Knight (100 page)

I hated myself for what I had to do. My fingers tangled in the pink silk scarf around my neck. I never liked to reveal the tattooed skin beneath, but it was the only way to play him. No matter how many men chased us, I couldn’t leave.

Even if it meant I had to use the truth to manipulate him.

“Brew.” I dropped the smile and the winks, the little shimmy of my hips and even the sweet touch of a giggle from my voice. “I can’t go home. Be reasonable.”

“This ain’t up for discussion, Darling.”

“He’ll kill me if I go back.”

Brew stiffened, only for a moment, just long enough for the water in his bottle to slosh before he took another sip.

“No one’s gonna hurt you for getting kidnapped. Goliath will be so pissed at me I’ll need a hundred mile head-start to outrun the bullets.”

“You don’t know Goliath,” I said. “He’ll kill you for sure. But he’s not rational. He’ll blame me for the murders and the kidnapping.”

“Break up with him.”

The thought was so ludicrous, so utterly ignorant, I didn’t even hide my laugh. My voice hardened though, crushed by my own honesty.

“The last time I broke up with him...” I forced him to hold my gaze. “He didn’t give me a pillow to bite when he stole me back. You understand?”

Brew’s jaw tensed, the strength mirrored in his fist. The bottle cracked in his hand.

“Why the fuck did you stay then?” He spat his words. “Why the hell don’t you
leave
him?”

“And go where?” I waved around the hotel room. “On the road? I have savings from my tips, but it’s only enough to feed me, not get me shelter.”

“You’re clever. You’d figure it out.”

“I’d have to leave my family. My job. My life.” I shrugged. “Look, I’m trying to buy into a game with the hand I was dealt. I’m not able to bluff anymore.”

“So it’s my problem now?” Brew stepped closer. I didn’t retreat, though every instinct in my head told me to back off and let him have his victory. “Suddenly I’m responsible for keeping you safe, for getting us out of a murder scene, for keeping us alive while Temple swarms the streets and Kingdom MC calls in every goddamned member on the eastern seaboard?”

The anger bit at me. I flushed. “I am
not
your problem. I’m just asking for a little fucking help.”

“I gave up my right to help anyone long ago.”

It was my turn to step into him. “You’re too scared to help anyone now. Because you think you’ll hurt me. Or you’ll fail me. Or you won’t be able to save me—”

“Jesus Christ. Grab your things. You’re taking the bus tonight. That’s fucking final.”

He towered over me, his every muscle flexed, fighting an urge to either bolt or toss me through the damned wall. I knew the posture. I recognized the edge of danger, the forsaken civility of a man who prided himself on becoming a member of the 1%. He wasn’t a gentleman. He had no obligation to help me. He needed nothing from me except what my mouth offered or how hard I bounced against his cock.

But I had him. He’d help because he couldn’t live with himself if he didn’t.

All I had to do was tug on the right strings.

Or untangle the right knot.

I reached for the scarf. The pink silk became my only protection, the only symbol of independence I had left. The scarf fluttered to the ground. The scrawled, black, frightening writing etched into my neck. The words spelled GOLIATH, but they meant something far more dangerous.

“Goliath doesn’t like property patches,” I said. Brew’s eyes darkened, flaring like raked coals. “He figures they’re no good since I’ll strip anyway if I screw around on him.”

“He
branded
you?”

“He made it a special date. Grabbed me from the bar in the middle of my shift, drunk off his ass and high. Held a gun to my head and ordered the tattoo artist to work or he’d hurt me. Goliath raped me in the chair before the ink was even done.”

I didn’t like the shade in my words. The panic I usually suppressed burst into my chest. I took a breath. It didn’t help.

“Goliath will never, ever let me go.” I stepped closer to Brew, but I didn’t mean to tremble. “Right now, I’m beyond his reach, and that is the safest place for me.”

Brew stared at me. “Goliath is only one man, Darling. Imagine an entire MC all aiming to brand you in their own way.”

“You won’t let that happen.”

He laughed. I wasn’t joking.

“You wouldn’t let Temple hurt me, and you won’t force me back to Goliath. You’re not a monster, Brew. You
know
what he’ll do if you send me home.”

