Contents
Title Page
About the Book
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Other Books by Cassia Leo
About the Author
Get Involved
Copyright
By Cassia Leo
http://cassialeo.com
KNOX: Volume Two
From New York Times bestselling author Cassia Leo comes a sinfully sexy and suspenseful new series.
Now that Rebecca knows Knox’s plans, she wants to know how her ex-boyfriend August fits into it all. But it’s hard to keep track of the many intricacies of Knox’s vendetta when Rebecca is consumed with her lust for him. Her every waking minute is spent trying to push her desire for Knox to the background, but he’s making that very difficult. He’s invaded her life. Knox is everywhere. And so is August.
Just when Rebecca begins to feel as though she’s hit a comfortable stride in her relationship with Knox, she receives news that will make her question Knox’s intentions and change her life forever.
1
A warm hand lands softly on my hip as smooth skin presses against my back. His hand eases forward until it covers my abdomen. I open my legs a bit, beckoning him to slide his hand lower. His lips are on my shoulder, so warm and tender. I wiggle my hips a little. Rubbing myself against him. I want him to know I’m ready.
“Knox.” My voice is barely a whisper, strangled by my desire for him. “Please.”
“I love hearing you beg.”
His words are a hot whoosh of air in the curves of my ear. My skin pulses, my clit aches for his touch. He keeps his hand pressed against my abdomen as he sucks on my neck. I’m trembling like a junkie. My body coursing with adrenaline and hot with anticipation.
“Please.”
I try to push his hand down to where I want it, between my legs. He grabs my wrist and presses his hips against mine. His erection is hot and hard against the back of my thigh. I want it hot and hard inside me.
He’s going to make me beg.
I slip my hand free of his grip. Then I reach back and grab the back of his neck as I turn my head around to kiss him. His kiss is as powerful as every other aspect of his being. It’s possibly the most powerful weapon in his arsenal; though I’d never tell him that. Knox is not the kind of man who wants to be known for his kiss.
“Please put it in,” I murmur this plea into his mouth.
He gently massages my breast and a spark of pleasure pulses between my legs. He squeeze my nipple, tugging it lightly. I arch my back, never letting my skin lose contact with his hard cock.
“Please put it in where?” he asks, and I can hear the smile in his voice.
“Please fuck me in my ass.”
His hand slides down and I let out a high-pitched cry as his finger teases my clit. Then his erection slides between my thighs, finding my wetness. He rubs his thickness against my flesh until his cock is slick with my juices. He prods the entrance to my ass and I gasp.
He slides in no farther than an inch and groans. “Fuck!”
The burn of my flesh being stretched is consuming. It fills my body with a savory warmth that oozes into my limbs, rendering me useless. He pulls out slowly. I close my eyes and swallow hard in anticipation. He enters again, a bit farther, his finger massaging my clit so my muscles contract around his cock.
“You’re unbelievably delicious,” he murmurs into my ear. “Absolutely fucking unbelievable.”
He goes slowly, moving a little farther with each stroke, until he’s buried as deeply inside me as my body will allow. Until I can feel the tip of his hard cock prodding my abdomen from within. My eyes roll back in my head with sheer ecstasy. I can’t speak or move. I can’t even tremble as the orgasm rocks me. I’ve died a most exquisite death.
He fills me with his essence as he explodes inside me. The warmth of it oozes over my cheeks and my body is too spent, too limp to care about my sheets. If I could, I’d lay here in this position forever.
It takes a good hour to recover from this episode enough to invite Knox to shower with me. I scrub the solid muscles of his back as he leans with both hands splayed on the wall. I massage his neck and shoulders a little and he moans with pleasure.
“You’re so tense.” I dig my fingers into his shoulders and they’re hard as granite. “You need a massage.”
“There’s ten years of hatred packed into those muscles. No masseuse in the world that can fix that.”
I slide my arms around his waist and lay my cheek against his back as I think of the day I discovered the extent of his hatred. The day I discovered that Knox will stop at nothing to avenge his mother’s murder. The day I found out just how far he’d go to get to me.
When August walked into that garage three weeks ago, I was certain I was hallucinating. I didn’t believe August and Knox could be in on anything together. They couldn’t be more different if they were born on different planets.
August is a spoiled rich boy who summers in the Hamptons and blogs about vintage fashion. Knox is a polished billionaire with a penchant for domination and a deep connection to the Veneto crime family — my family.
When August sat down at the table in the empty garage and told me that he had been working with Knox for five months, my heart nearly stopped. It was all beginning to make sense. August hadn’t invited me to his apartment in four months. He was just stringing me along for months until the day before my father’s arraignment. Then Knox could initiate the phase of his plan that involved me.
I didn’t speak to Knox for more than a week. Didn’t answer his calls, emails, or texts. When he showed up at my apartment, I didn’t answer the door. I knew he wouldn’t knock down the door. He doesn’t want to draw attention to himself.
