Twisted knight, p.17
Twisted Knight, page 17
“You don’t get to barge in on my date and make him feel insecure—”
“That’s his problem, not mine.” He smirks, and I hate that regardless of how angry I am, I’m still drawn to the sight of it.
Of him.
“You don’t get to follow me around. Show up where I am. Assume I’ll drop everything for you.”
“The best part about you is that you don’t.”
His comment puts a hitch in my stride. The grin he flashes even more so. “Don’t. Just don’t.” I hold my hands up, frustrated with him for continually being charming when I’m mad at him. For what he’s doing right now to Gregory—taking me away from him. For having a comeback to every single thing I say. “You don’t get to follow me around. You don’t get to be everywhere but not talk to me when I approach you.”
“I’m talking to you now.”
That’s a first.
“And you don’t get to flaunt a board seat or ownership or anything at me one minute and then not explain yourself the next.”
He laughs. It’s a patronizing sound that echoes off the marble walls of the bathroom.
It infuriates me. It sounds like every laugh Rhett or my father gives to let me know I am less than.
“Fuck you, Holden.” I step forward and poke a finger into his chest.
“Right.” He grins. “Fuck me and the seat at the table I offered and then took back when you refused to work with me.”
What? That’s what that was all about? How dare he … How … The prick.
“Exactly what I said and meant. Fuck you and your games and your half-truths and your innuendos and your—”
From one beat to the next, Holden’s hand is fisted in my hair and his lips are on mine. Ravaging mine. Claiming mine.
It takes a second for the shock to register. For me to realize what is happening.
I struggle against him. Hands pressed against his chest. Head trying to move from side to side.
It takes another second for the assault of desire to take over. For the taste of scotch on his tongue and the dominant demand in his touch to drag me under and take hold of me. For the groan in the back of his throat and the hard length of his body pressed against me to make me feel. For my hands to grab his shirt as the perfect combination of need and greed and want make my body ache with a slow, sweet burn that’s wicked and wanton all at the same time.
And then I snap to.
To the moment. To who’s kissing me. To where we are.
But the draw is just too much. The drug of him too goddamn sweet that sense and reason get buried in the high of him.
In his hands as they rake over my skin.
In the heat of his mouth as it slides its way down my throat to the soft spot that has my body jerking in his hands.
In his fingers as they find their way between my thighs.
In his groan as his hand slides beneath my panties and finds me wet and more than willing for his touch.
In the softening of my body and the widening of my stance as his fingertips find my clit.
The soft mewl that falls from my lips is met with another jarring knock on the bathroom door followed by “Open the fuck up.”
That is what I need to snap to my senses. To realize what I’m doing and who I’m doing it with. To comprehend that Gregory and god knows who else is out there assuming what is going on in here.
“It’s taken. Use the other one,” Holden shouts gruffly at the door as I push back against him with one hand and I reach out to slap him with the other. And the slap isn’t because of the kiss but rather the way he’s making me feel.
Alive.
On fire.
Desperate and wild when everything else in my life, when everyone else, is dull and stagnant.
It’s self-preservation at its worst and embarrassment that it takes him to make me feel this at its best.
He catches my hand mid-swing, his fingers still coated in my arousal, gripping my wrist, and lifts a single brow as he meets my eyes. His chuckle is a low rumble of suggestion and warning.
Both have me aching for him to touch me again.
Both have me struggling to get out of his grip.
“I’ll give you that slap once.” He brings my hand to his lips and startles me when he licks the inside of my palm. “And only once,” he murmurs against my skin so that the vibration of his lips tickles my nerve endings back to life.
“How dare you.” I need to say something, anything, and that most definitely isn’t it, but it’s all I have.
“How dare I?” he asks.
I’ve never been more aware of someone’s presence before.
The scent of his cologne.
The warmth of his body.
The strength in his hands.
His taste still lingering on my tongue.
The effects of all of them on my body.
“You—you can’t do that.”
“Do what?”
“Kiss me. Touch me … like that.”
“Like that?” He quirks an eyebrow before he leans in and murmurs in my ear. “I just did. And you liked it every bit as much as I did.”
I take a jolting step back. Wanting distance. Needing space.
I shake my head, my voice barely a whisper. “This can’t happen.” My body says differently. “You’re you and I’m me and … and it’s not good for a business relationship if we…”
“You’ll find I don’t care much about norms. Or rules. I don’t like to be boxed in. When I want something, I go after it.”
“First my company and now what? Me?”
His shrug is indifferent, his chuckle even more so, making me feel like I’m once again just a pawn in his undisclosed game. The sting of rejection is confusing considering the taste of his kiss still owns my mind.
“It’s an interesting world you choose to live in, Rowan Rothschild. You want to be treated like the strong, independent woman you are, and yet you keep hanging around with people who only see you as an afterthought, who make it your job to soothe, serve, and settle. It seems to me you aren’t exactly sure how to break free of that stigma even when you’re looking in the eyes of the person who can do that for you.” His challenge is there. It’s in his words. It’s in the lift of his chin and the set of his jaw.
