Knight and Day (The Knight Erotic Trilogy, book 3 of 3)

by French, Kitty

  “Make a really thorough check,” she whispered, arching an arm up around his neck, her nails raking the skin at his nape.

  Dylan squeezed her breast, kneading her flesh in his hand. “All in order here,” he whispered. “Beautiful. Warm. Soft.” He punctuated each observation with a rock of his hips.

  “And here?” she said, covering his hand between her legs with her own.

  Dylan groaned against her ear. “I think I need to investigate a little more.”

  He cupped her in his hand, enjoying the warmth of her palm holding him against her. She closed her eyes, and he watched her face in the dwindling twilight. How could she look so fragile and yet so powerful at the same time?

  She trusted him. She told him so with her body, and he found himself needing to swallow hard as his fingers moved inside her folds. She moved him in a way no woman ever had before. Everything about her was honest, and each day was better because she was in it.

  He kissed the corner of her mouth when she pulled her bottom lip between her teeth, waiting for him to touch her where she needed to be touched. She looked caught somewhere between pain and pleasure, surrendered, womanly.

  He ran his free hand up her body and laid his forearm along the curve of her neck, his hand massaging the back of her skull. He kissed her because his mouth needed hers, deep, wide open kisses, as close as he could get. His tongue stroked inside her mouth as he spread her wide and exposed her clitoris, both of their hands on her.

  Her fingers slid between his and he was suddenly hyper-aware of every sensation.

  Her body was so ready for him. Slick.

  Her head moved against his shoulder. Restless.

  Her back was warm against his chest. Pressed.

  Her hips undulated into his erection, massaging him. Hard.

  She was right on the edge of her orgasm. Shimmering.

  He built her up. Steady.

  And then, at the very second he knew she couldn’t take any more preamble, he pulled her hard against him and fingered her clitoris fully, giving her everything he had in an erotic onslaught. His mouth. His hands. His thrusts. His tongue. His moans.

  She reacted instantaneously, her body shaking and juddering as her orgasm hit her hard. Jesus, she was beautiful. Abandoned. Totally fucking breath-taking.

  “Well?” Her voice shook when her eyes flickered open some seconds later, heavy-lidded with satisfaction. “Woman, or mermaid?”

  He dropped his jeans on the sand and swung her up in his arms, walking out towards the sea.

  “There’s only one way to know for certain.”

  “You build a good fire for a boy who never took his Scouting oath.”

  Kara sat on the sand with her arms wrapped around her knees as Dylan added a couple of logs to the fire he’d built after their swim. Skinny dipping with a drop dead sexy man by silver moonlight was a memory she’d filed away in the ‘keep forever’ file, and sitting beside him in the firelight was another tableau she never wanted to forget.

  Bare-chested and tousle-haired, he looked as if he’d been cast from gold. Solid, gleaming gold.

  She sipped brandy straight from the bottle, letting the warmth of the alcohol burn slowly inside her mouth. Every bone in her body felt heavy, totally relaxed. Heart-stopping sex, a lazy swim, and the perfect makeshift dinner can do that to a girl.

  She smiled as she watched Dylan spear a marshmallow on a stick he’d whittled into a skewer.

  “You really are the all American boy,” she smiled softly, watching him toast the candy over the flames.

  He glanced up. “You think so?”

  She nodded. “Hair, teeth and toasted marshmallows. Case closed.”

  “I see.” He held out the stick, the golden-toasted marshmallow on the end of it.

  “Is it going to burn me?”

  “Not if you’re cautious.” He lifted his eyebrows. “Do you even know what the word means?”

  Kara rolled her eyes. “I can be cautious. I just don’t feel like I need to be where you’re concerned.”

  She took the stick and lifted the marshmallow to her nose, taking in the sweet, burnt sugar smell. It reminded her of candyfloss, bought and greedily consumed on chilly evenings at the bonfire night funfair back home as a kid. But she wasn’t cold tonight. She was warm inside and out from the fire Dylan had built on the sand, and in her heart.

