The Harbor Hotel
Baltimore, Maryland
Three Years Later
JADE
The Wedding Dress
“How many buttons are on this thing?” I ask my new husband as I fuss with the back of my wedding dress.
“This thing as you describe is a fucking future family heirloom. Be respectful.”
“I’m sorry, your lordship. What I meant to say was how many buttons are left to unfasten on this work of art your mother made.”
“My mother is a saint, living amongst the angels now, she deserves more respect than you’re giving her dress.”
“Cam, I’m itchy, would you please help? I love the dress. You know that. It was so romantic and special that I was fortunate enough to wear a dress that your mother made with her own hands before she left this earth. Not many brides can say that.”
My new husband smiles, feeling a lot better now about my more humble expression of gratitude.
“But I need to get the damn thing off if you ever want to consummate this marriage!”
He immediately frowns.
“All right, you ungrateful brat. Get over here, so I can unbutton it.” He yanks me in between his legs. “You want me to rip it off? How about that? I’ll just rip the damn thing off. You hear that, Mom?” he yells out to the air.
“Oh stop being a baby, and don’t ruin the dress, I’m going to have it professionally cleaned and stored. Our daughter will wear it one day.”
“Nice save, Mrs. King. Keep talking though, because it’s probably going to take me thirty minutes to unfasten all of these tiny buttons.”
“The faster you move, the faster we can work on making that daughter, Mr. King.”
“Fuck it. Hand me a pair of scissors.”
The Wedding Gift Negotiation
“Start running the water in the Jacuzzi and keep an eye on it,” I tell Camden. “Make sure it’s hot.”
“I’ve got this, itty bitty. I’m not going to start a flood like some people did in this hotel.”
“I was drunk.”
“So you keep saying. Hey, I gave you a diamond necklace and a wedding dress as your wedding gifts. Where’s my gift?”
“Materialistic much?”
“It’s tradition that the bride and groom exchange gifts.”
“Umm, I’m not sure that’s exactly accurate, and with what you all pay me, I can barely afford this hotel room much less some elaborate gift.”
He comes back into the bedroom area of our suite smiling.
“Did I forget to tell you that now that we’re married you aren’t getting paid at all?”
“What!!”
“You’re technically a partner. Not an employee. It would complicate the whole tax thing,” he cracks up.
“I want a divorce,” I deadpan.
“Never going to happen.”
“I want Cutter in here tonight. Go get him.”
Camden cuts his eyes at me. “Really not fucking going to happen.”
I laugh at that one.
“I know what will work as a gift,” he says interrupting my laughter. “Let me fire Marco.”
“What?! No. Next to you three sexy beasts, he’s the biggest draw to the club.”
“True. Okay then, let me fire Patrick?”
“Uh-uh. I spent a year of my life talking and laughing with that man about everything under the sun to get the price that we get on the top shelf liquor. Hell, no.”
“You mean flirting.”
“For the benefit of the club,” I say batting my eyelashes in an exaggerated manner.
“He still has a thing for you. I say you give me the honor of replacing the pussy. That would be a kick ass gift.”
“He was a guest at our wedding, jackass. He’s probably staying in the room right below us. I’m not going to fire him,” I say walking into the bathroom. “That’s final.”
“Did you fuck him?”
“Camden!”
“All right, all right, but you do admit that he still has a thing for you.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“So what’s it going to be then? What are you going to give me?”
“I already bought your gift.”
“Really?” He peeps his head around the corner of the doorway. “What is it?”
“A vacation to Bali,” I say as I step in the tub. “Turn on the jets for me, King Kong.”
“Bali?! As in fucking Indonesia? That’s at least a twelve or fifteen hour flight.”
“Actually it’s about a twenty-four hour flight. Non-stop.”
“Fuck that,” he gripes as he situates his deliciously muscular body behind mine. “I’m not going.”
“Roman helped me book it. It’s a private flight. Private bedroom. All the scotch you can drink, and on top of that, you’ll be able to fuck me senseless the entire time.”
I turn around to straddle him.
“Do you like that gift, my King?” I whisper by his ear like he so frequently does with me.
