Page 22 of Dark Knight (Knight's Ridge Empire 10)

DAEMON

Istare down at her with her pink cheeks, her heaving chest and hard nipples.

Fuck, she literally takes my breath away, she’s so beautiful.

“You could have come to me any time after that night. I’d have understood. But then weeks passed, months, and all I got was a cold shoulder and your basic pleasantries when you had no choice but to be in the same room as me.”

“I always want to be near you.”

She scoffs, ripping her eyes away from mine. “You could have fooled me. It was as if I dreamed up that night. That it never really happened.”

She gasps when I wrap my hands around her knees and spread her legs.

“I never forgot a second of it,” I force out as my mouth waters for a taste of her.

“You’ve barely looked at me since.”

“I’m looking at all of you right now, and I can assure you, there’s nothing else in the world I’d rather be staring at. You’re fucking perfect, Angel.”

Her blush brightens, spreading down her neck and onto her chest.

Slowly, she turns her face back to me, her eyes locking with mine before they drop down my body until she’s able to see exactly how she affects me.

“Not a day has passed that I haven’t thought about you or that night, I fucking swear to you.”

Her stare lingers on the tent in my trousers, and she swallows thickly before her lips part.

“Prove it,” she whispers shyly.

My breath catches at the challenge in her eyes, my cock jerking with my need to finish what we started all those weeks ago.

“With pleasure.”

Releasing her legs, I lean over her, wrapping my hand around the back of her neck and lifting her from the table, crashing her lips to mine.

A deep, hungry growl rumbles in my chest as she mimics my moves, sliding her fingers into my hair and twisting until it hurts. She licks deep into my mouth as if she’s been craving this as badly as I have since that night.

I understand why she thinks Halloween meant nothing to me. But I had—have—my reasons for doing what I did.

I had no right dragging her off into the shadows like that. I’d managed to watch her from a distance all these years, but something snapped in me that night from the first second I laid eyes on her despite my best intentions wherever she’s concerned.

I was doing what was best for her, and I knew for a fact that it wasn’t me.

I still know that, but seeing her laid out beneath him on Friday night…

Fuck.

Anger surges through me, and my need to fucking own her despite the fact that she’s mine right now hits me harder than I’ve ever known.

I was only six years old when I saw this beauty in her.

Six years old when I told myself that one day, she’d be mine.

If only I knew what the next few years were going to hold and how quickly I’d learn that I was never going to be good enough for a girl like Callista Cirillo.

Discovering that was something akin to losing a loved one. I had no idea what it was at the time, but I’ve since discovered the deep ache in my chest every time I thought about not making her mine was grief.

She might have been living and breathing in front of me, but a part of her—us—died the day I realised she needed a better man.