  Dylan heard Kara’s words, felt her trust, and wanted more than anything for them to be true. He wanted to be the man she made him feel like he was, rather than the guy who’d let his brother die and lost everything he owned trying to save the other one.

  Thoughts of Justin ran like a thief through his head, stealing his happiness away, leaving him empty and imprisoned by the awareness that he needed to tell Kara the truth.

  And he would. He didn’t know when, but he would. He’d honestly tried to a couple of times already, but each time the words got stuck behind his selfish need to stay on the pedestal where she’d put him. The view from up there was so good. Life with Kara was blue skies, mile wide smiles and smoking hot sex. The skies would no doubt still be blue after she knew, and he could survive without sex if he had to, but the idea of wiping that beautiful smile from her face nearly broke him.

  Watching her now as she tried to exercise caution with the hot marshmallow, he knocked back a mouthful of brandy and tortured himself, wondering how she’d react. Would she hate him? Would she be furious? God, please let her be furious rather than cry, because he’d rather cut out his own tongue than make Kara cry.

  He kidded himself that he wasn’t like the other liars in her life. He was a liar by circumstance rather than choice, he wasn’t hiding truths from her for his own benefit. Or was he? She didn’t even know his name, for God’s sake. She couldn’t Google him, because she didn’t know his name. She couldn’t read all of the salacious scandal about his family, because she didn’t know his name.

  And the problem was that with every passing day, he wanted to stay Dylan Day more and more.

  Kara held out the empty stick towards him.

  “See? Cautious. And delicious.” She licked her lips. “Do me another?”

  Dylan pushed the stick into a second soft, white marshmallow, trying to shake off the blues and enjoy the moment. The firelight warmed Kara’s skin tone to toffee and danced roses in her cheeks. She looked like the best cheerleader in the world.

  He let himself imagine her for a couple of moments, all short skirt and pompoms, spelling out his name with that huge smile of hers on her face. ‘Gimme a D…D.Y.L.A.N. D.A.Y!’

  And there it was again. The big lie that sat between them. And he wanted more than anything for her to know the truth.

  “What’s on your mind, Sailor?”

  He looked up from turning the stick close to the embers. She was way too in tune with his emotions. Could she see the mess inside his head? The darkness?

  He sighed heavily. Was this the right moment?

  “Here.” He held out the stick. “It’s ready.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Kara sensed Dylan’s mood shift from carefree to pensive, despite the fact that he was clearly trying to cover it up. It wasn’t the first time she’d sensed his withdrawal, and it confused the hell out of her. She wanted in… into his head, and into his body. And not just sometimes. All of the time.

  Planting the used marshmallow stick in the sand, she scooted over and swung her leg over his jean-clad hips. Pleasure returned slowly to his face as she straddled his lap, wrapping her legs around his back and her arms around his shoulders.

  “I’m treating you to the full-on, all-body Brookes special here,” she said, loving the way his arms moved to hold her close even as the heavy sigh left his body. “This hug has been known to end wars.”

  An appreciative sound rumbled in Dylan’s chest. “I can well believe that.” He twisted her still damp hair in his fingers. “It’s almost perfect.”

  Kara pulled her head back. “Almost?”

  Dy
lan peeled off her vest top. They’d both pulled minimal clothing on after their swim.

  “You’re wearing stuff. You need to be naked to achieve war-ending status.”

  “Nice line, Sailor.”

  Kara climbed out of Dylan’s lap and shimmied out of her cut-offs, dropping her vest top on the sand beside them. Back in position a couple of seconds later, she wrapped herself around Dylan for a second time.

  “And now?” she asked.

  “Fucking perfection,” he said, scooping her close to sit on his erection, his crotch hot and hard between her spread legs.

  “Am I?”

  “Stop fishing, English.”

  “I just wanted to make you forget whatever it is that creeps up on you sometimes and steals your smile.”

  Dylan’s hands roved over her back and ass, following her curves as if he were committing them to memory. He let his forehead rest on her shoulder for a few seconds, and Kara stroked the back of his head. His body language told her two things. He needed to talk, and he needed to fuck.