I stare at him, blinking, knowing that he’s right and hating him for it. “What does any of that have to do with you forcing yourself on me?” It’s a lame comeback but it’s easier to focus on the sexual tension vibrating in this small space than it is the truth in his words.
“It doesn’t. It’s just an observation while we’re standing here and you’re hating yourself for wanting me to kiss you again. Wanting me to touch you again. Wanting to feel me driving into you. And make no mistake—I will. Most definitely.”
“You know what? This is ridiculous. You being at the bar. Me coming in here. You kissing me. You … everything.” I shake my head and emit a frustrated sigh. “I have to go back. Gregory is waiting.…” I speak the words, but my feet don’t move, my pulse doesn’t stop thundering through my veins, and my want for him to kiss me again doesn’t dissipate.
Holden’s knowing smile is seductive in and of itself. “Fine. Go back to Gregory. But tell me something,” he says and steps back into my personal space. “Only go if he makes you feel half of how I just did. But he doesn’t and you know it. I know it. And that scares the shit out of you, doesn’t it?” He reaches out and places his hand on the side of my face so his thumb can brush over my bottom lip. I freeze at the simple but intimate touch. “Go back to him, Rowan. Sit down. Continue that conversation with him that is so stimulating you’re looking at me every few seconds.”
“Fuck you.”
He chuckles. “That’s the hope.” He walks past me, unlocks the door, and looks back at me. “I’ll be waiting in the parking lot when you quit being stubborn and realize I’m right. And Rowan? I don’t have to force myself on anybody. Your hands fisted in my shirt and your tongue between my lips? That said as much.”
I stare at the door long after he walks out of it, trying to process his words, his actions … his kiss. His touch. And it’s only when the door swings open and I’m met with a wide-eyed customer with a “whoa” on his lips seeing me there that I storm out of the bathroom and back to our table at the bar.
Gregory lights up when he sees me. “Everything okay? You look flushed.”
My smile is quick and most likely insincere to Gregory as I take my seat. “I’m fine. There was a line. It was hot. You know how women’s restrooms are.”
He furrows his brow. “Can’t say I’ve ever been in one, but sure. Yeah.” He laughs and I manage to do the same as I glance over to the bar where Holden was sitting.
He’s not there.
Good.
I think the thought but I’m sitting taller and looking out the large windows of the bar to see if he’s in the parking lot.
“Can we start over now that your stalker is gone?” he jokes.
“Sure. I’d like that.”
“I think we were talking about capturing the market and the economy, but when you left, I realized you probably have no interest in that.” He takes a sip of his vodka cranberry and offers a placating smile. “I’ve learned the quickest way to turn a date off is to drone on and on about business. My apologies. Tell me about you. The committees you chair at the club. The things you can’t wait to do with your kids one day.”
I stare at him, blinking rapidly as if the action is going to help me process the domesticated box he just put me in.
“Who says I’m on any committees?”
“A good Southern woman like you?” He rolls his eyes. “C’mon now. It’s okay to brag.”
“I’m not on any. I work. A lot. And I—”
“But that’s just until you get married, right? After that, what do you hope for?”
… You keep hanging around with people who only see you as an afterthought, who make it your job to soothe, serve, and settle.…
I lift my chin. “To run my family’s company.”
Gregory belts out a condescending laugh and reaches out to put a hand on my forearm. I freeze at his touch. It elicits none of the same reactions Holden’s did. “That’s cute. I’m sure your family has something different to say about it.”
Hate to burst your bubble, Gregory Chapman, but you just killed this date.
You and Holden both.
TWENTY-FIVE
Holden
Jesus fucking Christ.
I gulp in the cool night air as I pace back and forth in front of my car.
Rowan’s fucking kiss was … is … electric. The taste of her skin. The heat of her pussy.
All-consuming.
Fucking owning my mind as I stand out here and wait for her.
And she will come.
I scrub a hand through my hair, shake my head, and remind myself Rowan is just the cherry on top of the sundae. Nothing less. Nothing more.
The deep-seated ache in my balls begs to differ.
My attention is pulled to a couple arguing a few rows over. Poor bastard is getting raked over the coals for looking at another woman.
“You’re right.” Rowan’s voice at my back startles me. She fucking came. I turn around slowly to find her standing inches from me, hands on her hips, annoyance etched in the lines of her face. Even more gorgeous because of it.
We stand like this for a moment as a car drives by and a flood of sound hits us as the door to the bar opens and closes. And then she fists a hand in my shirt and yanks my mouth down to hers.
There is no hesitation on her part this time. No push and then pull. Rowan Rothschild dives right in with a fervor equal to how the first kiss made me feel. It’s heat and hunger. It’s fire and ice. It’s a battle of wills and a submission of neither.
It’s fucking perfection.
And it feels like just as soon as it starts, it ends with Rowan pushing back against my chest and patting it. “There. You happy? You win. Now get me out of here.” She walks to the passenger side of my SUV and climbs in without me saying a single word.
