In Rides Trouble: Black Knights Inc.

by Julie Ann Walker

  “What do you know about sex?” his father replied, leaning a muscular arm on the windowsill and pushing in the lighter on the console.

  Robert Knight was one handsome devil—that’s what everyone said.

  Frank didn’t know about all that, he only knew that his father was bigger, meaner, and tougher than most men. And he felt absolutely dwarfed, especially with the hot air inside the car suddenly vibrating with the tension stretching tight as a piano cord between the two of them.

  “I know enough about sex to know you’re not supposed to have it with anyone but mom,” he answered sullenly, throwing his ice cream cone out the window, watching it splat on the sidewalk below, the pointed cone sticking up like a sad, little party hat.

  This was no cause for celebration, and eating that ice cream would mean Frank was complicit in his father’s actions.

  The thought made him feel dirty in a way he never had before, like he needed a good scrubbing with a gallon of bleach.

  “Who says I’m not supposed to have sex with anyone but your mother?” his father queried quietly.

  “Everyone!” Frank yelled, his face hot with embarrassment and anger.

  He didn’t want to be the son of philanderer—he’d heard that word on one of the soap operas his mother watched in the afternoons, and when he asked what it meant, she’d explained that it was a man who stepped out on his wife and kids despite his promises to be loyal.

  His father didn’t so much as flinch at his outraged roar. He simply grabbed the lighter and lit the fresh cigarette clamped between his big, white teeth. Dragging the smoke into his lungs, he blew it out and lazily watched it circle around the felt ceiling of the car before he softly posed, “Have you ever heard the saying ‘what you don’t know won’t hurt you’?”

  “Yes.” Frank crossed his arms over his scrawny chest, for the first time in his life wanting to punch something, surprised that that something should turn out to be his own father. “But just because mom doesn’t know, that doesn’t make it right. What you’re doing is wrong.”

  His father shrugged. “But who’s it hurting? I pay the bills. I put a roof over her head. She’s happy with her women’s groups and her pretty dresses and her shiny, new car. I’m discreet with my lady friends…you know what discreet means, don’t you?”

  Frank nodded.

  “Okay, then, so again, who is it hurting?”

  He didn’t know how to answer, because his father was right. His mother was happy, and she’d stay happy as long as she never found out.

  He suddenly realized he was trapped. Trapped in his father’s deception as neatly as a spider traps a fly in its silken web.

  “I’m going in now,” his father announced after a prolonged silence, and Frank glanced toward the house. A woman stood in the doorway, dressed in cut-off shorts and a little lace top.

  It was the first time he’d ever seen one of his father’s lady friends, and he was shocked by the sight of her. When he thought of a lady friend, he pictured the type of women his mother liked to invite over for tea and bridge. Round, soft, mom-like women with fine wrinkles at the corners of their eyes and hints of gray showing through their hair.

  The girl standing in the door was none of these things.

  First of all, she was skinny, as in skin-ny. Her ribs showed in her chest like the bars of a xylophone. Secondly, even despite her emaciated appearance, she was still one of the prettiest women he’d ever seen, with high cheekbones, big, heavily lashed eyes, and a mouth that made him realize for the first time that there was something utterly compelling about a woman’s lips. Her skin was a smooth, flawless, milky color and her hair a shiny, lustrous red.

  “How old is she?” he asked before his father could step from the vehicle.

  “Eighteen, I think.”

  Frank recoiled at the thought of his father having sex with someone the same age as the girl who sometimes came over to babysit.

  His father chuckled at his reaction. “The great thing about being a man is we get better with age. We may get older, but the women who want us never do. And you’ll come to realize there’s nothing sweeter than a girl in her first bloom.”

  With that parting bit of advice, his father slammed the door and sauntered up the cracked walk, flicking his cigarette butt into a motley clump of grass.

  That was the last time Frank went with his father for “ice cream,” but neither did he reveal his father’s secret.

  Two years later, he caught one severe case of strep throat after another until his doctor sent him in to have his tonsils removed, and that was the day Frank’s life changed forever. When things went bad on the operating table and he almost died, Robert Knight conveniently used the excuse of the crisis to declare his dissatisfaction with family life and finally abandon them once and for all.

  Frank shook his head now, pushing the painful memory away as he shoved back from Becky’s door.

  What the hell am I doing here?

  The question once more flashed through his aching head, but he didn’t have time to answer it before the door suddenly opened. And then he couldn’t remember his own name much less the answer to the question, because his mind blanked.

  Full stop.

  No thought whatsoever.

  Because there she stood. The woman of his dreams, grumpy and disheveled, and warm and rosy from sleep.

  He’d never been a devotee of anything that didn’t come with an extra clip or have the ability to be sharpened to a razor’s edge, but right now he wanted to prostrate himself at the baptismal fount of red lace.

  Oh man, that top she was wearing…

  It was cherry-colored satin, trimmed along the collar with soft lace that lightly brushed the smooth mounds of her unrestrained breasts and, yessir, those were her nipples lightly pebbled, pushing against the silky fabric.