  “So, tell me.”

  Dylan lifted his head, and the bleak expression in his eyes scared her hard. She wrapped her arms around him, her mouth close to his ear.

  “Nothing you can tell me will make me run, Dylan.”

  He shook his head lightly and kissed her shoulder. “You don’t know that, English.”

  She straightened in his lap, took his hands, and placed them over her breasts.

  “You’re right. I don’t know that.” Her nipples hardened as he circled them with his thumbs. “But I don’t trust easily Dylan, and everything in me knows that I can trust you.”

  “You show me with the way you listen to me.” She ran her hands down his arms, down the hard, lithe muscles from his shoulders to his elbows, grasping them to move herself even closer over the heat of his crotch.

  “You show me with the way you touch me,” she breathed, closing her eyes for a second as he measured the weight of her breasts in his hands, his eyes on her curves. She moaned a little when he dipped his head to close his mouth over one nipple and then the other, almost reverential.

  “And you show me with the way you fuck me,” she said, a catch in her breath when he moved his hand down between their bodies.

  “I trust you, Dylan Day. Her mouth was just a breath from his. “Simple as.”

  Kara tilted her mouth over his and kissed him. Brandy, sugar, and Dylan Day, just about the most erotic flavour she’d ever tasted. The heat inside his mouth made her moan, his tongue slow and searching.

  His kiss gave him an unfair advantage. If her hugs could stop wars, then Dylan’s kiss was his secret weapon. His fingers stroked between her legs as he deepened their kiss, as natural as breathing and bone-deep sexy.

  “Touching you makes me forget the bad stuff,” he murmured, sliding two fingers inside her to the knuckle. Kara gasped, opening her eyes wide, breathless.

  “So touch me some more.” Suddenly this was an urgent priority, whatever the bad stuff was.

  Dylan smiled against her lips, his other arm around her waist holding her close. Kara’s mouth opened on a groan when his thumb covered her clitoris.

  “Like this?” he said, massaging. He wasn’t asking because he was unsure. He knew exactly what he was doing.

  “Like that,” she squirmed on his hand and tightened her legs around him as he thrust inside her.

  He kissed her again and again, his tongue and his thumb moving in rhythm. She opened her eyes and looked into his, dark green glitter and more emotions than she knew what to do with.

  “Let go, English,” he said, screwing his fingers deep inside her, his thumb faster on her clitoris. “Let go.”

  And she did, and it made her yell his name and clutch him close until they were skin to skin. The weight of his arm around her waist held her down on his thrusting hand, making her come harder, longer, louder, and he kissed her right through it until she fell against his chest, spent.

  Dylan smoothed her hair back from her face when she lifted her head again a few minutes later. She swam back slowly into the moment, recalling the unfinished conversation.

  “Feel like talking, Sailor?” she said softly, needing him to let her in.

  His eyes moved from her face and settled on the distant lights of a boat out at sea.

  “I guess so.”

  His words sounded resigned, and twilight closed in across his expression. She wasn’t even sure why she was pushing him, except for the need to be able to help him, to know what put those shadows beneath his beautiful eyes so she could chase them right away again.

  He’d shared barely anything with her aside from the fact that his brother had passed away. Was he still grieving? She couldn’t begin to fathom the magnitude of a loss like that.

  She laid her hands on his shoulders, massaging.

  “Is it your brother?” She prompted him gently, offering him a hook to make the conversation easier to start. His eyes flicked to hers, unreadable.

  “Billy.”

  One small word, and a whole world of longing. Kara’s heart broke a little watching Dylan search for the words to tell her whatever he needed her to know.

  “He died because of me.”

  Shit. Her heart didn’t just break a little, it cracked wide open.

  “What happened?” She wasn’t massaging his shoulders any longer, she was gripping onto them. Onto him.

  “I let him down. Didn’t see he was in trouble. I was going up, and he was going right down, and I never stood still long enough to notice.” Dylan shook his head, his eyes far away, remembering. “I’d got everything I thought I ever wanted. Flashy club. Fancy home. Fast cars.” He made no mention of fast women, but it was pretty obvious that they would have been part of his lifestyle back then.

