The Halo Series Boxed Set

by Kimberly Knight

  To my husband, thank you. Thank you for always understanding when I need to be on the computer and write my dream. You’re the one for me. I love you, you know?

  To Audrey Harte, my BFFL, thank you for putting Halo and Avery in The Winner Takes it All. Loved reading how people enjoy my fictitious bar!

  To my betas; Alma, Brandi, Chauna, Christine, Danielle, Elizabeth, Emmy, Felicia, Joanna, Kerri, KJ, Kristen, Lisa, Loralee, Michele, Nancy, Stacy, and Trista. Thank you for taking the time out of your lives to read and help me make The One the best it could be. I really couldn’t have done it without y’all and I hope you guys can’t wait to help me with Never Stop (The Halo Series, #3) when it’s time.

  To all the bloggers that participated in my cover reveal, release day blitz and review tour, thank you! Without bloggers, I have no idea where I would be. You all take the chance on me and my books, and I can’t tell you how much I appreciate it. I never thought I would be an author, especially one with a fan base, and I owe a lot to the bloggers out there!

  To my editor, Jennifer Roberts-Hall, thank you so much for all your advice throughout this process. I know it’s babe or baby, but I still like Babe and Baby!

  To E. Marie Photography, thank you so much for the most beautiful cover picture ever. I love it! Can’t wait until we do more!

  Jericho and Sydney, thank you for gracing the cover of The One. It truly is a beautiful picture and so happy you were willing to model for it.

  Photographer:

  http://www.facebook.com/E.MariePhotographs

  emc33photos@gmail.com

  Male Cover Model:

  Jericho Mertel

  Jmertel20@yahoo.com

  Female Cover Model:

  Sydney.kandefer@gmail.com

  Make-up done by:

  Stephanie Fernandez-Baez

  stephaniesmakeupology@yahoo.com

  Club 24 Series – Romantic Suspense

  Perfect Together – The Club 24 Series Box Set

  Halo Series – Contemporary Romance

  Saddles & Racks Series – Romantic Suspense

  By Invitation Only – Erotic Romance Standalone

  Use Me – Romantic Suspense Standalone

  Burn Falls – Paranormal Romance Standalone

  And more …

  Kimberly Knight is a USA Today Bestselling author who lives in the mountains near a lake in California with her loving husband, who is a great research assistant. Kimberly writes in a variety of genres including romantic suspense, contemporary romance, erotic romance, and paranormal romance. Her books will make you laugh, cry, swoon, and fall in love before she throws you curve balls you never see coming.

  When Kimberly isn’t writing, you can find her watching her favorite reality TV shows, binge-watching true crime documentaries, and going to San Francisco Giants games. She’s also a two-time desmoid tumor/cancer fighter, which has made her stronger and an inspiration to her fans.

  * * *

  www.authorkimberlyknight.com

  Here’s a sneak peek of the conclusion of Brooke & Easton’s story in Never Stop!

  It’s not every morning you wake up in your fiancé’s arms for the first time.

  This, however, was that morning.

  Of course, when I made the decision to move in with Easton and Cheyenne two months ago, I’d thought that Easton and I would get married one day, but that thought changed when I started radiation. It wasn’t because I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life with him.

  It was because radiation kicked my ass.

  My weekdays always began the same way: wake up and go to radiation. Sometimes radiation would take hours. You never knew how long you’d be there. You could go in, say a quick hello to the ladies you saw every day before being called in back to the room where you lie on the machine with lasers, and then be on your way. Other times the technicians would be running late, so you’d wait with the other women while piecing a puzzle together to distract each other from talking about cancer. The men were across the hall, doing their own thing, but I knew they weren’t talking about their ailments either because no one wanted to compare stories. We just wanted to get in and get out, hoping we’d all beat whatever we were fighting.

  After the clinic, I would go home and eat lunch. By the afternoon, fatigue would come crashing down on me, and I’d take a nap until dinner time. I tried not to be a zombie on the weekends, but all I wanted to do was lie on the couch and sleep while the TV played in the background. Being on the couch and not in bed made me feel as though I wasn’t bed ridden even though I slept most hours.

