Knight (An Impossible Novel) (33 page)

His satisfied grin was wide and almost lazy as he firmly pressed me back down into the mattress.

“Greedy little sub,” he chastised.  “I’m not done playing.”  His cock pulsed against my hip as his arousal stirred once again.

I gaped at him.  This had to be a new record.  “Already?”

“We have,” he glanced at the clock on the bedside table, “a little over twenty-two hours before we have to be at JFK.  It’s an eight hour flight to Paris, and that’s a long time for me to have to keep my hands off you.  So I’m going to make the most of these next twenty-two hours.”

“Who’s the greedy one now?”  I asked contrarily.

His rich laugh warmed me to my core.  “It seems a lesson about flippancy is in order. 
Again.  Do you think we can make it stick this time?”

I grinned.  “Probably not, Master.”

“Good.”  His flashing eyes were both pleased and predatory.  “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

Epilogue

Smith

“Where are we going?  The
Mona Lisa
is in the Denon Wing.”  Lydia’s blue-green eyes were alight with curiosity, her cheeks flushed from excitement.  God, she was so fucking beautiful.

Seeing the vibrant, strong woman she was now, I felt a flood of immense pleasure and satisfaction.  When I had first found her on that terrible night at Decadence, she barely resembled her true self.  She had been sick and skittish and chronically deferential.  But her trust in me had allowed her to slowly find herself again.  After everything she had suffered, she had managed to heal.  She had told me she couldn’t have done it without me, and that was undeniably gratifying.  But it was
her own strength that continued to amaze me.  The fact that this incredibly strong-willed woman had chosen to give herself to me was both heady and humbling.

And I’d be damned if I let her get away.  She already wore my collar, but I wanted another kind of bond with her.  I had lost my family through the stupid, selfish choices I had made twelve years ago.  With Lydia, I could have a family again.

My own wide smile matched hers as I tugged her along.  “We’ll visit the
Mona Lisa
later,” I told her firmly.  “I have a surprise for you.”

I lead her through the tightly-clustered crowds of tourists that milled about the atrium of the Louvre, following the map in my head that I had memorized.  I hoped to hell I got it right, because I didn’t want to fuck up any part of this.  It had taken me two weeks of covert research and planning to prepare this for her.

Thankfully, I managed to successfully navigate us to the more secluded Print and Drawing Study Room.  A curator greeted us, and I confirmed that I was the one who had made the viewing appointment.  Because the particular drawing I was interested in was so delicate, I had to contact the museum and request that it be brought out to view.

Lydia’s puzzlement over the arrangement warred with awe as her eyes roved over the room.  The white walls were sculpted in relief to form intricate scrollwork and depict mythological scenes, and the vaulted ceiling featured a richly colored fresco framed by gilded molding.  The room itself was a work of art.

I touched my hand to Lydia’s elbow, calling her attention away from the fresco above us and towards what I had brought her to see.  Laid out on a table and protected behind glass was an aged drawing in red chalk depicting a nude woman holding forth an apple.  Lydia’s expression was enraptured as she stared down at it, her eyes wide and her full lips parted in that way I found so damn sexy.

“It’s Correggio’s sketch of Eve offering the apple from the Tree of Knowledge,” I told her quietly, almost unwilling to break her blissful study.

Her attention turned to me, and the wonder shining in her eyes made my heart skip a beat.  I forced my scattered thoughts to gather back together, and I took her hands in mine.

“You told me that my decision to keep you might not have been the right choice, but it was a good one.  Now, I’m choosing to believe you.  Because I’m not letting you go.”

I reached in my pocket and pulled out the small red box.  I couldn’t hold back my grin when Lydia’s jaw dropped as I went down on one knee.

“Marry me, Lydia.”

Her gaze jerked up from the sparking princess cut diamond, her eyes narrowing as they found mine.  “Is that a question or an order?”

“Does it matter?”

I watched with amusement as she wrestled to maintain her righteous annoyance.  After a few seconds, her smile broke free.  “No.  It doesn’t matter.  Yes, I will marry you, Smith.”  She suddenly bounced on the balls of her feet in giddy excitement, all traces of irritation vanishing as her decision sunk in.  “Yes!”

