The Proviso

by Moriah Jovan

  Justice began to pay attention to where they were going once Knox had turned off the highway. The streets that wound deeper and deeper into his neighborhood were tree-lined and secluded. He had about an acre of ground at the back corner of a very old subdivision built when acre plots were the norm, the only plot on a small street that probably wasn’t even on a map; in fact, it didn’t even have a street sign. The whole property was bordered by a high wrought iron fence with the gate across the driveway, which was closed.

  The house was a 1960s-era low brick ranch with a steeply pitched roof, what she thought was classified as French provincial. The brick was painted cream, and black shutters flanked the windows. The big mullioned windows in the front sparkled, their small beveled diamond panes catching the last rays of the setting sun through the thicket of trees that bordered the west side of the property. The foundation of the house was camouflaged by low yews.

  This was not what she would have thought Knox would choose to live in. She had him figured for a federalist or Georgian style, but understood that the seemingly nonexistent address would appeal to someone like Knox.

  To the right of the driveway were two well-worn ruts, which circled around the house and disappeared. It was the only thing that marred the otherwise flawless turf and she thought it . . . odd. Just beyond that to the west was a windbreak of trees that ran from the front to the back of the property. The east boundary of the property was bordered by old scrub pines.

  A gate across the driveway slid open and he drove into the garage. Once the door began to close behind them, Justice closed her eyes and sighed in resignation, fear and—something else. She dropped her head back on the head rest.

  Justice felt him touch her neck. She opened her eyes and turned to him before she realized that he had closed the distance between them. He kissed her, gently, quietly, before deepening it. Without thinking about it, she closed her eyes and laid her hand along the side of his face.

  It went on for many moments as he taught her how to kiss, how to be kissed, how to tease and nip and lick.

  Knox drew away from her slowly and she opened her eyes. Suddenly she flushed hot, ashamed that it had taken nothing at all for him to make her forget—everything.

  “This’d be a whole lot easier on both of us if you didn’t fight me,” he murmured, his voice husky.

  “What else am I supposed to do?” she muttered, looking at the floor, more angry with herself and her own weakness than with him. “Why should I make this easy for you?”

  “Well,” he said, pulling away from her and opening his door, “when you put it that way, I see your point.”

  He opened her door for her and bustled her into the house. When he spoke again, that hard edge in his voice was back. “Here’s the deal, Iustitia. We can eat first or have sex first. Your choice.”

  Justice looked at him for a long time because what he said and how he’d said it was so jarring. She didn’t know what to say to that, but she must have waited too long. He stepped toward her and she backed up a step. He took another step, and another until he had backed her up against a wall. His body touched hers as he braced his forearm against the wall and caught her earlobe with his teeth.

  “Or,” he whispered menacingly into her ear, his finger tracing her collarbone, “you can just forfeit your choice right here and right now.”

  She said nothing. There was no choice. She would take whatever Knox had to give her and bear the consequences of her shame later. Her eyes closed when his hand traced lightly down over her breast and stopped, stayed, his thumb finding her nipple through her clothes. She sucked in a breath and gulped.

  He still nibbled on her ear and he pressed closer to her, letting her know that whatever her wishes, he would get what he wanted tonight—and he wouldn’t have to take it by force.

  It occurred to her that she was married to him now and that she had every right to him. While that was a heady thought, he wasn’t an honorable man and he’d forced her into this.

  You assume too much.

  Giselle’s sharp reprimand came back to her; she hadn’t known what it meant then and she didn’t know now. What she did know was that taking her freedom, making her a prisoner, was not, by any definition, honorable.

  “Stop thinking,” he growled in her ear. “I want you to feel it, feel me, feel what I’m doing to you.”

  He was right; she had stopped feeling and started thinking and maybe if she thought of the Supreme Court—

  “I’ll talk to you,” he whispered. “I’ll tell you what I’m doing and how and why, just to keep your brain occupied, if that’s the only way I can keep you with me—because your IQ is going to come with me, even if I have to drag it kicking and screaming. I’ll fill your mind with me until it stops fighting your body.”

  Justice swallowed again. Her palms lay flat on the wall behind her. Her eyes were closed. She stiffened because he had read her so easily and that he had such a simple way of counteracting it.

  “You’re mine now. I own you.”

  Her eyes popped open as she sucked in a deep breath. She looked at him and snarled, “What did you say?”

  “I. Own. You.”

  She slapped him across the face, hard, furious that he would again take her deeply held philosophy and turn it against her. Her eyes narrowed and she saw his face darken. “Don’t you ever mock me like that again,” she hissed, her teeth grinding together.

  Knox’s eyebrow rose and he touched his face where she’d slapped him. His voice was rough when he finally spoke. “I told you never to hit me.”

  “Hit me back and see how long you live.”

  His nostrils flared and his stare matched hers second for second. She wouldn’t back down and she didn’t feel fear. He’d imprisoned her and for him to throw that back at her was vile.

  Justice could see that they’d reached a stalemate. Knox slowly pushed himself away from the wall and turned, taking a few steps away from her. She had taken two steps away from the wall when he pounced.

