Knight (Endgame Book 4) Read online

  “Nice place.” She breezed past me into the apartment, tossing her purse onto my table. Walking directly to the kitchen, she opened the refrigerator and grabbed a beer.

  “Ellery’s building. Certainly better than where I was living.”

  She winced. “You were in Sophie’s neighborhood, right? God, what a pit. I’m glad we got her out of there. You, too,” she added as an afterthought.

  Off to a roaring start.

  “Do you want to watch a movie?” I gestured back to the TV. She nodded and seemed to remember she was a guest here, allowing me to lead the way to the couch. We sat down next to each other but kept a respectful distance. “Anything, in particular, you want to see?”

  “Ten Things I Hate About You,” she answered without missing a beat.

  I stared at her. A rom-com? For this girl?

  “What?”

  “I would not have pegged you as a chick flick kind of girl.”

  She huffed and took a long pull of her drink. “One, don’t call it a chick flick. There’s no reason men can’t enjoy romance too. Calling it a chick flick implies it’s only for women, and as such, it has less value as a contribution to the zeitgeist.”

  She looked at me pointedly. I felt like I’d broken the rules to a game I hadn’t even realized I was playing. “Sorry?”

  Nodding, she continued, “Two, no one ever does. It’s a little annoying. Am I not allowed to be a kick-ass bodyguard and still enjoy a cheesy teenage love story?”

  I hesitated in my answer. “This feels like a trap.”

  “The correct response is, ‘Of course, Tori, you’re allowed to have interests that seem divergent because you are a strong and powerful yet complex woman.’” She looked at me again, clearly waiting for a response.

  I took a sip of my beer to wet my mouth. “Do you want me to repeat all that?”

  She barely stopped herself from rolling her eyes. “We don’t have to watch it if you don’t want to.”

  “No, it’s fine. I’ve never seen it.”

  “It’ll be part of your education. Your next date will be super impressed by your knowledge of nineties movies.”

  I had to laugh. I had no time to date anyone seriously, even if I was interested in someone who got knocked up by a billionaire. Plus, she just called what we were doing a date.

  We didn’t get too far into the movie. She pulled us both a second beer a few minutes in, and by the time Heath Ledger was taking money from Joseph Gordon-Levitt in exchange for going on a date with a girl who acted a lot like Tori, she was pushing our empties aside and straddling my hips on the couch. Her head dipped to bring her lips close to my ear.

  “You knew this was where tonight was headed, right?”

  I swallowed and closed my eyes as she ran her hands up my chest and around my neck, lips pressing against my Adam’s apple. “I had a feeling.” My own hands reached tentatively, unsure how she wanted me to proceed. Something told me our sexual styles weren’t exactly complementary. But I wanted to get laid, and apparently so did she, so I could make it work.

  She hummed a little as I placed my fingers on her hips, pushing down harder onto my lap. My body started to respond, too unused to the feel of a woman’s soft body against mine after hours in the gym pounding against punching bags and hard-bodied men. Tori was slim and muscular but still smoother and more pliable than them. And she was so much smaller than me too. That feral, caveman part of me wanted to crush her, tie her up, completely dominate her simply because there was no way she would be able to stop me. Not with my training and strength. I closed the part of my brain urging me to push her a little further and dig a little deeper. She wouldn’t be into that.

  “Hold me harder,” she whispered before kissing me on the lips for the first time. I obliged, pushing up the hem of her shirt to grip her skin directly. “Just like that.” I pushed my tongue past our lips into her mouth, forcing the image of another woman from my mind, and flipped her onto her back on the couch with her legs still wrapped around my waist. Then it was my turn for my lips to go her neck as she arched underneath me, continually grinding her pussy against me, but I still couldn’t get hard. I couldn’t deny she felt good. It was marvelous to have someone underneath me again. But there was still something holding me back from going as far, as earnestly, as I wanted.

  Not something. Someone. I knew who it was.

  And try as I might, I couldn’t get her out of my head.