  “What do you want, Frank,” she grumbled, rubbing the sleep from her eyes, squinting up at him as she flicked on the light inside the bedroom.

  It illuminated her messy hair, the pillowcase marks on her smooth, still slightly discolored cheek, and the fact that all she was wearing besides that ball-tightening top was a pair of soft red-and-green flannel boxer shorts.

  Was it Christmas?

  Nope. Not for another ten weeks.

  But looking at her, especially in those colors, he felt he’d been given the greatest gift on Earth.

  What did he want?

  Um…nothing…but…sex.

  Yessir, sex.

  It was the only answer that came to him in the span of a few infinite seconds, during which time he couldn’t move, just stood there staring at her nipples, then down to her boxer shorts, then further to her sleek, bare legs and those brightly painted toenails that always drove him absolutely crazy.

  “Um,” he managed to drag his eyes up to her face, though the effort it required was tantamount to Hercules having to slay the Nemean Lion, “I couldn’t sleep thinking that I hadn’t told you what a good job you did today with that reporter.”

  And yeah, so sign him up for the Dumbass of the Year Award right here and now.

  “Huh?” She yawned and stretched with the sleek grace of a cat. Her shirt drifted up, revealing the circle of stars she had tattooed around her dainty belly button.

  Okay, and that was it. He had to get out of there. Now. Two minutes ago…

  “I just wanted to tell you that you did a good job deflecting that reporter’s questions today,” he whispered as he started backing down the hall.

  “Frank,” she called after him, leaning out of the doorway. The sight of her shirt dipping down to reveal the soft globes of her breasts froze him to the spot. “Are you nervous about the surgery tomorrow? Do you want someone to talk to about it?”

  He made himself hold her worried gaze—stop staring at her boobs,
stop staring at her boobs—as he shook his head.

  The skin across her cheekbones tightened and turned pink as something hot sparked behind her dark eyes.

  “Then would you like to come in for another reason?” She backed up and held her door wide.

  Yes. Oh, honey, please yes!

  “It’d be a bad idea,” he ground out and tried—and failed—not to let his eyes once more angle down to her breasts and the press of her nipples against the satin of her top.

  “That isn’t a no I’m hearing,” she whispered in her phone-sex-operator voice, and before he knew what she was about, she reached for the hem of her shirt and whipped it over her head.

  Becky wasn’t a big-breasted woman, not by any stretch of the imagination. She was small and soft, her breasts high and round and creamy skinned, topped by light, peach-colored nipples.

  In a word: perfection.

  He tried to say something; he had no idea what, probably just another reiteration that this was a very bad idea, but the only thing that came out of his strangled throat was a weird choking sound.

  Then she did something even more preposterous.

  She hooked her thumbs in the waistband of her boxer shorts and shoved them down the smoothly tanned length of her legs, kicking the material back into her bedroom in the same direction she’d thrown her top.

  Kee-rist. There she was. Five feet away. Completely, wonderfully, starkly naked. And he could only stand there gaping like a flippin’ dipshit, because the word perfection no longer seemed adequate. He didn’t have a word to describe the radiant, glorious, female beauty of Rebecca Reichert in the nude.

  “Well, Frank,” she murmured, smiling that smile a woman smiles when she knows she’s got the upper hand, because the man has completely stopped thinking with the head perched atop his shoulders and has started thinking with the one that usually dangles between his legs. “It’s your move. Are we finally going to do this or not?”

  Something inside him broke, just snapped and tore free like all the ligaments and tendons in his shoulder.

  He didn’t care that he was her boss or that she was too young for him. He didn’t care about his father and that he was about to commit the same sin Robert Knight had committed over and over and over again. All he cared about was that this was what he wanted. This was what he was finished denying himself.

  This woman. This night.

  It was all that mattered.

  Besides, after tomorrow it might all be over anyway…

  Chapter Fifteen

  Oh, geez. Did I just make a frickin’ colossal mistake? Becky asked herself as heat washed from the top of her head to the tips of her toes.

  She’d been so sure when she’d been awakened by the sound of someone outside her room. Sure that Frank had finally overcome whatever it was that’d been holding him back from her. And when she’d opened the door to find him standing there, she’d been 100 percent convinced.

  But instead of grabbing her and bum-rushing her back into her bedroom to throw her on her bed, he was just standing there, raking in ragged breaths. Instead of crushing her mouth with a kiss to burn her soul, he was hanging on to the waistband of his jeans like some sort of lifeline.

  Come on, Frank. Make your move.

  But one heartbeat turned into ten and he continued to just… stand there.

  Well, if he was going to reject her, again, she was going to make sure this moment was burned into her memory like a brand. Because she’d played her hand, gone all in. There’d be no next time after this time. So she let her eyes drink their fill and really let herself look at him.

  He was so big and beautiful.

  Her eyes traveled up from his toes, over his calves and thighs and lean hips. With his shirt only half-on, she got a view she was rarely privileged to see. Frank’s chest. Coarse, dark hair spanned his bulging pectoral muscles only to narrow to a thin line that ran down the corrugated muscles of his belly and disappear into the waistband of his jeans—the waistband he was still holding onto like maybe his pants were about to fall off.

