Page 23 of Dark Knight (Knight's Ridge Empire 10)

So I took a step back and watched from the shadows.

I watched her grow. Blossom from the sweet girl to an innocent young woman who struggled to come to terms with the world she’d been born into, while I’d jumped into it feet first a long time before.

I’m dragged back to reality, to her, when her teeth sink into my bottom lip so hard the taste of copper fills my mouth.

“Calli,” I groan into her kiss, hardly able to believe she’s allowing this to happen right now.

I might be crazy, possessive, impulsive, jealous, and a whole heap of other bad things, but I’m not an idiot. I’m more than aware that she should have run the second I gave her the chance earlier.

I even left the front door unlocked for her.

But she didn’t take it. She didn’t even try to leave.

My chest swells with the knowledge that she chose to be here.

She chose to be in my flat with me instead of going to discover the fallout from what happened with the Italians on Friday night.

Hell, she’s barely even asked me about any of it.

She saw me at my worst. Yet, she’s still here.

Needing more, I rip my lips from hers and kiss across her jaw, nipping at her skin. Doing exactly what I said I needed to do earlier and erasing his touch, his kisses, his marks from her skin by replacing them with my own.

Her back arches on the table as I glide my hand up her side, not stopping until I’m cupping one of her breasts.

“Oh God, yes,” she moans, her body arching again when I release her neck and take the other in my palm.

“Fuck, you’re sensitive,” I groan when I pinch both of her nipples and she cries out.

Her grip on my hair tightens and she tugs me forward toward her body.

“What do you need, beautiful?” I ask, wanting to hear her beg for me.

“Your mouth.” Her eyes find mine and she tugs on my hair once more, the biting pain making my cock weep. “Please. I want your mouth on me, Nikolas.”

“Fuuuck.” All the air comes racing out of my lungs.

I hate that name. It’s connected to so much shit in my life that I’d rather forget. Hearing it usually makes me murderous. But listening to it fall from her lips as a needy plea…

Fuck.

It does something to me I’ve never experienced before.

“You’re a fucking angel.”

Dipping my head, I suck her nipple deep into my mouth, making her cry out my name—my real name—once more.

I groan, the vibrations shooting through her, causing her fingers to twist tighter in my hair.

“I need you, beautiful.”

“You don’t deserve me,” she forces out between her heaving breaths as I kiss down her belly, aiming for that sweet spot between her legs.

“You think I don’t know that? But as true as that might be, I’m not sure I can let anyone else have you either.”

“That’s not for you to— shit,” she shrieks when I latch onto her clit and suck it into my mouth. “Oh my God. Fuck. Nikolas.” Her hips roll, grinding her cunt right against my face.

Best fucking moment of my life.