The rap came again and she moved forward, her bare feet padding over the carpet. She peered out of the door’s peephole and gasped. The sight of Knox on the other side hit her like a punch to the chest. He propped one arm against the door frame and seemed to be staring right back at her.
She stepped back with a gasp. Running a hand over her wet hair, she gulped down a nervous breath and unlocked the door.
“Hi,” she said, gratified that she managed an even voice.
His gaze traveled over her, not missing the fact that she stood in front of him in a bathrobe. Maybe she should have taken a minute to get dressed. Maybe she shouldn’t have answered the door. Unease dripped through her. This couldn’t be healthy. A guy like him wasn’t going to give her the things she needed. Well, aside from orgasms. She needed those. She loved those.
She gave herself a swift mental kick. A relationship was out of the question. He might have proven that he possessed a code . . . that he possessed honor enough to save her life, but he was still a dangerous man. Briar didn’t need a doctorate in psychology to know he had his demons. Eight years in prison, who wouldn’t? He was unpredictable, damaged, and she needed to steer clear of him. She should just end it now and close the door.
She shifted her weight.
“Hey,” he returned. “Can I come in?”
There was something in his voice that she hadn’t heard before, and she thought she had seen him in every incarnation. Scary inmate. Fierce protector. Hungry lover. Apparently there were more layers to him.
Several moments passed and she blinked, realizing she hadn’t replied yet. She just stood in her doorway, uncertain what to do, staring at him like she didn’t know him. And she didn’t.
With a shaky breath, she stepped aside. He strode past her.
She shut the door and locked it. Tightening the belt at her waist, satisfied that it was still in place, she turned, determined to keep her head. Determined to tell him that he couldn’t just drop in unannounced. That despite what happened the last time she saw him, she wasn’t just going to drop everything and roll over for him like some kind of—
She didn’t get a word out. He grasped the lapels of her robe and hauled her against him. She managed a squeak before his mouth claimed hers. And just like that she was on fire. She stood on her tiptoes, trying to keep up as he devoured her, forcing her lips open. His tongue slicked over hers as his hands slid inside her robe, rough palms gliding over her flesh to splay over her back.
He broke away and spoke against her mouth, his forehead pressed to hers as he inhaled a ragged breath. “I don’t even know why I’m here. One minute I was headed home and the next thing I know I’m at your door.” His hot gaze roamed over her features and he shook his head with a sound of disgust. “Fuck. Yeah, I do know.” His hand slid from her back and dove between her legs. She gasped as he touched her there. Mortification burned through her. She was already wet for him. He pushed a finger up inside her and she gasped, grabbing onto his shoulders for leverage. “I’m here for this. You okay with that?”
Her chest squeezed, all the air trapped inside at his declaration. He was asking her if this was okay. Sex. Fucking with no promises. In his rough way, that’s what he was doing.
She opened her mouth, ready to tell him to stop. Ready to explain that she wasn’t the kind of girl who did this sort of thing. Not with a guy like him. Her brain shouted at her to be careful, to use her head and stop letting her body rule her.
He pushed even deeper inside her, his finger curling and massaging that spot she had never known existed before him and she saw spots. The elusive G-spot. Not so elusive anymore.
She gave a strangled sound of assent and nodded wildly, her legs starting to shake and buckle as an orgasm welled up on her. Just like that. He knew what to do, how to play her.
“God, yes,” she sobbed.
“Good,” he growled. Then his mouth was on hers again. He wrapped an arm around her and lifted her off her feet, hugging her to him. He broke off kissing her to bury his face in her hair. For a moment he held her like that, his body locked tightly against her own, his face buried in her neck, in all her damp free-flowing hair, as his hand still worked between her legs. Rubbing. Stroking, Pushing and pulling until she shattered, came apart, shuddering and boneless.
He pressed a kiss into her hair as his fingers slipped out from her. Tenderness washed through her. She smoothed a hand over his dark cropped hair. “Knox,” she whispered, her voice cracking a little, unsure at this side to him.
He lifted his head, and she recognized the stark look in his gaze. The hunger. Still holding her, he started walking, and she nodded as though convincing herself that this was okay just one more time. She still felt shaky inside. Shaky but certain that she wanted him, too.
He carried her into her bedroom and set her down on the bed, pushing her robe off her shoulders so it spread wide beneath her.
Using her elbows, Briar crawled back on the bed. He came over her, his gaze hungry as he examined her like he was committing her to memory. He made her feel beautiful. She’d never had that with another guy. Beau had suggested on more than one occasion that she needed to lose a few pounds.
Knox touched her, skimming a palm down her body, between the valley of her breasts and down the center of her stomach. He palmed her sex like he owned it—owned her—and she arched up with a gasp.
He crouched between her thighs, using his big shoulders to push her legs wide apart for him.
“Knox,” she cried out, clutching his skull as his head dipped. His mouth latched onto her and she bucked at the pressure of his lips, the swipe of his tongue along her wet seam. No one had gone down on her before. It wasn’t Beau’s thing. He had been interested in only receiving.