  “Are you okay?”

  I realized I had stopped moving. Tori was looking at me bemusedly, her shirt bunched up a little to expose the lines of her tanned stomach. I placed one hand on her belly.

  “Yeah.” I cleared my throat. “Sorry.”

  She sighed a little as she cocked her head at me, legs falling from my hips. “Maybe this was a bad idea.”

  “It’s been a weird day,” I said. Would she buy that?

  She opened her mouth to reply as my phone rang. I leaned to the side and sighed, partly with relief. Any other time I would have been pissed as hell at Harold for calling me twice in one day, but it had saved me from making an awkward situation even worse.

  “Is that him?”

  “Undoubtedly.” I crawled off the couch to my phone. Next to me, Tori sat up and tugged down her shirt. “Harold, what is it?”

  “Jamie, buddy, you need to get here. Turns out I lost a bit more than I brought with me the other night, and well … I don’t exactly have much to give them.”

  My back stiffened. “What do you mean? Is someone else there?” How many times in his life was this man going to have enforcers sent to his house for his gambling debts? At least this time he didn’t have a human being to trade.

  “A few,” he said, and there was a rustling on his end of the line before a much more sober voice came into my ear.

  “Your guy owes us five grand. Be here in fifteen, or we’ll kick his ass.”

  I dragged a hand over my face even as I stumbled for my shoes. “Seems like a rather small amount to go to such lengths for.”

  “Harold has dragged his feet when paying us before. We’re not letting it slide anymore.”

  “I’ll be there in ten.” I hung up and shoved the phone into my pocket. “You’d better go,” I said to Tori. “I’ll handle these guys.”

  “Do you have the money they want?”

  I laughed. “Not exactly.” I had something different in mind. A better way to expend the energy I clearly wasn’t going to let out in bed.

  She stood and crossed her arms. “You can’t mean you’re going to fight them.”

  “I’ll take care of it. It’ll be fine. You should go home.”

  She shook her head, pulling her own shoes on and grabbing her pepper spray from her purse. “No fucking way am I letting you go over there alone. You don’t even know how many of them there are.”

  She couldn’t come. She couldn’t see me let loose. I hadn’t intended for this night to go this way, but it was clear I couldn’t give her what she wanted while I still had someone else on my mind. I didn’t know what to do to get Sophie out of my head, but this would help. If I could manage to ditch Tori first.

  “I can take care of myself. You can wait here if you want; I’ll be back in half an hour.”

  She ignored me entirely and opened the door, traveling halfway down the hallway before I finished locking up.

  “Between Archer and Castel going at each other all last week, I don’t have time for the stubborn macho act. Let me help you with whatever is going on, and then I’ll go home, and you never have to see me again.”

  Wait, are her feelings hurt? I hadn’t realized that was possible.

  “I didn’t mean to—”

  “Forget it. Let’s get this taken care of. I can’t have Sophie getting all worked up because her dad gets beaten to within an inch of his life.”

  We hopped into my car in the garage—a safer choice when there weren’t many streetlamps to light our way and one too many people who would be willing to take
advantage of a young couple out for a late night walk. There was another car parked in front of Sophie’s—Harold’s—house, so I parked a couple of houses down to stay out of its way.

  “Follow my lead,” I whispered, but Tori was already crouched and making her approach to the side of the house. “Or do that,” I muttered to myself as I followed her. Definitely another reason she and I would never work out. Her style did not jive with mine at all.

  We peered into the house together. There were only two guys—amateur move. I could have taken them on my own, easy. One man wore a tank top and shorts like he was headed to the gym after roughing up an old man for some poker money; the other had on pristine white high-top sneakers I intended to ruin this evening. Harold lay on the ground, struggling desperately to get to his chair, but every time he managed to get to his knees, one of the men kicked him back to the ground. They laughed every time he fell. I grimaced. Harold might be a piece of shit to his daughter, but he was still sick. He deserved some basic human decency, something these two apparently lacked. Well, I’d teach them something about decency tonight. I planned on leaving mine out here in the yard.

