Knight (An Impossible Novel)

by Sykes, Julia

  “It’s alright. I’d rather he gave me the shot than…” I locked the thought away where it belonged. Those memories didn’t rule me anymore. Master had helped me take control of them.

  I looked up into those gorgeous eyes that had kept me grounded through the last weeks. “I’m glad you didn’t use a condom. I like the feel of you inside me. Nothing separating us.”

  He smiled at me gently. “I like it too, sweetheart. But I’m sorry I lost control.”

  I gave a very unladylike snort. “You seemed pretty in control to me,” I remarked.

  His lips took on an arrogant twist. “That’s because controlling you is easy. Controlling myself is more difficult.”

  I rolled my eyes at him. “Could you be any cockier?”

  He just shrugged. “This is what you signed on for, sweetheart.” His eyes suddenly turned serious, burning into me. “And it’s too late to turn back. You’re mine now.”

  I shivered in the wake of his intense stare, thrilling at his possessive words. He had said them before, but it was different now. He wasn’t claiming the frightened slave he had rescued; he was claiming Lydia Chase. He was claiming me.

  His fierce devotion was baffling. Yes, our mutual need had always bordered on obsession. Hell, it had crossed that border a long time ago. Had he been struck by the same desire for me that I had felt for him from the very beginning? Why had he chosen to take me in, to commit himself to taking care of me?

  “Why did you help me?” I asked softly. “You stayed with me through the withdrawals. You spent every night by my bedside. Why?”

  His expression tightened with remembered anger. “When I found you at Decadence… I was furious that your so-called ‘Master’ had allowed you to use. It’s a Dom’s responsibility to take care of his submissive, and the thought that the man who was supposed to have been caring for you had let you succumb to addiction made me sick. Then I spoke to you, and I realized he had been using your addiction to ensure your obedience. The fact that he had used BDSM as a guise for abuse disgusted me. The marks he had left on you…”

  His arms tensed around me, and he made a visible effort to rein in his ire. When his gaze focused on me once again, his eyes were disturbed.

  “I understand how to use pain to earn a woman’s submission. I understand how to play mind games to manipulate her into doing what I want. I saw the man who had abused you reflected in myself, and that sickened me. BDSM saved my life, and the knowledge that I was like him, that my mind worked in the same way, shook me to my core. I felt I had to prove it to myself that I could use that part of me to help you.”

  I regarded him seriously, touching my fingers to his cheek to call him back to me. “You are nothing like him,” I said firmly. “Don’t even begin to compare yourself to him. You did help me. You are helping me. I’ve told you that.”

  He blew out a long breath. “I know. If I didn’t believe that, I wouldn’t be here right now.”

  “What do you mean when you say BDSM saved your life?” I asked tentatively. Master’s brand of BDSM had certainly saved my life. I burned to understand this shared bond, to learn more about Master. To learn more about Smith James.

  “I made mistakes when I was younger,” he said earnestly, openly. “Hell, ‘mistakes’ doesn’t even begin to cover it. I fucked up in so many ways. I was fucked up in so many ways.” His eyes searched mine. “You want to know why I was so intent on helping you? I didn’t just see myself in that Bastard; I saw myself in you. I used to suffer from an addiction of my own.” His lips thinned in a grim, self-effacing smile. “No. I didn’t ‘suffer’ from it. I chose it. But I suffered because of it. And so did the people I loved.”

  He paused as his gaze turned inward.

  “You don’t have to tell me about it if you don’t want to,” I said softly. He had already revealed so much more of himself than he ever had before. I didn’t want to upset him by pressing him.

  “No,” he said. “I want to. You deserve to know. When I was eighteen, I said to hell with all of my family’s expectations and didn’t show up to college for my first semester. I wasn’t very good at taking orders back then, either.” He shot me an uneven smile. “My parents didn’t even realize it until they received a letter from Johns Hopkins saying I had never attended a single class. I was an ungrateful, obnoxious little shit. I took all of my savings and the money my dad had given me to live for the year and bought a used Harley Road King. I had always loved bikes, and I liked the idea of being a rebel. College and a corporate career were beneath me.

