Knight

Chapter Thirteen My World

On Knight’s black, marble counter my phone rang while I was at the stove, boiling water for spaghetti and browning hamburger for sauce. I left the meat, grabbed the phone and saw on the display the call was from Viv. I took it while wandering back to the stove and put it to my ear.

“Hey, honey,” I greeted.

“I was a bad girl.”

I blinked at the hamburger.

Then I burst out laughing.

Through my giggles, I asked, “Were you now?”

“Very,” she said through her own giggles. “Have I told you today I love Knight Sebring?”

I pushed the meat around, smiling at it and said, “Not today. Yesterday you did. Not today.”

“Well I do.”

“I take it things with Rhashan are going good?” I asked softly.

It had been just over a month since my party. I was no longer a file clerk. All my nail clients, and I lost only one, were able to move to days. But losing the one was okay because two of my clients took on six-weekly facials, Kathleen added a monthly facial, so did Sandrine and Viv and Kathleen got her girlfriend Louise to bring her acrylics business to me. So I was actually ahead.

I spent part of my days talking to Mahleena, the bossy bitch who liked to spend money who actually didn’t seem bossy to me but she definitely liked to spend money. We were now implementing the plans to deal with my gonna-be kickass spa. I was also taking an online course in small business management that Knight suggested.

So even without the day job, I was still busy.

But my nights were at Knight’s. In fact, the last two weeks since my last day at work, my apartment felt like my workplace since I’d go there to work and come home to Knight. We had dinner together then he left for work. I rambled around for a few hours, reading, watching television, talking on the phone, doing my coursework at his computer in his study and I went to bed in satin sheets. I woke up in them too. And without having to be at work at eight, I woke up later and got to sleep longer with Knight.

It was the bomb.

Life was good.

And now it seemed it was good for Vivica too.

“Hun… nee,” she whispered as an answer to my question and said no more.

Surprising both Viv and me, Rhashan had started things out with only dating and this had lasted three weeks. He was feeling Vivica out. She was my age, he was thirty-six. A nine year gap which concerned him, because as he told Viv, when he first saw her, he saw her clubbing. He was in settling in mode and looking for The One. And he wasn’t fucking around, not even literally. It wasn’t about getting off. It was about finding a partner for more than spanking.

Viv was impatient, she liked to get herself some and, like me before Knight, had hit a dry spell even for normal sex. But she was understanding as well as intrigued. As date wore into date, that understanding deepened and she got smitten and she was smitten with more than the fact he was seriously hot.

Last week, Viv reported, he broke the seal. “Vanilla sex” she said that was “out of this world”.

The night after Rhashan broke the seal, he started breaking her in. Or, in Rhashan lingo, bringing her to heel.

Viv was on top of the world.

“After you were bad, was he good to you?” I asked.

“A powerhouse, six foot, seven inch brother doling out punishment?” she whispered. “Yes, Anya, my guy was good to me. He can wield a crop and I mean that in more ways than one. At one point, I think I was in a different galaxy.”

I put the spaghetti in water, thinking vaguely I should ask Knight to take us shopping and find some way to be naughty while smiling and murmuring, “Great honey.”

“He ties me to him while we sleep.”

I blinked.

“What?”

“He ties our wrists together while we sleep so I won’t go very far. He likes his woman close while he sleeps.”

My belly melted.

I loved that for her.

I just hoped she did.

“You like that?”

“Cuddling a warm, hard mountain of muscle who wants me close? Girl,” she drew it out softly. “Abso-fucking-lutely. Living the dream.”

“Oh Viv,” I whispered.

“Anya.”

I jumped and turned to see Knight, who’d been in his study, standing at the edge of the bar, eyes on me, face weirdly unreadable.

“Hang on, Viv,” I said into the phone and put it to my shoulder. “Yeah, sweetheart?”

“Let Viv go,” he ordered and his tone was as weird as his expressionless face.

I knew he could do impassive but he didn’t do that very often anymore. Not with me.

And his tone…

I held his eyes as I put the phone to my ear. “Viv, Knight needs to speak with me. Gotta go, honey.”

“Right, babe. Been bad?”

I smiled a small smile still looking at Knight. “Not lately.”

“Get on that. Report back. Later.”

“Later.”

I disconnected and the minute I did, Knight said, “Turn off the stove.”

“But the spagh –”

“Baby, stove. Off.”

I drew in breath.

Then I turned, set my cell aside and switched off the burners on the stove.