  And each week was worse than the last.

  But waking up the day after my last radiation treatment—engaged, no less—put a little energy into my system.

  Easton was still asleep, which wasn’t like him. His internal clock would usually wake him up early because, during the week, Cheyenne had to be at school at eight. But today was Saturday, and Cheyenne didn’t have a softball game, so she’d spent the night across the street at her friend’s house. Taking advantage of the empty house, Easton and I spent the night celebrating our engagement. I’d had energy after showering, but I was certain it was only adrenaline that had given me the extra boost—because holy shit, Easton proposed and I said yes! And my radiation roses—God, that man knew how to tug at my heart strings. It was the sweetest gesture ever.

  I thought I was living a dream.

  Since finding out about my tumor, I had put on a brave face. I tried to act as if it wasn’t a big deal, but each day the radiation burned a little more of my insides. But it was as if Easton knew that I cried when no one was watching. The roses and the ring put everything into perspective.

  It was a big deal. The roses symbolized I had kicked radiation’s ass, and the ring meant I wasn’t going to let a tumor hold me back. I had a long life in front of me, and I was going to spend it with Easton.

  Halfway through our celebration, I became tired, but I fought my body. I wanted to go back to the time when Easton and I could spend hours exploring each other’s body, but now, if I wanted to do anything, it needed to be in the morning when I woke up with more energy. Dr. Fisch, the radiation oncologist, explained that even though radiation treatments were complete, I would still experience side effects for up to three months. Three effing months! Radiation had burned a nerve in my tricep, so he prescribed medication for the continued pain, but he couldn’t say if I would always need them. Nerves basically did what they wanted to do. Hopefully, the burned nerve would heal itself.

  I felt Easton’s hard morning erection poking me as he held me in his sleeping arms. I had a little energy to continue the satisfaction of our newly engaged status, so I slipped from his arms and slowly pulled the comforter and sheet down, exposing his hard chest and rippled abs. My mouth watered in anticipation as if it couldn’t get enough of his taste—as if it longed to consume him. I knew I could never get enough of him.

  We were going to spend forever together. We would add another baby or two to our family as we watched Cheyenne graduate high school, get married, and start her own family as we grew old together. It was what I’d always wanted and pictured for my future.

  I watched Easton’s face for any sign that he was awake as I continued to pull the sheet down his body. I opened the slit of his red boxers just enough for his erection to slip out. His eyes were still closed, his chest slowly moving up and then back down. Just as I lowered my mouth to lick his tip, he rolled onto his back. My eyes flicked back to his face. He still had his eyes closed, but he was definitely awake. There was no doubt. He’d rolled over to give me a better angle. I half expected him to start removing his boxers with his eyes still closed pretending he was doing it in his sleep.

  Two could play that game.

  The plan had been to wake him up with my mouth, but instead, I moved back to my side of the bed and started to get out. But his hand wrapped around my wrist, halting me. I turned slightly toward him, my eyes narrowing.

  “You’re gonn
a leave me hanging with my dick out?” He gave a cocky grin.

  I shrugged, pretending I was mad at him.

  “Aw, come on. You know me turning over was—”

  “A better position for me to suck your dick?”

  He smirked. “Well, yeah.”

  I rolled my eyes.

  “Don’t roll your eyes. It wasn’t my idea to begin with.”

  “No, but you ruined my plan. Now I’m gonna go get some coffee,” I lied.

  My gaze drifted down toward his crotch. He was now fully hard. I sucked in a light breath and swallowed. I didn’t want to leave my sexy fiancé with his erection pointing straight up at the ceiling through the slit of his boxers when I knew what he could do with it, but I couldn’t show him how much I wanted to straddle and ride him until we were both exhausted and needed a nap at nine in the morning.

