O Christmas Knight Read online

  He spread his legs and let her see his cock growing stiffer behind his fly.

  Her gaze flashed down and pink rushed into her cheeks. She released him with a grunt of disgust and pivoted in her seat away from him, though there wasn’t much room to escape.

  When he chuckled, she shot him a dirty look that only amused him further.

  Her wrapper crinkled loudly as she crushed it in her fist and fixated on scarfing down the rest of her sandwich. She drank off her water too and then stood.

  “I’d like to go to the restroom.” She was locked in by his legs, hers inches from his thigh.

  For a split second, he considered tearing her off her feet and settling her over his still-hard cock. Of pressing his fingers into the spot that would make her moan.

  “Hawk.” She gave him the warning tone she probably reserved for her trainees.

  He chuckled and got up to allow her to pass. But she still had to skirt around him and he was so big that meant their bodies touched. She quickly hurried down the aisle.

  After that, time seemed to whiz by and soon they were touching down on US soil. That hot bath was sounding more and more promising. But then Tyler announced that she’d been given a month’s leave, was renting a car and driving straight home to Louisiana.

  He stared at her. “You can’t be serious.”

  “Why not? I’m well rested and there’s no reason for me to stick around in whatever location they put us up in.”

  He felt his shoulders, knotted for days, slump. No hot bath in his future.

  “I’m coming with you.”

  She was shaking her head before the words left his lips.

  Irritation rose up. “Why the hell not?” he said louder than he wanted and drawing attention from several of the guys.

  “I’m capable of getting myself home.” She pressed the back of her wrist to her forehead like a belle of old times swooning. “I’m not a lady who needs her fainting couch.” She straightened and dropped her hand, bending to heft her heavy pack over her shoulder.

  She took two steps before he groaned and picked up his own. At this point he wasn’t sure if spending hours in the car with her driving back to New Orleans would make him desire her more or make him look for the first opportunity to ditch her. Probably both.

  When he caught up to her, she stopped in her tracks. “Hawk, I’m going alone. But thanks.” She didn’t sound remotely thankful.

  “Too damn bad.” He reached for his phone and dialed a rental car place to come and drop one off for them in fifteen minutes. “There,” he said, pocketing the phone again, “it’s all settled.”

  “Elise never told me you’re such a controlling man.”

  “Probably because I’m not.” He grinned, suddenly not as tired as he thought. Hell, he could drive for hours with this kind of banter between them.

  As soon as the rental arrived and he climbed behind the wheel, Tyler threw him a dirty look and walked stiffly to the passenger’s side. She didn’t say a word, just got in. He tuned the radio to an opera station.

  She gave him the side-eye but her lips were pressed shut.

  Smiling, he drove. After a few miles, he turned up the music on a particularly drawn-out, yodeling note.

  Tyler just looked at him.

  “This is where it gets really good.” He sat back in his seat and pretended to feel the music.

  Still nothing from the woman at his side, and he didn’t know why he was goading her so much.

  He tossed her a look. “You know, I could use some fresh air. The A/C always dries out my sinuses.”

  She gave him an are-you-kidding look.

  When he rolled down his window the entire way, her hair began to swirl around her face. She brushed it away like an annoying fly.

  How far could he push her till she snapped? The silent treatment was killing him.

  “Do you take lessons off my brothers?” she finally burst out.

  Biting back a chuckle, he gave her an innocent glance. “What do you mean?”

  “They’re the most annoying men on the planet and you’re rivaling them right now.”

  “Only rivaling? I’ll have to try harder.”

  He reached for the controls and rolled her window down too.

  “Fine!” She released her seatbelt and twisted in her seat, leaning her torso out the window as if to tuck and roll in the middle of the highway.

  “Fine! Damn. You really prefer air conditioning, don’t you?” He pressed a button and her window rolled up.

  She buckled again, simultaneously reaching for the radio control. When she got it to a hard rock station, he grinned.

  After a mile or so, he chanced a look her way. She was staring out the window. “It doesn’t feel like the holidays. I didn’t realize there were decorations up.”

  “Decorations?” He looked out at the town they passed through, decked in garlands and sparkle. “We live in a fucking snow globe with Santa at the helm beginning in September.”

  She chuckled, a low, throaty sound that caught on his senses and slipped into his groin. “Being on base has kept me sheltered from it. Seeing it now puts me in the spirit.”

  If there ever was a woman who had two sides to her, it was Tyler Knight. Problem was, you never knew what you’d get—the sweet woman who could be wooed by a blow-up snowman waving from the front of a shop or the hard-ass who’d tuck and roll just because she didn’t like your choice in music.

  “You know, my brother Sean believed in Santa till he was thirteen. My brothers had to finally tell him because he was being bullied at school over it. Kids would say Santa wasn’t real and Sean would beat the shit out of them.” She smiled with a faraway look.

  Hawk laughed. “I can totally picture that. What did he do when your brothers told him?”

  “Beat the shit outta them too.” She laughed again.

  “Thing I love most about holidays is good food. Those MREs don’t cut it for me. The last prepared military food I opened was supposed to be tuna and vegetables but looked more like something out of a Stephen King movie.”

