He found my neck with his lips, trailing hot kisses down my throat as his weight settled between my thighs.I gasped as his beard scratched the sensitive skin, a delicious contrast to the softness of his lips.I explored his back with my palms, tracing new muscles, discovering scars I didn’t recognize, learning the map of the man he’d become.
“I’ve dreamed of this,” I whispered, arching as his mouth closed around my nipple.“So many nights alone…” I gasped.“I never stopped loving you, Rhys.”
Knight growled against my skin, the vibration sending shivers through my body.He gripped my hips, thumbs pressing into the hollows with just enough pressure to make me moan.“You’re my world, little flower.Have been since we were kids.”
Knight kissed along my belly, as he moved lower.I gasped, arching up to meet him when he neared my pussy.He moved farther down, urging my legs wider apart.I hooked my hands behind my knees and pulled my legs up as he slid his hand between us, fingers finding my pussy slick and ready.
“Fuck,” he groaned.“Still so fuckin’ perfect.”
I writhed beneath his touch, desperate for more.“Please,” I begged, not caring how needy I sounded.“I need you, Rhys.”
His fingers worked magic as he circled my clit and tugged my lips gently, remembering exactly how I liked to be touched.I clutched at his shoulders, digging my nails into the tattooed skin as tension coiled tighter and tighter inside me.When he slid two thick fingers inside me, I nearly came undone, gasping his name like a prayer.
“Knight,” I gasped.“Now.Please.”
“Not yet,” he bit out.“Need to taste…”
When his mouth covered my pussy, his tongue plunging deep, his lips putting friction on my clit, I screamed, an orgasm instantly engulfing me.I welcomed the rush, let it flow over me, embraced the pleasure like I had when we were together a lifetime ago.
While I caught my breath, Knight crawled back up my body, settling himself in the cradle of my hips.He pressed his cock at the entrance of my pussy, his eyes locked on mine as he pushed forward slowly, stretching me in the most delicious way.I bit my lip to keep from crying out, the sensation overwhelming after so many years.
“God, baby,” he breathed, his voice strained as he filled me completely.“So tight.So fuckin’ good.”
He stilled once fully seated, giving me time to adjust, his forehead pressed against mine.Our ragged breaths mingled in the space between us.I thought he might move then, but he held himself still, breathing hard.We stared at each other.I couldn’t read Knight’s expression.He looked equal parts pained and enraptured.
I cupped his face in my hands and brought him down for a soft kiss.“Rhys, I said it before but I want to repeat it.I never stopped loving you.Even when I hated you, I loved you.”
Pain, regret, and maybe hope flashed in his eyes before he captured my mouth in another kiss.Then he began to move, setting a rhythm that had my toes curling.Each thrust drove me higher, my body remembering his like no time had passed.
“Missed you,” he confessed.“Missed your softness.”Kiss.“Missed how you loved me.”Another kiss.“Missed everything about you.”Longer kiss.“Every…” A kiss with a wicked flick of his tongue.“Fuckin’…” Another kiss.“Day.”
“I missed you too.”I barely got the words out before he took my mouth in a hard, claiming kiss.
I wrapped myself around him, wanting to stay this way forever.His movements became more urgent, his powerful body driving into mine with increasing intensity.I felt myself climbing toward another orgasm, the pressure building with each stroke.
“That’s it, baby,” Knight encouraged, his voice rough with exertion.“Come with me.”
I shattered.Waves of pleasure crashed through me, my body clenching around him as I cried out his name.He followed moments later, his rhythm faltering as he buried his face in my neck and groaned a long, torturous sound that vibrated through my body straight to my clit.His cock pulsed deep inside me, filling me with his seed.
We lay tangled together afterward, his weight pressing me into the mattress in the most comforting way.The exquisite tenderness of the moment filled me with… peace.
Knight’s body covering mine, filling the empty spaces eleven years had carved inside me, felt like the missing part of my soul had finally been replaced.I clutched at his shoulders, nails digging into tattooed skin as we held each other close, still not moving.
When Knight finally rolled to his side, he kept me close, tucked against his chest where I could feel his heart hammering against my palm.Outside the window, the night blanketed the city.And for the first time in weeks, I felt something beyond fear and exhaustion.
I felt whole.
The air conditioner hummed in the background, raising goose bumps on my wet, cooling skin.Knight hadn’t moved his arm from around me.The digital clock on the nightstand read 10:42 AM.We’d been at the hotel less than two hours, but it felt like we’d crossed some invisible threshold into a different life.A life where we were together again, where the broken pieces of us had a chance of mending into something new.And we had our daughter whole and with us.Safe.
I turned onto my back, staring at the water stain on the ceiling that resembled a misshapen continent.Knight shifted beside me, his tattooed hand moving to my stomach, fingers splaying across the silvery stretch marks that marked Brynn’s growth inside me.His touch was reverent, tracing each line like he was memorizing braille.
“I should have been there, Lavender,” he whispered, his voice rough with regret.“For all of it.The morning sickness.The first kicks.The birth.”
I covered his hand with mine, feeling the hard ridges of his knuckle tattoos beneath my palm.“You’re here now,” I said, the words both absolution and reminder.“You’rehere.Now.If you leave us again and push me away, that will be one thing.If you leave us through no fault of your own…you do not push me away.”I turned and stroked his whisker roughened cheek.“We do this together, as a team, forever, or we don’t do it at all.Make your choice now.”
His brows knit together in distress.I could practically feel how my words affected him.His arms tightened around me, and he held my gaze with his like we were fighting some kind of battle.“I swear on my Goddamned life, Lavender.I will never cut you and Brynn out of my life again.Never.”
“Not foranyreason, Rhys.Not evenfor my own good,to keep me safe or whatever.”This battle absolutely could not be lost.“You trust your club?”