The hardness in his body never eased. He shifted away, ran a hand through his wavy hair, and swore. Even in frustration he stayed strong. Resilient. All the world turned against him, but nothing had broken him. Not yet.

“I’m not a good man,” Brew said. “I’m no hero.”

“But you could be if you wanted to.” I whispered because I stood too close and trapped myself within his reach. “I trust you.”

“You shouldn’t.”

“I’m a girl who doesn’t learn from her mistakes.”

“I’m your biggest fucking mistake yet.”

The understatement of the year. Except I didn’t care. Brew stared at me without the scarf, without the cheap flirting or the teasing wink I promised.

No one saw me like this. Not the MC. Not Goliath. Hell, even Red got a tamer show. I kept him under my thumb to prevent him from going after Goliath and getting killed.

But I was supposed to expose
Brew
. I meant to twist the knife in him, force him into the darkness of his memories and make him help me.

Instead, I fucked us both.

Whatever knife I pulled, he slashed at me. We bled together, shuddering with the same repentant honesty and damned confessions. We waited for the other to break.

It wouldn’t be me.

And it sure as hell wouldn’t be him.

I changed without my scarf. My tattoo wasn’t like Brew’s ink or the dozens of battle scars marring his flesh. What hardened Brew, softened me. What gave him an edge, weakened me. My tattoo represented a part of me I denied. Everything I convinced myself I wasn’t, and what I worked so hard to hide.

Except when I needed to make myself vulnerable, it worked too well.

Brew was on me before I made a sound. His arms penned me against him with a strength I should have feared. I gasped only when my back stuck the wall. He ground me into the solid, unyielding trap and I grabbed his hand closest to my neck. Dug my fingers in.

Parted my lips.

He didn’t kiss me. Our desperation wasn’t the soft brush of lip against trembling lip.

He mauled me. Brew seized my mouth with such brutal and unforgiveable possession I moaned against his power and prayed the teeth he bared were only a threat and not the promise of a vicious bite. Like a fool, I offered my neck anyway. The dangerous thrill shivered me from my head to my toes and sliced through every delicate place in between.

My back struck the wall again. I had leaned too far into the kiss, presuming too much and attempting to return his touch. His grip tightened, but he didn’t hurt. He needed only one arm to keep me still. The second pinned me for his own thrill.

His lips tore over mine. He tasted my every gasping shudder. I had no air to call his name. He didn’t care. His body pressed into me. His wasn’t a lover’s touch but a force of sheer muscle and size that served only to remind me of my precarious situation.

I tempted a man teetering on a blade’s edge of violence and regret.

One slip of his arm and he’d break my neck.

One murmur of pain from me, and I’d be the bullet that finally fired into his brain.

Temple hunted him, Kingdom stalked us both, but it was our fevered, frantic kiss that threatened our lives.

Every repressed ounce of our control crumbled away as his tongue ravished mine.

His growl excited me. His touch thrilled me. His punishing, crippling grip hauled me from the wall and threw me onto the bed.

He didn’t hesitate, and he didn’t give me the opportunity to escape. His lips crushed me once more, and his aggressive weight pinned me under someone bigger, stronger, and in absolute control. I didn’t know whether to hope for mercy or grip the blankets and just hang on.

He was everything I
ever
wanted, and that made him the most dangerous man in the world.

My every violent mistake came in
that
moment—when my breath caught between lust and fear. My body softened in the presence of the dominating man who knew what he liked and possessed the strength to make it happen.

Brew wasn’t a gentle man. He’d be an even less gentle lover. He’d take what he wanted, shove me where he needed me, and use my body to get himself off. I’d have nothing to hold onto but my own damning lust.

He gripped my shirt. He didn’t have to ask. I pushed my arms up, over my head, and presented myself to him.

He didn’t strip me.

He ripped the material from my chest, shredding the shirt down the middle.

My insides clenched so hard it hurt. He grabbed my breast and squeezed, claiming what I offered as my body shuddered with imagined possibilities. I arched and tempted him to squeeze harder, to force the little mew of surprise from my lips. He liked it, but he demanded something better than a timid squeak.

“Roll over.”