  “Homecooked meals are always better. I could go for some of my maman’s jambalaya. Or grits. God, her grits with all that butter…” She moaned in a way that had his cock thumping against his fly. Sudden thoughts of her laying her head in his lap and taking him in her sweet, hot mouth—

  He was going to veer off the road if he didn’t control his mind better.

  They rolled out of the town and hit open highway again.

  “Why aren’t you taking the interstate?” she asked. “We just passed the sign.”

  “I like seeing America this way. Reminds me what I fight for.” He threw her a look and found her staring at him like he’d grown a second head. He didn’t want to tell her the one in his pants was swelling at an alarming rate.

  “How did you get roped into coming to Kandahar?” she asked.

  He pushed out a breath. “Guess they like my tactical skill. I literally came out of the swamps and was taken directly to Afghanistan.”

  “Why, when there were already units there?”

  “I guess they wanted extra on standby.”

  “Do you get some time off now? Since you’ve been active on back-to-back missions?”

  He snorted. “Honey, I’m practically operating for two different agencies. OFFSUS won’t care if I’ve just come off a ten-day stint fighting in North Korea. If they need Team Rou on something, I’ll be there.”

  She nodded, knowing full well her brothers also had experienced this with Knight Ops. The price of being one of the most elite teams was you were in high demand.

  “Why wasn’t your team with you? Rou?” she asked.

  “They had the team I was with already formed. Just needed a leader.”

  She regarded him for a long minute. He could feel her gaze traveling over his profile and wondered what she was seeing there.

  And if she liked it.

  She’d like him buried deep in her pussy the other night, that was certain. He’d never known a woman to be so slick, so ready for him.

  “You hungry?” He broke the silence before he drove off the road and hauled her across the seats into his arms. Her round ass planted where it belonged—in his lap.

  She nodded. “I could eat something.”

  He ignored the leap in his gut at her agreement. He hadn’t expected her to soften to anything he suggested, but her stubborn streak seemed to come and go like snowflakes on the wind, not that he’d seen many in the South.

  Given some time, he could figure her out. If she let him.

  When they hit the next town, rolling across a quaint bridge with arches spanning a narrow river, Tyler sat up straight and looked around. “This reminds me of a vacation my family went on when I was little.”

  “Yeah?” Damn, she was beautiful, more striking than ever with that sparkle in her eyes and a smile on her face.

  “Road trips with all my siblings usually ended in disaster, but that was a good one. Hardly any fighting and my brothers took me and Lexi to get ice cream. I remember they bought us double scoops, and our parents never would have let us have that.”

  He met her stare, noticing not for the first time the green and gold flecks creating a sunburst around her pupils. “So you were getting your way even as a little kid.”

  “Getting my way? Ha. You can’t imagine how hard it was growing up with five brothers who’d tried to get away with anything and everything, which only had our parents putting a stop to every stunt Lexi and I tried to pull.”

  “Which was why you took off and joined the Marines,” he said slowly as it dawned on him.

  “Yes. And why Lexi felt she had to sneak away to get some space to think a while back. She didn’t tell you that when you came after her?”


  He shook his head.

  “That surprises me. I figured Lexi would have spilled her guts to you.”

  He arched a brow. “Why would you think that?”

  “Well… you’re easy to talk to, and Lexi is probably in need of a confidante now that I’m not around very much.”

  He heard the regret in her voice. “Do you feel you’ve let your twin down?”

  Turning her face to the window, she said in a muffled voice, “We’re close, so of course I feel that way.”

  “But you both need to march your own paths, Tyler. Lexi doesn’t expect you to give up your dreams.”

  “I know that. I’m just being sappy because I’m on my way home. I’d actually get there too, if you’d drive faster than an eighty-two-year-old.”

  He stomped the gas, pinning her back in her seat.

  * * * * *

  Driving home to Louisiana with Hawk was one hell of a roller coaster. She had highs of liking him—a little too much—followed by spans of time spent wanting to kick him in the balls.

  Halfway into Tennessee, he insisted on listening to the opera station again and she wasn’t sure if he was just trying to tick her off or if he really liked it. When asked, he shrugged and said, “It’s growing on me.”

  The man was completely insane and too damn hot for his own good. If they stopped for gas, females would hang out of car windows with their tongues lolling out like Labrador Retrievers. No wonder. If Tyler thought of Hawk objectively, she was well aware of his sex appeal. He looked like an action movie star who did all his own stunts.

  Eating with him surprised her too. Not only did he not gulp down his food like a wild animal, the way most Marines did, but he used a knife and fork for everything besides the big juicy burger the previous night.

  The thing was, she didn’t mind sitting with him across a table because their conversation was always interesting.

  He glanced over her shoulder and took a sip of his iced tea, foregoing the straw and drinking straight from the tall mug.

  “What are you looking at?” Tyler asked.

  “Two o’clock.”

  “Your two or my two?”

  He gave her an exasperated look that almost made her giggle. “From your training, you know damn well it’s my two. But don’t look.”

  “What am I not looking at?”

  “A woman. She keeps glancing over here.”

  Tyler didn’t want to think of why her stomach knotted at that. By now, she knew every woman who came within sight of Hawk stared and sometimes drooled.

