O Christmas Knight Read online

  He grabbed her by the arm again and dragged her several feet away from the door, out of earshot of anybody who might overhear their conversation.

  “Let me go,” she practically growled.

  He released her but got up in her face. “Look, Tyleri—”

  She winced at his use of the nickname her brothers had saddled her with. “Don’t do that!”

  He went on, “I know you’re a badass. We all do. I’ve seen you do more pullups than me. But I’ve also seen your legs in a skirt.”

  He dropped his gaze to her lower regions and when he looked up, she was glaring.

  “I know you’re strong and tough as all Knights are. And what you experienced back there… what you saw… is enough to give SEALS fucking nightmares. Are you telling me you’re above that?”

  Right before his eyes, her façade crumbled. Her features screwed up like a baby’s and she plastered her hand to her face.

  “Jesus Christ, Tyler.” He caught her against his chest, aware of how stiff she held herself and even beneath that, he felt her softness, the feminine side he knew and admired.

  A soft sob racked her, and he gripped her tighter, a hand on her nape so she couldn’t lift her head and show anybody but him that she was breaking down.

  “Let’s get out of here.” He caught her elbow and led her quickly to the building he was housed in. By the time they reached the solitude of the space, her eyes were dry. But he could still see the effects of the past day on her. This was her first battle, and he remembered well how he had felt after his first.

  She walked over to his bunk that he hadn’t yet touched, despite the fatigue that weighed on him, and sank to it. He stood several feet away, watching her.

  What would his friends, the Knight boys, have him do?

  They’d want him to take care of their little sister.

  “Why don’t you lie down?” he said quietly.

  She tipped onto the bed with a zombie-like movement that told him she was in shock. Jesus, maybe she wasn’t cut out for this life at all. Then again, he’d seen grown men do the same thing following the fierce stress of battle.

  She curled onto her side and closed her eyes.

  He could stand it no more. He moved forward and climbed onto the bunk next to her. It was far too narrow for his broad shoulders let alone both of them, but he made it work. Banding an arm around her back, he drew her against him.

  For a long time, she lay there, hardly breathing. He watched her features carefully for signs of further distress. Too late to pull it back, he raised his hand to her temple and smoothed her hair. Then in an act of extreme stupidity, he leaned in and brushed a kiss across her forehead.

  She didn’t move.

  “Can I get you something to eat?” he asked softly.

  She shook her head.

  Hell, she was so soft and near, and his body was stirring at the feel of her. All womanly curves wrapped up in camo, showing her vulnerability only to him. That was the worst threat to his libido possible. Because Hawk was first and foremost a protector, and she was rousing all the right—or rather wrong—feelings in him.

  Before he could stop himself, he rested his forehead against hers. She dragged in a deep, shaky breath.

  Their lips were inches away and if he didn’t stop now, he’d never be able to explain his actions.

  He started to get up, but she grabbed him, twisting a handful of his shirt front in her small but capable fist. That hand had killed in the heat of battle and now it was slaying his self-control.

  “Don’t go yet,” she whispered.

  “Okay.” He ran a hand over her spine, feeling her relax by degrees even as his body grew more taut. She fit into the spaces of his body with perfect ease, all curves and sweetness.

  He was fucking dying.

  At least that was what he thought until she pressed so close that he couldn’t measure the gap between their hips.

  He stopped breathing, his dick hardening at an alarming rate and need raking over him. His first thought was fuck, the Knight boys were gonna kill him. His second was how long could he endure this sweet torture?

  Give him the waterboarding instead.

  Hell, losing all his fingernails would be better right now.

  He looped an arm around her middle, prepared to hold her still if she started wiggling.

  Suddenly, she let out a faint noise, almost a gasp. Up close, her eyes were full of the one thing he never, ever expected to find in the middle of an air base a million miles from home.

  Desire.

  * * * * *

  “Fucking hell, Tyler. What are you doing to me?” Hawk breathed out a hard puff of air as if he’d just been shot in the stomach. Somehow, his reaction to her and the emotions coursing through her body all tangled up into one knot that could only be unwound with a hard, fast fuck.

  She cradled his jaw in one hand. Then he slammed his mouth across hers at the same moment she surged upward. The clash was bruising, wild. He split her lips with his hot tongue, sweeping it over hers with a franticness that sent her pulse racing.

  She tore at his shirt and he gripped each side of her standard cammie blouse. In one hard yank, he ripped the buttons right off the cloth. The top opened to his exploring hands, but he had to push up the T-shirt she wore beneath. He ran his callused fingers over the crest of her breasts held in a black sports bra and then down to her ribs, tickling over them with a gentleness she never thought possible from a man like Hawk.

  He wedged a knee between her thighs and rolled on top of her. The bunk creaked in protest of their combined weight, but she ignored the sound and focused on the harsh breaths he was struggling to take. Or maybe that was her. She didn’t care—just get her clothes off and give her what she needed.

  She tore his shirt overhead, giving her access to the hardest muscles she’d ever been privileged to touch. Her brothers were built, sure, but she only hugged them or punched them accordingly. This man… God, he was beautiful.