The darkness in his voice might have frightened me, but I had fantasized about that roughness since the day we crashed and he forced me to the bed under him. Every rough rasp captured me once more. The hardened, threaded violence fueled his desire and controlled me with the simplest of his commands.

I rolled onto my belly, stretching to offer what my jeans still concealed. My bra unhooked with such haste he didn’t push the straps off my shoulders. The cold air bit against my nipples. I hoped Brew would bite much harder.

He reached under my body, ripping the button apart from the denim and gripping the edges of the jeans. I hissed, pressing my hips into the perfect cradle of his legs and waist, into the excitement that strained just as hard to get to me.

My excited hum encouraged him, breathing his name. I shivered as he pulled down more than the denim. My panties tangled in my jeans and shoved down to my knees.

The exposure should have terrified me. Instead, I wondered why I hadn’t offered myself sooner.

I peeked over my shoulder as Brew’s breath shuddered into a rumbled profanity, so vulgar and perfect I knew exactly what he was thinking and exactly how I would end up within moments.

His eyes darkened—primal and possessive. He stared with such intensity at my slickening crest I should have been embarrassed for such willingness.

Instead, my eyebrow perked.

I could be punished for my excitement instead.

And God, did I want to be punished.

I wiggled my hips, slowly, still tangled in the legs caught at my knees. I bit my lip as the heat flushed my cheeks and spread far lower.

“Hit me,” I whispered.

Brew’s hands left my hips. “What?”

“Hit me.” I wiggled again. “Spank me.”

His weight shifted on the bed. I listened for the clicking of his zipper. He didn’t move.

“Come on.” I smirked. I hid my face and gripped the blankets. “I know what you want, Brew. I want it too.”

“You think I’m gonna hit you?”

Now wasn’t a time to play hard-to-get. I didn’t usually get off on humiliation, but if he wanted me to beg for it, I’d beg. A man like Brew was worth whatever kink he preferred.

“I think you’ll put me in my place.” I widened my stance. The cool air teased against my slit. “I think you want it rough. You want to make sure I understand who’s in charge. And, believe me...” I resisted touching myself. Somehow. His silence only made it worse. “I won’t fight you...unless you like that.”

This time, the profanity wasn’t teasing. And it wasn’t sexy.

This time, the harshness aimed for me.

“Jesus Christ, what the
fuck
is wrong with you.”

Every part of me that superheated under his touch froze and cramped. I panicked as he rose from the bed, still swearing. My jeans bunched, and I flopped ungracefully onto my side as I turned to face him. I feared I’d be sick.

I didn’t recognize Brew. He paced to prevent his rage from erupting. A summoned strength flexed his muscles. His lust and temper boiled too close to the surface. I shifted away, struggling to cover what I thought he had wanted to see.

The hatred scarring his features chilled the room, but not enough to obscure the heated shame coloring my cheeks and the rest of my body. I breathed out a confused sigh.

“Brew—what...?”

“You just told me your boyfriend will
kill
you if you go home.”

I frowned. “I don’t love him—”

Brew interrupted me with a snarl. “You get beat on, tossed around, forced into godknowswhat.” He pitched the bag with the bus ticket off the bed and into the mirror. It shattered against something hard and metal.

A gun fell from the pocket.

A gift for when he sent me home?

My stomach heaved. He gave me a weapon to protect myself.

He just armed the woman who had to be his killer.

“Brew, calm down!” I said. “Please.”

“You want me to
hit
you?” He didn’t need to slap me. His words struck harder than anything he might have delivered in our passion. “You want me to fucking
beat
you while I hold you down and fuck the everloving shit out of you?”

Two minutes ago, nothing sounded better. Now, I regretted each crazed beat of my fluttering heart.

“Jesus, Martini. You’re abused by this motherfucker, and you’re asking me to do the same damned thing!” He turned away. “You didn’t deny that part of you. You didn’t even try to escape. What the hell is wrong with you?”

It was a question I never asked myself, and one I never wanted to face. My stomach heaved, but I wasn’t about to give him the satisfaction of seeing me rattled.

All the talk of trust—wasted.

My attempts to get him to help me—a joke.

The one miserable talent I learned to keep myself out of trouble and ahead of the game—flipped and used on me.