I slipped the ring onto her delicate finger, holding it there as I stood.  With my other hand, I touched the tourmaline pendant that rested at the hollow of her throat, silently communicating that she was irrevocably bound to me now in every way possible.  She touched her hand to mine, curling my fingers around the necklace, silently demanding that I bind her.

“I love you, Smith,” she declared fervently.

“I love you too, sweetheart.”

At my words, her face lit up with unadulterated joy.  This was how she was meant to be.  This was
who
she was meant to be: my blissfully happy submissive, my beautiful wife.  The love of my life.

Fuck, she was perfect.  And she was mine.

The End

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How was Martel always one step ahead of the FBI?  Who is the Mentor?  Reed Miller and Katherine Byrd will be hunting him down in the near future!

Want to know
why the FBI was busting Decadence at the beginning of
Knight? 
Find out in the next
Impossible
novel,
Rogue.

I don’t know what the hell I’m doing.  And he can tell; he can see right through me.  I can’t afford to have my cover blown, but the way that this sinfully sexy man is looking at me is awakening an unfamiliar hunger within me.  Damn it.

Agent Sharon Silverman is not at all sure if she can pull off her latest assignment: gain membership at BDSM club Decadence and scope out the place for drug use.  Determined to prove herself to the mostly male-dominated New York unit of the FBI, she extends her assignment in an effort to score a bigger bust.  She gets her wish when she uncovers that the Latin Kings are using the club as a front for cocaine trafficking.  To further her investigation, she gets close to Decadence owner and Dominant Derek Carter, only to find that staying close to him physically while keeping her distance emotionally is more difficult than she ever imagined.

Knowing that Derek is involved
with the Kings makes Sharon sick.  Even more disturbing are her undeniable feelings for a man who embodies everything she hates.  She finds herself torn between her duty and her heart as their relationship escalates.  Can Sharon bring herself to betray Derek?  Or will she forsake everything she stands for in order to protect him?

Rogue
will be available soon!

Want to learn more of Clayton’s story?  Here’s a teaser for
Savior
(An
Impossible
Novel)
, now available!

Rose Baker is both thrilled and disconcerted by the intensity of her connection with Clayton, her drug of choice for the evening.

I moaned softly as he pulled out, leaving me feeling utterly empty.  But for the first time in a long time, that feeling of emptiness wasn’t accompanied by the feeling of being suddenly, starkly alone.  Clayton tumbled down on the bed beside me and wrapped his arm around my waist.  Little lines of sizzling pleasure continued to slither beneath my skin as he held me against him.  We were both gasping for breath in tandem, our bodies still perfectly in sync.

When our heaving chests slowed to a more normal rhythm, Clayton rolled off me.  A cold knot twisted in the pit of my stomach.  Being held by Clayton had felt nice, but it wasn’t wise to read too much into his actions.

Wham-bam-thank you ma’am.
  Time to go Rose.

I propped myself up on my elbows and started tugging down on my dress.  His hands were on my
shoulders, pushing me back onto the bed.  I looked up at him, confused.

“What do you think you’re doing?”  He asked.

“Um, getting dressed?”  It came out as a question.  Clayton was throwing me for a loop.

“Don’t.”  It was a simple word, but it was spoken like an order.  The clear, commanding tone of his voice made me shiver.  My hands fell away from my dress instantly, and my legs parted slightly as I relaxed, my body instinctively offering itself to him.  He cocked his head to the side, studying me for a long moment.  My breaths came more quickly as he regarded me in silence, and that all-consuming need that he had only just purged from me came growling back to life.

“Stay.”

With only that one word, I froze.  Clayton left my line of sight.  My eyes wanted to follow him, but I didn’t move; I hardly breathed.  I could hear water running, so I guessed that he was in the bathroom.  Did he know what he was doing to me?  Did he understand th
e game I thought we were playing?

