KENNICK: A Bad Boy Romance Novel Read online

  It was a small town. People talked. If it got out that Jessica was turning into Crazy Jessica, it would be bad. It would be worse if whoever was following her heard about her changing her locks.

  Someone changing their locks doesn't constitute hot gossip, she told herself, furrowing her brow as she tried to gather the courage to make the purchase that could – could – save her life. And you can look up how to do it on Youtube.

  She left without new locks. She thought a car might have followed her home. That night, she did what she'd been doing the past few nights: counting the cars that drove past, and watching to see if any of them parked.

  In the end, changing her locks wouldn't have saved her.

  Because she was right. He was following her. When all was said and done, he'd been following her for three weeks. Just a few days shy of the one month anniversary of the night Kim James had given Kennick Volanis a very good reason to stay in Kingdom, Delaware.

  He didn't need to break into her house to get to her. He just needed to wait until she was closing up the diner, the last one out on Wednesdays, which were so slow that the cook usually had the kitchen cleaned and the fridge stocked for tomorrow before the last cups of coffee had been served out. And since Sid was pinching pennies, good old Jessica had been happy to offer her services as a dishwasher for an extra fifty cents an hour.

  She hadn't been too happy about those late Wednesday nights those past few weeks, though. He could see in her eyes how truly scared she was; genuinely, deep down frightened. So that's why he decided it was time to finally do it. There, in the parking lot, with the street light that flickered from the spotty electrical grid that was Tudor Street's constant complaint. He would have tried to be poetic about it, and finish her in a likewise manner to Rhonda all those years ago. But he was too smart now, and blood would stain his car. So his gloved hands around her neck would have to do.

  And they did.

  He didn't have to follow her after that; after that, she'd be with him forever. He'd never be able to let her go. Taking someone's life, he'd learned, didn't end that life at all. It just transferred it to you, and you had the burden of carrying it on your back for the rest of time. That, he reasoned, was how God punished you. There would be punishment afterward, too, he knew; he just hoped that all the punishment he'd endured during his life would help reduce his sentence. And he'd done good, too. Lots of good. Plenty of good things in the service of God, and Kingdom.

  He'd served Kingdom here on earth, and he hoped God knew he'd serve in his Kingdom, too. But matters like that were matters for God alone. He could only bear his burden for the rest of his days.

  Sighing, he slid her body out of the backseat and dragged it into the woods near Cunningham Avenue. Not too far, but far enough. He gave the trash bag one more long look, a sigh in his throat that never quite made it out. It was done. And they would leave. And he would never have to worry about them again. Not their hell-bent nature, not their illegal activities, not their awful blood corrupting the young girls of his town. He'd already seen how easily they could get their hooks into someone.

  He really ought to have gone for Kim James. But he was an old man now, and he didn’t have the energy in him to deal with her and the gypsy she’d shacked up with. He knew they spent damn near every waking moment together. The chances of getting her alone…well, actually, those chances were pretty good, but all the same, he was just…older. So Jessica would have to do.

  The ends justify the means, he reminded himself as he lay in bed that night. He said the words over and over and willed the ceiling to stop spinning around and around and around...

  Chapter Thirty-One

  “Banjo!” Cristov cried through the ever-thickening woods, crashing forward, pushing away bushes and cracking through rotten tree limbs. He grumbled as sweat pooled under his arms and on his neck, the day nearly unbearably hot and humid even under the thick canopy of trees. The damn dog had run off into the forest, leaving little Tommy Surry yelling after him. He'd hopped free of the cold water in the tub that had served as his bath, trailing soap suds and water all the way.

  “Aw, let 'im go,” Cristov had said through a laugh, watching the spectacle while standing beside Mina. “Don't you know dogs are supposed to be dirty?”

  “Ma's gonna have my hide,” Tommy had whined as he stood at the edge of the woods, hopping from one foot to the other. “Will you go find him, Cris?”

  “You gotta be kidding me,” Cristov scoffed. “I'm not going in there after a dumb old hound like him. He'll come back, you know...”

  “He'll come back even dirtier, and if he comes into the trailer looking like that, Ma will make him sleep outside for the rest of the year,” Tommy said, a pleading look in his child eyes. Mina nudged her elbow into Cristov's side and gave him a stern look.

  “What? You're so eager to help, you go find him,” Cristov said, not seeing what the big deal was. It was just a dog.

  “You remember what happened to Coot,” Mina said in a low voice, not wanting the boy to overhear. Cristov cringed. He did remember, all too well. Coot, Tommy's last dog, had run off and been hit by a car a year prior. The boy wouldn't admit it, but he spend his whole life afraid the same thing would happen to Banjo. Cristov knew that Tommy wasn't really worried about his Mom being mad. He was worried about Banjo being hit by a car, or mauled by a particularly nasty raccoon. With a sigh, he headed towards the woods in the direction the hound dog had run.

  “I'll bring him back, Tom-o,” Cristov said, ruffling the boy's shaggy blonde hair before disappearing into the trees.