Then I turned back to Knight. “Everything okay?”

“You might or might not get a visit from the cops. I’m tellin’ you now so you’ll be prepared in case you do. And I’m tellin’ you ‘cause you got the right to know.”

My body locked but my lips whispered, “What?”

“David Watson was shanked today. Bled out before they got him to the infirmary.”

My hand flew out, found counter and held tight.

David Watson killed my parents.

I stared at Knight.

Then I whispered, “How do you know?”

“I know because I looked into shit, found out who he was and where he was. Then I talked to some people who talked to some people and I made it clear I’d look on it favorably if David Watson wasn’t enjoyin’ his state-funded, lifetime vacation.”

Oh my God.

Knight wasn’t done.

“I did not call the hit. That said, I do not give a fuck that dirtbag is dead. Though, I would have preferred they played with him a while longer before he hit the yard in a pool of his own blood.”

Oh my God.

“Why did you do that?” I asked quietly.

“Because he set my woman up for eleven years of misery. And I did it before I even knew the fullness of what that bitch of an aunt of yours took from you. I knew to carve a decent life for yourself you worked or went to school sixty hours a week. I also knew you had a cell phone that didn’t work which meant you were unsafe and a woman with a father who gives a fuck about her, no matter her age, would not be unsafe. Not like that. And I knew you had no real family to speak of. He made that happen. I’m not down with that. Payback was not him not being here. Payback was making him pay. That’s no longer an option. He’s dead.”

I didn’t know what to do with this. I didn’t know what to think about this. I didn’t know what to think about Knight doing this.

Therefore I didn’t speak.

Knight did, eyes pinned to me.

“It’s time you learn something about me, Anya,” he said gently. “I don’t live in your world. I live in another world. It’s my world. I took it over. I rebuilt it. I own it. I control it. I have a code. Anyone in my world lives by my code. And in my world, a man who shot a husband and father on the way to work then put a bullet in that man’s wife’s brain, my woman’s mother’s brain, does not breathe easy. I can see you strugglin’ with this and I’ll give you time. But you need to come to terms with it. The understanding of retribution is essential in my world. You do not fuck with what’s mine.”

“That was twenty years ago, Knight,” I whispered.

“I don’t give a fuck, Anya.”

“You didn’t even know me then, not even close.”

“I don’t give a fuck about that either.”

“He was paying for his crime,” I reminded him.

“Not hard enough,” he stated firmly.

This, I could not deny, was absolutely true.

I held his eyes.

Then I said quietly and cautiously, “Don’t you think that’s a little crazy?”

“Not… even… close.”

I held my breath.

Knight held my eyes.

I let out my breath and looked away.

“Eyes to me.”

“I need time,” I told the floor.

“Look… at… your… man,” he growled and, my heart beating wild in my chest, my eyes went to him. “You do not fuck with what’s mine.”

I was silent.

Knight was not.

“Carl Sebring came in my life when I was seven and that was the beginning of the end of a life that was pure shit. David Watson came into your life when you were seven and that motherfucker made your life shit. Only when I came into it twenty years later did it stop bein’ shit. It is not lost on me we share that age when our lives rocked but I lived seven of bad and I got twenty-eight years of good. You lived seven years of good and got twenty of shit. That is absolutely not acceptable to me. And when something is unacceptable, I do something about it.”

I loved it that he felt that way.

I still could not process what he’d done for me.

So I remained silent.

Knight did not.

“He harmed you, irrevocably. He changed the path of your life. You mentioned my smoking once and then didn’t say dick about it. Women bitch about shit like that. You do not. And it’s not because you were used to it with your aunt. It’s because it reminds you of your father. You loved him, you miss him. So you don’t say dick. You dream more than any fuckin’ person I know. You say they’re all not good. You don’t sleep all night by me but you sleep by me, babe, and if you think for a second I don’t feel you jerk awake at least once every fuckin’ week because you had a bad dream, you’re wrong. I feel it. Every fuckin’ time. You said that started when you were seven. They died when you were seven. He gave you that. He did all that. And he paid. That’s what happens in my world to someone who fucks with what’s mine. Like I said, you need to find a way to come to terms with that. You want me to help guide the way, I’m here. You can find that path on your own, good. But you need to find that path, Anya. Because I own you. You live in my world. You need to find a way to live with that, baby. There’s no other option.”

I pressed my lips together. Then I ran them back and forth.

Then I nodded.

