Chapter 5
Sarah
He walked in an hour ago—human, mid-thirties, business casual clothes that don't belong in Nightfall Cove. Ordered coffee he barely touched. Chose the counter instead of a booth, positioning himself so I couldn't escape behind the register without passing him.
I've handled men like this my whole life.
"You're new here." He says it like an accusation every time I refill his cup. "Pretty thing like you shouldn't be stuck in a shithole town like this."
My smile stays professional. My hands stay busy wiping down the same section of counter, keeping distance between us.
"You got a ride home? I could give you a lift." His fingers brush mine when I set down his check. "Show you around the area."
"No thank you." My voice holds steady. I've trained it to.
But something in his eyes shifts. The look that says I don't like hearing no. The look Peter wore before he stopped pretending to be charming.
Betty left an hour ago. The cook finished his shift at nine. I'm alone in this diner with a man who refuses to leave.
The man stands. He's not large—five-ten, maybe—but he moves toward me like he owns the space between us.
"Come on, sweetheart. Don't be like that."
I back against the coffee station. The pot burns hot enough to throw. I could scream. I could run for the kitchen door.
I could call Knox.
The thought arrives unbidden, and my hand dives into my pocket before I can stop it. His number sits in my contacts—he put it there the morning after family dinner, when he dropped me home.
For emergencies. Day or night.
My thumbs fly across the screen.
There's a man at the diner. He won't leave.
I hit send and my heart slams against my ribs. The phone goes back in my pocket. Stupid. Knox could be anywhere—across town, out on a ride, asleep. What am I expecting, a rescue?
The man rounds the corner of the counter.
"Playing hard to get." He smiles, and it doesn't reach his eyes. "I like that."
I grab the coffee pot. Still hot. "Stay back."
He laughs. "Or what? You'll burn me?" Another step closer. "Come on, sweetheart. I'm just being friendly."
The clock ticks. 9:49
I edge toward the kitchen door. He mirrors me, cutting off the angle. My back hits the pastry case.
"There's nowhere to go." His voice drops, patient now, like he's done this before. Like he knows exactly how this ends. "Just relax."
9:52.
No headlights in the parking lot. No rumble of a motorcycle. Just me and this man and the hum of the refrigerator case.
He moves fast. The coffee pot smashes against the floor as he knocks it from my grip, and then his hand clamps around my wrist. His other hand finds my hip, fingers digging in hard enough to hurt.
"There we go." His breath hits my face—stale coffee and something sour. "That wasn't so hard, was it?"
I twist, try to pull free. His grip tightens. I try to fight him off.
"I like a little fight." He shoves me back against the pastry case, glass rattling. "Makes it more fun."
9:54.
My phone sits useless in my pocket. Nobody's coming. I'm going to have to—
The door crashes open.
Knox fills the frame, rain streaming down his leather, dark eyes locked on the man's hands on my body. Water drips from his silver-shot hair and pools on the linoleum beneath his boots.
The man doesn't even have time to turn around. Knox crosses the diner in a few strides, grabs him by the back of the neck, and rips him off me. The man's feet leave the ground for a full second before Knox hurls him toward the door. He hits the frame, bounces off, staggers.
"Look at me."
The man looks. His face drains white.
Knox stands between us, seven feet of rage barely contained. His tusks gleam in the light. His chest heaves. When he speaks, his voice scrapes out low and deadly.
"You come back to this town, I'll break every bone in your body and bury what's left in the woods. No one will find you." He takes one step forward and the man flinches back against the door. "Run."
The man gets up and runs. Fumbles with the handle, practically falls through the door, sprints across the parking lot. His car engine roars to life and tires squeal on wet pavement.
Knox doesn't watch him go. He's already turning to me.
His hands cup my face—massive and warm, rain-cool on my cheeks—and his eyes search mine.
"Did he touch you?"
"Yes but, I'm okay. I'm—"
My knees buckle.
Knox catches me before I hit the floor, his arms wrapping around me tight. The adrenaline crash hits all at once and I can't stop trembling against his chest.
"Breathe, little human." His voice rumbles through me. "I've got you. You're safe."
I breathe him in—leather and rain and that deep spice underneath. My fingers grip his vest. I can't let go.