  Banjo had left a pretty decent trail behind him, including a trail of suds that were slowly melting into puddles of slick soap on the forest floor. It wasn't long before Cristov saw a clearing in the distance, and heard a high, plaintive whining. Frowning, he sped up his pace, thinking that something might actually have gone wrong with the dog. That certainly wasn't the sound of a happy, baying hound running free and wild through the forest on a squirrel's trail.

  He saw the dog first. Banjo turned to look at him, those baleful eyes looking extra sad. The whining increased in volume as Cristov approached and the dog paced slightly, looking down at the ground and then back up at Cristov.

  When the smell hit Cristov's nose, he recoiled, gagging slightly. Stupid dog must have found a deer rotting in the leaves, because that smell was undeniable – the smell of decaying flesh. With the back of his hand over his mouth, he called Banjo's name again and tried to beckon him back. The dog didn't budge, just paced a little more. Rolling his eyes, Cristov strode forward, determined to drag the dog back by the scruff of his neck if need be.

  Then he saw red. Literal red. Glossy, painted red. Fingernails. A woman's painted fingernails. And the fingernails were attached to fingers, attached to a hand, attached to an arm, attached to a body that was just beginning to cease being a body at all, more like a gruesome approximation of the human form. Cristov's gag reflex gave up the ghost; he heard, rather than felt, himself vomiting into the grass of the clearing. Stumbling backward, he hit a tree. He tore his eyes from the young, dead girl and met Banjo's chocolate brown gaze. The dog whimpered. Cristov turned and ran.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Kim heard the news from Ricky, who, by virtue of being on the newspaper, was privy to all Kingdom's dirty business. Kim had dropped the phone right on the floor, the screen shattering on impact. Who cared? The girl was dead. Another girl was dead.

  And the gypsies were involved, again.

  She paced, wondering whether or not to just drive to the trailer park. But she didn't want to complicate things for anyone, and she knew that her presence would likely make Kennick even edgier than he was sure to be. She knew they would be questioning him, his brothers, everyone in his clan. She massacred her fingernails as she walked back and forth, waiting for her phone to ring. Finally, it did, and through the cracked screen she saw his name.

  “Kennick,” she said, breathless. “What's happening? Is everyt
hing alright?”

  There was a pause on the other end of the line, as though he were contemplating how, exactly, to answer that question.

  “Yes,” he finally said. “It's as alright as one could hope it to be. They're still here, going door to door, questioning everyone. Cristov is shaken up. They damn near interrogated him.”

  Kim wondered which of the cops had been tasked with speaking with Cristov. She knew Jimmy would have been patient, would have been impartial, but she wasn't sure she could say the same for anyone else.

  “Can I come over?” she asked, wanting to see him, needing to be with him, to give him whatever he needed to feel alright. The pause on the line felt loaded.

  “Yes,” he finally said, and in his voice she heard the slightest crack, the smallest bit of weakness. “Yes, come over Kim.”

  She didn't even say goodbye before rushing out the door, slipping her phone into the pocket of her dress and running down the steps to her car. The town passed by in a blur as she drove, disregarding the speed limit. Not like there'd be any cops on the road to ticket her; they'd all be at the trailer park.

  She pulled straight up to Kennick's trailer, and he came out quickly when he heard her door slam. She rushed to him, flinging herself into his arms and burying her face in his neck.

  “This is awful,” she murmured against his skin. “This is...this is a nightmare.”

  He tightened his embrace.

  “You knew her, didn't you,” he asked into her hair, nuzzling her. She felt tears wetting her cheeks. For the moment, she forgot the repercussions of the murder, the fact that this could be the thing that chased Kennick Volanis from her arms forever. She only felt sorrow filling her heart. She nodded against him.

  “She was sweet. So sweet, Kennick. Just a kid, really. Had her whole life, and it would have been a good one...”

  Still holding her, he led her inside.

  “Damon took Cristov for a drive,” he said when Kim looked around the trailer for his brothers. “Needed to clear his head.”

  “How did he....” Kim began to ask, not entirely sure she truly wanted an answer.

  “Followed one of the Surry's dogs,” Kennick said, anticipating her question. “Damn hounds are always wandering off into the woods after critters. Usually you just wait a while and they come back, but Tommy Surry was whining about the dog needing a bath, so Cristov went in to get him back. The dog found the body, not Cristov.”

  “How terrible,” Kim said softly, unable to keep her mind from drifting to the imagined scene. Jessica's cold eyes staring up at nothing, her body pale and rigid. Now, she imagined a dog's nose snuffling up and down the body, whining because it sensed this human was not doing the things that humans were supposed to do.

  “What's going to happen now, Kennick?” Kim asked suddenly, dragging herself away from the image in her brain. She wrapped her arms around her, cold despite the oppressive summer heat. “What's going to happen to...you?”

  “Us?” Kennick asked, raising an eyebrow. “This has nothing to do with us.”

  His voice was low, a growl that forced his hand, showing the uncertainty – and the anger at being caught uncertain – that simmered underneath his calm eyes.

  “It does,” Kim whispered, barely able to meet his eyes. “You know it does. I mean, I know it wasn't...it wasn't...you didn't do it. But it doesn't look good, does it?”

