Knight (122 page)

The party lasted well into the night without the guest of honor.

I made it out before anyone noticed Blade was missing. Anathema would figure it out soon enough, but we’d be on the run as soon as they started to search.

And then?

I hadn’t thought that far ahead.

The door locked behind me. I rested against it, releasing a breath I held all night. The jumble of panic and adrenaline hadn’t passed yet. I needed a drink. Maybe two. But the shot I took from Lyn’s bellybutton still buzzed in my head.

We’d done it. At least our parts of the plan.

The door to the bathroom was closed. Steam rolled from under it, and the shower pattered against the tiles. Brew returned, but I had no idea which man I’d find under the water. The road was kinder to him than he was to himself, but the chains of guilt and loathing should have freed him.

In his exile, Noir protected himself from horrific memories and heartache with violence and consuming vengeance.

At home? The ink in his blood strengthened in the shadow of Anathema. Surrounded by his brothers and fueled with the power of his club, Brew was reborn. Stronger. Fiercer.

Honest.

I loved them both, but he still hated himself. That wasn’t something fists and bullets could fix.

That responsibility fell to me.

I slipped out of my clothes before I entered the bathroom. The heavy steam rolled in the hot water, and I breathed in the cleansing heat entangling my body in the swirling mist. The air thickened with warmth and teased with his scent.

He didn’t respond as I tip-toed into the shower. Brew faced the wall, arms flexed and bracing against the tile. The water trickled over him, tracing the thick lines of tattooed muscle that tensed under the heat. The tribal bands lashed against his shoulders and back in sweeping brands and haunting emblems. His actions and mind may have betrayed Anathema, but his flesh remained loyal, inked with every sworn vow and pledge of honor to his brothers.

His head lowered. His face was framed by dark hair that deserved its flecks of grey. Thirteen years separated us—a lifetime of bloodshed and violence, wrath and vengeance, and devoted, unconditional love. Years of mistakes. A day of redemption.

The water poured over his straining body, rampaging even in stillness. He flexed his fists against the wall. Let the shower scald him. Absorbed the sins of the club to right a wrong he took as his responsibility.

Now the deed was done.

And he looked as lost as ever.

I ducked under his arms, pressing my back against the tile where he stared. His eyes opened. The coiled smoke still smoldered within the heat and dampness of the shower. My skin flushed against the spray of the water, the delicate skin over my chest and belly pinking.

It wasn’t just the water.

My body flushed under the intensity of Brew’s gaze.

His stare seared with lusted hunger and desperate claiming. He feasted upon my offered nudity and traced my bared flesh with the path of his eyes.

A droplet of water formed over my chest, gently rolling along the goose-bumped swell of my breast. The water beaded on my stiffening nipple, nearly boiling where the tease of my skin tightened for him.

I pushed against the tile and arched. It wasn’t on purpose. A reflex. A defense against the clench of his jaw and rush of blood to the hard cock thickening between his legs.

What did I expect? A soft hug. A quiet moment. A gentle kiss? I wanted to pass the message from Red—that the warehouse was cleaned and Blade’s body handled. No one would ever find out what happened.

Brew didn’t need consolation. It wasn’t remorse or fear that strangled him—justice was claimed, as remorseless as the crime. But Brew still fought against his needs. He wouldn’t spill his own blood, and the imagined darkness tore him apart bone by bone.

His aggression didn’t make him his father. It made him the man I trusted with my life—a man who needed to be shown how strength didn’t just take and force, but promised and protected and
loved
with every primal ferocity our bodies craved.

Brew exhaled as I knelt before him. His ragged breath was as much a growled command as any words he might have uttered. The prickling warmth of the shower centered deep and low in me. My knees braced against the tub, and, though every other man I served in such a way ordered my gaze down, I had to study him.

My eyes drew along the ink working low on Brew’s leg, the incomplete sleeve that left him rough and raw. The tattoo surrounded the base of his deliciously thick cock, throbbing with an impossible size. The muscles tightening his abs and chest lost him within the threat of his utter strength, but the tattoo on his shoulder brightened him. The crimson red of the rose represented both the color of blood and the promise of sweet hope.