He grabs me by my hips and forcefully impales me on his brick hard erection.
I gasp with carnal delight.
“Gift … fucking accepted,” he growls.
The Wedding Interruption
Knock! Knock!
“Who is it!” Camden barks.
“It’s me.”
“Jana? Something must be wrong, Cam, open the door.”
Camden reluctantly pulls out of me. This better be good, because we were on our third round of mind blowing, married sex, and he was mid stroke.
“Follow me right now, and get your screaming brat!”
“You left him in the room alone!?” Camden growls.
“Not alone. Elizabeth is in there with him.”
“He’s your nephew,” I say scanning the floor looking for my hotel robe. “You can’t take care of him for one night?”
“He’s the loudest baby on the planet, he’s disturbing all the guests, and I’ve got a hundred papers to grade. It’s not my fault you two did everything completely out of order. You live together with him and that crazy brother of his. You get pregnant; and I’m still not really sure how a ten-pound bruiser came out of that little body. And now you get married, in a city I’ve never been to before in my life, with no wedding ring to show for it! Just these stupid finger tattoos.”
She’s losing it.
“I’ve got it,” I say. Finally locating the robe and a pair of slippers. “I’ll get him.”
“Sit down, Jade,” Camden orders.
“Benji needs me, Cam.”
After the soul crushing experience of losing a baby once, I admit that I may be bordering on becoming a helicopter mom with our baby.
“I said I’ve got this. Sit down.”
I’m definitely worried about my eight-month-old son, but the king has spoken. Plus I can’t help but giggle to myself about what Jana’s reaction is going to be once she finally notices Camden’s semi-hard dick poking through a hotel bath towel. Sometimes my sister acts like she’s never had sex before.
“Let me back in when I knock,” he tells me.
“Okay,” I say a little unsure about what he’s going to say or do.
Camden does not like interruptions when it comes to sex or much of anything for that matter. Benji is the only thing in our lives that gets a pass. He’s the most attentive father I’ve ever seen with our baby boy. Puts my father to shame, and probably his too, even though I still went ahead and named our baby after the guy. Cutter’s bright idea.
I decide to lean in and put my ear to the door to see if I can hear anything.
“Let me explain something to you, Jana.”
Ruh-roh.
“I got married literally five hours ago in the ballroom of this damn hotel, and about five seconds ago I was fucking the hell out of my wife.”
“TMI, Camden!”
“You claim you want to be a bigger part of Benji’s life, then you need to step up.”
“I am stepping up, dammit, but I’m not ashamed to admit when I’m in over my head. That kid is just a smaller, grumpier, non-verbal, version of you, and my sister is an expert on how to handle that. Not me.”
“She pumped about ten bottles this morning. What else could he possibly want?”
“I don’t know … maybe his mother?!”
“On her motherfucking wedding day!”
“Babies don’t keep calendars.”
Jana has no idea that Camden is displaying a very high level of patience. He’s being as nice as he possibly can for my sake. I’m feeling like I need to go out there and break it up, before the man I love does something that my sister will regret.
“Listen, Jana, I get it. You barely stop by to see your sister, you only call her when you need to talk about yourself, and you don’t know shit about babies—”
“Listen here, Camden—”
“No, you listen. Go back to that room that I fucking paid for, and give my son a bottle, rock him, sing to him, and then put him to sleep. Because if you don’t, I’ll make sure that the entire faculty of the Temple University Psychology department sees the string of ridiculous emails that you and Professor McNasty have been sending each other for the last few months. You feel me?”
After a moment of silence, and my mouth finally closing shut, I hear a heavy knock.
Camden’s back, and he’s deadly quiet.
He’s pissed.
“I heard everything,” I say shedding myself quickly of my robe. “I bet you wanted to hit her.”
“I did,” he says distracted by my tits. They’re much fuller since the birth of Benji.
“I volunteer as tribute!” I say in my best Hunger Games impersonation, but he’s not laughing.
“Take it out on me, baby,” I say while rubbing down the front of his chest. Then leaning in to kiss one of my favorite tattoo’s on his chest.