"You're coming home with me." His mouth presses against my hair. "Don't argue. I'm not letting you out of my sight tonight."
His private quarters sit at the back of the clubhouse, down a corridor I've never walked. The door closes behind us and the noise fades to nothing.
I stand in the center of the room while Knox moves to a small bar cabinet, pouring amber liquid into two glasses.
His space surprises me. Not what I expected from a biker clubhouse—clean lines and dark wood.
A bed massive enough for his frame dominates one wall, covered in dark sheets.
Bookshelves line another, stuffed with worn paperbacks I can't quite read from here.
Philosophy. History. Poetry.
Not what I expected from an orc MC president.
He presses whiskey into my hands. My fingers tremble when I take the glass.
"Why did you text me?"
The question hangs between us. I should lie. Should make up an excuse—you're the only contact in this town, I panicked, I didn't think.
Instead, the truth falls out.
"You're the only one who makes me feel safe."
Knox goes still. Completely, dangerously still.
"Sarah."
"I know you think you're too old. I know I'm running from something. I know this is complicated."
"You don't know what you're asking for."
"I know exactly what I'm asking for. I'm asking for you."
He moves fast—one second by the bar and the next his hands are in my hair, tilting my face up, and his mouth crashes down on mine.
I expect harsh. I expect claiming.
What I get is desperation.
Knox kisses me like I'm oxygen and he's been drowning. His tusks press cool against my cheeks, his tongue slides past my lips, and I melt into him. My feet leave the ground—he lifts me without effort, without breaking the kiss, and my legs wrap around his waist.
The size of him should frighten me. Seven feet of muscle and tusks and feral power, holding me against his chest like I weigh nothing.
But fear doesn't live here. Not in this room. Not in his arms.
His hands span my waist, my ribs, the curve of my hips.
Each touch reverent even as his mouth turns savage.
He walks us backward until my shoulders hit the wall, he pins me there, his hips grinding forward, and I feel the hard length of him through his jeans—thick and huge and straining against the denim.
"Sarah." He tears his mouth from mine, breathing ragged. "You should be with someone your own age. Someone who—"
"I don't want someone my own age." My hands frame his face, fingers tracing his jaw, the curve of his tusks. "I want you."
A growl rips from his throat.
"I'm forty-two years old. I've killed men. I've done things—"
"I don't care."
"You should."
"Make me."
His control snaps.
He carries me to the bed and lowers me onto dark sheets. Then he stands over me and strips off his vest and shirt, revealing green-gray skin stretched over muscle that makes my mouth water. Scars crisscross his chest and arms—old ones, faded silver. A warrior's body.
"Last chance." His voice drops lower, darker. "Tell me to stop and I walk away. We pretend this never happened."
I reach for him.
"Don't you dare walk away from me."
He's on me in a heartbeat. His mouth finds my throat, my collarbone, the hollow between my breasts. His hands slide up my thighs, under my dress, fingers hooking in the waistband of my underwear.
"I can smell how wet you are." The words vibrate against my skin. "Your scent—I've been drowning in it since the first night. Arousal and need so thick I can taste it on the back of my tongue. Do you know what that does to me? Do you know how hard my cock gets every time you walk into a room?"
He yanks my underwear down my legs, tossing it across the room.
"Knox—"
His hands push my dress up, exposing my pussy to the cool air. "I'm going to taste you first. Make you come on my tongue. Then I'm going to stretch you open with my fingers until you come again. I need to get you ready for my cock—you're so fucking small and I'm not."
He drops to his knees beside the bed—this massive orc president who commands rooms with his presence—and spreads my thighs with careful hands. His nostrils flare.
"Fuck, Sarah. Your pussy is soaked." His thumb drags through my folds and I buck against him, a moan ripping from my throat. "So wet and swollen."
His mouth finds my clit and the world whites out.
Knox doesn't tease. He devours. His tongue works me with long, flat strokes that make my back arch off the mattress, then circles my clit with pressure that sends lightning up my spine.
His tusks press against my inner thighs—hard and smooth and somehow unbearably erotic.
I thread my fingers through his hair and hold on.
"That's it." He groans against my pussy, the vibration shooting straight to my core. "Let me hear you. I want every moan, every scream."
