Until Her - Ami Van Page 0,63
laugh drawing a lot more attention than necessary. Then again, who wouldn’t be surprised? It’s not often that Derrick King laughs wholeheartedly in public like this. His twin always has the mask on and is known as the broodier one between the two of them. Stella softens his brother’s cold heart more than a bit but the outside world doesn’t know that.
They all follow suit though and let out their guffaw within their VIP section.
He catches Mason and Elias with their women holding up a toast toward them. Those two are as good as family. They’ve been with Kings since before they became Kings.
Stella is first to stop the much-needed laugh. He sees her checking her phone before she walks away. He knows instantly that it’s an update. He should take a minute to check in on Jazzy and Ariana by texting Pam but then again all of them should be asleep by now. He didn’t need to wake them. Ariana was antsy enough about him coming here and he didn’t need to remind her why she was unable to be here…by his side, where she belongs.
Stella’s clicking heels pull him back to the present.
“We need to go,” she says to him and then looks at Derrick. “Chase, you and Rory will have to stay here and entertain the Romanos. Without Adam here, I doubt they’ll stay long AND it is your birthday party.”
“Well, what the fuck do I tell them?” Chase whines. “Everything all good?”
“No,” she says, shaking her head. “But we have an excuse. Tell them we’re needed back with the kids.”
Fucking brilliant! He could kiss Stella right now except…she said something’s gone wrong.
Whatever it is, they can handle it. Ariana is safe and sound at home and he has an excuse to now get the fuck out of here.
He’d nearly gone ballistic. They had to wait over a fucking hour for everyone to walk through the doors. By the time James finished recounting the events of the night, Ariana is visibly shaking in her seat on the couch in the office.
Silence settles into the room.
He’d wanted to build her up and let her come into her own. But doing something like this wasn’t in the script. He’s speechless with anger and could just throttle her. At the same time, a sense of pride swells in his chest.
In the blink of an eye, Derrick is standing in front of Ariana. He can feel his twin humming with anger too.
“What the fuck were you thinking? You put my whole family in jeopardy because you can’t stay your ass put!” Derrick hollers at her.
She shrinks into her seat and it takes but a second for him to lose his shit. He blinks once and his feet are moving. With the second blink, he finds Derrick’s collar clenched in his fists and he’s eye to eye with Derrick.
“GUYS!” Stella yells out but it doesn’t deter the inevitable.
Blows are being traded until he and Derrick land on the floor, rolling this way and that.
Derrick has never been able to take him before but his twin is putting up one hell of a fucking fight right now. Maybe Derrick has been holding back all this time.
He can hear both Ariana and Stella yelling at them to stop but it’s merely garbled whispers that didn’t quite make it through the haze of fury at the moment.
“Please?! Stop!” he hears Ariana pleading somewhere in the background.
It makes no difference.
Derrick is pissed the fuck off. Maybe he’s right to be.
He’s just as pissed off at what Ariana pulled too and not just because she’d almost gotten caught but she’d put herself in harm’s way for no fucking reason.
When hands finally separate them, he and Derrick stand face to face, huffing, and bleeding. They’ve gone to blows before. Nothing this serious since high school though but his twin has earned an ass beating for scolding Ariana as if she were a child.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
The strike of his leather belt comes swiftly just like the three before it. Her teeth bite down deeper into his tie and she deeply inhales at the lashing but doesn’t pull on the restraints around her wrists.
With each of his lashes, her trembling subsides a little more. Each time his leather belt came in contact with her bare ass, she’s pulled away from the darkness and back into reality. Back to him. She’d been a mess since the cottage and Adam is pulling her out. Again.
She winces at his last strike. Five in total.