Knox made a low, satisfied sound, animal-like, and settled in deeper, one hand splayed wide on the inside of each thigh as he lapped at her like she was a feast to be savored. His mouth found her clit and pulled it between his lips, flaying it with his tongue. Each stroke made her buck and cry out.
He pressed a hand on her abdomen and pushed her down on to the mattress, stopping her from rearing up on the bed. She moaned, all kinds of embarrassing sounds escaping her lips, but she didn’t care. In that moment there was only feeling, sensation, Knox’s mouth on her sex, his finger plunging inside and hitting that spot until she screamed her release a second time.
Suddenly he was over her, hands braced flat on either side of her head, drinking those sounds of her orgasm from her lips. He kissed her hard and wild and that only got her hotter. She needed him inside her.
She held his face, her palms rasping against his bristly cheeks. “You have entirely too many clothes on,” she panted.
He flashed her a grin that made her belly somersault, and then he was reaching behind his head and pulling his shirt off with one move, tossing it aside and revealing that beautiful chest that looked like it was honed on a battlefield. She sat up, running her hand over his smooth skin, tracing the fierce-looking dragon.
“When did you get this?”
“Right before I went to prison. My brother and I both got one the night before we went in. We might have been drinking.” A corner of his mouth kicked up. “We picked a dragon since it could fly.” He glanced down, watching her fingers trace one of the dark sharp lines that sat on a hard ridge of flesh. “Like it would be a part of us that was always free.”
“You’re free now,” she whispered.
A cloud passed over his face. “Yeah, only sometimes it doesn’t feel like it. Sometimes it feels like I’m still in there . . . stuck behind bars.”
She frowned. “What do you mean?”
He shook his head and undid the snap of his jeans, clearly not in the mood to say any more. Shoving them down, he distracted her with his nudity. His manhood sprang free, large and hard, curving toward her as though seeking home. He pulled a con
dom from his discarded jeans and climbed back between her thighs. “Nothing,” he muttered, his mouth claiming hers again.
He kissed her until she forgot the question. Until she was hot and aching and arching under him again.
“Knox,” she pleaded.
“Say it,” he ordered, his eyes gleaming darkly, like a beast emerging from the woods. He rubbed himself against her folds, teasing her, taunting her as his big body hummed, all coiling tension and checked brutality hovering over hers.
She twisted under him, her head tossing on the bed. She thrust her hips up to take him but he still continued to torment her. Fisting his cock, he rubbed harder against her without penetrating.
She was practically sobbing. “I need . . .”
“What?” he demanded, his features harsh but no less beautiful.
“You—”
“What do you want me to do to you, Briar?” Now he was nudging against her opening, giving her just a little of his engorged head.
“Fuck me,” she begged in a strangled voice.
The words hardly made it out before he was slamming into her, so big inside her that she gasped, nails scoring deep in his back. He pulled out nearly all the way and shoved in again, harder, pushing her up the bed from the force of his movement. She squeaked and clung to him. He paused for a moment, clearly letting her catch her breath.
He took longer than she liked and she wiggled under him, swallowing her breath and working her hips, a plaintive little mewl escaping her. She leaned up and bit his chest lightly, pumping her hips under him.
“That’s it, Briar,” he encouraged. “You fuck me.”
In a move that stole her breath, he flipped over so that she was astride him. Without ever dislodging himself from inside her, he anchored her atop him, his big hands fastened on her hips.
It was a new position. She floundered for a moment, feeling awkward and not quite knowing what to do.
“I—I don’t . . .” she stammered, her hands coming down to flatten on his chest.
“Just ride me,” he instructed. “Fuck me however you want. I want to watch you . . . touch you.” His hands came up to claim her breasts, his strong fingers playing over her sensitive nipples.
“Ohh.” It was like his hands had a direct link to the magic happening between her legs. She threw back her head as her sex throbbed and squeezed around him, buried inside her.
He groaned. “That’s it. See. Your body is milking me tight . . . it knows what it likes. Now ride my cock.” Her face burned at his blunt speech even as another part of her thrilled. She pressed down on his chest and lifted herself up, then came down once, grinding on him in the down stroke. Sparks of sensation shot through her, all springing from her core.
She moaned, repeating the move, leaning her hips forward and finding her angle, crying out as her clit ground down against him. She started to shake, her movements becoming wild and frenzied.
“That’s it, baby,” he panted, clenching handfuls of her ass as she worked over him. “Come apart for me. I want to feel you come.” He aided her rhythm, his fingers digging into her and slamming her down harder every time she dropped down on his cock.
She shook her head, her hair tangling at her mouth. She clawed the strands away. “I—I can’t—”
He reached between them and found her swollen clit. He pinched and rolled it while sitting up under her. Her legs wrapped around him as he looped an arm around her waist and surged up inside her in a single stroke that made her bounce deep on him. Everything inside her released then, bursting apart and erupting into a million tiny pieces. She flew apart at the seams, bits of herself she felt certain would never come together in quite the same way again.
His bright eyes clashed with her. With him sitting up and her astride him, they were at eye level. The position might have been the most intimate they had shared yet. “Don’t ever say you can’t come.” His eyes drilled into her. “You’ll come every time with me.”