Knight studied me.

Then he asked quietly, “When’s the spaghetti gonna be ready?”

“Maybe fifteen minutes. I’ll call you,” I answered softly.

“Right, baby,” he whispered then he turned and walked away.

I watched him go. Then I stayed frozen in place watching where I last saw him.

Then I turned and finished the spaghetti.

I was awake when Knight opened the front door.

I rolled and looked through the dark at his alarm clock to see he was really early. It wasn’t even two in the morning yet.

I rolled back.

My guess, he was worried about me. Or where my head was at. I barely spoke through spaghetti. As he was changing into his suit, I sat on his plush, gray suede couch in front of the TV, mindlessly watching it to the point where, when he came in and his fingers sifted in my hair and gave it a gentle tug back so he could lean in and kiss me, my kiss and farewell were distracted. I knew he felt it, noted it because Knight noted everything. I also knew because his hand in my hair held my head back seconds longer than usual and his eyes roamed my face.

Then he let my hair go but kissed the top of my head and left me.

After he was gone, I didn’t zone out. I was Knight’s and I’d been with him long enough to know what that means. He said he’d give me time but in Knight’s world, even with something this important, that didn’t mean days or weeks. That meant on his schedule. He was decisive. He expected those around him to be the same.

So I tried to figure it out. How I felt about this and it wasn’t lost on me that I never really allowed myself to think about how I felt about the way Knight dealt with my Jerk Landlord Steve or what Knight did with Dick.

He told me he didn’t call the hit on David Watson. He told me he sent his boys to talk to Jerk Landlord Steve and they didn’t like what he said. They didn’t go in and bust him up. He was a jerk then they made their point. And Dick quietly moved away. I didn’t see him but no one mentioned that he looked beat up or that there was any ruckus in the building. Dick gave notice, he moved and from what I heard from neighbors I ran into, they were relieved.

Truth be told, I spent so much time burying the fact that David Watson still existed in the world, I honestly could not call up much emotion for the fact he no longer did.

He killed my parents. Knight was right, he altered the path of my life and he harmed me irrevocably. It was random, he didn’t even know them, they’d done him no wrong. He was looking out for himself and jacking up lives along the way, his girlfriend, his baby dead, my parents dead, my life changed forever.

It wasn’t Knight’s responsibility he was dead. He didn’t ask for that. And I didn’t know what it said about me but digging deep and thinking about it, I could also not call up much emotion about the fact that Knight took measures to make him pay. I wouldn’t do it myself. I didn’t condone it. But I didn’t think less of Knight because he did it. He did it for me. He did it because that was the kind of man he was and that was the kind of world he lived in.

And I lived in that world now too.

This was not lost on me though I had been doing what Knight said I was doing. Burying my head. Not thinking about it. But right off the bat, Knight was always who he was, he did what he did, he never hid anything from me.

And I took his hand and walked right into his world.

I could not quibble now.

I had a choice.

Now that my head no longer was buried I could walk out of his world and never look back.

Or stay.

I also knew I didn’t have all the information. Knight said he’d tell me about him when he was ready for me to know. He doled out information carefully and unlike with everything else, he was not generous. I understood this. In his world, I was sensing, he needed to proceed with caution. Even with me. But from the little he told me of his early years, they would mark anybody. There were women, heck, not just women but people, I knew, who would hear his mother was a prostitute, part of his growing up years he grew up in that life and didn’t know who his father was and they’d think things about Knight. That would make anyone wary especially if they were falling in love. He undoubtedly faced those judgments more than once in his life. And he’d given me so much; I could give him time to share at his pace with me.

And that was just it, he’d given me so much. And I wasn’t talking phones, shoes and spas.

I was safe. I was spoiled. I was adored.

I was loved.

I couldn’t dictate how that came about.

Especially not to a man like Knight.

I heard and saw his shadowy frame walk into the bedroom and I watched, motionless, lying on my side in bed, my arms cocked, hands lying in front of me.

He moved around the bed to his side and even though my back was to him, I heard him disrobing, his expensive clothes falling to the floor.

The covers shifted, the bed moved but I didn’t.

Just like Knight, he didn’t waste time. He slid in behind me, one hand trailing down my arm to find mine, his fingers laced through and he pulled both our hands close to my chest as he pressed into my back.

I felt his body, his warmth and smelled his cologne.

I closed my eyes.

His lips came to my ear. “You find the right path?”

He knew I was awake.