Alrighty then.
I look back toward the door of the bar, climb into my car, and then head out of the parking lot.
I glance over to her and her pout has me grinning.
She holds a finger up. “Don’t fucking gloat, Knight. Not once.”
“Or else?”
“Or else I’ll jump out of this moving vehicle and the world will blame my death on you. Can’t take over my company if you’re in jail for murder.”
“You can’t run said company that I won’t be taking over if you’re dead.”
“Then don’t doom the both of us.”
I chuckle. If this is how the woman is after she gets kissed, god help me for still wanting to sleep with her.
But I do gloat. Silently. Hell, I could drive her home right now and walk away knowing I won this battle. That I bent her to my will. That she fucking caved. But the feel of her lips and my desire to taste them again has me going anywhere but there.
We drive in silence for a bit, the interior of my SUV feeling small suddenly with the scent of her perfume. Her phone is in her hand, but she never looks at it despite it lighting up every few seconds from incoming texts or notifications.
“Do you want to—”
“No,” she says sternly.
I laugh. “Okay then. I’ll just keep driving.”
“Good idea.”
I drive. Through Westmore. Past its outskirts. Into the neighboring city of Hampton West.
I’d like to think I’m driving aimlessly as I do on most nights when I can’t sleep, but I know exactly where I’m going.
The question is why, Holden? Why are you bringing her there?
To test her?
To prove she isn’t the same person she was back then?
“You’re new in town and yet you know this place?” She snorts as I put the SUV in park. “It doesn’t fit.”
“I wasn’t aware I had to fit in anywhere.”
“You’ve been seen everywhere one goes to be seen. Westmore Country Club. The Vine…” she says and names off a few more restaurants and social spots. Places I’ve been to play the game that needs to be played while hating every moment of it. “This place doesn’t fit that version of the you you’re selling.”
“Maybe because this person isn’t who I want them to see,” I say, surprised by my honesty.
She’s fucking right, isn’t she?
I let one goddamn kiss, one fucking touch of her pussy throw me off so much I came here.
This is not good, Holden.
Fucking Rowan is one thing you’ve accepted is going to happen. Letting down your guard with her isn’t an option.
And you just let it down by coming here.
What are you trying to prove? That she’s not like the rest of them?
It doesn’t fucking matter.
She’s still one of them.
Oblivious to the internal war I’m waging, I see her nod in my periphery. “Why are we here? Why do you want me to see it, then?”
“Good question,” I say, wondering the same thing as I look up at the diner’s blue neon letters, bright against the dark night sky. The same letters I looked up at as a teen as I waited for my mom to get off work.
How many nights did she have to stay into the early morning to clean up after the country club kids who looked at her as the hired help?
She wouldn’t tell me who they were, but I knew. It was the Rothschild duo, the prick Porter, and the asshole Williams.
How many nights did she have to hitch a ride home with a coworker because she didn’t want me up that late picking her up because I’d be tired for school the next morning?
And how many nights did she swallow her pride and pick up after those spoiled little shits while trying to hide it all from me so I wouldn’t react and lose my own job?
Too many to count.
But I never forgot.
I still haven’t.
“I come here when I can’t sleep,” I finally respond as I shake the memory loose. How many times did I sit here in Mrs. Moses’s car and watch her clean the counters and mop the floors after closing?
“Does that happen often?” she asks.
“More often than not.”
I can feel her staring at me. The questions she wants to ask but don’t voice hang in the air. Why can’t you sleep? What busies your mind so that it can’t shut down? What haunts you so that you fear your dreams? To avoid them, I open my car door and get out.
When did you make the decision to let her in? To show her a peek of who you were even though she can’t correlate it to now?
Tighten that shit up.
Button it down.
Rowan pushes her door open before I can open it for her.
“This isn’t a date, Holden.”
I hold my hands up. “No one said it was,” I say.
We’re seated at a table by the window within minutes, our orders placed, and my head still at war with why I brought her here.
Rowan sits across from me, her arms crossed over her chest, a scowl on her face, and her glare focused on me.
At least one of us is staying true to who we are.
“Do you want to tell me why you’re mad at me for wanting to kiss me? I mean, I’m not complaining, hate kisses are like hate fucks—perfection in every way—but you can at least tell me why you’re blaming me for your wants.”
She fights a smile as she tries to keep her expression stern. “Do you have hate fucks often enough to have opinions on their perfection?”
I purse my lips and tilt my head from side to side, taking my time giving a response. Fighting a smile but relenting. “From time to time.”
“So it’s not just me you piss off then.”
I chuckle. “No. It’s not just you.”
“Good. Great. So long as you acknowledge that.”
“It’s hard to be angry at someone when they’re drinking a chocolate milkshake,” I say as she sucks on the straw. After the events of the bathroom, the action has my imagination going into overdrive.
She swallows her sip, sets the shake down on the table, and plays with the straw wrapper, clearly lost in her own thoughts and oblivious to mine.
“This place has been here forever,” she murmurs.
