kiss.