I was right. He came home early worried about me. Where I was. With him.

I had to decide.

Right now.

Walk out of his world and never look back.

Or stay.

My mouth decided for me.

I opened my eyes and whispered, “Yes.”

His fingers tensed in mine and I listened to him draw in a deep breath, wondering what was next. What he’d do.

He let me go and rolled away.

I lay still.

“Up on your knees, Anya, facing me.”

I felt a heady curl between my legs.

I’d made the right decision. Call me crazy but, I was the woman for him just as I was and just as he was, Knight Sebring was the man for me.

Then I pushed up, the covers fell away and I turned, getting up on my knees, facing Knight.

“Closer, baby.”

I shifted closer.

“Lose the cami.”

My fingers went into my camisole. I lifted it up, pulled it off and tossed it aside.

His fingers trailed along the top of my thigh lightly then disappeared.

Through this and after, I trembled.

“Pull your shorts down and your panties.”

Another heady curl that whirled up to my belly.

I pulled my shorts and panties down to my thighs.

“Drop to a hip, baby, get rid of them then back on your knees.”

I fell to my hip, pulled my pajama shorts and panties free of my legs and tossed them aside. Then I regained my knees.

“Closer,” he whispered and I shifted close so my knees were against his side. “Anya,” his whisper had changed, slight rebuke, “you know what I like.”

For a second, I was confused.

Then I slid my knees out slightly wide.

I was rewarded as his hand slid up the inside of my thigh then started lightly playing between my legs.

“That’s it, baby,” he murmured.

The curl started to become an ache.

He was silent as his fingers moved and played oh so light between my legs.

“Give Daddy more,” he muttered and my legs slid wider. I did good and I knew it when his thumb flicked hard against my clit and I gasped. “That’s good, baby.”

I noticed movement and watched as his hand went to his cock and as he played with me, he idly stroked himself.

God, I loved to watch him do that.

I loved it but watching it, I wanted to do it. I wanted him in my mouth. I wanted him in me.

I whimpered.

His thumb again flicked my clit and my hips jerked.

“Whose world do you live in, Anya?” he asked so softly I barely heard.

“Your world.”

Another flick, oh God, God, it scored through me.

“Who owns you, baby?”

“You do.”

Another flick, my hips jerked again and I mew slid out of my throat.

Two of his fingers slid inside, deep, and I bit my lip.

“Who owns this cunt?” he whispered.

“You do.”

“Who does?”

“You do, Daddy.”

Another flick, another hip jerk, another mew.

God!

His fingers slid out and he went back to playing.

“Who possesses your beauty?”

“You do.”

“You’re right, Anya, I do.”

I waited for the flick and didn’t get it so I whimpered.

His hand went away and I whimpered again.

“Tonight, my baby feels greedy,” he muttered.

I was always greedy.

“Bend to me,” he ordered.

Instantly, I bent to him. Halfway down, his hand caught my hair.

“Stop.”

I stopped, his hand gathered my hair and twisted it then he put pressure on and my face was heading to his cock that his hand was still stroking. He guided my mouth to it, my lips opened and I took the tip before his fist in my hair got tight.

“Just the tip, baby, hold onto Daddy’s cock and roll me with your tongue.”

Yes, I wanted this. I wanted more but I’d take this.

My lips closed around tight and I rolled him with my tongue as he stroked. This was hot. I loved the taste of him, the silk of him on my tongue.

“Sweet cunt, sweet mouth, my sweet baby,” he whispered.

Then his hand went away and his hips surged up, filling my mouth with his cock.

Heat flooded me and I took him.

His hand in my hair gave me my cues, he wanted me to stroke and suck.

I did. Fast, hard, working it, loving it, listening to him groan, feeling his hand in my hair, wanting my hand between my legs, or his hand, but getting more excited because I couldn’t have either.

God, I could come just doing this.

His fist in my hair pulled me back and his voice growled, “On your back, knees up, legs spread, hands behind your knees opening you wide. Prepare to take me.”

I rolled, lifted, positioned and he was right there, cock in his hand, guiding it in, his other hand in the bed beside me, arm straight.

He drove into me.

My neck arched, my back left the bed, my own hands jerked my legs even wider. Nothing better.

Nothing better than being connected to Knight.

“Eyes,” he grunted, driving fast, deep, brutal, fucking me raw. My chin tipped down and my eyes went to him. “You can touch me.”

Immediately, my hands went from behind my knees to him.