I met his gaze, and my stomach flipped with every intention commanded through the fierceness of his eyes. He understood what I offered, but neither of us spoke.

His hand curled in the wet locks of my hair. Hard, but not to hurt. Only to control.

I melted, my lips trembling over the hushed whisper of his name.

He didn’t let me speak. He guided my lips to his cock, and I didn’t hesitate before taking his thickening length within my mouth.

His hiss of pleasure wasn’t a gift to me. He breathed his own victory. His hardness trapped me between his body and the wall. I groaned with him as his hands tightened their grip in my hair.

My loving attention shuddered him in a freeing pleasure. The burdens washed away in the striking water. He took the promise of my willing and puffy lips and pulled me closer, increasing my movements, using my tongue against his hot flesh to tease the reward from his body.

The attention wasn’t fast. It didn’t need to be. He wasn’t taking anything I hadn’t already given. Each slow and supple drag of my lips against his shaft was a gifted desire. I worshiped. I adored. I swallowed as much of his cock as my throat allowed just to prove how devoted I was to my protector. The man I trusted.

The man I loved.

He’d never let me call him a hero. I’d think it anyway, and nothing he ever did or said would change that conviction. I’d prove it to him one day. When he was ready to listen.

I usually kept my hands on my thighs, delicate and pretty, while I offered my mouth, but I couldn’t resist touching Brew. My fingers drew along the muscles of his thighs, curled behind him as I clung to his strength for balance. I dared only to touch his cock when he pulled my head back to let me fist his shaft as my lips devoted their softness to the sensitive tip. I pumped and sucked, moaning against the promise of his thickness.

Brew had fucked me before. Slowly and gently. Fiercely and pummeling. He could take me however he wanted, just so long as my attentions tempted him for something more than my lips.

I needed him inside me.

He needed me too.

He pulled me off his cock with a sultry pop as my lips released their hold. I didn’t shake his hand from my hair. I watched with a twisting fascination as he jumped his shaft in his hand. He stared at me.

Making a decision.

Seizing control.

Submitting to him.

“You trust me,” he whispered.

It wasn’t a question, but I nodded to reassure him. The thoughts hardening his features might have frightened me if it were any other man.

“You want me.”

I nodded again.

“All of me?”

“More than anything.”

He released my hair only to pull me to my feet. His kiss possessed me with such fierceness I reveled in the feel of my swollen lips. I collapsed into his arms, but he demanded more. He spun me, pushing me against the shower wall and held in place with a strong arm and warning.

“Don’t move.”

I obeyed as he slipped from the shower only to return within seconds. He pressed against me, gripping my hair again. His lips captured my neck, but the kiss promised anything but sweetness.

I shivered as his hand coiled over my belly and pressed down. His fingers wove over my slit, flicking the all-too-sensitive nub of my clit. He liked that I flinched. Liked even more when I whimpered as his finger teased within me. My heat trapped him, and I instantly clenched against his finger, grinding despite the best intentions of my waning control.

“Give yourself to me.”

The rumble of his voice pounded inside me. I sighed with the longing of his breath against my ear.

“I did that long ago.”

“It’s not enough.”

His finger twisted in me. He added a second, holding me tighter as I dared to move against his hand.

“Anything.” I swallowed as his thumb rocketed over my clit. “Anything you ask, it’s yours.”

His fingers pulled from me, slick with my excitement. I bit my lip to suppress my groan.

My breath stilled as his fingers moved further back, rubbing a gentle circle against a far more sensitive part of me.

“Anything?” He repeated. I tensed. His finger circled a tender pressure against me. “Prove it, Darling.”

My breathing trembled. “I’ve...”

“Have you ever been taken like this?”

“Yes.”

“And?”

“It wasn’t...meant to be pleasant.”

The tension rose over him, banished with the snap of his voice. “I’ll never hurt you.”

He didn’t stop rubbing. My body shivered and twitched. I trusted him, but a quiet apprehension shadowed my consent.

“You...can you be...?”

His finger poked, a timid exploration of a part of me that hadn’t the fortune to feel anything less than violent before. Brew’s shifted, the hardness of his erection heating the small of my back. His other hand gripped the crest between my legs, rubbing along my wetness as his finger tested my resistance.

