Page 95 of Deviant Knight (Knight's Ridge Empire 4)

Reading it back, I realise it sounds even more bitter than I was intending, so I quickly send another.

Emmie: Thank you.

I just about manage to refrain from telling him that I’d take his cock over a joint as a gift any day, but I’m not asking—begging—again. The fact that I did it once was enough and mortifying.

Never in a million years did I think he’d actually refuse.

Hurt cuts through me.

He was hard and more than ready to go.

“I can’t.”

His words slice me open as if he were saying them now, right in front of me.

I shouldn’t care. I shouldn’t want to fuck him either. But damn it, I do. Badly.

Having his mouth on me last night, his fingers as deep as they’d go… All it’s done is make me crave him that much more. To know how our bodies would feel writhing together, how his muscles would bunch with every move. How painful his fingers would be digging into my hips as he tried to bury himself inside me.

Damn it. I’m wet for him again and he’s not even here.

His Lordship: I really enjoyed the rest of my night. Thank you for asking.

My fingers brush my lips once more, but I refuse to believe what my head, what my body, is trying to tell me.

That he went back to the party and fucked a girl with the brain cells of a gnat senseless because she’s safe.

I refuse to believe anything else.

* * *

“Morning, sleepyhead,” Dad says, shooting me an insanely happy smile when I finally make it to the kitchen a long time later.

The scent of breakfast cooking has long since vanished. I might have been starved, but I was in no state to grace any of these lot with my presence.

One look in the mirror and the events of the night before came slamming back into me.

My cheek was red with scratches from the rough tree, and my arse had his fingertips bruised into it along with a still rosy patch from his palm—not that they’d see that, but still, I’d know it was there.

“Merry Christmas,” I say, forcing as much joy into it as possible as eight sets of eyes follow me through the room until I drop into a chair at the table.

“Merry Christmas, kiddo,” Dad says, marching over and placing a sloppy kiss on my cheek.

“Ew. Not necessary,” I mutter. “You’re all way too happy,” I state, looking at everyone.

“It’s Christmas Day, why wouldn’t we be happy?” Titch says, bouncing on the balls of his feet like an excited kid.

“And you all got laid last night,” I scoff, making both Kas and Spike spit out the mouthful of coffee they’d both taken.

“Emmie,” Dad scolds.

“What? You got married, but thankfully you were out there…” I gesture to the attached treehouse part of the cabin the newlyweds are staying in. “But those three couples…” I pin each of them with a look, “Some of them, or all of them, were going at it like rabbits last night. Right. Above. My. Head,” I point out with a raised brow.

“Jealous, kid?” Titch asks, much to my dad’s horror.

“Emmie, do not answer that,” he growls.

“Ugh, keep your hair on, old man. I don’t want to screw your old, wrinkly friends.”