Chapter 7
seven
Billie
I arrive to Knox’s house the following afternoon, earlier than expected. Not because I rushed through my chores because I was excited to see him or anything like that. No sirree.
Aren’t I convincing?
My fist is poised to rap on the front door, but I hear a noise in the rear field and decide to go investigate.
My fingers play with the frayed edges of my jean shorts, and I circle around the side of the house that is way too large for one man, my boots cutting through the tall brush.
The sound I hear is more like a thud and it gets louder now, as I’m coming up on the field full of heather that goes for miles behind Knox’s home. Like a stretch of heaven.
Knox stands shirtless on the porch, bashing his fists into a punching bag.
He’s shirtless. Looking sinfully hot in a black, low-slung pair of mesh pants.
Hair in a state of disarray, as if he just removed his hat to throw some punches.
Punches that make me all too positive that he’s thrown thousands of swings in his life.
His fists slice through the air and rock the bag on its chain.
There’s a cool violence to his movements that remind me how calm he remained after shooting my attacker.
Like he’d done it before.
Last night, I laid in bed twirling my hair and sighing over all the sweet things he said to me when we had sex. How he kissed me on my way out the door. But what about his dark side? How much do I truly know about Knox? This man who I can’t stop thinking about.
This man whose touch I crave.
This man who seems determined to be as mean as a snake one moment, then caring the next. He’s an enigma and I need to know more.
“Hey,” I call, sauntering toward the porch with my wrists crossed behind my back. “Mind if I take a swing?”
Watching my approach through narrowed eyes, he steps back, jerking his chin at the punching bag. “Be my guest.”
“I mean, can I take a swing at you,” I say, sweetly. “Not the punching bag.”
A corner of his mouth twitches. The ghost of a smile that scatters my pulse. “You’re early today,” he remarks.
“Well,” I toe the bottom porch step with my boot. “I got to thinking about you, all alone in this big house, so I decided to take pity on you.”
“I like being alone.” He cuts me a look and mutters. “Most of the time.”
“Do you? I hate it. That’s why I still live with my parents, instead of setting off to college or getting my own place. I like being at home. I like home sounds.”
His brows pop upward. “What’s a home sound?”
I think for a moment. “Coffee pouring into a mug. A muffled television. Water running in the pipes. Horse hooves of an approaching neighbor. The dryer.”
“You can have all of those things without adding people,” he points out.
“No way. The sounds are more comforting when other people make them. Little reminders that I’m not alone, I guess. Even if I’m holed up in my room.” I replay what he said. “What do you have against people?”
He falls back onto a bench that is situated against the house, his thighs opening into a V. Looking deceptively casual, he crooks a finger at me. “If you’re going to ask me annoying questions, Billie, at least come closer.”
There’s a darkness in his tone that curls a wisp of smoke in my belly.
“Okay.” I climb the porch steps, feeling suddenly shy.
Highly unusual for me, but he’s so sweaty and male and dangerous looking.
A killer keeping his skills sharp. I stop in front of him, his outstretched thigh brushing against the outside of my knee. “Um.”
Dark green eyes track down to the high hem of my shorts. “Take those tight little things off and sit in my lap.”
Swallowing hard, I undo my button and lower the fly of my jean shorts, pushing them own to my ankles and stepping out, watching his gaze darken at the sight of my gray panties with white lace trim. “Should I face you?”
“This time, yeah,” he says, thickly. “Lose the tank top first, too.”
Anticipation meanders through my blood, and I realize I like him looking at me naked. The way he did in his bedroom yesterday. It turns him on. I like watching him get turned on for me. Now, though, I look around, chewing my lip. “Out here?”
“No one can see you but me.”
Nodding, I remove the tank top and let it fall to my feet in a slither.
I’m standing in front of the landlord in nothing but underwear and cowboy boots.
“Panties now,” he rasps, his eyes riveted on the swell of my mound.
Face hot, I bend forward, slowly peeling the undergarment down my legs.
When I straighten again, he groans, stroking the bulge that has risen in the left leg of his pants.
“It’s a good thing I didn’t come across you my first night out of prison, little girl.
