Chapter 11 Knight #2
“Woman, stop running,” he yells, catching up with her in a few steps and scooping her off the ground, swinging her into his arms as he slows to a walk and carries her over to us.
“Let me down,” she says with a laugh.
“You’ll get let down when I say you can get down,” Oz growls, ignoring his laughing, wiggling wife as he meets us in the middle of the road.
The moment he lowers Etta’s feet to the ground, she and Octavia dive for each other, hugging tightly.
“I can’t believe you’re here,” Etta says.
“I can’t believe you’re pregnant,” Octavia replies.
“And married.”
“To your asshole stepbrother.”
“He’s not my stepbrother,” Etta protests with a laugh.
“Thank God, because it’d be a nightmare to explain to that kid that their daddy is also their uncle,” Octavia quips.
“Fuck you,” Etta says, still smiling and laughing.
“Brother,” Oz says, holding his hand out to me to shake.
Reaching over, I grip his palm and nod.
When the girls finally separate, Etta steps backward into Oz, curling herself into his side so naturally it looks almost instinctual, like her body is craving his. I want my doll to behave that way with me. I want her to need me with the same level of addiction that I feel for her.
Reminded of the need, my skin prickles with the urge to feel her close to me, so I band my arm around her and pull her backward until her back is pressed against my chest.
“Ohhh,” Etta says, looking between Octavia and me, her lips parted in surprise.
“Yeah, about that—” Doll starts.
“This is your wife?” Oz yells, his eyebrows arched so high they almost hit his hairline.
“Yes,” I tell him simply.
“Wife?” Etta asks. “You got married and didn’t tell me?” she asks Octavia.
There’s a long pause while we all wait for her to speak. I know I could answer the question for her, but I won’t. I want her to say the words. I want to hear her claim me, the way I’ve been claiming her since the moment we met.
“Yes,” she finally says.
“Holy shit,” Etta says, on a laugh. “When?”
“On Wednesday,” Doll admits.
“You got married three days ago, and I’m only just finding out?”
“We’ve been busy,” Octavia says quietly, a pink hue staining her skin.
“I bet you have,” Oz says suggestively. “But if our kids are going to grow up together, we need to get started on those houses.”
“Our house is already built. I can send you the information on my contractor if you’d like to break ground on yours,” I tell him.
“Are you pregnant already?” Etta asks Octavia.
“Of course not,” Doll immediately replies at the same time, I say, “Hopefully.”
“Hopefully?” Doll snaps, spinning around to glare at me. “You want to get me pregnant?”
“As soon as possible,” I tell her.
“I am not having a baby.”
“Yet,” Etta says, laughing, as Oz scoops her off the ground and into his arms again, leading us all across the street and in through the open front door of their house.
Taking Doll’s hand, I follow Oz, watching him lower his wife to the couch, then kiss her quickly before he heads into the kitchen.
“Beer or coffee?” he asks.
“I’ll take a beer,” Octavia answers.
“Coffee, please,” I say.
“I’ll have a beer,” Etta says.
“You can have a juice,” Oz says sternly to his wife.
Rolling her eyes, Etta places her hand softly on the tiny baby bump that’s barely visible through the fabric of her dress. Taking the seat beside her, Doll places her hand alongside Etta’s and makes a cooing noise.
“I can’t believe you’re having a baby. I was only in Rapid City for a few months, and everything in your life has completely changed,” Octavia says, her voice soft.
“I know,” Etta replies, her tone equally soft. “So what the hell is going on with you and Knight? Did you really get married?”
Moving toward the kitchen counter, I give the women the illusion of privacy, even though I know both Oz and I are listening to their conversation.
“He turned up in Rapid City. I don’t even really know how it happened…” Doll’s voice fades away, and I strain to listen in case she’s whispering, but she just seems to have stopped talking.
“Is he a daddy?” Etta whispers.
“No.” Octavia laughs. “That’s only fun in books. But he…takes care of me. It’s hard to explain.”
“Do you love him?”
“I’ve known him for less than a week,” Doll hisses.
“So?”
“So that’d be crazy. Plus, with my track record, I’m not sure I can trust what I’m feeling.”
Her track record? I don’t know much about her dating history.
Truthfully, thinking about her with another man reignites the unfamiliar anger I’ve been experiencing since I flew to Rapid City.
I assumed that any exes were in her past and would not impact our future, but maybe my assumption was wrong.