I can't hold back—not the moans, not the gasps, not the way his name tears from my lips. His tongue flicks faster, harder, relentless against my clit while his hands grip my thighs and hold me open for him.
"You taste so fucking good." He sucks my clit into his mouth and my vision blurs. "Like honey. Like mine. Come for me, Sarah. Come on my tongue."
The first orgasm crashes through me without warning. I scream his name, my back bowing off the mattress, thighs clamping around his head. He doesn't stop—keeps licking, keeps sucking, drawing out every wave until I collapse back onto the sheets, gasping.
"That was one." He kisses my inner thigh, his voice a dark rumble. "Now I'm going to stretch this tight little pussy until you're ready for me."
Before I can catch my breath, he slides one thick finger inside me. Just one, and already the stretch makes me gasp. His fingers are massive—longer and thicker than any human man's.
"Fuck, you're tight." He pumps slowly, letting me adjust. "That's it. Relax for me."
I'm still fluttering from the first orgasm, my pussy clenching around him. He works me with slow, deliberate strokes until the burning stretch turns to pleasure, until I'm rocking my hips against his hand.
"Good girl. You're doing so well." He adds a second finger and I moan, my back arching off the bed. "There we go. Taking me so good."
"So fucking tight." He pumps his fingers deeper, curling them against that spot that makes me see stars. "I'm going to make this sweet pussy come again. Get you dripping wet so you can take my cock."
He adds a third finger and the stretch burns—delicious, overwhelming. His thumb finds my clit, circling in slow, deliberate strokes while his fingers thrust in and out. The wet sounds fill the room. I'm dripping down his hand, coating his wrist, soaking the sheets beneath me.
"That's it. Relax for me." He fucks me harder with his fingers, his other hand gripping my hip to hold me still. "Look how wet you are. Look how your pussy swallows my fingers. You're going to take my cock so well."
"Knox—I can't—it's too much—"
"You can and you will." He curls his fingers and presses his thumb harder against my clit. "Give me one more. I need you soaked. I need you nice and ready for me."
The second orgasm builds different from the first—deeper, fuller, spreading from my core through my entire body. My inner walls clamp down on his fingers and he groans, his cock straining against his jeans.
"Fuck, I can feel you squeezing me. Come on my fingers. Soak my hand."
I shatter. Pleasure rips through me in waves, my pussy clenching around his fingers, wetness gushing over his hand. He keeps thrusting, keeps circling my clit, dragging out every tremor until I'm boneless and shaking and so wet I can feel it running down my thighs.
"Now you're ready." His voice drops to a growl
He pulls his fingers free and I whimper at the loss. He brings them to his mouth and sucks them clean, his eyes locked on mine, dark with hunger.
"Best thing I've ever tasted."
He works his way up my body, peeling my dress over my head, unclasping my bra and tossing it aside. His mouth finds my nipples—sucking one into the heat of his mouth, while his fingers roll the other.
"These perfect tits." He bites down gently and I gasp. "I'm going to spend hours worshipping every inch of you."
"Knox—please—"
"Please what?" He switches to the other nipple, teeth grazing the sensitive peak. "Tell me what you want. Use your words."
"I want your cock. Please. I need you inside me. I need you to fill me."
He pulls back enough to shed his jeans, and I stop breathing.
He's enormous. His cock juts out from his body, thick and long and already leaking precum from the swollen head. Green-gray like the rest of him, ridged along the underside, bigger than anything I've ever taken.
"We'll go slow." He reads the flash in my eyes—not fear, not anymore, just anticipation. "I'll work you open. I'll make sure you're ready. And if it's too much, we stop."
I reach for him, wrap my fingers around his shaft. He barely fits in my hand. He groans, hips jerking forward, more precum beading at the tip. "I've never wanted anything more."
"You're sure?"
"Knox." I stroke him, base to tip, and his eyes roll back. "Fuck me. Please."
He positions himself over me, bracing his weight on his forearms, caging me in warmth and muscle. The head of his cock notches against my entrance—hot and thick, stretching me before he's even pushed inside.
"Look at me."
I look up into his dark eyes and I see the war there—the man fighting the monster, the control battling the need. I see how much he wants this and how terrified he is of hurting me.
And I'm not afraid at all.
"I trust you," I whisper. "Now stop holding back."