Chapter 9
KNIGHT
Daisy is back in my apartment, and I know I’ve won the greatest prize of my life.
She’s pressed against my body, arms wrapped around me, and I’m shaking so hard I’m not sure my legs will hold. My eyes fall on her tattoo.
“I’ve got you,” she murmurs. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“Promise?” The word comes out broken.
“Promise.”
I hold her tighter, breathing her in. The kittens wind around our ankles, meowing. But I can’t let go. Not yet. Maybe not ever.
“I’m sorry.” The apology scrapes out of me. “I was scared, and I pushed you away—”
“I know.” She pulls back to look at me, thumbs stroking my cheeks. “I know.”
“I don’t deserve you.”
“Stop.” Her voice is firm. “You don’t get to decide what I deserve. I choose you.”
My blood thunders in my veins, and the last pieces of the walls I’ve built come tumbling down. I’ve shared my ugly past with her, and she’s still here.
I kiss her.
Her lips part under mine, and I’m pulling her against me, hands sliding into her hair, tilting her head back to take more.
“Knight—” She gasps against my mouth.
“I need you.” The confession tears out of me, raw and honest. “I need to feel you.”
Her answer is to grab the front of my shirt and walk backward toward the bedroom, pulling me with her.
We stumble through the doorway, mouths still fused, hands already tugging at fabric.
My shirt hits the floor. Her cardigan follows.
Then her blouse, buttons scattering as I lose patience with the tiny fastenings.
“Those were—”
“I’ll buy you a new shirt.”
I unhook her bra and let it fall, and then she’s bare from the waist up, the completed tattoo stark against her flushed skin. My art. My heart. Permanently part of her now.
I press my mouth to it, tracing the lines with my tongue as my hands find her heavy breasts and tease her nipples. She shivers, fingers digging into my shoulders.
“Every time I look at this,” I murmur against her skin, “I thank fate that you walked into King Ink. Finding you was finding someone who recognized my soul.”
“Knight—”
I kiss my way across her collarbone, down the swell of her breast. “Let me show you what you mean to me.”
I take her nipple into my mouth, and she arches into me with a moan that goes straight to my cock. I work her with lips and tongue and the careful edge of my teeth, one hand coming up to cup her other breast, thumb circling until she’s writhing.
I walk her backward until her knees hit the mattress, then follow her down. The kittens scatter with indignant meows. Right now, the only thing that exists is the woman beneath me, flushed and wanting.
I work my way down her body, pausing to trace my tongue along the curve of her waist, the dip of her navel.
Her hands fist in my hair as I peel away her clothes until she’s completely bare beneath me.
The sight of her makes my heart ache. The soft curve of her hips and her trembling thighs.
The slick evidence of how much she wants this.
Wants me.
I lower my mouth to her sweet pussy, and she cries out.
I take my time. Slow strokes of my tongue, tasting her and teasing her clit with my tongue. She tastes sweet and musky and delicious, and I could lose myself in the sounds she makes forever, the way her hips roll against my mouth, urging me on.
“Knight—I’m going to—”
I slide two fingers inside her and work them in her slick pussy, and soon her back is arching off the bed, thighs clenching around my head, a broken cry tearing from her throat.
When I lift my head, she’s staring at me with dazed, heavy-lidded eyes.
“Get up here,” she demands.
I crawl up her body, and she kisses me deep, tasting herself on my lips. Her hands find my belt, fumbling with the buckle, and I help her shove my jeans down my hips. When her fingers wrap around my cock, I groan into her mouth.
“I want you inside me.” She strokes me slowly, thumb circling the head. “I want to feel you.”
I position my cock at her pussy, and I push inside, slow and steady, watching her face as she stretches to take me. Her lips part, and her eyes flutter closed as a soft moan escapes her swollen lips.
“Look at me,” I rasp.
She opens her eyes, and I bottom out inside her, our bodies pressed together. The sensation is overwhelming—hot and tight and her, nothing separating us.
“I love you,” I breathe. “So much that it terrifies me.”
“I love you, too, Knight.” She cups my face, pulls me down for a kiss. I start to move.
This isn’t desperate and frantic and burning too hot to last, like our first time. This is slow. Deliberate. I roll my hips in deep, measured strokes, and she rises to meet each one, our bodies finding a rhythm that makes my body sing with pleasure.
“You’re my home.” I press the words into her throat, her jaw, her temple.
She wraps her legs around my waist, changing the angle, and I sink even deeper. The sound she makes—half gasp, half sob—reverberates through my entire body. I brace myself on one forearm and watch Daisy’s expressive face as I make love to her.
“Knight—” Her nails rake down my back. “Don’t stop. Please don’t stop.”
I couldn’t stop if I wanted to. Every nerve ending is on fire, every cell in my body focused on her—the clench of her around me, the hitch in her breath, the way she looks at me like I’m the best person in the world.
The pressure builds, inevitable as gravity. I feel her tightening around me, movements growing erratic, moans climbing higher.
“Come with me,” I grind out. “Daisy—I need you to—”
She comes with my name on her lips.
The flutter and clench of her pussy around my cock, the way her whole body moves with mine, drags me over the edge with her. I bury myself deep and let go, pulsing inside her, bolts of pleasure detonating in my body as I groan against her throat.
For a long moment, neither of us moves.
She runs her fingers through my hair with a tenderness that makes my chest ache.
I roll to the side, pulling her with me, and she nestles against my chest like she was made to fit there. As I hold her, the kittens creep back onto the bed, settling at our feet in their usual tangle of orange and black-and-white fur.
“Have you named them yet?” she asks, smiling and giving me a soft kiss.
I shake my head. “Not yet.”
“They need names,” Daisy murmurs, watching the kittens settle.
I consider the two balls of fluff. The orange one is bolder, more adventurous, and is currently batting at Daisy’s toe. The black-and-white one watches quietly.
“Paws,” I say, nodding at the orange kitten. “Because he can’t keep his to himself.”
Daisy laughs, the sound soothing and joyful. “Then the other one has to be Claws. She definitely left a mark on my ankle once at the shelter.”
“Paws and Claws.” I test the names, and they feel right. Like us. “Perfect.”
She tilts her face up to look at me. Her hair is gorgeously messy, her lips swollen from kissing, and the tattoo stands out vividly against her flushed skin. There’s never been a more beautiful woman in the world.
“I love you, Daisy,” I say, kissing her gently.
“I love you, too, Knight.”
Thank you so much for reading “Purrfect Ink”!