  “I don’t see any weapons,” Tori whispered.

  “They thought he’d be an easy mark. Probably figured I’d just pay up.”

  She grinned at me as she cracked her knuckles, and there was real joy in her eyes. “Let’s go fuck them up instead.”

  She moved again without waiting for me, heading to the back door that was always unlocked because the deadbolt had broken years ago and Harold never bothered to fix it, not even when Sophie was living here and working two jobs to support his addictions. I hung back as she crept through the kitchen, watching until they separated to opposite sides of the room.

  By the time they saw her, it was too late.

  She rammed the first man, the one in the tank top, sending him into the wall with her shoulder in his solar plexus. When High Tops ran to help his friend, he never even saw me coming. I grabbed him around the neck and threw him across the room. I followed quickly, dropping to my knees so I could pin him to the ground while I pummeled his face.

  “You think you’re hard for beating up a sick old man?” He held his hands in front of his face, but I kept hitting him. I didn’t mind breaking his fingers either. I was fucking sick and tired of cleaning up after Harold, but I couldn’t exactly take it out on him, so this asshole was the next best thing. “You stay the fuck out of this house from now on.”

  I heard a whoosh of air behind me and turned my head to see Tank Top had Tori on her stomach, and was bending her arm behind her. She was capable of taking him down on her own, which was why I’d let her come along in the first place, but somehow, he’d gotten the upper hand. I kicked off of High Tops, who whimpered and curled in on himself. Tori was doing her best to free herself from the hold, but she didn’t get a chance to execute as I slammed the flat bottom of my foot into the side of his head. He released her and fell to the side, but then stumbled to his feet quickly. That was fine. He was off balance. It was all too easy for me to throw another high kick to his head. He slammed back against the wall, leaving a dent.

  But I wasn’t fucking done with him.

  I gathered up his shirt and dragged him back over to where Tori was standing, looking ready to kill him if she had a weapon. Kicking his knees out, she made him kneel and then grabbed his hair so he had to look at her.

  “Apologize, and maybe she won’t kick your fucking teeth in,” I growled.

  “Man, she hit me first.” His speech was slurred as blood dripped down his chin. “What are you doing bringing a bitch here to do your dirty work anyway?” I kneed him in the kidneys at the same time that Tori kicked him in the stomach. He didn’t know which way to bend, which organ to protect from the pain. His breaths came in quick gasps. “Okay, okay, I’m fucking sorry!”

  I looked at her. “Good enough?”

  She nodded curtly. She didn’t look pissed anymore. She was staring at me hard with a completely different expression on her face. I forced myself to focus on Tank Top.

  “Next time, you make sure he has money to bet in the first place because I’m too fucking busy to keep coming over here and kicking your asses every time you let yourselves get duped by this asshole.”

  I released him, and he scrambled to his feet immediately, grabbing his buddy as they raced through the front door. A car engine started in the street, and there was a squeal of tires as the car pulled away.

  Tori and I stared at each other across the room, panting, blood oozing from where I’d bit my cheek, but I could barely taste it because it felt like the only thing in the world at that moment was her. Looking at me streaked with sweat and someone else’s blood, she looked as exhilarated as I felt after pouring out every ounce of aggression and strain through our fists into those men.

  I closed the few feet between us in a single step and grabbed her face, breathing hard, and she shrank even smaller beneath me. But there was no change in her energy. She clasped my shirt with the same energy she’d used to attack those men without a second thought. Her pupils wide in the dark, her breathing shallow and quick. She leaned closer.

  “Harold!” I yelled without taking my eyes off Tori.

  “All s’good,” he slurred, and I finally had to turn as he pulled himself into his chair, his hands blessedly free of another drink. His eyelids were heavy and hanging nearly shut. “I’ll sleep now.”

  On a different night, I might have tried harder to make sure he was all right, and that there was no hidden damage from a blow they might have delivered before I got there. But when Tori grabbed my hand and pulled me out of the house without a second glance, I wouldn’t have cared if Harold McDermott were dying at that moment.

