Chapter 56
KNOX
Three weeks had passed since that text lit up Harper’s phone.
NO ONE TAKES WHAT IS MINE.
Six words. No follow-up. No sighting. Just silence, which was almost worse. Silas had retreated into whatever hole he’d crawled out of, and the waiting was eating Harper alive.
We’d adapted. Two ex-military guys rotated shifts around the clock. Stationed at the front of the property, with perimeter checks every fifteen minutes. Police in the know too.
On paper, we were safe.
But safety and peace aren’t the same thing.
It was a Thursday night. Nothing special about it. That was the point.
Harper had come home from work with takeout and tired eyes, and we’d eaten on the couch with our legs tangled together, barely talking, not needing to.
This had become our routine. Quiet nights. Locked doors. Her body curled against mine, like she was trying to disappear into me.
Later, in bed, she told me she had a confession.
I braced myself. With Harper, confessions ranged from “I ate the last of your cereal” to things that made my chest crack open.
This one fell somewhere in between.
She reminded me that while I was in prison, she used to think about me. At night. Alone. With a toy she kept in her nightstand drawer.
She said it like she was admitting to a crime, her cheeks going pink, her eyes daring me to react.
I knew what this was really about though. Nights were still the hardest for Harper. The hours when her mind turned against her, replaying every what-if until she couldn’t breathe. So, I held her. Exhausted her. Gave her whatever distraction she needed to quiet the noise in her head.
Tonight, she needed this.
“Show me.” My voice came out rough. Hungry. “Show me what you did when you thought of me.”
That mischievous glint sparked in Harper’s eyes, and she reached for the nightstand, retrieving the pink toy with a confidence that made my blood run hot.
I moved to the opposite side of the room, leaning against the wall with my arms crossed over my chest. Watching. Waiting.
“I fantasized about a lot of different positions,” she admitted, her cheeks flushing as she removed her clothes.
Fuck.
“But I’ll do the one where you can see best.”
She brought the toy to her lips. Wrapped her mouth around it. Licked it slowly, thoroughly, until it glistened with her saliva, her eyes never leaving mine.
I pressed my tongue to my molars, jaw clenching. If she kept looking at me like that, this was going to be over before it started.
Harper lay back against the pillows, her dark hair spilling across the white sheets like ink. She trailed her fingers over the swell of her breasts, pinching her nipples, rolling them between her fingers until they pebbled tight.
Then lower.
Her hand drifted down her stomach, between her thighs. I watched her gather the slick evidence of her arousal on her fingers and spread it over the toy, making it shine.
She drew it between her folds, rubbing up and down, her breath hitching.
Removing my clothes, I fisted myself. Couldn’t help it. The sight of her touching herself, preparing herself, thinking of me while she did this … it was almost too much.
She slid the toy inside herself slowly, and as she did, her mouth fell open, and her back arched off the mattress slightly.
She began to thrust.
In. Out. Her free hand gripping the sheets. Her thighs trembling. Soft moans escaping her lips as she worked herself toward the edge.
I stroked myself in time with her rhythm, my grip tightening, heat coiling at the base of my spine.
“Show me how you want me to take you next,” I growled. “Because I’m not finishing in my hand.”
Harper’s lips curved into a wicked smile.
Keeping the toy buried inside her, she flipped onto all fours.
And looked at me over her shoulder.
Her ass was raised, her thighs spread wide, her back arched in a perfect curve. The toy protruded from her entrance, glistening, waiting.
“Take me from behind,” she said, her voice breathy. She reached between her legs and began to move the toy again, slow, teasing strokes. “Hard. Deep. Until I can’t feel anything but you.”
“Harper.”
She pulled the toy out, never breaking eye contact.
“Bury yourself in me, Knox.”
I crossed the room fast. The bed dipped beneath my weight as I knelt behind her, my hands finding her hips, spreading her legs wider.
“I want to take you hard,” I warned her.
She looked at me over her shoulder, challenge burning in those green eyes. “Show me how hard you can do it.”
I slapped her ass once. She yelped, but it dissolved into a laugh, into a moan, into something that sounded like please.
I lined myself up at her entrance, coating myself in her arousal. Feeling her heat beckoning me forward.
And then I thrust home in one deep stroke.
She gasped, her fingers fisting the comforter, her whole body going taut as her walls squeezed around me.
I rubbed soothing circles on her lower back, forcing myself to hold still when every instinct screamed at me to move. “You okay?”
“Yes.” The word came out shaky. Desperate.
“You sure I can go hard?”
“Fuck me as hard as you can.”
Holy fuck.
Something snapped inside me.
I grabbed her hips and started pounding into her relentlessly. I grabbed a fistful of her hair and pulled her head back, not enough to hurt, just enough to feel. She moaned, loud and uninhibited, and the sound drove me harder.
“This is what you wanted?” I growled against her ear. “This is what you imagined?”
“Yes. God, yes.”
To our side was a full-length mirror. We both looked over at the same time, witnessing the sexiest thing I’d ever seen.
Her back arched, ass pointed high in the air, head tilted back with dark strands wound around my fist. Me, all tattoos and muscles, on my knees, burying myself inside of her.
I pulled back slowly for a minute, both of us groaning as we watched me come almost all the way out, coated in arousal, and then I slammed back into her.
Damn. I’d dreamed of intimate moments like this, and reality was better than any fantasy my starved imagination had conjured.
I slowed my pace. Read her body. The hitch in her breath. The tremble starting in her thighs. The way her walls were beginning to flutter around me.
She was close.
I released her hair, gripped her hips with both hands, and drove into her deep.
“That’s it, Princess.” I smacked her ass again, watched the skin bloom pink. “Make a mess all over me.”
Harper shattered.