  As if I could be so lucky, she thought.

  And just when she was sure she’d miscalculated, just when she was about to back up and close the door in his face—a woman could only offer so much, take so much rejection—something changed in his expression.

  He went from looking like a torture victim to looking like a hungry hawk that just spotted a wounded mouse hobbling through the tall grass.

  Her heart nearly exploded with happiness when he took two big steps in her direction, pushing her back into her room, softly closing and locking the door behind him.

  ***

  He wanted to rip open his jeans, bend her over the desk, and sink himself into her until his heated balls smashed against her smooth ass.

  That was one part of him.

  The other part of him knew he only had this one night. This one night to make it count.

  He reached out to touch her hair, reveling in the sight of his thick, callused fingers against the smooth, golden strands.

  He’d always loved her hair, especially like this. She usually had it pulled back in a ponytail, all slick, contained and do-not-touch. But it was certainly advertising “touch me” with the way it fell around her shoulders and down her back in a messy, golden curtain.

  He moved to her cheek, rubbing a gentle thumb over the slight bruise that remained there, shuddering when he remembered the absolute terror that’d squeezed his heart when he thought she was going to go over the side of the tanker and the burst of overwhelming relief and joy when his fingers managed to grip her slender ankle.

  Lightly he traced the smooth column of her throat, stopping at her rapidly beating pulse-point and feeling the head of his dick pound in rhythm to her heart.

  Two hearts beating as one. He’d heard that said somewhere. At the time, he’d thought it a big ol’ load of hooey-gooey nonsense, but now? Oh yeah. He got it. And it wasn’t hooey gooey at all. It was erotic as hell.

  She must’ve thought so too, because she was breathing heavily, her big, soft eyes wide, staring with such trust and hope and hunger.

  He licked his lips as he let his fingers drift lower, over her delicate collarbone, and further still. Until he brushed the tight, peachy bud of her nipple. She shuddered and an answering ripple of sensation ripped up the length of his spine.

  “Frank,” she whispered, trembling openly now.

  He didn’t know exactly what kind of sex she wanted. What kind of sex she expected from him…

  Most times, he liked sex that was slow and hot, a little bit naughty when his partner was willing, and a whole lot unrestrained regardless. But what kind of sex did Becky want? Because, despite the fact that this was his one night, all he cared about was being perfect for her.

  She moved toward him then, apparently through waiting for him to act, and wound her slim arms around his neck, standing up on tiptoe to try and reach his lips. Even with the added height, she was still too short, God love her. So he bent his head and marveled at the smoothness of her lips when they brushed against his own, the taste of her tongue when she boldly licked into his mouth. He couldn’t help but angle her chin with the palm of his hand and return the gesture and—

  Watermelon.

  That must’ve been the flavor of the last Dum Dum she ate.

  It was ambrosia. Nectar of the gods. And she was a goddess.

  Especially when she moved closer, pressing herself against him. Breast to chest. Hip to hip. Skin to skin.

  She was so hot, so smooth and supple and so very, very female.

  Yes, yes, yes, yes…

  That’s all that was going through his head. Just that one word over and over again, because it was a stupefying, mind-blowing sensation having Becky, naked, in his arms. Even more mind-blowing when she hooke
d a heel behind his knee and ground her hips against the hard length of his swollen cock. And when the warmth of her belly pressed against the sensitive head of him, where he was peeking from the waistband of his jeans, he froze…

  “Becky—” He tried to pull back from the kiss, pull back from the grip of her sweet arms, but she just pressed herself closer, sighing her approval of the resulting growl that issued from the back of his throat and the hand suddenly grabbing her ass, anchoring her to him as he ground his hips into the wet warmth between her legs.

  He’d been about to ask her something, but he was having a hard time remembering what. Especially since her hands were everywhere, in his hair, rubbing over his chest, reaching around to squeeze his ass, and then she was unbuttoning his jeans…

  Kee-rist!

  It was too good. With her tongue in his mouth and his hand full of her breast, her hard nipple rasping under his thumb.

  If he didn’t ask it now, he’d get too carried away, and then he’d be in no position to ask at all. “Becky, what do you want?”

  “I want you to keep kissing me, keep touching me,” she breathed, licking the side of his neck and driving him insane.

  Yeah, well, that’s a given. So much so he had to laugh. “But specifically what do you like. What kind of kisses, what kind of touches, how do you—”

  She devoured his mouth. That was the only way to describe it. She grabbed his face, sealed their lips, and feasted like a starving woman even as she reached between them again, spreading the halves of his fly apart in order to stroke him.

  And her hand…

  Her sweet, calloused hand—Becky’s hands weren’t soft; she worked with them, and it showed—felt so unbelievably wonderful that his balls hitched up close to his body and a telltale prickle of warning teased at the base of his spine.

  Yes, yes, yes, yes. The chant resumed its cadence inside his brain and pulling her fingers from around his cock was the hardest thing he’d ever done. But he somehow managed. Then he kissed the lush curve of her lower lip when she stuck it out, pouting like a child relieved of her favorite toy.