Chapter 8 Octavia #2
“Urgh,” I moan, just managing to force my eyelids apart.
“It’s time to get up, Octavia,” Knight growls, his tone stern and determined.
Blinking to clear my vision, I tip my head back so I can look at him properly. He’s shirtless, but his hair is wet, and he looks wide awake, not like he just opened his eyes.
“What time is it?” I ask.
“Breakfast is at 0700 hours.”
“Oh-seven-hundred hours?” I question grumpily. “Do you mean seven a.m.? Jesus, it’s seven in the morning?”
“Yes. Would you like one of my shirts to wear while we eat?” he asks, stroking his finger along my cheek, before cupping my face with his palm and leaning down to kiss me.
The kiss is soft and sweet, and I find myself melting into him, my palms flat against his chest while my body tries to merge into his.
“Come. Breakfast,” he urges as he pulls away from my mouth.
“It’s too early. Let’s go back to sleep, and we can eat in like three hours,” I groan, burying my face into the curve of his shoulder and closing my eyes again.
“Breakfast is at 0700 hours,” he says more intently, pushing one hand beneath my butt and somehow scooping me off the bed and sideways onto his lap.
The hard evidence of his arousal pokes into my butt, but instead of grinding me against it or spreading my legs and filling my now wide-awake pussy with it, he stands with me in his arms and heads for the stairs.
“I’m naked,” I cry as he reaches the door.
Sighing with clear annoyance, he turns and marches us into the closet, grabbing a khaki shirt from the dresser.
Gripping it in his fist, he jogs us down the stairs, places me on the stool at the counter, and tugs his shirt over my head, waiting for me to push my arms through the sleeves.
The moment I’m free of his hold, I turn to look at him, scowling at his high-handed behavior, but instead of his usual neutral expression, he looks… perturbed.
Once he’s satisfied that I’m covered, he strides purposefully into the kitchen and returns carrying two plates of steaming food. Placing one in front of me and the other at the place setting beside me, he heads for the kitchen again, returning with two mugs of coffee.
“Eat,” he orders, standing beside me at the counter and immediately starting to shovel eggs into his mouth from the heap of fluffy yellow goodness on his plate.
Turning from him, I look down at the plate in front of me that’s filled with crispy bacon, eggs, and triangles of toast. It’s far more than I can eat, but it looks delicious.
“What time did you get up to make all of this?” I ask, slicing some bacon and slipping it into my mouth.
“I wake up at 0500 hours. I work out, then breakfast is at 0700 hours,” he tells me robotically, his attention on his plate as he eats from one side, working his way to the other.
“You’ve been up since five a.m.?” I question, shocked.
“Yes.”
“Why?” I blurt.
“That’s what time I’ve always gotten up,” he tells me simply.
“Why?” I question again, not wanting to seem like an asshole, but unsure why anyone would choose to get up that early if they don’t need to.
“My father woke me and my brother up at that time for morning PT.”
“Morning PT?” I question.
“My father was a drill sergeant in the army. He believes that exercise, structure, and routine are how good soldiers are made.”
“But you weren’t a soldier, were you?”
“No, I wasn’t,” he says robotically.
“How old were you when your dad started making you get up for…PT?”
“I was ten,” he says simply.
“And you’ve been getting up at that time ever since?”
“Yes.”
A single word. A simple response, but it’s more telling than I think Knight realizes.
“Yesterday you said lunch was at one?” I question.
“We eat breakfast at 0700 hours, lunch at 1300 hours, and dinner at 1900 hours.”
“Every day?”
“Yes. I prefer a tight schedule.”
“I’m not really a morning person,” I tell him, feeling uncomfortable admitting it, even though I doubt anyone actually enjoys getting up this early when they don’t have to.
His grimace is barely visible, but I see it.
“You’ll get used to it,” he says.
“I don’t want to get used to it,” I argue. “My day usually starts much later. I don’t schedule appointments before eleven a.m., then I work late so clients can come to the studio after their normal workday.”
I watch him take in the information, then eventually nod. “We can have breakfast at 0700, then you can arrange your appointments around lunch and dinner as usual.”
“Did you wake me up earlier?” I ask, a vague memory of him trying to wake me up and me going back to sleep filtering into my mind.
“Yes. We get up at 0500 hours.”
“Oh my god, you tried to wake me up at five a.m. for no reason?” I hiss.
“We work out at 0500.”
“Stop saying we,” I shout. “We don’t do anything. You get up at the ass crack of dawn. I don’t and never will.”
“You’ll get used to it,” he tells me again.