  “Since I had blown all of my money in the course of a day, I started working at Slim’s Garage, where I had bought the bike. The guys asked me to ride with them, and I ended up joining their gang. I thought I was so badass.”

  He shook his head, as though he could admonish his teenage self. “The Pagans, a one-percenter outlaw motorcycle gang, were affiliated with my gang, and we dealt meth for them. It was an easy way for me to make more money, and meth was a hell of a rush. I spent my days dealing, fucking, and using.”

  He hesitated, his eyes turning haunted as he became lost in memories of his own darkness. I ran my fingers through his hair, lightly scraping his scalp. He leaned into my comforting touch without seeming to realize it.

  “One day, my father showed up at Slim’s. He had received the letter from Johns Hopkins, and he had tracked me down. He was furious, and he tried to drag me out of there. But I was a hard man then, and I wasn’t about to let my daddy boss me around in front of my gang. I threw the first punch. I just wanted to make him leave me alone; I didn’t want to actually hurt him. My father had never done anything wrong by me, other than being a strict tight-ass. But my boys got involved. They beat the shit out of him. And I didn’t stop them. I just sat back and watched.”

  He drew in a shaky breath. For all of his boldness in recounting his sins, he was obviously still deeply disturbed by what he had done.

  “A month later, my mom showed up at the garage. She was a wasted wreck, and when I tried to calm her down, she just slapped me. She told me that my father had died from cerebral edema – brain swelling – following head trauma from the beating. He had been dead for a month, and I hadn’t known. I had missed the funeral, had left my mother alone to deal with the grief. And I was responsible for his death.”

  His jaw tightened. “I never saw my mother again after that day. I thought if I made things right, I could somehow make amends for what I had done. But how can you ever make something like that right? I turned on the Pagans, gave them up to the feds. Getting clean was harder than turning them in; fixing myself seemed almost as impossible as fixing what I had done.”

  I remained silent, allowing him to take the time he needed to continue on. He was sharing a deep part of himself with me, and I wasn’t going to cut him off with unnecessary words. He wanted me to know this, to know his deepest sins now that I had committed to him. I had come to him at my worst, and he was sharing the worst of himself with me. Despite the nature of our sexual relationship, we were finally coming together as equals.

  “That’s when I found BDSM,” he said. “My cravings for meth ruled me; I felt powerless to my addiction. I had thought I was taking control of my own life by rebelling against what my family had wanted for me, but my life was a chaotic, meaningless mess. Taking control sexually gave me the sense of power I needed to resist my cravings. It wasn’t just about controlling a submissive; I had to exert control over myself. They placed their pleasure, their safety, completely in my hands. It was incredibly heady, a rush better than any drug. But even more importantly, it was my responsibility to take care of them, and I couldn’t uphold that responsibility without complete mental clarity.”

  He tenderly cupped my cheek in his large hand. “The trust of a submissive is the most beautiful gift that can be given, and to betray that trust would be unforgivable. And when it came to you… You had no choice but to trust me when I took you in. You were completely dependent on me. In a twisted way,
I relished that. Caring for you, watching you blossom back to life because of my guidance… I’ve never felt a sense of satisfaction deeper than that. The realization that what gave me so much pleasure had actually led to me take advantage of you was horrible to face. I’ve been a fucking mess since you left.”

  I smoothed the creases in his forehead with a gentle brush of my fingertips.

  “You didn’t take advantage of me,” I said quietly.

  “Just because you’re happy with the way things turned out doesn’t make what I did right. But I meant what I said before: I don’t regret it. God knows I should, but I don’t. I’m glad you had time to get your head on straight without me, though. I don’t think I could have ever forgiven myself if I didn’t at least try to let you go.”

  I gave him a small smile. “Nice try. Too bad I’m not letting you go.”

  He returned my smile and kissed the tip of my nose. “You’re a feisty little sub, aren’t you?”

  Sub. Not slave.

  “I like that word,” I breathed.

  His grin was wolfish. “So do I. It suits you.”