The only thing I know about the man who destroyed her pinball machine is that his name is Abel.
I’ve pushed any thoughts of him to the back of my mind in favor of focusing on marrying and enjoying my doll.
But perhaps I need to look into him and discover what he did that would make my wife question her judgment and impact her ability to fall in love with me.
“So the woman you talked about was Octy?” Oz asks, pushing a mug of coffee toward me, then quickly delivering the other drinks to the girls before returning to me.
“Yes.”
“I’ve got to admit, I’m a little surprised. But I can see why it’d work,” he says.
“She’s mine.”
“Just like that?”
“From the first moment I saw her,” I confess.
“Well, fuck. I’m happy for you, brother. I don’t know her well, but Etta loves her, so she must be worth loving. How are you going to cope when we have to go to work in a couple of days? I fucking hate leaving Etta. It’s the first time in my life that I’ve resented my job.”
“I’ve resigned,” I tell Oz.
“The fuck?” he says, choking on a mouthful of beer. “You can’t fucking quit.”
“I informed Buck before I flew to Rapid City to collect her.”
“So that’s it? You’re not a jumper anymore?”
“Buck refused to accept my resignation and instead insisted that I take a six-month leave of absence, but I have no intention of returning to the team,” I admit.
“So what the fuck are you going to do?”
“I’ll be wherever my doll is.”
“You’re just going to follow her around?” Oz asks, his eyebrow quirked curiously.
“I will be accompanying her to work, yes. Betty Barnett has asked me to provide security for the tattoo studio, and I’ve accepted the position.”
“Well, fuck.” Oz sighs.
“He’s going to work with you?” I hear Etta whisper-yell behind us.
“Apparently,” Octavia confirms.
“How do you feel about that?”
“I…” My doll trails off, like she’s unsure what to say, and I hold my breath, waiting for her answer.
“You love it,” Etta says, before Octavia has a chance to speak. “Oh my god, you fucking love it, don’t you?”
“I don’t hate it. He’s…intoxicating and just so sure. It’s weird, but I really, really don’t hate it,” my wife admits, making an unexpected smile stretch across my lips.
We don’t stay long, leaving with a promise to have them over to our new home so that they can see it soon.
I don’t relish the idea of having them in our private space, but Etta is important to Octavia, which means she’s important to me now.
If having her friend invade our home makes my wife happy, then I’ll learn to live with it.
After we leave Oz and Etta’s place, we head to Anders and Henry’s, then Warrick’s, where we see Danny and Parker, then we visit Buck and James, before we drive down into town and find ourselves outside the bakery that Tori owns and runs.
My teammates are my brothers, but Tori is my closest friend, and the only person whose opinion actually matters to me.
I considered telling her who Octavia was to me and my plans to fly to Rapid City to collect her before I went, but I didn’t because I didn’t want her to tell me not to, or that I was making a mistake.
I value her role in my life, and I want her to understand and accept my relationship with Octavia, so for the first time today, I’m nervous to introduce my doll to her as my wife. Taking Octavia’s hand, I lead her toward the front door, then push it open, holding it while my doll steps through.
The counter is being tended by the same male server who works here most days, and he smiles when he sees me.
“Knight, how are you? What can I get you?” he asks.
“Is Tori available?” I inquire.
Taking a couple of steps back, he leans around the doorway that leads into the kitchen. “Hey, boss lady, Knight wants to know if you’re available?”
Tori’s voice shouts back. “Send him back. I’m filling macarons.”
Shrugging, the server lifts the hatch on the counter and gestures for us to go through to the kitchen.
Squeezing Octavia’s hand tightly, I step confidently through the doorway and toward the industrial kitchen. I’ve been back here a hundred times before, so I know the way, and a moment later I spot Tori expertly piping some kind of cream onto tiny brightly colored disks.
“Hi, Knight,” Tori says without looking up from her task. “I texted you two days ago, and you didn’t reply. I was starting to get worried.”
When I don’t immediately speak, Tori looks up, her expression changing to one of surprise when she spots Octavia beside me.
“Hi, Tori. It’s nice to see you again,” Octavia says, lifting and waving the hand that I’m not holding.
“Octy, you’re back. Betty and Etta are going to be so happy. They’ve been losing their minds worried you weren’t coming,” Tori blurts, in her usual blunt manner.