“Hands on the wall,” he said. “Don’t think. Trust me, Martini.”

I obeyed him, trembling as his finger eased inside my tightness, earning a full-body shudder that wasn’t good or bad. Just different.

I braced for pain. His heavy breath held as he teased me with just his index finger. The discomfort never came, and his attentions on my clit worked faster than the pressure of his intrusion.

The pleasure betrayed me. My slit drenched his hand, and my body bucked, accidentally jostling the finger preparing me for a mounting I hadn’t imagined. The sensation rocked me with a newfound sensitivity. Brew kissed my neck, nipping and holding as he gradually withdrew only to thrust within me again.

He meant it.

He wanted to take me. To fuck me. To control me.

This was a completely different type of domination. I expected slaps to my ass, gags shoved in my mouth, the denial of my pleasure as I debased myself for another.

Brew’s cock twitched with my every mew and whimper. He liked my excitement.
Commanded
my pleasure. And his desire to take me in the darkest and most devious way a man could own a woman was every binding, every lashing, and every demand I needed.

I couldn’t deny it felt...good.

“Easy.” Brew tested my entrance with a second finger. The pinch of his entry passed as the fullness conquered me in goose bumps and threatening promise. I stretched, falling into the wall. My breathing ached, and he had hardly explored, hardly touched.

My body didn’t care. I pushed, gasping as the sudden violation wrapped me in a shiver so wicked I groaned his name.

“You want me?” He growled in my ear. “This is how you’re gonna take me. This is how I’ll make you mine.”

This was how he accepted himself.

He didn’t say it, but I understood the tension that riled over his form, the instinct that throbbed and pulsed his cock, and the reassurance he desperately needed to realize he wasn’t a monster. He was a man, and I was a woman, and any pleasure we earned was offered through endless trust.

“I want you,” I whispered.

“Like this?”

Nothing else made sense. I arched, pushing harder against his fingers that prepared me for him. He pulled from me, chuckling as I murmured a quiet, mournful groan. He returned, his touch slippery with a cool gel. The slickness rubbed against his cock, and he leaned over me, capturing me with the towering form of his body as he threatened to fuck my most vulnerable of places.

The water streamed over us, hot and heavy, the mists panting with me as his hardness pressed against my ass. I flattened my hands against the tile, preparing for his onslaught. His chuckle shivered me more than the touch of his flesh against my entrance.

“Easy, Darling.” He pushed, gently. I groaned. “Not gonna hurt you.”

The pressure overwhelmed me. I whimpered as his strength won out, pushing through the tightly budded barrier now slick with a gentle gel. His voice hummed against my neck, deep and passionate words of lustful encouragement.

The fullness darkened my vision. Brew halted his movements.

I moaned, impaling myself against the delirious intrusion of his cock.

Pleasure.

Goosebumps.

Total and utter abandonment of every bit of control.

I gave it all to him as Brew sunk within me to the hilt. His body pinned me to the wall, piercing me, stretching me,
demanding
me. I had never doubted him. He’d take me and possess me and own me. I’d never fight him. Never run. Never deny the waves of forbidden pleasure splintering my core.

He grabbed me, arching my back to press against him. He crossed his arm over my chest and held me stronger than any ropes, as unbreakable as chain, and as tightly as a long-lost lover returned to his arms. His other hand grasped my slit, striking my clit with a quick smack and then a gentle caress of his calloused fingers.

I quivered against him. His name breathed from my lips, and my head fell against his shoulder as his motions quickened. Short, gentle pulses of his cock struck so deep within me I stood on the tips of my toes to ease the relentless pressure. But he didn’t slow. His hardness ached through me, teasing my sensitive, quaking body and filling me so completely that my every thought, every breath, and every pleasure came from his mercy.

I couldn’t last, not lost in the intensity of his embrace or the desperation of his thrusts. I sunk into his arms as his growls of lust rumbled through me, tensing me for the quickening movements and heavy, panted breaths of the man using me for his ultimate ends. My body tightened with his, tensed with his groans, and clenched against the impossible thickness of his cock surging within me.