  She dug her blunt nails into his shoulders, yanking him down on her. He angled his head and kissed her breathless even as he rocked his knee up into her pussy.

  She moaned, and he let out a growl that rumbled through her entire body. Passion mounted, and she couldn’t wait another second. “Take me,” she breathed.

  “Fucking hell,” he said a second time.

  He went for her boot laces first, reaching back and expertly untying them like he stripped Marines every day of his life. For all she knew, he did. Elise said Hawk had plenty of lovers, though Tyler had never seen him with anyone.

  “I’m warning you I have no condoms and I’m not going to use them on you anyway.” His eyes were dark, glittering with a challenge.

  Which she stepped up and accepted. “I’m on birth control and I know you’re as clean as I am.”

  “It’s not just that. It’s…” He struggled for a second and then gave a rough shake of his head. He never completed the sentence, but she didn’t care because he managed to get her boots loosened enough that she could kick them off. His own followed.

  They stared into each other’s eyes for a long heartbeat and then attacked the rest of their clothing.

  He groaned as he found her cotton boy-shorts underwear and traced the line curving under her ass cheek with a fingertip. Liquid heat pooled in her groin, and her panties grew damper.

  He thrust his tongue into her mouth, stealing all thought of anything but having that impressive length she felt digging into her thigh sliding into her body. God, his erection was just as big as the rest of him.

  She cupped his bulge, and he ground out a noise that sounded like an animal on its prey. If that made her the prey, she didn’t care. She just needed all of this. This touching, being made to feel real after that ordeal and to slake some primal lust she hadn’t ever thought she’d be the one to experience. She’d heard about battle lust hitting but that was men, and men had big hormones.

  Apparently, she did too.

  Or maybe she only
had them for this man.

  When Hawk nudged her thighs apart with his knee and slid a hand into the front of her panties, she held her breath.

  “Goddamn, you’re soaking.” His black eyes flashed.

  “And you’re as hard as stone. Don’t hold back another second. Get inside me—now!” Her command didn’t wipe the stern expression off his face or ease the two lines set between his dark brows.

  He shoved her cargo pants and underwear down and off, leaning side to side atop her to allow her movement. When she was naked and his cock was freed, she immediately wrapped her thighs around his hips and pulled him down.

  He went dead still as she curled her fingers around his cock. She pumped him once, gliding her thumb over the rounded head that was wet with precum.

  Their gazes connected, and she guided his cock to her pussy.

  They were crossing lines in ranks, with her many ticks below him. Yet he couldn’t deny her.

  “Forgive me,” he said with a violent shove of his hips, joining them hard and fast.

  She bucked upward, sucking him deeper yet.

  His body shook, and her own answered with a constant tremor of lust. Her insides quaked and her hands trembled where they kneaded his spine, urging him closer.

  “I always knew you were trouble.” He slammed into her, neck cords straining.

  She laughed softly but the noise was cut off on a gasp as he withdrew. Each inch of his solid, impressive length slipping through her wet walls had her pussy clenching. When he reached the tip, he looked into her eyes and slammed home again.

  They shared a cry, and she caught his lip in her teeth. A growl raised from him, and after that, he took total control. Grabbing her hip to lift her in time to his plunges and slanting his tongue through her mouth until she couldn’t remember a time when he wasn’t doing this to her.

  Fucking her.

  Almost making love to her.

  Jesus, what was she thinking?

  She was thinking Hawk felt amazing and she wanted to get closer.

  She tightened on his next thrust. He burrowed deep into her channel, and when she started to pulsate, on the brink of coming unglued, he dropped his forehead to hers.

  The intimacy of the pose carried her over the ledge of restraint, and she came with a sharp rasp of bliss. He fed her a groan of his own. Rather than stiffening and pumping hard and fast as many men she’d slept with did when they came, Bo grew cuddly. Winding his arm under her and lifting her against his chest, his hips pumping with a slow rhythm as the first hot splash of his cum hit her insides.

  The sensation was shocking. She’d never had a man like this before.

  Then the warmth struck again, and to her even bigger surprise, the feeling sent her straight into a second orgasm.

  She floated, eyes pinched shut on the mind-numbing bliss as Bo continued to ride it out with her. Long after her final shudders faded away, he rocked into her.

  “I can’t quit fucking you.” He was still hard as hell and she was still needy.

  She grabbed his ass and held him to her. While small aftershocks had her clenching and releasing around him, a rumble ran through his chest.

  All of a sudden, her actions hit her.

  She’d just fucked Bo Hawkeye, her brothers’ good friend. A man who often spent time at the family cabin with them and yes, had seen her legs in a skirt or bathing suit many a time.

  He pulled back to look at her, his biceps bulging. His skin was tanned from the sun, a tattoo of the mythical Cajun werewolf that prowled the bayou, Rougarou, snarling at her from his solid pec muscle.

  She pushed against his chest, forcing him to roll off. As soon as she was free, she leaped off the bunk, reaching for her clothes.

  “We can’t ever talk about this,” she said.

  He was silent. She drew on her abandoned underwear but she was still wearing her sports bra. He hadn’t even gone for her breasts.

  What was wrong with her breasts? Maybe they were too small for his taste.