My body didn’t care if he knew what he was doing or not; it just wanted more of whatever this was.  It wanted more of
him.

The sound of his ap
proaching footsteps told me he was coming back.  I thought about standing, pulling down my dress, and getting out of there ASAP.  That’s what any normal person would have done.  Hell, that’s what
I
would have done.

But when I saw Clayton, all temptation to leave evaporated.
  He had gotten undressed while I wasn’t watching him.  And
holy fuck,
was he perfect.  I had been with a lot of big, brawny guys who literally put in hours every day at the gym.  Clayton wasn’t bulky like them, but every part of his body was flawlessly sculpted and balanced.  He didn’t have beefy arms in order to make up for the tiny calves he hid under his baggy jeans, and he didn’t have huge pecs to draw attention away from his doughy stomach.  He was breathtaking.

I was overwhelmed by the desire to touch him, to run my fingertips along the contours of him.  Pushing myself up, I reached for him.

“I thought I told you to stay,” he said sternly.

I gasped in shock, and my body reacted before my mind could catch up.  I dropped back onto the mattress, my arms falling to either side of me with my wrists facing upward, willingly exposing my physical vulnerabilities.  “Sorry,” I whispered automatically.

His grin was both pleased and predatory.  “You really do like it when I’m bossy, don’t you?”

I smiled back at him wickedly.  “You don’t know the half of it.”

“I’m sure I don’t,” he agreed easily.  “But I’m a quick study.”  His rough fingertips brushed against my inner thigh, and I jumped as even that slightest contact sent pleasure arcing through me.  He instantly withdrew his touch, fixing me with a reprimanding stare.  He didn’t have to say it aloud again for me to know what that look meant:
Stay.

This time, it took concerted effort to force my body to relax.

He waited before touching me again, watching my reactions as he drew out the tension.  The longer he waited, the hotter I got for him.  God, the man was teasing me with nothing but the sight of his body and the mere promise of his touch, and already I was close to begging him to give me what I craved.  When his palms finally slid up either side of my waist, slowly peeling my dress off my body, I couldn’t hold back a strangled sigh of relief. 

But my torment was only just beginning.

I shifted my arms compliantly so that he could tug the dress over my head, but he suddenly stopped his steady progress.  The thick, stretchy material still covered my eyes, and my arms were trapped on either side of my head.

“Stay.”  The command was a low growl at my ear, and I shuddered in delight at the sound of it.  I could easily get out of this makeshift bondage if I wanted to, but I
so
didn’t want to.  If I had thought my body was alive with need before, all of my nerve endings were positively crackling now that I could no longer see what Clayton was doing to me.  He was everywhere and nowhere.  H
is warm breath, hot tongue, and clever fingers roved over my body, but he never quite touched me where I needed it most.  All of my muscles tensed until I was taut as a bowstring from the effort of staying still.

“Are you… sure… you haven’t done this before?”  I panted, my voice trembling almost as violently as my body.

Clayton’s warmth withdrew abruptly, and a soft whine escaped me at the loss.

“No.  Why?”  He asked.  “Am I doing it wrong?”

“No!”  I cried desperately, yearning for his maddening caresses to resume.  “God, no.  Please…”

His low, rumbling chuckle moved over and through me like a palpable thing, making me shiver.  “That’s what I thought.”  His tongue traced along the bottom of my earlobe before drawing it between his teeth.  He bit down, and the sharp little pain contrasted beautifully with the soft flicks of his tongue.  The raw, lustful sound that was pulled from my throat shocked me. 

“I told you,” he said smoothly.  “I’m a quick study.”

It probably wasn’t healthy that I found his smug tone so incredibly arousing.  His cocky attitude only further inflamed my desire, and my nipples and clit were already throbbing painfully.  “Please, Clayton…”

“I like that part,” he commented as he trailed whisper-soft kisses down my neck.

He wanted me to beg?  If that was all it would take to get him to release me from this sweet torture, then I would do it gladly.

“Please.  Please touch me.”

I gasped as he kissed the swell of my breast.  He was so close, so close…

“Say my name.”