  I couldn’t tell you exactly when the balance shifted. Maybe it was the twitch of his jaw as he watched those men beat up on a helpless old man, or perhaps it was the way his body twisted when he kicked the man who had been hurting me into the wall. Whenever it happened, between punches and while I had the breath knocked out of me, I saw a side of Jamie I didn’t think many other people had. I’d caught glimpses of it in the gym, during a sparring session or if his trainer had got him particularly worked up, but tonight, he fully unleashed. He became who he really was.

  And it made me want him. It made me want him, bad.

  He took control the moment the door was closed behind us, freeing his hand from mine and grabbing my wrist to trail me after him to the car. He didn’t bother with the driver’s door, opening the back seat and practically throwing me onto the bench. I didn’t have time to catch my breath before he was on top of me, pulling the door closed so the dome light snapped off and I was temporarily blinded in the sudden darkness. But I didn’t need my eyes to feel he was more aroused at this moment than he had been at all back in his apartment.

  “Shirt,” he bit out between his teeth, sitting up enough to pull his own over his head as I struggled with the fabric. There was a rip in the collar, and I began to tear at it before his hands took the place of mine, and he ripped it down the center. Then his teeth were cutting into my skin as he bit my breast through my bra.

  “Harder,” I grunted, pushing up into him, and he did until I felt something give, and he ran his tongue over the broken skin.

  “Sweet,” he said, biting me again, leaving bruises all over my chest. I pushed my skin deeper into his mouth. The heat of his tongue singed my nerve endings. I wiggled my arms between our bodies and fumbled with his belt. Every inch of him was burning against me where we touched; the bites on my skin glowed in the dark even though I could barely see at all. When his pants and boxers were halfway down his ass, I worked at kicking mine off. Somehow, I managed to get one leg out of my jeans before his hand was pushing my legs apart, and without any warning, he was inside me.

  And fuck, it was good.

  The way he stretched me confirmed what I’d felt through his clothes—the man was hung. And if he knew how much he was pushing me, spreading my
body to the very limit of what I thought I could handle, he gave no indication. He thrust deep and hard right from the start, and only picked up speed from there. My head hit the car door behind me, and he placed his hand on my scalp as a cushion so that he could continue to rut into me as hard as he wanted to. I could barely breathe with how big he was, my body filled to bursting with his entire presence, and all I could do was hold on to him and pray he didn’t kill me before I came.

  We didn’t look at each other; the car was too dark for us to see anyway. He buried his face in my neck and bit me again. His hips bucked with even more ferocity as I cried out.

  It was better like this. Better we couldn’t see each other, that he couldn’t see my face and how elated I was to be used like this. He wasn’t fucking Tori Ryder right now; I was a random girl in the back of his car. And I loved it that way. It would make it easier to excuse in the light; easier for us both to pretend we had let the adrenaline of the fight get the better of us and that this was a one-time encounter we would never have to speak of again. It would be easy enough to stop going to his gym; there were a hundred others in the city. My bruises would fade, and the broken skin would heal over, and I could go at least a few more months without seeking out a random hookup with someone I was vaguely friendly with. But God, right now, I never wanted him to stop what he was doing. If he finished and ordered me onto my knees to suck him off, I’d do it. If he bent me over the hood of the car out in the middle of the street and fucked me again until I was sore and bleeding, I would beg him to continue. How was it possible that we’d existed like this so close to each other for weeks and not known?

  His hand went around my throat. I had to force myself to keep breathing; the sheer excitement of it was overwhelming. I grabbed his wrist and pushed him harder against my skin, and he groaned with pleasure at the permission I was giving him. “Tell me when to stop,” he said and started squeezing. I struggled as his hand tightened, my head growing lighter as the blood flow slowed. I couldn’t see anything, except for the lights glowing in front of my eyes. But he went tighter and harder, pushing into me until…