Page 34 of Reckless Knight (Knight's Ridge Empire 7)

She shrugs, not giving a single fuck about my assessment.

“He was worth it. Not Nico level of fucking, but decent.”

“Pretty sure we’re at the point where you need to start pointing out who you haven’t been with.”

She nods, thinking about it. “Might actually be easier.”

“You’re something else,” I mutter, focusing back on my hair.

“Living my best life, Jojo. Exactly what your mother thinks you should be doing. So what are you wearing tonight?” She pulls my wardrobe open. The move reminds me so much of her actions last weekend that it makes my head spin.

“Just jeans and a top, I dunno.”

“Firstly, no. Secondly, fuck no. You aren’t coming home until that boy has been between your legs, at least once, and that means jeans are firmly out of the question. You need easy access.”

When she turns around, she’s holding up a short leather skirt and an almost sheer white top.

“Perfect,” she announces before throwing both at me.

My lips part to argue, but she cuts me off before I even get a chance.

“I know you’re suffering, but that wild girl still lives inside you, Jojo. Keep digging, you’ll find her again.”

I look down at the outfit in my hands as memories of the first time I wore it out flash through my mind.

Bri booked us a weekend away at a holiday park, and I bought this for our first night. It was wild, like nothing I’d ever experienced before. I was barely seventeen and mostly naïve to the kind of nights out Bri used to go on, assuming her crazy stories were always exaggerated. I was wrong. If anything, she toned them down for me.

I wasn’t a virgin before that weekend, far from it. I gave that baby up to my first boyfriend one night in his bedroom when were both fifteen, but that was the first night I fully embraced the meaning of meaningless sex.

I’m pretty sure I was more myself that weekend as I let my hair down and released my inhibitions than I’ve ever been in my life. Well… until last Friday night.

Being tied up on that cross was the closest I’ve come to the freedom I experienced that weekend. Letting go of everything and handing myself over to someone else.

It’s a heady feeling.

One I’m more than happy to experience again and again when it comes to Toby.

It hits me that that is exactly why I allowed him to take me so publicly earlier. The second he’s close to me, everything else vanishes. It’s like he sucks all the misery and grief right out of me, allowing me to be free, to be me. That and when he touches me I burn like I’ve never experienced before.

“That was some weekend, huh?” Bri asks, her head clearly going to the same place. “We should book another. It’s been too long.”

I nod, although I can’t help feeling weird about a weekend filled with nameless, faceless guys when right now there’s only one who’s taking up my headspace.

“Yeah,” I murmur absently. “What are you wearing?” I ask, dragging my head from filthy memories of Toby this evening.

Fuck, that boy really has some talent.

* * *

“Aw, you two look beautiful,” Mum says with a smile when we finally emerge.

The pain in her eyes still makes me question this, but I can hardly argue after what she said earlier.

“I was going for sexy,” Bri teases, “but I’ll take beautiful.”

Mum shakes her head at her in amusement. “Oh to be young and free again.”

Grief threatens to get its claws into me as the reality of her being single for the first time in her adult life.