“No, I won’t, because I’m not getting up at five a.m.”
“But we work out at—”
“No,” I yell. “I am not getting up in the middle of the night to work out. I don’t work out, period. Not during normal hours, and I’m definitely not waking up four hours early to do it. You can do as you please, but don’t involve me in your insanity.”
“Exercise is beneficial for health and wellbeing,” he says, like he’s reading the information from a brochure at a doctor’s office.
“I don’t care,” I answer flippantly.
For the first time since I opened the door to him yesterday morning, he looks utterly confused. It’s the most expressive I’ve seen him look, and a messed-up sense of glee at having provoked such a reaction in him bursts to life inside of me.
“But—”
“No, Knight. I don’t like working out. I don’t like getting up early. I don’t like rigid schedules.”
“But—”
Interrupting him again, I shake my head. “Did you work out this morning?” I ask.
“Yes,” he says, his lips flattening into a line.
“Then what’s all this we business about? You can do your thing, and I’ll do mine while we try to figure out if we’re an us or just a you and me,” I declare.
“No,” he says sternly, making my body buzz to life.
“You can’t just say no,” I say with a huff.
“There is no me and you anymore. There’s only an us now, and I want you with me.”
I try to find the words to deny his claim, but I can’t.
Maybe that’s because he’s right, and we really are an us, or maybe it’s because I’m so easily led that I’m falling headfirst into this fantasy life he’s created for us.
Regardless of which one it is, I say the only thing I can think of.
“I’m not getting up at five a.m., and I’m not working out with you. ”
“I’ll set up a cot in the home gym, then you can sleep while I work out,” he finally says, nodding like that’s the perfect solution.
“Just leave me to sleep while you do your thing.”
“I don’t want to leave you.”
“You’re being insane. What did you do this morning?”
“I did my calisthenics workout in the bedroom. It wasn’t…” He pauses. “Ideal.”
“Look, you can start your day at whatever time you like, but I’m not getting up before nine a.m., unless I have a really good reason.”
“What constitutes a really good reason?” he asks.
“Special occasions, catching a plane, an earth-shattering orgasm,” I joke, laughing.
“Okay,” he says, nodding like he just decided something, but I have no idea what.
“Thank you for cooking for me, but I don’t usually eat breakfast. I just grab a smoothie on the way to my first appointment.”
“Breakfast is the most important meal of the day.”
“Energy drinks are the most important meal of the day,” I say with a smirk. I don’t know why I’m deliberately trying to provoke him, but I can’t stop the urge to push him to react—to see what makes him flip and what he’ll do when he does.
“No energy drinks,” he says sternly.
“Dude, I get them shipped by the crate from .”
A vein in his forehead pulses, and I have to fight the urge to smirk.
“I am not your dude,” he says coldly, his eyes narrowing a little.
“I think dude is cute.” I shrug.
“Husbands do not get called dude.”
“You’re not my husband,” I say, brattily.
Instead of reacting, his expression goes blank, and he turns his attention back to his plate, all of his focus on his breakfast, until all of his food is gone and his coffee mug is empty.
If he’d shouted or snarked back at me, I’d be fine, but his complete blankness and lack of attention make the food on my plate taste like it’s been turned into ash. Guilt hangs heavy in my stomach, and the moment he’s finished, I reach for his empty plate and carry them both into the kitchen.
Not speaking, he collects the rest of the dishes and follows behind me.
Silently, we work side by side until the dishes have been washed and dried and the kitchen is immaculate again.
Once we’re done, Knight lifts me off my feet and carries me upstairs, walking me straight into the bathroom where he turns on the faucet over the tub.
“Are you going to get in with me?” I ask quietly, feeling like an asshole for deliberately trying to provoke him.
“I already showered.”
“I’ll just go in the shower instead, then,” I tell him, leaning forward to reach the faucet.
“No,” he growls. “I’m going to help.”
A part of me wants to argue, but I’ve already been a brat for no reason this morning, so instead I nod and sit back while the tub slowly fills.
Once it’s half full, Knight tugs his shirt up and over my head, then lifts me into the tub, taking my hand while I sit down.
“Get in with me?” I ask, then add, “Please.”
Glancing at the time on his watch, he nods, then strips out of his pants, boxers, and socks and steps into the tub as I shuffle forward to make room for him.
The moment my skin touches his, I feel better, but something instinctive tells me that I won’t settle until he’s inside of me, connected, and as close as we can be.
Turning to my front, I crawl up his body and position myself on his lap, unsure what to do with my legs but determined to get what I need anyway.