I don’t think you’d have survived what I’d have done to you. ”
“Prison?” I whisper, startled.
Knox
Why the hell did I say that out loud?
She never needed to know I’d been incarcerated.
Shit just comes out of my mouth when I’m with her. I’m too distracted by her body, her eyes, her innocence, to think straight. Now I’ve gone and scared her.
I need to get a hold of her before she runs away.
“Come here.” Leaning forward, I catch her by the knees and shuffle her toward me, giving her no choice but to straddle my lap. Now she’s sitting in my lap, golden and gloriously naked, her hands pressed to my chest. Expression wary.
“Why were you in prison?” she whispers, looking at my tattoos in a new way.
My shank wounds.
“Are you sure you want to know?”
“Yes.”
I sigh, my fingers trailing up and down her spine. All on their own.
“I was a player in what law enforcement would call a crime syndicate. Up in Chicago. Fell into it with some of the kids who’d been through the juvenile system with me.
” I try not to grimace over the turn of discomfort beneath my collarbone.
“We started off low in the chain of command. That meant we had to prove ourselves by doing a lot of nasty shit. Collecting protection money. Tracking down men who owed my boss. Meting out punishment. Guarding our territory.” I look her in the eye. “That meant killing on occasion.”
Her tits huff up and down. “I wondered if you’d killed before. You were so…calm about what happened. With the ranch hand.”
My jaw snaps at the mention of him. “He deserved what he got. That wasn’t the first time he’d done something like that and it wouldn’t have been the last.”
Billie ducks her head and nods.
Scoots closer to me, the soft but firm juncture of her thighs rubbing on top of my arousal, settling so sweetly, making me bear down on my molars to keep from moaning. No matter what I say or do, she seems to gravitate closer.
What the hell am I going to do about this girl?
“What were you charged with?” she asks quietly, looking at my chin. “When you went to prison.”
I don’t allow myself to flinch. Or shy away from the ugly truth.
If she wants it, here it is. “Extortion.” My voice is gruff.
“We were collecting on a debt and the mark ended up being an undercover cop. My so-called family had been tipped off about the mark’s real identity, but they weren’t sure if they could trust their source.
So, they let me walk in there and find out.
Alone.” I take a long breath. “The people I trusted most in the world did that to me, Billie. That’s why I keep to myself.
I’d rather remain solitary than let someone get close enough to burn me again.
That’s why I don’t want your peach pies. ”
“You ate most of it,” she whispers.
“Like I said, I don’t like to waste food,” I say, too quickly.
She hums skeptically, kissing my jaw. My chin.
Despite my best efforts, my hard inside is melting like butter in the sun.
“Was prison terrible?” she asks, tracing the swell of my right pectoral with her finger.
The tendons in my throat ache. “Yes. I stayed alive for two reasons. Because I didn’t name names during the trial.
And because my first day in prison, someone tried to jump me, and I broke their neck.
No one fucked with me after that.” Afraid I’m going to lose her after too much honesty, I wind her hair around my fist, guiding her forehead to mine.
“Enough questions, little girl. You came here to ride my dick, now get started.”
Her halting breaths bathe my mouth. “I don’t know how.”
I ignore the thunderbolt of tenderness in my chest. Lifting her briefly with my hips, I use one hand to draw my pants down beneath my ass, before sitting back down. A shudder passes through Billie, now that my cock is out. Hard and ready between us, lying in wait against my abdomen.
“Beat me off while I make sure your cunt is wet enough.”
She makes a breathy sound, her eyelids fluttering.
Good lord, her thighs are already trembling over that one command. Biting her sexy bottom lip, she wraps her right hand around my dick and begins to stroke. Oh fuck, my jaw unhinges on a groan, her grip is so smooth. So feminine. So different than mine. So much better that urgency is rocking me.
“That’s a good stroke, sweetheart. Don’t stop,” I groan, palming her tight ass and giving it a nice little slap, before rubbing my middle finger in a downward path between her butt cheeks, my fingertip sliding over her asshole, giving it a firm jiggle, before moving on to her pussy.