She nodded mutely, her body practically limp as he continued to thrust inside her. He wasn’t done with her. His hands locked squarely on her waist and he lifted her like she weighed nothing at all, forcing her to finish out riding him. His pulsing length stroked against her newly sensitized and quivering walls. She was soon gasping again, her fingers clawing into his shoulders. “Oh, oh, oh . . . God . . .”
“Again,” he commanded, his face stark and beautiful as his own orgasm came over him. He pushed up into her and she shattered, coming in waves as he growled his own release in her ear.
She collapsed against him, her arms draped over his shoulders. They both breathed raggedly against each other for a few moments before he disengaged from her body and rose to dispose of the condom. When he returned, she almost expected him to say good-bye. After last time, she knew he felt guilty for waking up in the middle of the night and taking her without using a condom. She doubted he would fall asleep beside her again.
But he didn’t leave. He turned out the lights, slid into bed beside her and pulled her into his arms. She sighed against the warm solidness of his body, thinking she could get accustomed to this. Which was a scary thought. He wasn’t exactly the kind of guy a girl attached herself to. He wasn’t the settling down type. Just the idea of introducing him to her sister made her feel slightly ill.
She mentally shook herself. No one was talking forever here. Certainly not him. He hadn’t even reached out to her since the last time they hooked up. No call. No text. And that’s all this was. Knox showing up at her doorstep for a hook-up. Sex.
She fell asleep in his arms, only to have him wake her up twice more with deep-mouthed kisses. Once to her lips and another time she woke to find him tonguing her sex, bringing her to hair-clutching, shuddering release before he pushed himself deep inside her, wedging his thickness inside the aching walls of her channel, working her into such a state that one of the neighbors below pounded the ceiling for them to shut up. Briar Davis, sex goddess. Who knew she had it in her?
Knox was never so overcome that he forgot to put on a condom again. He was controlled yet driven, relentless as he took her with such rawness, such need. She was sore by the third time he made love to her just before dawn, but she couldn’t deny herself or him.
Every time they came together, something unraveled inside her. Each time with him was better than the one before and it scared her shitless. A real problem, considering she had long ago promised herself to never live a life of fear again.
All those reasons why they couldn’t be together, why it was wrong for her to take a man like him into her body . . . into her life . . . faded to murky shadow. Something to be examined later. Reality was for later.
By the time she woke, sunlight was pouring through her blinds. She was definitely going to be late for work. But she didn’t care. The only thing that mattered to her in that moment was that he had left her. Again, without a word. He was gone.
SIXTEEN
“SO YOU’RE STILL holding down your job?” Polansky asked as he pushed his glasses up his nose and walked down the porch steps into the sun-baked yard. He glanced back at Knox with an arched eyebrow, almost like he expected him to admit that he’d quit. Or been fired.
Knox held back his snort. It was his family’s business. Did Polansky think his family was going to fire him? Instead, he nodded and murmured assent. He never volunteered more than asked to his parole officer. This was Polanksy’s second visit to the house. Such visits were routine, to check out his living conditions and make sure Knox wasn’t running a meth lab. He didn’t have a history of drug-related offenses, but Polansky always surveyed his house as though he expected to find a cook pot. He insisted on checking the basement, too. Maybe he thought Knox might have a few people chained down there.
He paused at the door of his nondescript sedan and nodded at Knox’s motorcycle. “New hobby?”
The shiny chro
me beast was parked on a tarp with several tools littering the area around it. He’d been working on it when Polansky made his unannounced visit. Knox had saved up and bought it his last year of high school. He’d been in the process of restoring it when everything had happened with Katie. It felt good to get his hands back on it. It felt familiar and right.
Knox shrugged. “I enjoy working on it.”
“Hope you’re not considering joining an MC gang . . . that could have consequences on your parole.”
A bitter sigh welled up in him. “I’m not joining any gang.” He’d done what he had to do while in the box, but he wasn’t looking to connect with any local gangs. Just because he was friendly with a few of their members didn’t mean he was one of them.
Polansky crossed his arms in front of him. “Several gangs frequent Roscoe’s . . . I had my reservations about you working there but set them aside because it’s a family business and your family has always been law-abiding citizens despite owning such an unsavory establishment.”
Knox stared coldly at the man, wiping his hands on a rag. It didn’t matter. The grease didn’t seem to want to come off. “I haven’t broken any laws since I got out and I don’t intend to.”
“Yes, well, we’ll see. Won’t we, Mr. Callaghan? One misstep, one infraction of your parole . . .” He thumbed the air behind him for emphasis. “. . . and you’re headed right back to Devil’s Rock.”
Knox nodded once, not trusting himself to speak. This guy with his unsubtle threats pissed him off. It reminded him that he wasn’t really free. Not fully. Maybe he never would be. Not as long as this asshole kept popping in to criticize him anyway. He couldn’t even work on his fucking bike in peace. Polansky ducked inside his car.
Fuming, Knox fixed his expression into an impassive mask as his parole officer drove away. Turning, he started toward his bike to continue where he’d left off, but stopped with a glance down at his dirty hands. They were shaking. With a curse, he stormed up the steps. The contentment he had found working on his bike was gone.