But I’m not stupid. I know that he knows I must be handled gently and often from a distance. I’m the key witness against my father. As long as he keeps me happy, his vendetta can continue without any snags.
The problem is that I know I don’t have that much leverage. Even if I testify that I saw my father murder Frank Mainello in my living room when I was thirteen years old, Knox will find a way to have me discredited. Not because he’s an asshole. But because nothing will stand in the way of his revenge.
So I watch what I say and do. He watches my every move. I can feel his presence everywhere I turn. Knox knows all my patterns and vices. All my family. All my coworkers and friends.
Friends.
Discovering that August was in on this plan threw all my relationships into question. Wasn’t it my best friend Lita who asked me to walk her to the train station where I was abducted by Knox’s goons? Wasn’t it Lita who made me question August’s fidelity with a single question?
Did Knox get to Lita too? That’s exactly what I plan on finding out this afternoon.
Knox turns around in the shower to face me. He takes my face in his strong hands and kisses me, as if he knows what I’m thinking about. And he just wants me to forget everything except him and his maddening kiss. It works.
He lightly sucks on my top lip as he pulls away. “Delicious.” He flashes me a cunning half-smile as he slides his hand between my legs and pushes me against the shower wall. “I’m taking you to see your father next week.”
Shoving two fingers inside me, his thumb caresses my engorged clit. Shockwaves of pleasure pulse outward all the way to my toes and fingertips. He takes my earlobe between his teeth and growls
in my ear.
I laugh as a chill passes through me. “I don’t need to see him.”
“This is not a request, Rebecca.”
He pulls his fingers out from between my leg and slowly lifts it up. He gets my leg all the way up so he can lay a soft kiss on the inside of my ankle as he pushes his cock inside me. He holds my leg up by the ankle as he thrusts into me slowly. The friction of his cock on my clit sends shivers through me.
“I don’t want to see… my father in jail… for the rest of his life.” Moan. “But I also… don’t want to see my father.”
He pounds into me so hard I feel as if he might rip me in half. “He goes to trial in two month…. You’re going to see your father…. I’m taking you myself.” Maintaining his grip on my leg, he laces his fingers into my hair. Then he gently yanks my head back as he pounds me even harder. “On my plane.”
He tightens his fist around my hair and tugs. My mouth falls open in a tiny gasp. He shoves his tongue into my mouth, silencing me. Proving I have no choice in this matter. Knox does what he wants. And I do what he wants. So next week I’ll go with him to see my father, the murderer, for the first time in four years.
2
Knox’s voice blares like a siren in my mind, warning me not to tell Lita anything about him or his involvement with August and my father. Of course, Lita has been texting and calling me non-stop for the past three weeks from her parents’ house in Poughkeepsie. Since my father’s arraignment was broadcast on national television. She would have come back to Manhattan sooner if it weren’t for my insistence that I really am okay.
Lita and her purposely frizzy light-brown hair attack me the moment I open the door to my apartment.
“Rebecca! I’m so sorry I left you!”
She shakes me like a child hugging a rag doll. At five feet eleven inches tall to my five-foot-seven stature, this is a very accurate simile. I laugh as I hug her back. Though my laughter sounds a bit strained by her crushing hug — and my suspicions of her.
She finally lets go. “I’m so sorry I wasn’t here when it all went down. Especially since August turned out to be a total prick, as I suspected.”
She takes a seat at the small metal table with the formica veneer. I take a seat across from her and push a glass of iced tea toward her. Lita doesn’t drink often. One of the many things I admire about her. She has an insatiable need to control a situation and alcohol works against that need. I have to figure out how to control this conversation. How to steer it toward the truth about whether or not Knox has involved her in his vendetta, while also steering clear from the truth about my involvement with Knox.
She sniffs the air dramatically. “You had sex in here, very recently.”
“What? No, I haven’t.” I grab the sweaty glass in front of me and take a sip of my iced tea.
She glances over her shoulder at the unmade bed. “You’re lying. Who was it? It wasn’t August, was it? You’re not back with that cheating prick, are you?”
“No! August makes me sick. He was probably cheating on me for months.”
“So he admitted to it? Just like that?”
“No, I’m just assuming because….”
I take a long sip from my iced tea, trying to stall. I don’t want to lie to Lita about August and his involvement with Knox. Lita has enough trust issues without me piling more on.
We’ve all been betrayed by someone at some point in our lives. Someone who made us despise people who lie. For Lita, that person was her mom.
When she was seventeen, the woman she thought was her mother introduced her to her real mother. It turned out the woman who raised Lita was a neighbor of Lita’s biological mother. Lita’s biological mother was young when she had Lita. She literally left Lita on the neighbor’s doorstep with a note and took off.
Now Lita spends three weeks every summer in Poughkeepsie with her biological mother, to make up for lost time. Her relationship with the mother who raised her is still strained. But I understand how difficult it is to recover from such a complete betrayal. When I saw my father murder “Uncle” Frank, I felt as if I was finally seeing the real John Veneto. Not the one who pretended to be my loving father.