Every muscle in her back and arms went rigid. Her fingers clawed at the sheets. She screamed into the mattress as her orgasm tore through her, her inner walls clamping down on me so tight, I saw stars.
I followed her over the edge. My release crashed through me, hard and overwhelming and all-consuming. I buried myself to the hilt and came with a roar that felt ripped from somewhere deep in my chest.
We rode it out together. Bodies united. Souls connected.
I slowed my pace, jerking through the last aftershocks, until we both went still.
“Holy crap.” She let out a laugh that was half sob. “I never knew sex could be like this.”
I leaned over her, pressed my lips to her shoulder blade. Tasted the salt of her skin.
And something shifted in me.
The urgency faded. The raw, desperate need softened into something else. Something deeper.
I pulled out of her gently, and she made a small sound of protest that tugged at my chest. Before she could move, I gathered her in my arms, turned her to face me, and laid us both down on the tangled sheets.
She curled into me, her head finding that spot on my chest like it had been made for her. Her fingers traced the tattoos over my heart, and I felt my pulse steady beneath her touch.
For a long moment, we just breathed together.
“Knox?”
“Yeah?”
“I want …” She hesitated. Swallowed. “I want to feel you again. Softer this time. Then the next time hard and rough again.”
I tilted her chin up, searched her eyes. Found them soft. Vulnerable. Open in a way I’d never seen before.
And beneath that openness, I saw it. The thing she was trying to hide from me.
Fear. Still there. Still coiled tight in her chest despite three weeks of armed guards and locked doors and my body wrapped around hers every night.
I’d thought the security would be enough. Thought if I just gave it time, she’d feel the sanctuary of round-the-clock guards parked at the end of the driveway. Men who watched the house for any sign of trouble.
But three weeks in, and she still flinched at car doors slamming. Still checked the locks twice before bed. Still woke gasping from nightmares she wouldn’t tell me about.
I couldn’t watch her live like this.
Waiting for Silas to make a move was killing her slowly. We’d been playing defense for three weeks, and it wasn’t working.
Tomorrow, I’d call Jace. Maybe the rest of the guys too. We’d sit down with Harper and come up with a new plan. Something proactive. PIs to hunt Silas down instead of waiting for him to strike. Or we could relocate to some other place that would comply with my parole. Somewhere he’d never find us.
Harper loved this bungalow. It was her symbol of independence, the first thing that was truly hers. The thought of asking her to leave it twisted something in my gut.
But we couldn’t keep living like this. I needed to convince her to get out of here.
Until then, I’d give her what she needed. I’d protect her body and her heart.
I rolled her onto her back, settling between her thighs.
This time, I didn’t rush. I kissed her forehead. Her eyelids. The tip of her nose. The corner of her mouth.
When I finally kissed her lips, it was slow. Tender. The kind of kiss I’d never given anyone before. The kind of kiss I didn’t even know I was capable of.
I entered her slowly. Inch by inch. Watching her face for every flicker of sensation.
Her eyes stayed open. Locked on mine.
“You were worth the wait,” I whispered against her lips. “Every goddamn second. You were worth it.”
A tear slipped down her temple. I kissed it away.
“I want you,” she breathed. “I want all of you, Knox. Every broken piece. Every dark corner. I want it all.”
I thrust slowly. Deeply. Withdrawing almost completely before sliding home again.
“I’ve never …” I had to stop. Swallow past the tightness in my throat. “I’ve never had this. Never had someone who saw me the way you do.”
“I see you.” She cupped my face in her hands, her thumbs brushing over my cheekbones. “I see you, Knox Blackwood. And I’m not going anywhere.”
I dropped my forehead to hers. Kept my rhythm slow and steady. Felt her wrap her legs around my waist, pulling me deeper.
“I love you,” I said.
The words came out raw. Unpolished. But they were the truest thing I’d ever spoken.
“I love you too.” Her voice broke on the words. “God, Knox, I love you so much.”
I kissed her. Poured everything I couldn’t say into that kiss. Years of loneliness. Years of believing I didn’t deserve this. Years of wondering if I’d die in that cell without ever knowing what it felt like to be loved.
And here she was. Loving me anyway.
Our bodies moved together in perfect rhythm. No performance. No proving anything. Just connection. Just us.
I laced my fingers through hers, pinned her hands gently beside her head. Kissed her between thrusts. Whispered her name.
Her breath started to hitch. Her walls started to flutter.
“Stay with me,” I murmured against her lips. “Look at me when you come.”
“Knox …”
“I want to see you. All of you.”
Her eyes stayed locked on mine as her orgasm built, crested, and finally broke over her in a wave of shuddering release. She didn’t scream this time. She just gasped my name, soft and broken.
I followed her over the edge. Gentler this time. A slow, rolling release that felt less like an explosion and more like a homecoming.
We lay there for a long time. Her body curled into mine. My arms wrapped around her like I could shield her from everything the world had ever thrown at her.
I thought about the future. About taking her on real dates. Restaurants with white tablecloths and wine lists I’d have to pretend to understand. Weekend trips to places neither of us had ever seen. A life that looked nothing like a prison cell.
I thought about a ring.
Someday in the not-too-distant future. Not too soon though.
I didn’t want her to think the euphoria of my prison release, the intoxication of finally being together, had anything to do with the depth of what I felt for her.
These feelings went soul-deep. They’d been growing since the first time she looked at me like I was human instead of a monster.
So, I would wait. I would court her properly. I would prove to her, day after day, that I was worth the risk she’d taken.
And then, when the time was right, I would ask her to be my wife.
But first, I had to remove the shadow hanging over us.
Tomorrow, everything changes.
I pressed my lips to her hair and let my eyes drift closed.
For the first time in fourteen years, I felt peace.
Until a loud crack split the silence.