“Promise me we will stay low.”
“I promise.” This time. The next time I brought her here, we were going to the top. She finally relaxed and stopped fighting against my hold. I ducked under the chains and she followed.
“Bishop…” she warned as we got closer to the floating chairs.
“Get in, Kitty.”
I stepped in first and sat down. It swung from my weight, but I was forty percent certain it was safe. Madison slowly stepped onto the thick plastic. When it moved, she squealed and then pounced on my lap.
“You’re cute as fuck.” I swiped her hair out of the way from her face and she blushed before sliding off my lap and sitting beside me. After a few seconds, I felt her body visibly relax from under my arm.
“Not so bad, huh?” I asked her, my eyebrow quirked.
She looked behind us, her eyes running over all the metal and hinges—that were no doubt rusted. “I guess not.”
“Next time, we’ll go to the top.”
She faltered. “Sure.”
I laughed again, then my laughter died out. “Shit might get ugly tomorrow, Mads.” I turned to face her. The beam from the moonlight hitting every angle of her features. Her swollen lips, sunken in cheekbones, slightly pointed chin and thick eyelashes. I always noticed that she had two prominent points on her forehead too. She was by far the most beautiful girl I had ever laid eyes on. There wasn’t a speck of imperfection on her, but the thing that I loved most about her, was that she was oblivious to how beautiful she was. She never flaunted it like Tate did, and never tried to hide it like Tillie did. She was just… Madison. Herself, constantly. It was intimidating and inspiring how secure she was in her own skin.
She looked straight ahead, grabbing the strands of hair off her face that had swept up with the wind. “Doesn’t it always?” She smiled briefly, then turned serious, her eyes coming to mine. “I can’t have anything bad happen to you or Daemon, or Tate, or Nate, or—” she laughed, shaking her head. “Or any of the Kings. God, Bishop.” She brought her attention back to me. “My list of people who I give a shit about has extended extremely.”
That brought a smile to my face because these boys were my brothers, so to hear that she cared about them took a load off my shoulders. I never doubted her anyway, that’s just who she was, but we had done fucked up shit to her in the past. I wasn’t sure whether that had done some permanent psychological damage to her. Guess time would tell how deep the scars were, especially the ones that were signed with my initials.
I squeezed her to me. “I know.”
She rested her head on my chest and snuggled into me more. She wasn’t short, but she was tiny up against me. “Tell me your favorite color.” She yawned, lacing her fingers with mine.
“Black. Yours?”
She giggled. “Mine’s blue. Well, more like a teal color. A mix of green and blue, but more of a green. It’s like that pastel color.”
“You couldn’t just say red or something simple,” I snorted. That was part of her charm.
She shook her head against my chest. “No, I’m not simple, so you should probably run away now.”
“Sorry, baby, running shoes don’t go with my outfit.”
She giggled, the high pitch notes of it hitting the lifeless rides. Her laugh itself could breathe life back into the dead, let alone this abandoned amusement park.
Her laughter died out, then she tilted her head up to look at me from under my arm. Our eyes stayed locked together until my chest fucking tightened. “What?” I whispered, my eyes falling to her lips.
“Is this real?”
“If it’s not, I’ll kill the mother fucker who created it.”
“I can’t live without you, Bishop.”
“Shhh.” I pulled her head back under my arm. I wasn’t going to tell her that she wouldn’t have to worry about that. At least not until we had come back from Perdita.
We were driving back out to the cabin. The rest of the cars following behind me. Tate had jumped in with Nate, and Hunter tried to jump in with us, but I kicked everyone out. The more time I spent with Madison, where it was just her and I, I started craving more of it. The pups will have to learn to give us some space.
“I love this song.” Madison bobbed her head, turning the music up.
“What’s it called?” I asked. Usually, this kind of music wasn’t really my thing, but the voice, lyrics, and beat was catchy.
“It’s Nikyee Heaton ‘I’m Ready’…” she smiled at me looking out of the corner of her eye. “Most of her songs are about love and sex, mostly sex.”
“Fitting lyrics.”
“Yup!” She popped the P. “Which is mainly why I love this song.”
She turned it up louder and then hit repeat when it ended. By the time we were pulling down the private driveway to the cabin, I was pretty sure I knew every lyric to the song.
We both got out and shut the doors as the rest of the cars pulled up. It was hitting close to midnight, so I threw up deuces to the guys and led Madison inside and up to the master bedroom. The cabin had been in our family for generations. The main level had a full wrap porch, the whole house built from tarnished logs. Then there was the second level that had around five bedrooms, and then the master bedroom took up the entire