Sure as shit, she’s dripping all over me.
“Goddamn,” I grind out through clenched teeth. “What in the hell has you so wet, girl? Couldn’t have been all that prison talk.”
“No,” she whispers, her eyes turning more and more glazed as I stroke her delicious flesh from the back. “I’m wet because I know you need to be loved. And that’s my job.”
An alarm bell peals in the back of my head. A loud, clanging one. But the pounding of my heart threatens to drown it out. “I need to be fucked, you mean.”
Nothing. No response. Just a pump of my cock in her fist.
A knowing flash of those blue eyes.
She lifts onto her knees and interlocks her mouth with mine, slipping the head of my throbbing cock through the drenched valley of her pussy…slowly, slowly…and now my thighs are tremoring, too. “Billie.”
“Shhh.” She strangles a shout out of me when she lowers her ultra-tight cunt down, down, down to my balls, making me strain and tense beneath her, fighting that now familiar need to ejaculate as soon as I’m inside of her.
“I’m going to ride you slow,” she whispers against my mouth.
“Sit back, Daddy. I’m going to love you slow. ”
I’m sinking. Drowning. “It’s…no, we’re fucking…”
“Mmmm,” she hums, plastering her tits to my chest, teasing my lips into a torrid kiss while she rolls her hips, slicking her snug passage up and down my aching inches.
Up. Down. Up. Keeping my tongue busy while she addicts my body more, more, with every scoop of her hips.
“You’re so big for me. You’re so sweet to me. ”
“No, I’m not.”
“Uh-huh.”
I can’t respond, because she goes and rides me harder, gripping my shoulders and leaning back with her thighs impossible wide, letting me watch as she works my cock in and out of her stretched hole, squeezing the fat size of me into her body, moaning over the full sensation, grinding, before releasing me.
I’ve never been treated to such a fucking feast of pleasure.
How is this only the second time she’s had sex?
“I don’t want to bust yet,” I pant. “Don’t make me bust.”
“I don’t know h-how to s-stop,” she moans, lunging forward again to lick my chest hungrily, as if she’s just obeying instinct, her tongue leaving a shiny path from nipple to throat.
She bites her way up my neck, pulling on my hair, until I’m back to devouring her mouth, my hands in a bruising grip on her ass. Urging her to go faster. Squeezing.
“God. God.” My tone is loud, strangled. “You’re killing me. I’m dying!”
“I’m here with you,” she murmurs in between hiccups. “You’re not alone. You never have to be alone.”
My eyes fly open in alarm to meet hers, my pleasure mounting at the most dangerous time. No. No. I’m on the verge of spending inside of her and she’s whispering words to me. Loving words. Words that act like sledgehammers to my hard exterior, cracking plaster and knocking them down.
“Come inside me,” she says, holding my head in her arms now.
Whispering in my ear. Rocking on me. Rocking and scooting in a tight pattern that’s going to end my life, surely, her warm juices bathing my balls.
This is heaven.
“Show me how good it feels,” she says, licking the seam of my panting mouth. “Don’t hide from me.”
“I can’t, goddamn you”
“You can be strong and solitary all the time,” she breathes, grinding down on my cock and seizing up the walls of her cunt, making me yell like a madman, my legs kicking straight out, toes flexed in my shoes, a barrage of hot semen firing upward from the pit of my loins. “Be weak for me. Go weak for me.”
“FUCK!”
I have no choice.
She cements our eye contact as she reaches down and plays with her clit, joining me as I climax violently, her pupils expanding to the size of dimes, my name being chanted in her husky twang, my dick going off like a fucking geyser inside of her clenched sex.
It’s filth and lust and chemistry, yes, but I’m further arrested by the terrifying feeling of togetherness.
It’s inescapable, the way she draws me under her spell and feeds me something my soul has been missing.
God help me, it’s care. Love. Affection.
How did I let her do this to me?
How do I…undo it?
Can I?
I don’t know. I have no idea. But when she collapses against me and yawns like a kitten, I hold her like I’ll never let her go. This bond that has formed between us…
It’s a problem for tomorrow.