He dropped his forearms to the bed beside me, giving me some of his weight, still thrusting fast, hard, but my hands had more available to them so they moved over his skin, his muscle and they did this feverishly.

“You love me?” he growled in my ear.

My hand slid into his hair and fisted. “Yes, honey.”

“Who do you love?”

“You, Daddy,” I gasped, it was coming.

“No, baby,” he whispered. “That’s sweet and you know I love it but say my name. Who do you love?”

I turned my head, shoving my face in his neck and breathed, “I love you, Knight.”

His head came up, mine went back, his eyes caught mine through the darkness and his cock slammed into me as he growled, “You love me, Anya. Don’t forget that.”

“I won’t, honey,” I breathed, holding on, my arm tightening around his back, my fist tight in his hair.

“Never, baby.”

“Never, Knight,” I gasped then came.

He fucked me harder.

Oh God.

“Give me your face,” he grunted, slamming into me and I focused on him. “That’s it, baby, give me that beauty.”

Then his mouth crushed down on mine, one of his hands shafting up, fingers driving into my hair, fisting, his tongue thrust in, started plundering, his hips went wild and he groaned down my throat.

He kept plundering then he gentled the kiss and his cock started gliding then he planted himself to the root, his lips slid to my ear and his fist loosened in my hair but his fingers stayed tangled there.

“My mother named me Knight because she needed one.”

Sated, still coasting, his unexpected, revealing words made my body still.

Then I wrapped my legs around him and held tight.

“Fuck me,” he whispered, voice low, nearly hoarse, “so fuckin’ sweet.”

“Tell me,” I whispered back, giving him a squeeze.

His head came up, he shifted slightly to the side but stayed connected to me. He did this so his hand could slide out of my hair to wrap around the side of my neck and his thumb started stroking my jaw.

“Her little man,” he whispered, “her knight. I would protect her, she told me. She needed that. She was so fucked up, her life so jacked, her only hope was a fuckin’ baby.”

My body melted under his but my limbs stayed tight as my hand in his hair drifted so my fingertips could brush through the curls at his neck.

“I hate that for you,” I whispered back.

“It’s what she raised me to be. It’s all I know, Anya. Protection. I was born then I was raised to be a shield.”

My hand slid to cup his jaw as tears filled my eyes and I whispered, “Honey.”

“I loved her then, I love her now. It was not a hardship, Anya. It’s who I am. It was what I was made to be.”

“Okay, sweetheart.”

“No one harms you,” he told me.

“Okay,” I whispered.

“I looked into your aunt.”

I blinked in the dark.

“She’s doin’ a bang up job of makin’ her own life a misery, she doesn’t need any help. So I’ve left her to it. But I’ll tell you right now, babe, if she was livin’ even a little of the good life, I’d take that away.”

“Knight, we don’t –”

“No,” he cut me off firmly, “bury your head tomorrow. Tonight, you get me. No one harms you, Anya, and like you do when I tell you to get on your knees beside me, when I take that sweet mouth with my cock when I want it, when I fuck that beautiful cunt as hard as I like, I do what I feel I gotta do and you yield to me.”

“Okay,” I whispered again.

“You chose your path and the path you chose, there’s no turning back.”

I started trembling.

“Anya, listen to me, mark this, there is no turning back.”

My hand started to slide away from his face but he moved quickly, caught it and held it there.

“You had our chance tonight, babe. And you got to your knees beside me. There’s no turning back. You can’t give me that, all of that, and take it away. You need to get this, baby, and right now I need to know you do.”

It was a test. Tonight wasn’t the usual bossy. It was a test.

And as far as Knight was concerned, I passed.

I stared at the planes and angles of his shadowed face.

“Anya, do you get this?”

I licked my lips.

“Baby –”

“I get it, Knight,” I whispered.

He held my eyes and even through the dark I could feel them burning into me.

Then he dropped his head, forehead to mine before he slid his nose along mine.

“I love you, Anya, you’re the only woman who’s had that from me and you’re the only one who ever will.”

He meant that. Every word. To his soul

He meant it.

This rocked me so deeply I closed my eyes and my body tightened under him and all around him.

Call me crazy, but I liked that.

His lips came to mine and my eyes opened.

“Go. Clean up. I wanna eat you then fuck you again.”

“Okay, Knight,” I whispered and he slid out.

“Hurry,” he ordered gently then rolled off me.

I rolled out of bed.

And as my man told me to do, I hurried.