Unfinished Hero 01 Knight (40 page)

And that meant everything to him.

So I knew then I was giving him everything just the same as he was giving me.

And that meant everything to me.

So I pressed into him, my arms around him got tight, my head tilted back further and I smiled at my man.

The Real Ones

I felt Knight’s hand slide lightly between my legs.

“Wake up, baby,” he whispered in my ear and my eyes drifted open.

He’d called before I went to sleep and told me what he wanted me to wear to bed (my red nightie with the black lace and, as usual, nothing else) and not to pull the covers over me.

So I didn’t.

I was lying mostly on my belly, my top leg hitched high, my bottom leg slightly crooked, perfect access and I knew this when my belly curled at what his hand was doing between my legs.

“I’m awake,” I muttered sleepily.

“Good, baby,” he whispered, lips still at my ear. “Get up. Position for Daddy. You know how I like it. Facing the headboard. Arms up in the air. Yeah?”

“Yeah, Daddy,” I agreed softly and his finger trailed deeper through the wet gathering between my legs.

My eyes closed.

My reward.

Then his hand drifted away as did his heat at my back.

I shifted up. Getting on my knees, sliding them wide, I slowly lifted my arms up into the air.

I felt Knight move in behind me. His hands glided on the silk of my nightie, all over it and that felt lovely. His lips came to my neck and worked there. That felt better. Then his fingers curled into the deep lace edge at the bottom of the nightie and he slowly pulled it up my body. His mouth left my neck, the nightie cleared my hands and was gone.

“Right, baby,” his lips were back at my ear, “hold onto the headboard. Keep your hands there. Don’t move them. And you can talk if you want. Okay?”

“Okay, Daddy.”

“Okay,” he whispered in my ear then his tongue trailed down my neck as I dropped my arms and grabbed onto the headboard.

Then his hands came back to me, moving, gliding, sliding, over my ribs, belly, hips, down the outside of my thighs, up the insides. A barely-there touch between my legs. Lips and tongue at my neck, my shoulder. Hands drifting up my sides, over the curve of my armpits, down my arms then back.

I trembled and held on as his light, loving touch melted through me.

More gliding, sliding then one hand went south, one hand curled around my breast.

Yes.

“Does my baby want her Daddy to play with her?”

“Yes,” I breathed, quivering , waiting, wanting to strain against his hands that were cupping me warm but not giving me anything.

“You can move, Anya. I wanna feel you get excited,” he whispered in my neck.

I was already excited.

But.

Goodie.

Knight played. I moved, moaned, whimpered, strained, rubbed, rolled.

Oh God. Fantastic.

When I could take no more, my head fell back, hitting his shoulder and my neck twisted.

Pressing my forehead into his neck, I begged, “I need you, honey.”

“Arch your back, tip your ass and take me.”

I obeyed immediately.

Knight’s cock surged inside.

My head flew back and I moaned.

“Fuck, my baby likes my cock,” he growled, one hand still at my breast rolling and tugging my nipple, his other hand still between my legs, finger working my clit and he was right-
ish
but I didn’t like his cock. I
loved
it
and
all of him. “Move, Anya, meet me. Fuck me while I fuck my baby.”

I did, hard. Slamming back into him as he thrust into me.

“My baby likes it rough. Love that, love it when she fucks herself hard,” he grunted.

Oh yeah, I loved it too.

“Christ, this cunt,
my
cunt, so fucking sweet.”

Oh God. I loved
that
too.

I moved faster, harder.

His fingers at my nipple tugged sharper, his finger at my clit pressed and rolled deeper. My whimpers came faster, more desperate.

“Give that to me,” he growled in my neck, my back arched further, my ass tipped up higher, my head pressed into his shoulder and I came on low moan. “Fuck yeah. Keep givin’ that to me, baby,” he groaned and his hands and cock kept at me so I had no choice but to comply.

When I was whimpering so much it was a keen, every inch of my skin oversensitive, Knight stopped manipulating my nipple and his hand cupped my breast. His finger at my clit stopped pressing and rolling and his hand slid deep, fingers separating around our connection, cupping me. He kept driving into me until both hands tensed, fingers digging deep and I felt and listened to him find it.

As he came down he took me gentle then slid in full and both his arms moved to wrap around me, one at my belly, one under my breasts.

“Love you, baby,” he murmured against my skin.

“Love you too, Knight,” I murmured back.

“Stay there, don’t move. I’ll be back. Gonna clean you up.”

“Okay, sweetheart,” I whispered.

Gently, he slid out, his hands drifting across my skin in a light caress as his arms left me then I felt the bed move as he got out of it. I saw dim light, heard the faucet in the bathroom then I felt the bed move as he came back. He wrapped an arm around my belly then glided a warm cloth between my legs and my hips jerked.

“Sensitive?” he whispered.

“Yeah,” I answered.

“Like it like that,” he muttered.

I did too.

He kissed my shoulder and the cloth went away. “Don’t move.”

“Okay.”

He left the bed again to take the cloth back to the bathroom but wasn’t gone long before I felt him enter it again at his side.

Then he ordered, “Climb on me, Anya.”

I shifted to him immediately. He had his back to the headboard, legs straight so I threw one over his hips to straddle him. His arms closed around me, pulling me to him. His knees cocked and I felt his thighs against my bottom, his big, powerful, hard, warm body lightly and openly cocooning me.

Now
that
.
That
I loved.

