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

TOBY

Ididn’t want to wait a week to see her again. But between school, work, and her never leaving her house aside from her morning run—which I have no intention of ruining just yet— I didn’t have a lot of choice.

I could have reached out, I know that. I had her number in my contacts. Hell, I’ve spent enough time over the past few days staring at it as I’ve debated the best way to play this. But I knew that it needed to be in person.

It would be too easy for her to cast me aside and put our night down as the best one-night stand of her life and move on.

But that wasn’t how things were going to go for us. I had bigger, better, and more enjoyable plans for our future.

And the first of those was reminding her just how electric we were together last Friday.

I might have planted myself in the middle of her night out with her cousin, but there’s no denying the chemistry between us. That was something I could have only hoped for, prayed for.

The car rumbles to life beneath us a beat before the side of my face burns with her attention.

“I really hope you’re not expecting me to be impressed by that, because I should warn you, I’m not really into all the flashy stuff.”

A smile pulls at my lips and a laugh falls free.

Of all the girls in the city, I manage to find the one who’s going to be suitably unimpressed by all the things I could offer her. Figures that the universe doesn’t want to make this easy for me. I should probably take that as a sign that I should be backing away from this plan, but I won’t.

I need it.

I crave it.

“So fancy restaurants are out then?” I quip, pulling from the space and gunning it down the empty street.

Jodie lets out a little squeal as she’s thrown back in the seat by the power of my engine, and I glance over.

“Okay, so maybe I am a teeny bit impressed by that. How fast does it go?”

“Should have guessed you were an adrenaline junkie.”

“I have my moments,” she mutters.

“I remember,” I confess, shifting in my seat as my thoughts linger on the events of that night a little too long.

Jodie doesn’t say anything else as I make my way toward our side of town, but the silence isn’t uncomfortable as she sits there, picking at her nails.

Her sadness is palpable as she loses herself in her thoughts. But even her misery isn’t enough to cut through my anger.

“Where are we?” she asks, looking out the window when I pull to a stop on the side of another street.

“Wait and see. I think it’ll hit the spot.”

Climbing out of the car, I get to her side just as she pushes the door open. Scowling at her for doing it for me, I reach for her hand, unable to stop myself from wanting to touch her again, to convince myself that spark that shot up my arm when I twisted my fingers with hers in the shop wasn’t a figment of my imagination.

She gasps the second her hand slips into mine, and I can’t help but smile down at her.

Hell yeah, it’s real. And she feels it too.

After leaving her in Brianna’s flat in the early hours of Saturday morning, I couldn’t help wondering if I’d made it all up. That I wanted it so badly that my mind had run away with me and let me believe she was everything I could have ever asked for. It wasn’t hard to convince myself of that, because I haven’t exactly been of sound mind over the past few weeks.

But as I pull her to her feet before me, I’m reminded of just how real it was.

It makes my head spin.

“Let’s see what you’ve got then, hotshot,” she taunts, showing me a little more of the sassy girl from last weekend instead of the sad one I first found tonight.