  Tyler twisted her head and got a good eyeful of too much skin and cleavage from neck to navel.

  When she turned to Hawk again, he closed his eyes with a shake of his head. “Good thing you aren’t a spy, Tyleri. Your art of subtlety is severely lacking.”

  She threw the unused straw at him and it bounced off his muscular pec. “If you didn’t want me to look, you shouldn’t have drawn my attention to it.”

  “If I told you not to put your boot down because you were hovering over a mine, would you do that too?”

  Ignoring his ridiculous comment, she said, “No wonder you were looking. There’s a lot of flesh.”

  “That isn’t why I was looking.”

  “Oh, you’re saying you’ve been really doing a mental makeover of her?” She rolled her eyes.

  “Yeah, I was.”

  She almost choked on her drink. “Seriously?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You’re an odd man, Robert Hawkeye.”

  His eyes flashed, sending a trickle of heat through her stomach. “That’s the first time you’ve ever used my name.”

  She dropped her gaze to the worn laminate diner table and fought a flush that threatened to pop out in her cheeks. She’d called him Bo many times in her mind while he’d claimed her body. And countless times in her dreams since. Actually, she’d woken on the way from Kandahar several times with visions of him making love to her fresh in her mind. Instead of facing what she’d done with Bo, she’d closed her eyes tight until she drifted off again.

  He ducked his head, catching her gaze and holding it. Unrelenting, unreleasing. A shudder tried to roll over her, but she steeled herself. The man wasn’t making demands on her body.

  She wrapped her lips around her straw and then lifted it from her tea and blew air fast. Tea sprayed across the table and wet the back of his hand.

  His only reaction was to raise a dark brow.

  Shivers worked deep in her stomach and dropped between her thighs. She clamped them shut on the sensation, locking it out. She was not attracted as hell to Hawk. She’d merely given into her need for a soft touch after what she’d endured back in Kandahar. It had been one moment of weakness, so why did her body insist on begging for more?

  He slowly picked up his napkin, drawing her attention to his long fingers that had felt so good… so right all over her body… and wiped the tea from the back of his hand.

  She pushed out a breath. “So what kind of makeover would you give her? Blonde hair, pushup bra?”

  “You know me better than to believe I’m all about stereotypical sex appeal.”

  “So what would you do?” she pressed, actually wanting to hear now.

  “Well, besides putting an actual blouse on her instead of that Band-Aid of a top, she needs short hair.”

  “Okay, why?”

  “Her features are delicate and all that long stringy shit’s weighing her down.”

  Tyler laughed out loud, a sound that rose up from her core. The man was fun to talk to even if he did drive her abso-fucking-lutely nuts.

  “And what are you thinking? Ralph Lauren loungewear and boat shoes?”

  He pushed out a sound, scoffing her off. “Again, stereotyping. She’s clearly well-blessed in the top half, so she needs clothing to accentuate but not attract the wrong sort of interest.”

  Tyler cocked her head, examining him. “You’re a crazy fucker, you know that, Hawk?”

  He drank more tea and set down the glass. “I’ve heard it all before. If not from Elise then your brothers. Just because I love to look at how women dress doesn’t make me a perv or flamboyant.”

  “How would you make me over then?”

  He stared at her for so long that she started to shift on the seat. And no, it was not because he was raising an ache in her pussy.

  The waitress arrived with two platters of food—the hearty man’s breakfast for him and pancakes and sausage links for her. She realized this would be the last breakfast they shared together. They’d been on the road for hours, and Hawk had refused to let her drive even once, which only revealed how much of a control freak he actually was.

  The waitress paused at Hawk’s side to smile at him for a heartbeat too long until Tyler said, “Thank you, that’s all for now.”

  When she moved away, Hawk looked into her eyes, his face solemn.

  “What?”

  “You asked what I’d change about you.”

  “And?” Suddenly, she didn’t want to hear what he had to say.

  “Nothing,” he said. “I wouldn’t change a thing about you, Tyler.”

  Chapter Five

  When they reached the rental car, Hawk held out the keys to Tyler.

  She blinked. “You’re letting me drive?”

  The smile he gave her was a heartstopper. The corners of his lips turning up gently and his stare direct. “I’m tired. You know the way.”

  She snatched up the keys. “That means I get control over the windows and radio.”

  There was a spring in his step as he made his way to the passenger’s side. She climbed in and he moved the seat back the entire way before sinking into it. Long legs stretched out, he reclined the seat as well, but his head still nearly brushed the ceiling of the small vehicle. It was impossible not to notice his size or remember how his big body had made her feel.

  Protected. Safe. On fire.

  She started the car and hadn’t gone a mile before Hawk was asleep. Probably passed out from the arteries he’d just clogged with all that fat and butter, she mused. But the man was the picture of fitness and health. He could be a poster boy for any gym in the world.

  She was feeling the effects of too much sitting and too much food during this trip home. The first thing she’d do was kiss her maman and then take a hot shower. She needed some sleep, but after that, she was going to run. The need to stretch her legs came along with a burning desire to take her mind off her companion. She’d spent too much time dwelling on Hawk.