  “Speaking of suits,” I said lightly, plucking at the buttons on his rumpled white shirt, “you are wearing far too many clothes, Master.”

  He caught my wrists in his hand, chuckling as he stilled my efforts. “You’re definitely too demanding for your own good. Do you know what happens to demanding subs?”

  My grin was wicked as I gave a dramatic shudder. “I suspect they’re punished with multiple orgasms.”

  He barked a laugh. “I think I like Lydia Chase. She’s awfully cute when she’s trying to be flippant.” He leaned into me, and his teeth grazed the shell of my ear. “Too bad for her, flippant subs don’t get to choose their punishments.”

  His lips came down on mine, drugging me with his kiss once again. With only a few strokes of his tongue, I went soft and pliant beneath him, my body moving under his silent direction as he removed our clothes.

  His cock was fully hard when it pressed into my naked thigh. I shifted towards it, my pussy instinctively seeking to be filled. He suddenly gripped my sex hard, pinning me in place with his fingers inside me and his palm on my clit. His rough, possessive touch made my core throb, and I pulsed around him greedily. But he just held me firmly, his hand unmoving as he brought his lips, his teeth, down on my nipples. With each sharp nip and swirl of his wicked tongue, my muscles spasmed around his fingers, desperately seeking further stimulation.

  A violent trembling claimed my entire body as he took me to the edge and held me there, torturing me with pleasure that was both too much and not enough.

  “Please, Master.” The whispered words were so ragged, I wasn’t sure if I had managed to form words at all.

  His lips left my nipples, and he cocked his head at me. Before I could release my sigh of relief at the end to his torture of my breasts, he brushed his forefinger against my g-spot. A little zing of bliss sizzled through me, but it wasn’t enough. The tease of pleasure had only been meant to punish me further, to prolong my suffering.

  “Did you have something you wanted to say to me, sub?” Master asked casually, as though he had missed a passing remark rather than a desperate plea for release.

  “Please, Master. Please let me come.”

  Another little jolt struck as he moved in me again, and I whined at the sweet torment.

  “‘Please’?” He repeated the word a touch condescendingly. “Is that all you have to say?”

  What more did he want from me?

  Instinct drove me to roll my hips up against him in a desperate bid for further stimulation, but he held me fast.

  “I’m sorry!” I gasped, realizing what I was supposed to say. “I’m sorry for being demanding, Master.”

  His smile was proud and perversely pleased. He touched his lips to mine in a doting kiss. “You’re forgiven, girl. Now, are you going to be flippant with me in the future?”

  I bit the inside of my cheek. I knew the answer he wanted, the answer that would allow me to come. He wanted me to say ‘no.’ But that would be a lie, and lying was against the rules.

  “If I tell you the truth, may I please come, Master?”

  Confusion entered his cocky expression, but he nodded.

  “Yes,” I admitted quickly, breathlessly. “I probably will be flippant in the future. I’m sorry, Master. Please…”

  He laughed as he released me from his cruelly restraining hold, replacing his fingers with his cock. My raw moan was caught between his lips, and he swallowed all of my cries as I rode out my release. He kept me in that heightened, enraptured state as he found his own pleasure in my body, taking me back over the brink with him when he spent himself inside of me.

  He held me to him as we both came down, our breathing finding a more normal rhythm until our chests were rising and falling in tandem.

  “Thank you, Master,” I said quietly.

  “You’re welcome, little one. You earned it.”

  “No,” I corrected him. “I mean, yes. Thank you for the orgasms. But thank you for sharing your past with me.” I stroked my forefinger up his spine, tracing the line of his tattoo. “Is that what this is about? Is that the mistake you made?”

  He leaned his forehead against mine. “Yes, Lydia. But like I said, nothing can make what I did right. The tattoo reminds me of that, and it reminds me that I can choose better. When it came to you, I chose wrong again. I let my feelings for you control my actions.” He smiled at me wryly and trailed his fingertips along my jawline. “You’re a far more compulsive addiction than any drug, Lydia.”

