Page 48 of Wicked Knight (Knight's Ridge Empire 1)

I’ve got endless memories of this one, and I have no idea if that makes it any easier or just more painful, knowing what a bright light was taken from us.

Demi Papatonis.

Emotion burns up my throat as I think about her smiling face as we used to run around the garden together, causing general chaos in the house that Sophia and Zoe had no choice but to deal with, seeing as they were older and Mum had checked out even back then. If only we knew how bad it was going to get when we lost Demi as well.

There was barely a year between the two of us, and aside from the guys who’ve always been by my side, she was my best friend.

And then one day, she was no longer there.

Gone to be with Daddy, I remember Sophia trying to tell me, as if it would make it all better.

It fucking didn’t. Nothing could ever make it better.

Tipping the bottle to my lips, I swallow down half of it in the hope of drowning the pain. I’ve always failed in the past, so I have no reason to think it’ll be any different tonight.

There’s only ever one thing that makes the pain any better.

Losing myself in someone else.

In her.

Flipping my lighter, I suck in a deep hit, hoping that it’ll magically make everything in my life right now make sense.

Time seems to stop as I sit there with the drizzle soaking through my hoodie, the sodden ground ensuring my arse is just as wet.

But I don’t care. Here, I feel closer to her. To him, even though I never knew him.

“Tell me what to do,” I whisper into the silence as the darkness begins to swallow me whole.

I have no idea how much time passes as I sit there, shivering from the cold, my head spinning from the mix of vodka and weed.

But despite all that, the second I hear a twig snap behind me I’m on my feet, feeling more sober than ever.

Images of finding her here that night play out in my mind like a fucking movie as I search the darkness for someone, for anything.

I come to the decision that it was just an animal when I see something.

“Wait,” I call before taking off in the direction of the shadow.

The dark figure moves toward the exit, but there’s no fucking way I’m letting her escape this time.

My feet pick up pace, and the second I’m in touching distance, I twist my fingers in the back of her damp hoodie and drag her back into my body.

All the air in her lungs comes out in a rush when she collides with my chest.

I don’t need to look beneath her hood to know it’s her. My body knows.

“What are you doing here, Hellion?”

Refusing to answer, she tries fighting free, but this time, I’m prepared for her and I wrap both my arms around her, pinning her own to her body.

She doesn’t give up easily though, even trying to stomp on my foot in the hope it’ll be enough to make me release her.

Every time a part of her body collides with mine, causing even the slightest bit of pain, my cock hardens against her arse.

“I can go all night if you want,” I growl in her ear, my arms tightening, crushing her curves against my hardness.

“I didn’t come here for you,” she finally hisses.