“Yeah, I had to sort some shit in Rapid City, but I’m here now.”
“Octavia is my wife,” I announce.
The piping bag freezes a few inches from a macaron, the only time she’s stopped moving since we stepped into the kitchen.
“I’m sorry, what did you say?” she asks slowly.
“Octavia and I are married. She’s my wife,” I explain, unsure why she didn’t understand the first time I said it.
“Yeah, no, I heard you,” she assures me.
“I’m just…a little…I guess I’m just…wow.
” Nodding, she dips her gaze back to the macarons, quickly filling all the remaining empty ones, before carefully popping another perfect disk of macaron onto the top.
Once she’s finished the last one, she drops the now-empty piping bag into the sink and shouts.
“Daniel, can you get these macarons on the counter? I’m going upstairs for a while.
There’s nothing in the oven, and you should be set for stock. ”
“No worries,” Daniel, who I’m assuming is the man behind the counter, shouts back.
“Let’s go upstairs,” Tori says, quickly washing her hands before she opens the door that leads to the apartment above the store.
Guiding Octavia in front of me, we all ascend the stairs, then step into the once run-down apartment that the previous owner used for storage space.
Since buying the bakery and building, Tori and Nero have renovated it into a warm, cozy space, with an office, a bedroom, a living room, a small kitchen, and a bathroom.
Nero is lounging on the couch, watching a basketball game playing on the TV. When he spots us, he opens his mouth to speak, but Tori interrupts him.
“Knight and Octy got married,” she blurts.
“Married?” Nero asks.
“On Wednesday. I know it’s a bit of a shock. It kind of was for me too,” Doll says, talking quickly.
“So this was the wife you were talking about?” Nero asks, smiling widely as he jumps up from the couch, pulling both me and Octavia into a tight hug. “I’m so fucking happy for you guys.”
“You knew about this?” Tori yells.
Slowly releasing us, Nero turns back to Tori, still smiling. “Knight told us he’d found his wife, but he wouldn’t tell us who she was.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Tori asks, her eyes shimmering.
I start to answer, unsure what I’m going to say, knowing that saying nothing isn’t an option right now, but Octavia speaks before I can.
“You were telling people you were getting married before you came to Rapid City?” she snaps, spinning around to glare at me. It’s been a few days since I’ve seen her acerbic glare, and my heart clenches uncomfortably at the expression being aimed at me.
“My brothers were talking about their significant others. I simply advised them that I did not see the point in girlfriends, and that I intended to make you my wife.”
“What would you have done if I’d slammed the door in your face when you showed up at my place in Rapid City?” Doll asks.
“I’m adept at lock picking.”
“What would you have done if I’d said no at the wedding you ambushed me with?”
“I’d have fucked you until you said yes,” I tell her bluntly.
“You’re an—”
Before she can say whatever creative insult she intends to call me, I curl my arm around her back and drag her forward, silencing her with a kiss. The moment my lips find hers, she settles, relaxing into me as I gather her close and pin her body against mine.
When I finally release her, Nero is no longer in the room, and Tori is filling a coffee pot with grinds in the kitchen.
“I sent Nero to get food for lunch,” she says.
Glancing at my watch, I check the time. Twelve forty-five hours. I’d planned for us to buy food for lunch here anyway, but the reminder that Tori understands me and my need for order settles some of the anxiety I’ve been feeling since we arrived here.
“Thank you.”
“Lunch at 1300 hours. I know the drill, Knight.”
“Look, I know this is fast—” Octavia starts.
“No,” Tori interrupts her. “Everything is fast in this fucking town. I guess I should have expected it, and I’m happy for you both. I’m just a little surprised.”
“Me too,” Octavia agrees. “Part of me still thinks this is probably just a huge mistake—”
“Wife,” I growl, hoping she hears the threat in my voice.
“Holy shit,” Tori blurts on a laugh. “Knight, did you just growl?”
Ignoring my friend completely, I focus on my wife. “Nothing about us is a mistake. I’m yours, you’re mine, and that will never change. You said yes because you wanted to claim me, just as much as I’ve already claimed you. Don’t ever lessen that by saying this is a mistake.”
Claiming her mouth with another bruising kiss, I scrape her full bottom lip with my teeth, swallowing her moans of pleasure to keep them for myself.
“Who are you?” I whisper against her mouth.
“Your wife,” she whispers back.