  I caught his hand in mine, pressing his palm against my cheek. “Maybe it was wrong. But you told me free will is about making the choices that will manifest either good or evil. And what you did, what we did, was good. It was the good choice, even if it wasn’t the right one.”

  Master smiled at me gently as he hugged me closer. “You are full of surprises, little one. Lord knows I didn’t do anything to deserve you. But I’m keeping you.”

  “The feeling’s mutual. I’m keeping you, too, Master.”

  He laughed, a full, rich sound that warmed me to my core. “Such a demanding little sub. What have I gotten myself into?”

  I smirked at him. “This is what you signed on for,” I mirrored his earlier words. “It’s too late to go back now.”

  He grinned at me, his eyes dancing with delight. “I guess I have no choice but to accept my fate, then.”

  I nodded with mock-solemnity. “That really is for the best. Things will be so much easier for you if you just surrender.”

  His low growl was playful as he swept me up in another intoxicating kiss.

  “I recommend you reconsider your position,” he advised softly when he finally allowed me to draw breath again. “Who’s surrendering to whom, here?”

  “I am,” I replied, my voice meekly contrite. “I surrender, Master.”

  His grin was smugly triumphant. “Good girl.”

  I rested my head against his chest, melting into his strength, his power. We laid in contented silence for a while as he stroked my hair, my skin, as though he couldn’t bring himself to stop touching my body.

  “How did you become an FBI agent?” I asked, my curiosity still aflame, craving to know more about the man who held me so tenderly. “If the Bureau knew about the meth, wouldn’t that bar you from working for the government?”

  “That was all Ken’s doing.” Smith’s voice was affectionate when he spoke the man’s name. “Agent Kennedy Carver was the man I worked with when I turned in the Pagans. I don’t know why he decided to help a little shit like me, but he took an interest in getting me back on my feet. He’s actually the one who suggested I look into BDSM to help beat my addiction. Once I got clean, he convinced me to go through college. I worked at a garage – a reputable one – part time and managed to pay my way through in five years. Afterward, Ken asked if I wanted to apply for the FBI Academy. I never should have been accepted to Quantic
o after what I’d been involved in, but he stuck out his neck for me. That gave me a pretty good incentive not to fuck up. I’ve been a pain in his ass for seven years now, and he hasn’t fired me yet.”

  “Wait,” I said, catching upon one detail as I digested everything he had said. “You’re telling me that your boss is in the lifestyle too? And Clayton? And… Wait. Reed’s a Dom too, isn’t he? Is it a prerequisite to be kinky if you’re going to be in the FBI?”

  Master laughed in surprise, as though he had never really thought about it before. “Well, Reed was brought in precisely because he’s familiar with the lifestyle.” He shrugged. “Maybe Ken has a hiring bias. Or maybe there’s a commonality in our psychological makeup that makes us suited to the job. In any case, Clayton’s newly converted, so he barely counts.”

  My brows rose. “How would Clayton feel if he heard you say that he ‘barely counts’?”

  Master grinned. “Please don’t tell him I said that. It took me years to get him to come out of the vanilla closet. I’d hate to scare him back into it. He’s so much more fun now.”

  “What do you mean, ‘came out of the vanilla closet’?”

  “Clayton was uneasy with the idea of hitting a woman. His obsession with being the good guy held him back.”

  “What changed?”

  Smith smirked. “He fell in love with a woman who wanted him to hit her. It’s amazing how quickly he took to it once he realized that he could use BDSM to help Rose. His White Knight Syndrome ended up corrupting him. It was extremely satisfying to watch.”

  The uneven tilt of my lips mirrored his. “You’re a little bit evil, you know.”

  “I know,” he said unapologetically. “And you like it that way.”

  “Yes,” I agreed, just as easily. “I don’t at all mind that you suffer from Dark Knight Syndrome.”

  His low chuckle held a threatening edge. “And I don’t at all mind your flippancy. By all means, continue giving me reasons to punish you. You’re making this very easy for me, girl.”

  His hand splayed across my lower back, pressing my hips against his hardening cock.