  He grabbed her around the waist and pulled her to him, crushing her, crushing her breasts, crushing her mouth against his. Knox’s tongue crushed hers, one hand crushed her buttocks, the other hand crushed her hair.

  Enraged, Justice fought, but she was no match for his strength. He picked her up, kicking and hissing, and strode down a hallway into a bedroom, where he threw her on the bed. She bounced and immediately rolled off to stand on the other side of the bed, taking deep gulps of air while surreptitiously slipping her heels off.

  “If you want anything from me, you’re going to have to take it by force.”

  “Don’t think I won’t,” he gritted as he ripped off his tie, then unbuttoned his shirt with lightning speed and took it off.

  “I’ll fight you.”

  “At this point, I’m counting on it.”

  She really had no way out; she knew it would happen in the end, but she wasn’t frightened or intimidated. She was livid and unwilling to give him the satisfaction of winning too easily. She couldn’t remember ever being this angry in her entire life.

  Justice didn’t care that he was Knox Hilliard, ruthless, untouchable. She didn’t care that he’d trapped her here by his threats and his far stronger body. She didn’t care that she would end up underneath him somehow. She just had to make her point.

  You have to walk barefoot through fire on broken glass.

  Justice didn’t remember it so much as feel it well up inside of her, come alive, give her energy and strength. And she ran.

  She bolted around the end of the bed and made it past him through the door.

  “Ow! Shit!”

  Whatever he’d done to himself, it gave her enough of a head start to get out the back door. And she flew.

  Justice could run like the wind; she knew this, she took pride in it. She also knew that there were very few people who could run as fast as she could, especially if they were built like quarterbacks and not running backs. She was gambling that Knox wasn’t one o
f those few people.

  She lost.

  He tackled her, wrapped his arms around her waist and took her down into the soft grass. He twisted to land first, and she fell on top of him, both of them rolling and rolling. Then, rolling her over before she could do anything else, he was braced over her, most of his weight pinning her to the ground. His chest heaved.

  She said nothing, because she, too, was winded and she gasped for breath; it was made more difficult by his weight on top of her.

  Neither of them spoke as they caught their breath, but Justice wouldn’t look away from him first. It was too important. Her jaw gritted and her eyes narrowed. Her adrenaline was pumping hot and swift through her body, and she was not going to back down.

  “You’re an evil son of a bitch.”

  “And you want me anyway.”

  Knox kissed her then, hard. She was caught between wanting to fight him and wanting to get sucked into his tornado. If he spoke to her—

  “I can kiss you till you come,” he panted when he broke off the kiss and let his head drop so that his mouth was again at her ear. “I can stroke you till you scream. I can suck your nipples until you beg me for more. I can talk to you until all you can think about is when I’m going to slide inside you. You can run from me, Iustitia, but if it means the difference between making love to you and not, I’ll catch you every time.”

  Her brain was engaged and she nearly sobbed with—relief? Anger? What was that feeling? He had caught her, and he’d used her only weapons, philosophy and intellect, against her. Her name had even betrayed her. Her body she could command, if not control, but once she was fully engaged—

  And he wanted her. As much as she’d wanted him for the last three years.

  Knox rose to his feet then and pulled her up to him harshly, again holding her tight and kissing her with force. She returned his kiss with equal force, but every time she thought she’d had enough of this, he talked to her, told her what he’d do to her, kept her from thinking about anything but him. He had her dress off of her before she’d realized he had begun.

  “I’m going to take your bra off,” he whispered, hot, when she was beginning to get some control, “and I’m going to take your panties off, and I’m going to lay you back down in the grass and you’re going to wrap your legs around me. You’re going to feel every inch of me, skin-to-skin.”

  She snarled at him but didn’t resist, still panting, though from her run or from what her body was doing to her, she didn’t know. The corner of his mouth curled in victory as he let her go just long enough to finish undressing.

  Justice’s hands wrapped as far around his arms as she could and dug her fingernails into his muscles to have something—anything at all—to hold onto so she wouldn’t collapse. He held her and nuzzled her throat until she couldn’t breathe at all. Overloaded with adrenaline and overwhelmed with what he was doing to her, she could do nothing but stand and let him strip off her barely-there pantyhose and scandalous underwear, his large, warm hands stroking, caressing every inch of her buttocks and thighs, calves, and feet on the way down.

  He rose and her bra came off as if by magic, his mouth again raided hers, and she gasped at how wonderful it felt to be skin-to-skin with a man; she had never imagined anything like this.

  She started. No, not just with any man!

  She was skin-to-skin, knee-to-shoulder, with Knox Hilliard, kissing, having sex, his naked arousal pressed into her bare belly. When, in the last three years, hadn’t she dreamt of this moment?

  From the first day she laid eyes on him—

  I bet she wants to fuck Knox Hilliard as much as I do . . . She wouldn’t know what to do with him if she had him . . .

  Justice gasped, her eyes popping open. Surprised, he stopped and drew back, looking at her questioningly. She studied his dark blue eyes and that gorgeous face for a long moment, remembering that day in class when he’d touched her, defended her. The day she’d fallen in love with him to begin with.