  The silence that passed between them seemed heavy, pregnant with the weight of her words. Kim knew that what she was saying made them both uncomfortable. She supposed there might have been a time when she would have avoided saying any of it. But this was Kennick. This was her man. There could never be anything but the truth - the good, the beautiful, the ugly and the horrible. Whether it sickened her or freed her, she would never be able to bury her honesty in front of him.

  He sighed, breaking the awful tension.

  “No,” he said softly. “It doesn't. Doesn't look good at all.”

  “Oh, baby,” Kim breathed, crossing the distance between them in a few steps, reaching up to stroke his stubbled cheek. He moved so quickly then that it was like he'd snapped, grabbing her forearms and holding them so tight it almost hurt. His eyes burned emerald fire into hers, capturing her in a swirling storm of everything that had ever existed within the bounds of the human heart. She trembled in his grip, simultaneously afraid and aflame of the heat in his gaze.

  “You trust me, don't you?” he growled down. “You trust me when I say we'd never do this – not any of us, we'd never hurt someone for no reason, and no one had a single reason to hurt that girl.”

  “I told you....” Kim started to protest as he held her, ensnared in his eyes.

  “I know what you said,” he said. “You said you know I didn't do it. But you have to understand none of us did it. Do you? Do you believe that? Because it's a package deal, Kim. I think you know that.”

  Kim thought of his brothers. She thought of Damon's mysterious bruises and cuts. She thought of Mina, and Ana. She thought of the laughter and music of their parties filling the summer night with joy. And then she thought of Jenner, that man who'd been so eager to hurl insults and threaten Kennick in his own trailer. But would he kill someone? No, she didn't think he would. Because if he did, he'd lose his family. And family was the only thing these people had.

  “I do know, Kennick,” she breathed. “And if you say it was someone else, someone outside the kumpania, I believe it. I believe you. Always, Kennick.”

  He stared at her for a long moment, studying her, letting her response sink in and salve his worried mind. He wanted her, then, more than he could ever remember wanting another woman. She had said everything he could ever hope to hear. And her eyes on him trusted him, implicitly, without question. And she wasn't afraid to say what needed to be said. She was strong, and barreled headfirst into love and everything that came with it.

  He didn’t just want her.

  He needed her.

  He needed her to be his for the rest of his life, to wake up in his arms every day. He wanted to belong to her, and for her to belong to him. He wanted it so hard that he felt his stomach clenching, his heart caught in a vise that cranked and cranked tighter and tighter.

  He was sure, then, that she was the woman Baba Tayti had seen in his future.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Leaning forward, he answered the lingering question in her eyes with a kiss. Long and deep, it stirred their souls together, Kim's body sighing its surrender into his as his tongue entered her mouth and waltzed against her own tongue.

  “You’ll always believe me,” he said, pulling away, his forehead pressed against her own, his eyes stabbing into hers. “I need more.”

  “What,” she gasped, breathless from his kiss, willing to give him anything he wanted if he’d only kiss her again.

  “Say you’ll always be mine,” he growled, turning her around so that her back was against the table. “Say you’re mine, Kim.”

  “I’m yours,” she breathed, her hands moved to his hips and hugging him in tight to her body. “I’m all yours, forever, always.”

  His eyes flashed and his head dipped, his mouth covering hers once more, hungry now, impatient. His strong arms lifted Kim at the waist until she was seated on the table, her thighs spread for him as he yanked her closer by her thighs and pressed his growing hardness against the fabric of her panties. His body was hot, radiating energy, and she moaned into the kiss as he teased her slit with the promise of his manhood.

  “Say it again,” he grunted as he pulled away, his hand falling to his pants and quickly undoing the button and zipper, his jeans falling around his knees as his impressive cock sprang free.

  “All yours, baby,” she moaned holding him around the neck and squirming as his cock pressed against her panties again, now creasing them to outline her dampening lips. “All yours, forever…”

  “Fuck yes, you are,” he groaned, reaching forward to grab her panties and wrench them to the side, exposing her g
listening pussy. “All fuckin’ mine.”

  She whimpered as he teased her, the head of his cock just barely pressing into her wet entrance. The smell of him filled her, made her heart bolt and race, her nerves on edge, body sparking like fireworks.

  “Tell me while I fuck you,” he demanded, slipping in one inch further, making her eyebrows raise in a desperate pleading expression.

  “All yours, Kennick,” she said, and finally he plunged into her, drawing her voice into a high scream as her pussy welcomed him, sucking him into her deepest center. “All yours, all yours…”

  She struggled to keep the words coming as he pistoned into her, fucking her hard and fast, his hand coming around to her lower back and forcing her to arch back slightly, her knees wrapping around his hips. Fire licked at her limbs, a burgeoning pressure building in her womb as he pierced her center again and again, finding the exact place that drove her wild, made her limbs go to jelly and her mind fade to white. Relentlessly, he drove himself into her most sensitive self, his thrusts greedy, his hands strong, his scent filling the air between them with a musky aphrodisiac.