Then, of course, there’s the possibility that Lita already knows about Knox. Why else would she ask about August on the very day I’m abducted by Knox and this whole scheme between August and Knox blows up in my face? It can’t be a coincidence. Can it?
“Lita, I have —”
I stop myself when I have a sudden realization. Knox probably has my apartment bugged. When I asked him if he has me bugged he claimed that none of the surveillance is conducted in my apartment. He said he didn’t want his men watching me get dressed. Or listening to me scream his name in the throes of passion. But I’m not sure I believe that my apartment isn’t being watched.
“You have … what?” Lita’s round gray eyes don’t blink as she waits for me to finish this sentence.
I lean forward to whisper in her ear and she giggles like a schoolgirl. “I’m seeing someone new.”
“I knew it!” she shrieks.
“Shh!” I almost clap my hand over her mouth. “Please don’t say anything … aloud.”
She looks at me like I’m crazy. “You’re acting very weird. Are you dating that creepy guy from work? What was his name? Charles? Chuckie?”
“Charlie,” I reply quickly to shut her up.
A knot of regret twists inside my stomach as I think of my coworker, Charlie. After he saw me coming out of the Queens Forensics Lab when I was supposed to be at home sick, Knox had to “take care of” him. Whatever that means. Charlie hasn’t been to work in three weeks. He has been calling into work every few days just to say that his mother, who lives in Michigan, is still not doing well. As soon as Charlie became a liability to Knox, his mother suddenly became ill.
I have a feeling Charlie is never coming back to the 14th Precinct.
I slide my chair across the tile floor so I’m right next to her. Then I lean in close to whisper in her ear. “I’m being watched.”
She turns to face me, probably to make sure I’m not bullshitting her. “By who?”
“My dad.”
It’s not a lie. Knox works for my dad.
Her eyes widen as she realizes I’m not acting weird at all. “Why? Because of the trial? I don’t get it. Do you have evidence against him or something?”
“I can’t talk about it. But you can’t tell anyone. Okay?”
“Shouldn’t you report it if you think you’re being stalked? You work for the fucking police department. Jesus Christ, Becky. This is very serious.”
I shush her again. “I’m not being stalked. Don’t freak out. I have it under control.”
“You have it under control!” she whisper-shouts at me. “You really think you can control your dad?”
I look her in the eye and will myself not to break down. Don’t tell her what you saw. Don’t tell her about Frank Mainella.
My shoulders slump as I realize I can’t keep this kind of secret from Lita. She’s the first friend I made when I moved to Manhattan from Bensonhurst four years ago. I met her in a sociology class at Hunter College.
I showed up to class late once and she offered to let me copy her notes at the Starbucks down the street. She’s still addicted to their chai tea lattes four years later. We met at that Starbucks and chatted for hours. We became instant best friends the moment she told me she had just moved to Manhattan from Poughkeepsie to get away from her family. It was comforting to know I’m not the only one with an unbearable load of family baggage.
“Listen to me. I’m not in danger. Like you said, I work for the fucking police department. I’m used to having eyes on me. I know how to handle myself. Okay?”
She runs her hand through her hair then she reaches into her purse, which hangs from the back of her chair. She pulls out something small wrapped in newspaper. I shake my head as I take it from her hand and begin unwrapping. I crumple up the newspaper and toss i
t onto the table. Then I stand the slender eight-inch-tall cat figurine down between us.
Lita always brings me back a hand-painted cat figurine from a little Polish pottery shop in Poughkeepsie. She did it the first time three years as a joke. I was so creeped out by it that she did it again last year. This is the third one.
“Thanks.”
She glances around the apartment and her lips curl into a smile. “You still didn’t tell me who you had sex with this morning?”
I sigh as I lean back in my chair and think of my morning with Knox. “It’s nothing.” I try to be nonchalant, but I can’t hide my grin.
“Oh, no. I recognize that look.” She leans forward on her elbows. “Is the sex that good or are you in love?”
“I’m not in love.”
“So it’s the sex?”
I stare at the table so I don’t have to look her in the eye. How do I tell her that it’s more than sex? How do I tell her I’ve been pining for a guy I made out with when I was fifteen? She’ll think I’m a crazy person. How do I tell her there’s no way to describe Knox’s energy? You have to be near him to feel it. To be consumed by it.
“It’s more than sex.”
“You just broke up with August three weeks ago and you’re already in love? Spill!”
I look up and meet her desperate gaze. “Knox Savage. He owns a private security firm. He’s —”
“He works for your dad.”
“Why do you say that? Do you know him?”
Her eyebrow twitches and she shakes her head. “It doesn’t take a genius to figure that out.” She sits back in her chair and pauses for a moment, lost in thought. “Is he protecting your dad while he’s out on bail?”
I nod and think to myself, Something like that.
3
Knox
“Make sure the rope is long enough for him to stand with his feet firmly planted on the chair, but not so long his feet touch the ground when he drops. Remember: He’s six-foot-four on his tiptoes,” I issue my order gently.