I settled my weight into him, cheek to his collarbone, forehead to his neck. His hands drifted, sweet, light, beautiful on my skin. Fingers gliding through my hair making it slide along my back adding to the caress.

I melted into him, giving him more of my weight. We did this and we did it often. I totally loved it. It was supremely comfortable. It made me feel safe, precious, treasured. I could sleep like this and I knew that as a fact since I’d fallen asleep against him when we did this more than once.

“You dream?” he muttered.

“No,” I answered.

He drew in a slow breath then let it out.

They were gone, my dreams. The good ones, the bad. My sleep was dreamless, completely. It felt bizarre not having them but I didn’t miss them.

Knight had been right. It took some time but talking them through, living our life, I let them go and they left me.

“Know it’s late, Anya, but we got somethin’ to talk about,” he said quietly.

I pressed my lips together and tried not to tense.

We did. I just didn’t know I’d given that away. I thought I’d been hiding it.

But Knight noticed everything.

One of his arms closing around me, he angled to the side taking me with him and the light came on. I blinked in the sudden bright and then focused on his hand at the nightstand, fingers curled around and thumb flipping up the top of a small, square, expensive-looking box.

Then he pulled out what was inside as I held my breath, stayed completely still and watched as his hand came back, lifted mine from his chest and somehow he managed to position and slide the ring on my finger.

It was a band, thick gold at top and bottom, the middle inlaid all around with sparkling, perfect, not small by a long shot diamonds.

I stared.

His fingers curled around my hand then brought it back to his chest and pressed it flat.

Oh my God. Oh my
God.

His arm that never left my back got super tight.

“Not what you’re thinkin’,” he said gently. “You know how I feel about that shit.”

I blinked, rapidly, but my eyelids were the only thing that moved.

I knew. I did. He explained it to me ages ago.

We’d now been together, starting from when we met, closing on two years. We met in February. It was November the year following. After I (officially) moved in that August, he gave us a couple of months then, in bed, the first time we cuddled like this after he made love to me, he explained he was not only not into labels but also not into traditional rituals. This included things like Thanksgiving and Christmas.

It also included things like marriage.

He told me he was committed to me but he’d never marry me. I was his, he was mine, we were together and we always would be but “the government knows who I’m fuckin’, everybody else can stay outta my fuckin’ business.”

I didn’t agree with this. I was Catholic though I didn’t attend church very often (as in never since my parents died, my religious education something else my aunt never saw to). Still, I did when they were alive and I kept that part of them with me. I was lax with it in a variety of ways but it didn’t mean it wasn’t important.

I was also a girl who wanted her day.

We discussed it and he didn’t make me yield. We went to Vivica and Rhashan’s for Thanksgiving dinner though Knight left to go to work. He let me have a Christmas tree but no Christmas music, cookies or other decorations. He did give me a gift, only one, but since it was a pair of ruby and diamond earrings that were exquisite, I didn’t quibble. But he didn’t stuff a stocking for me and made it clear he did not want me to give him one so I didn’t. We spent time together that day, I made a nice dinner, we made love, we cuddled and watched movies but we did none of the traditional things that day except exchange presents (I got him more than one, obviously, since it was my holiday and I liked to spoil my man as much as he liked to spoil me).

But this was as far as Knight was prepared to give in.

Marriage was not going to happen.

Although this was a disappointment, I knew it wasn’t him preserving an out.

This was it, him and me. He loved me. He was committed to me. He wanted to spend the rest of his life with me and intended to do it.

I felt the same.

So I gave in. It wasn’t a hardship. I had Knight and, truthfully, I didn’t need a piece of paper.

So, right then, I didn’t get the ring.

Knight, as ever, explained.

On an arm squeeze and another one at my hand where he’d just slid what had to be a crazy expensive ring, he whispered, “You’ve been quiet.”

Shit, I had. Damn.

“And I gave you that, baby, lettin’ you work it out. I waited for you to talk to me. You didn’t. But I know, Rhashan puttin’ his ring on Viv’s finger and her bein’ all about her wedding plans, you’re seein’ what you’re not getting.”

He was wrong. I wasn’t quiet because of that. I was quiet because of something else. I was over the moon that Rhashan asked Viv to marry him three months ago.

Knight kept talking.

“So, I gotta give you something. It’s for you
and
for me. For me bein’, that ring, no one will mistake it, you’re mine. Wherever you go, with me or without me, they’ll see. It makes that statement and I like that. For you, you get a little of what you want. With this,” his thumb moved over the gold and diamonds now at the base of my left ring finger, “I’ll give you a party. You wanna buy a beautiful dress, do it. You want it to be ivory, buy it. Sit down dinner, champagne, celebration, whoever you wanna invite. But I’m not cutting cake. No dancing. No fuckin’ speeches. Just a celebration. You wanna have an anniversary, I’ll spoil you, give you a gift that shows you what you mean to me, take you out to dinner and we’ll do it every year on the night we met.”

Oh. Wow. That wasn’t everything but it was unbelievably sweet.

And I’d take it. Definitely.

He wasn’t done.

“It means somethin’ to you, you get it for me, I’ll wear your symbol. Whatever you want. Including a band on my finger so everyone can see I’m yours.”

“I want that,” I whispered immediately, his arm got tight and his body shook with a short chuckle.

His voice shook with it too when he muttered, “How did I know that?”

I stared at his hand around mine and my beautiful ring.

Then I told him, “I want the party too.”

He pulled me up, I lifted my head and his eyes came to mine but he didn’t move his hand pressing mine against the solid heat of his chest.