  Surgery and radiation had put a damper on our sex life. There were moments when I would look at him as we watched TV and wonder why he was still with me. I knew about Easton’s past—he’d been with a lot of women before me. He’d explained that ninety-nine percent of those women only gave him blow jobs, but I wasn’t even doing that for him. I barely had the energy to keep my eyes open to watch an hour of one of my favorite TV shows before I’d pass out on the couch only to be woken up with him kissing me and telling me it was time for bed.

  But today was different.

  Today was the start of the rest of my life.

  I wasn’t going to think about the fact that I’d recently had surgery to remove a tumor—a tumor that doctors didn’t even know much about, let alone if they considered it cancerous. I was going to take each day one at a time. Radiation side effects weren’t going to hold me back.

  I had a burn on my neck, a burn on my chest, and a final one on my back where they’d scorched all angles of my chest wall. But like the healing scars on my side where they’d entered with a scope to remove the tumor, they were all battle wounds.

  I was a fighter.

  I was a warrior.

  I was fucking superwoman—Easton’s superwoman.

  Still holding my wrist, Easton said, “How about I lick that sweet pussy of yours, and then fuck you so hard you’ll remember not to leave me with morning wood again?”

  I giggled. “You’re lucky I cuss as much as you do. Some women might get offended about not making love.”

  He rose, his hand still holding my wrist and tugged me closer to him, our chests pressing together. “First of all, baby, I am lucky. I’m so fucking lucky that you’re here with me and wearing my ring on your left hand. You’re the only woman I want to fuck, want to screw, want to plow into, want to bang, want to make love with. I don’t care what we call it because I’m going to please you no matter which way we do it.”

  And that did it.

  I was no longer going to play my game. Easton wasn’t the only lucky one. I was lucky, too. There was no telling what my life would have been like if we hadn’t met that first night on the cruise almost four months ago. Some people might say that getting engaged so soon was a recipe for disaster, but dammit, I’d just gone through some scary ass shit. Life was too short to sit around and wait for society to tell me when it was time.

  He continued, “Second, you know I love your filthy mouth.”

  I chuckled and rolled my eyes at his double meaning.

  “And third, if you don’t let me taste you right now, I may just come on your T-shirt.”

  I looked down at my Halo shirt, the same T-shirt he’d given me to wear the first night we met. It would always be my favorite. We both knew that his old shirt was mine and I was never giving it back. I didn’t care that our sheets smelled like him and I didn’t need the shirt to remind me of him anymore. I wanted to wear his old T-shirts to bed.

  I looked at my wrist he was still holding. “Twist my arm why don’t you.” A smile spread across my face.

  “I will if that gets you flat on your back. Or better yet, your ass in the air.”

  My gaze flicked up to his gunmetal eyes. I swallowed hard.

  “Yeah, we’re gonna go with number two.” He nodded knowingly with a smirk as he removed his hand from my wrist.

  I didn’t reply as I moved to kneel on the bed beside him. I couldn’t have responded if I wanted to. My mouth was again watering in anticipation, but now it was from the thought of Easton licking my pussy with my ass up in the air as my head rested on the mattress of our bed.

  He stopped me before I got into position and grabbed my face, crushing his lips against mine. We savored each other for long seconds, and I moaned out of habit when his tongue slipped between my lips. He groaned in response, removing his hands from my cheeks and tugging at my T-shirt.

  Our lips broke apart long enough for him to pull the shirt off, and then he crashed his lips to mine again as he tossed my top on the floor. Our bare chests pressed together with my arms resting around his neck as his hands slipped into my shorts. He grabbed my ass cheeks and tugged me closer to him, his cock pressing against my mound.

  “Lie on your back so I can remove these,” he said against my mouth, his hands moving to the elastic band around my waist. I did as he asked, lying back. He discarded the shorts by throwing them onto the floor with my shirt.

  “Now, my beautiful fiancée, ass in the air.”

  I chuckled as I saw the wicked grin spread across his face. He had me naked, and I wasn’t going to waste any time because I wanted him to taste me. I flipped over and raised my ass in the air, my head resting on the mattress.