  Then she threw her head back and laughed. When she looked back at him, his face betrayed his shock and, still smiling at the irony, she took his face between her hands and kissed him the way he’d taught her.

  She felt him smile against her lips, then she gasped when he rolled her back onto the ground, taking the hit on his shoulder.

  “Iustitia,” he murmured, hoarse, still out of breath. She felt his hand between her legs, drawing gently up the inside of her thigh and she trembled. “Never let it be said that I can’t or won’t give you what you want.”

  She drew in a deep breath, her eyes wide, and arched her back when his fingers slid inside her and his thumb flicked her clitoris. He lowered his mouth and caught one of her nipples in his teeth and she moaned aloud, then again and again.

  Justice was beyond thinking. This is what she’d wanted for three years, what she’d been taunted for wanting. His hand, where hers went when she thought about him, and his fingers, doing what hers did.

  She felt her muscles contract around his fingers and she spread her legs wider. In the middle of it all, her back arched again and her body exploded. She sighed with the rhythm of his hand. Her muscles moved around his fingers and clenched rhythmically against them as she panted. He slid them in and out while he nipped and sucked at her nipples and never once did she forget who this man was.

  Knox’s mouth found hers then and she pulled everything she could out of him, again her hands on either side of his face, holding him to her. Her knees fell wider apart as if of their own volition, as if they hadn’t already gone as wide as they could already, and his fingers withdrew from inside her.

  Then he moved away from her, shifted—

  Then yes! He was between her legs, the insides of her thighs hypersensitive to the feel of his naked hips, and he was balanced over her. She looked up into his eyes, which were that same dark, dark blue even as she wrapped her legs around his thighs.

  “Kiss me, Knox,” she whispered, her fingers in his coarse blond hair so that she could bring his face down to hers if he was not inclined to do so.

  But he was and he kissed her with a tenderness she didn’t expect.

  “Make love to me, Knox,” she whispered into his mouth, then felt his soft answering sigh,

  “I will, Iustitia, I will.”

  She felt him, much bigger, much heavier, and much longer than his fingers, ready to fill her body and she desperately wanted him to. His mouth left hers so he could nuzzle at her throat as he made his first impression in her virgin body.

  And she screamed.

  Her eyes popped open and she fought against him, surprising him.

  “Iustitia?”

  “Get off! Get off! You’re killing me!” she cried. “Please, please don’t. It hurts. Oh, it hurts so bad.”

  Her sudden sobs shocked even herself because she wanted this, but his body in hers was so foreign and painful, she couldn’t stand it. Never had she expected—

  She choked as she tried to stem the flow of tears through her tightly clenched eyelids, but once begun, she couldn’t stop the river of tears that poured down her cheeks.

  “It goes away, Iustitia,” Knox whispered even as he withdrew from her. “I promise it goes away.”

  It barely registered in her traumatized mind that his voice was heavy with a pleading that was just as foreign as his body inside her. She didn’t care. She hurt too badly.

  “Go away,” she sobbed. “Please don’t make me do this. Please,” she begged.

  She cried harder when she felt Knox’s head fall to her chest and his sigh caress her flesh. She felt moisture between her legs and she wanted to put her knees together, but couldn’t. He was still on top of her, between her legs.

  Knox shifted so that he lay half on and half off of her, one leg still between hers. He caressed her face and ran his fingers through her curls while she cried, in pain and humiliated beyond belief. “I’m sorry, Iustitia,” he whispered into her ear a thousand times if he whispered it once. “I’m so sorr
y. Please forgive me.”

  She closed her legs as far as she could. She turned into him, curled up, holding onto him even though he was the one who had caused her pain, and sobbed into his throat until she hiccuped, then hiccuped until she fell asleep in his arms, naked in the grass under the stars.

  * * * * *

  75: SNAKE EYES

  Sebastian ached in ways he didn’t remember ever having ached. He knew he had no hope with Eilis now. It had been an unrecoverable gaffe that had hit her in her heart, which lay with her employees.

  Yet every night he drove to Knox’s to continue with the project he’d begun after his first date with Eilis, when he’d stood in awe of her garden and seen her beautiful face in the noonday sun on Brooklyn. The materials had arrived in November, after which he and Knox had spent the winter out in the barn hammering, stapling, painting.

  Knox shared an exit with Eilis, but they lived on opposite sides of the highway. Every night, he looked longingly to the left to see if he could see one speck of her property, house, anything. But she was too well secured to let that happen. She had millions of dollars of art in that house, though many millions less than before Morning in Bed had gone through the private sale Sebastian had brokered to fund her cash reserves. He had not bought it. He couldn’t stand the damn thing, but couldn’t bring himself to destroy it. He’d even sold the three he’d bought back for Eilis—at a hefty profit—figuring she’d not appreciate looking at nude women who weren’t her, who didn’t have her body type, whom he had painted, all the while knowing precisely how they’d acquired that freshly-fucked look.

  He drove into Knox’s driveway and he continued on around the house, through the lawn where he’d cut a path with his rickety old truck down to the barn.