  She shook off her insane thought and stuffed her arms in her sleeves. When she found all the buttons gone or hanging by threads, she left it and reached for her pants.

  He just sat there on the bunk watching her, dark gaze following her every move. He hadn’t responded to her statement either.

  “That’s not a request, Hawk. We can’t talk about this. The family can’t find out. And you have to promise never to tell Elise.”

  “Why the fuck would I tell Elise?”

  “Because you’re still close friends.”

  “Yeah, but I don’t tell her or anybody else who I’ve been with. Jesus, Tyler, you must think I’m a real asshole.”

  She glanced at him, fighting to keep from looking directly into his eyes because she didn’t trust herself. That whole womanly part of her wanted to lie with him and be cuddled against his chest, to have him stroke her hair and share some softer, less urgent kisses.

  But that would be a really, really bad idea.

  Disaster.

  She wrapped the side of her top over the other and stuffed the tails into her pants. It was makeshift at best, and she prayed she didn’t run into any officers on the way to her own quarters. Them finding her with her top shredded open and bite marks on her throat wouldn’t gain her any military honors.

  She shoved her foot into her boot and stomped to settle it. Then the other.

  Hawk still didn’t move, just sat there in all the glory of his nudeness, more carved than even she had imagined.

  He jammed his fingers through his hair, which was longer than the men she’d served with here in Kandahar. Since he was special ops with OFFSUS, he had more freedoms with his personal appearance. She’d even seen some of his teammates sporting beards.

  She averted her gaze from the stiff cock still bobbing in his lap.

  He didn’t speak or reach for her either. That was best—she couldn’t get cozy with this man, and so far the regret hadn’t set in.

  Yet.

  She was certain those feelings would come later when she was alone and had time to think. She’d realize she’d been weak and asked for something she shouldn’t have.

  He pushed out a breath through his nostrils. “You’re seriously leaving things like this?”

  She turned her face away. It was hard as hell to walk away from a man that had just given her two amazing orgasms in a row and whose seed was still trickling from her swollen folds.

  Unable to think of any response, she bit into her lower lip and nodded. Then she bent and tied her boots with haste and practically ran out of his quarters.

  Luckily, she didn’t pass anybody on the way to her own bunk—they were all tied up in the mess hall, celebrating their recent victory. She should be with her team too, but she couldn’t bring herself to go back even if she didn’t look like she’d just been ravished.

  Well-loved.

  Thoroughly loved.

  God, Bo was a fucking great lover.

  Her insides coiled at the memories fresh in her mind, spurred on by his scent all over her.

  She had to get a shower and fast. Washing away the musk of his body and their shared pleasure still wetting her inner thighs was the only way to forget what had just happened.

  But long after a hot shower, she lay on her own bunk, thinking of the man who hadn’t been afraid to touch her, to meet her demands stroke for stroke.

  That regret she expected to feel never hit.

  Chapter Three

  “Where’s Team Omega?” Hawk’s question came out rougher than he’d like, and the guys he’d fought with eyed him.

  Between jet lag and the Tyler thing, Hawk had slept all of a few hours, and he wasn’t in a fuck-with-me mood. He’d already searched the mess hall and the perimeters of each building on this dry plot of earth for sight of the woman who was haunting his every waking and sleeping moment.

  “Shipped out this morning. Should be Stateside this evening.”

  “Goddammit.”

  The guys s
tared at him, and he couldn’t let on that he was losing his grip. Though it was coming close at this point.

  “One of the guys left something behind. I’ll track him down once I get home,” he said to cover his ass.

  Glaring at the ground, he strode to the buffet and dumped food on his tray without even bothering to look what it was. It could be pig slop, for all he knew or cared. He had to eat because his body required it but he was far from hungry.

  At least not for food.

  Tyler had shaken him.

  No, rocked him, more like.

  Dammit, Earthquake Tyler had struck with full force, leaving him on uneven ground with pits and chasms all around him and no idea how to proceed.

  She wanted him to pretend he’d never laid a hand on her.

  He felt a growl rising in his throat and the guy next to him shot him a look. Hawk cut off the noise and grabbed two bananas. He was fucking boiling with anger over Tyler’s actions. First, walking out on him and demanding he not kiss and tell. As if he would. She couldn’t even look at him full in the face, and that rankled more than anything.

  And she hadn’t come to say goodbye either.

  That he might be able to forgive. Knowing how the military worked, she might’ve had five minutes to pack her gear and load up. But when he got back to Louisiana, he was damn well going to hunt her down and clear the air.

  If he didn’t, this… encounter… would be hanging over them forever, creating tension where there didn’t need to be any. Her brothers would notice, and Elise would have Hawk by the balls and squeezing till he at least admitted something had gone down.

  No, he had to handle this.

  He slammed his tray down on the table and sank to the bench. He also had to handle his thoughts on the matter.

  He wasn’t about to pretend he hadn’t experienced the hottest moment he’d ever had with Tyler.

  Women came and went in his life. The only one who’d meant anything to him he’d married. Both he and Elise admitted that their marriage had been a mistake. They’d been great friends but lacked heavily in the passion department.