  A second later I felt the cotton of Easton’s boxers and his erection brushing across my butt. His hand ran up my thigh, and I let out another moan. My pussy starting to dampen, preparing itself for whatever he wanted to do to it.

  “Have I ever told you that you have a nice ass?” He ran his hand up the other thigh then rubbed circles with his palm against the cheek.

  I smiled. “I do recall hearing those words before.”

  “Have I ever told you how I crave your pussy?”

  I swallowed, my breath catching. “I—”

  He used both of his hands on my inner thighs to spread me open, causing me to lose all train of thought. The sensation of my pussy lips opening, and the cool air of the room mixing with my arousal, had me closing my eyes and taking a deep breath to calm myself. He could easily eat me as I lay on my back, knees bent and him between my legs, but this position—fuck—this position did something to my insides. I knew I wasn’t going to last long before my first orgasm.

  He leaned on me and whispered in my ear, “You know what your superpower is?”

  I shook my head against the bedspread, not sure what he meant. We joked that I would start to glow in the dark since I was getting radiation treatment. I just wanted my superpower to be that I was healed and I wouldn’t have to go through everything again.

  “Just the thought of you moaning as I please you makes my dick strain, searching to be buried deep inside of you. Your superpower is making me ache so much it hurts. But the sight of your pussy glistening with your arousal makes me realize that your superpower isn’t just one thing. You’re fucking perfect.”

  He rubbed my back in the spot that was burned from radiation. “I love you so much. Whenever you think you aren’t strong enough, know that I believe in you. And if you still think you aren’t, I’ll always be here for you.”

  Tears pricked my eyes as I nodded. If I spoke, I would cry, and I didn’t want to ruin the moment.

  “Now, I’m gonna fuck you with my mouth, then fuck you with my dick.”

  “K,” I breathed. It was all I could say.

  Easton glided his hand over my ass cheek before he used both hands to spread my butt a little wider. Again the cool air from the air conditioning cooled the warmth between my legs, but the sensation was quickly replaced with the heat of his tongue. The first swipe had my stomach clenching, and a moan escaped my lips in response.

  “You like that?” he asked.

  “
Mmm hmm,” I whimpered.

  His hands grabbed my ass cheeks and squeezed while his tongue tasted me. He licked—he sucked—he fucked me with his tongue. My first orgasm always came fast when Easton pleasures me. It didn’t matter if it was his mouth, his fingers or his cock—he knew when to apply pressure against my clit that would cause my body to jolt as the orgasm started to build. He knew when to swirl his tongue against the bud. He knew when to suck, slurping my arousal into his mouth as if to quench his thirst for me. And he knew when to add his fingers and fuck me hard with them to bring me to the point of withering.

  My belly began to tighten as his fingers pumped in and out of me, the sound of my essence coating his long digits as he curled them just right to hit the spot that caused my body to shake. I was close. So close. I felt it building deep in my belly.

  “Fuck,” I hissed.

  “Yeah, fuck is right. Ride my fingers just like that.”

  I moaned again, my eyes closed as I focused on the pleasure he was creating. I wanted to scream out, so I buried my face in the comforter. It was late in the morning, and with our luck, Cheyenne would be home from her sleepover.

  I bit the comforter, moaning again as his two fingers moved back and forth inside me while another one rubbed circles on my clit. He hooked his fingers just right, sending a jolt of pleasure through my entire body. I jerked, ready to explode…

  And then I did.

  My eyes closed tightly as I rode out my orgasm. It overtook my body, my cum dripping onto his hand that he still used, prolonging the wave that rippled from my head to my toes.

  “Holy hell, baby. You have no idea how fucking hot that was. You coming with your ass in my face …”

  I turned to lay on my back, trying to catch my breath, my body occasionally jerking with aftershocks. I sighed, content and ready for a nap. My eyes opened, and the sight of Easton licking his fingers gave me another jolt of energy. His gaze connected with mine and we didn’t say anything as I watched him continue to lick my cum from his digits. After he was done with the final finger, he got off the bed and stood, removing his boxers quickly.