  “You sound like Lucien used to,” Kara said softly.

  Dylan shrugged. “Lucien is far more sorted than I ever have a hope of being. I grew up on the wrong side of the tracks, Kara. Always in scrapes, all of us, but Billy always seemed to come out of it smelling of roses. I guess I let him fool me he was okay because it was easier than asking questions.” He looked back at Kara. “He got himself into all kinds of trouble. Dabbled in drugs, but gambling was his downfall. Debts up to his neck.” He paused, looking down and sighing heavily. “He was my best friend, and yet he couldn’t come to me when he really needed my help. What kind of a brother does that make me, Kara?” He shook his head. “Don’t bother answering that.”

  He scrubbed his hand over his eyes. “He was found hanging. They say he did it himself, with his own belt.”

  Tears filled Kara’s eyes as she stroked the back of Dylan’s neck.

  “It wasn’t your fault.”

  “As good as,” Dylan said, desolation clear in his every word. “Ignorance is no excuse. I should have been there for him, and I wasn’t.”

  Few situations left Kara lost for words, but the injustice that Dylan had served on himself left her reeling.

  “From what you’ve said of Billy, I’m sure he wouldn’t want you to do this to yourself.”

  “No. He would have wanted me to save him. I’ll never know for sure if he hung himself or if the bastards did it to him, and I don’t know which is fucking worse anyway. He died alone and desperate, or he died terrified at the hands of someone else… either way my mother had to bury her firstborn son.”

  Kara brushed her fingertips tenderly over his cheeks, not sure he even knew his tears were there.

  “And then there’s Justin.”

  “Your younger brother?”

  Dylan’s mouth set in a grim line and the look in his eyes altered in a way that chilled Kara’s bones. She saw the he didn’t just dislike Justin. He hated him.

  “You’re not close?”

  “He’s my brother, and I never want to lay eyes on him again.”

  “Oh.” Kara didn’t want to say anything to stop him talking now he’d begun.

  “Shall I tell you something really terrible?”
Dylan’s anguished eyes settled on Kara’s, and she wasn’t certain she wanted him to say his next line. Not because she feared it would change her opinion of him; rather that she feared how he’d feel after letting the dark thoughts out.

  “I wish it had been him.” His quiet, hollow words hung in the air. “I wish he’d been the one swinging from that fucking tree, not Billy.”

  Kara considered this, studying his face.

  “Do you expect me to think badly of you for that?”

  He half-laughed, a harsh, humourless sound. “Don’t you? I just wished my baby brother dead.”

  “No. No you didn’t. You wished that Billy wasn’t dead.” Kara placed her hands flat over Dylan’s collarbones. “You’re a good person, Dylan, but you’re only human. You’ve lost someone you loved, and it hurts like hell.”

  “How do you know I’m a good person Kara? We’ve only known each other a couple of months. I could be anybody.”

  It stung to hear him diminish their relationship, and he was wrong, in part at least. They might not have known each other for a long time, but they knew each other well. It had been like the speed date that never ended since the moment she’d met him: so much intensity crammed into such a short time. Never in her life had she met a man who felt so effortlessly right. The fact that they were having this conversation while she was naked and wrapped around him on a beach was testament to that. She followed where he led, because she trusted him not to take her anywhere she didn’t want to go, and she trusted him to follow her when she wanted to lead, too. She felt utterly herself with him, free to be as bold, as brazen, as womanly as she wanted.

  “You’re right,” she said, almost exasperated. “Sure. You could be anybody. I could be anybody. There are no guarantees that this won’t all go spectacularly wrong, but right now it feels spectacularly right to me. And to you.”

  Kara ran her hands over his hair and down the back of his neck.

  “Spectacularly right,” she whispered again, feeling him coming back towards her from the dark places in his head.

  “There’s other stuff I should tell you,” he said, making her heart twist with the pain and vulnerability in his eyes.