My king’s nostrils start to flare with want.
His dick rising back to its dominant position—straight ahead.
“So you’re taking responsibility for that shit I just had to deal with?”
“I am.”
“Good, then. Go get my belt.”
The best punishment ever!
***
“Here’s another bonus for you from the UNFILTERED interview series. This session features my fire-hot couple from the first book in The King Brother series: Camden King and Jade Barlow of Claimed.
Claimed MCM Questions
1) Ok, so first question is for both of you. Tell us about yourselves.
Guess I’m first up. My name is Jade Barlow, and I spend most of my life working for three crazies who undervalue my superior organizational skills, and who definitely don’t pay me nearly enough money for the sh*t I have to put up with. Oh..and I’ve made a complete error in judgment and fallen in love with one of them.
I don’t usually talk about myself, because it’s none of your f*cking business who I am, but I’ll play. I’m Camden, better known to most as “King”, and I’m one of the so-called ungrateful bosses who underpays this itty bitty, pretty ass woman. And it goes without saying that I’m in love with her too.
2) We have to know, why do you call her ‘itty bitty?’
When things were platonic between us, it was a way to bust her balls a bit, because Jade is always running that mouth of hers. Then later it became something else. In comparison to my rather large stature, especially in key areas, Jade seems like the tiniest woman on the planet to me. Calling her itty bitty reminds me to slow shit down when I’m inside of her, because my goal is to always make her scream my name in pleasure, not pain.
3) Camden, she didn’t tell anyone where she was going, how did you find her?
Honestly, I think she wanted to be found because she actually made it too easy for me. You have to reserve a hotel room with a credit card. So I just tracked all her credit card and debit card activity to The Harbor Hotel. A fifth grader could have done it.
4) Your guys’ story starts right off the bat with some pretty sexy stuff, and I have to say, I LOVE that. I hate having to wait for the good stuff. So I want to know what was running through your head, Camden, when she opened the hotel room door for you in nothing but a towel?
That’s funny you ask that sh*t, because I was definitely conflicted when she opened that door. She looked sexy as f*ck in just a towel and a scowl across her face; so sexy that I wanted to rip it off and claim what I’d been watching and waiting for a long ass time. But once my head cleared, I became angry, because I still had no idea why she’d snuck out of town to a hotel room a hundred miles away. My first thought was that she was meeting some dude who was about to get the biggest ass-whipping of his life.
5) Jade, how did you not melt into a puddle of goo when Camden asked you if you were going to be a good girl in that first scene? I have to say, I melted a little bit just reading it.
Well frankly, I’m a hard ass, and it takes a lot to melt me into a puddle of goo. Plus the shock of his presence still hadn’t worn off yet.
6) I know this is going to be a hard question, but it is brought up a lot in your guys’ story, so can you tell us a little bit about this relationship gone wrong, the one that turned you against relationships?
My father was emotionally absent. Once my mother died, it was like my sister and I were left to fend for ourselves. So I wanted to get out of there, and Tyson seemed like my one-way ticket to freedom, but he ended up being a one-way ticket to hell. He was a drug addict and verbally and physically abusive, but because I met him when I was really young, I’d become accustomed to it. I thought that this was basically how all men treated women. I was young and dumb.
7) Camden, at your lunch with Rome, you said that you decided to start pursuing her because ‘circumstances’ had ‘forced your timeline forward.’ Was the ‘circumstance’ the fact that you slept with her a few months before, or was there something else as well?
Yes—the fact that she left town like a thief in the night forced my hand. I had to find out what she was doing, stop her if she was doing anything stupid, and then make it clear that she’d never be doing anything like that again.
8) What exactly is Jade managing the club going to accomplish? Or did you fire her ex-lover before you thought this all the way through and had to fly by the seat of your pants?
Even though Jade technically works for all three of us, that asshole Roman was monopolizing her time. By working around me 24-7, I’d have her full attention, I could keep an eye on her, and most importantly I’d be able to break through that wall of hers. Mission f*cking accomplished, I’d say. RIght?