Knight and Day (The Knight Erotic Trilogy, book 3 of 3)

by French, Kitty

  “Whoa!” Kara held up her hand, banging her mug down on the breakfast bar. “We have a secret sex alcove at the bottom of the garden?”

  “Who knew? I was as surprised as you,” Sophie said mildly. “Anyway, I said that what I’d really like for my birthday was a husband, so he got down on his knees and asked me to marry him.”

  Kara shook her head. “Wow. I don’t think there’s another person in this world who that man would get on his knees for.”

  They paused in silence for a second, then both spoke at the same time.

  “Tilly.”

  It was true. The tiny child had her daddy wrapped around her chubby little finger.

  “She is going to be the most adorable flower girl,” Kara said, reaching out and covering Sophie’s hand with her own.

  Sophie nodded, damp-eyed. “With you to look after her as my maid of honour?”

  It was Kara’s turn to well up, and she reached for a nearby box of tissues and dragged them over.

  “What are we like?” She laughed shakily. “I think we can safely assume that your wedding day will not turn into the fiasco that mine did. Lucien adores you.”

  “I know he does.” Sophie grabbed a tissue too. “I thought it might be nice to have the wedding in Norway.”

  Kara slid her mug across the counter and touched it against Sophie’s in assent.

  “God, yes! I’d love that. Maybe I can snag myself a Viking of my own after all.”

  “If you still need to. You seem pretty loved up with a certain American hottie right now.”

  “Sexed up, not loved up,” Kara corrected.

  “One has a habit of leading to the other,” Sophie said.

  “Not for this gal,” Kara said, sliding off her stool. “I’m happy for sex to just lead to more sex right now.”

  “I know… but he seems like a nice guy, that’s all.”

  Kara picked up the keys to the Mustang. “As did Richard this time last year. And we all know how that one turned out, don’t we?”

  She prepared herself for the usual stabbing sensation that she always felt when she said his name. Whether it was pain from her own heart or the desire to stab his she wasn’t entirely certain, but either way, it didn’t come.

  Fuck, she’d finally done it. She’d moved on. Washed that man right out of her hair. Richard had made the coward’s choice on their wedding day, having been issued an ultimatum by his surreptitious girlfriend. Standing at the altar in the ivory dress of her dreams and waiting for a man who didn’t show had been the most humiliating experience of her life, and it had taken a lot of tears and bottles of vodka to set her on the road to recovery.

  And now, finally, it would appear that she had arrived. She stood stock still, her hand over her heart and her eyebrows raised towards her best friend.

  “Well, what do you know? I was right all along. The best way to get over a man is to get under another one.” She sashayed out of the kitchen, elated.

  At the club later that afternoon, Dylan rocked back in his swivel chair and stretched his arms above his head. Lucien sat alongside him and rolled his shoulders as he closed computer files down, work done at last for the day. Opening night was drawing closer and they’d spent the afternoon going over fine details to make sure that everything was in place to guarantee a seamless launch. The press were hungry to see how the club fared on the famed White Isle. While Lucien refused to hide their raison d’etre beneath a veil of prudishness, he equally didn’t allow his clubs to be categorised as seedy. They were hedonist palaces of intense pleasure for the open minded, and he was fiercely proud of the empire he’d created. The impression that the first night would create on guests and the media mattered to him very much.

  He opened the desk door and placed a bottle of whisky and two glasses on the top. “Drink?”

  “Sure,” Dylan said, watching Lucien pour out two heavy-handed measures. He’d come to admire the other man’s business acumen over the couple of weeks they’d worked together, and sensed that he was someone who played it straight down the line. Dylan was gratified that their business relationship was definitely moving into the territory of friendship too. He really liked this guy.

  Lucien took a conversational tone.

  “I asked Sophie to marry me yesterday.”

  Dylan grinned and accepted the glass Lucien held out along with the confidence he’d shared.

  “No way, man! Congratulations!” The whisky hit his throat with a welcome burn. “Although… I’d kind of assumed that you guys were married anyway.”

  Lucien knocked back a good slug of whisky. “It’s never been high on our list.”

  Dylan nodded slowly, his mind back in the States. “I know what you mean.” He regretted his choice of words as soon as they were out, and Lucien was too clever by far to miss the fact that his response was laden with meaning.

  “You do?”

  Measured words were needed. “I’ve been close once or twice,” he said non-committally, draining his glass then scrubbing his hand over the roughness of his cheek with a half smile. “Women, huh?” He was well aware that his sweeping generalisation sounded lame.

  Lucien lifted one shoulder as he replenished their glasses.

  “Dylan, I’ll be straight with you. I offered you this job on instinct, and you haven’t given me cause to regret it. You obviously know your way around this business.”

  Relieved that the conversation had changed course, Dylan relaxed.

  “I’m excited about it. This whole island sits well with me, the job too. It feels good.”

  “Should I have asked you for references? Would you, if you were me?”

  Okay, not so relaxed. He shrugged, his expression turning philosophical.

  “I appreciate that you didn’t. In all honesty, I wouldn’t have found it easy to provide them.”

  Lucien eyed him steadily, waiting for more. They were similar in age, equals in body and in strength of mind. Dylan came from a family where brotherhood had turned out to stand for very little, yet he felt a quiet unity and trust in Lucien Knight.

  He didn’t want to lie to this man. He just wanted a clean slate and a simple life.

  “Things didn’t go well for me back home.” He sighed heavily and took a deep slug of whisky. “I left with nothing but the shirt on my back, and none of that shit will follow me here.” He shook his head, the memories all ugly. “Trust me, I’d’ve been happy to never set foot on American soil again if it wasn’t for my mom.”

  A look of understanding passed between the two men. Dylan didn’t know it, but he’d managed to say the one thing that reassured Lucien most.

  “So, this thing you’ve got going on with Kara…” Lucien said, changing the conversational course once more and leaving his sentence there for Dylan to make of it whatever he wanted.

  A slow smile crept across Dylan’s face at the mention of her name.

  “She’s a breath of fresh air.”

  “She’s not as tough as she makes out.”

  For all her smart one-liners and her bold moves, Dylan had seen the fragility behind Kara’s eyes. “I get that.”

  It was the thing that scared him most about her.

  “Kara’s history is hers to share, but you should know she's the closest thing I have to a sister.”

  Lucien’s message could not have been clearer, and Dylan admired him all the more for his loyalty.

  “I’ll never hurt her on purpose.”

  “It’s easily done.”

  Dylan swirled the whisky in his glass. “I get that too.”

  His heart felt oddly heavy in his chest long after the conversation had ended. He’d forgotten that feeling in the last few weeks, but now it was back with him. Could he really have this life? Was he entitled to it, after all that had gone before? He badly needed to believe that the answer was yes.

  Chapter Fifteen

  “Throwing yourself a party, Sailor?” Kara sat down at the bar a couple of evenings later, the bangles around her wris
t clattering against the mirrored surface. Dylan was working late again, the mellow sound of Bob Marley low in the background as he studied an array of rainbow coloured liqueurs and bottles of spirits lined up across the bar. Sophie and Lucien had left together an hour or two before, leaving Kara and Dylan behind to lock up.

  “Every club needs its signature cocktail.”

  “It does?” Kara turned the closest bottle towards her, reading the label on the deep amber liquid. “Hierbas?”

  Dylan nodded.

  “Top of the list. It’s locally made.” He took the bottle from her and opened it. “The taste of Ibiza.” He held it out for her to smell. She inhaled, catching notes of fresh lavender and herbs.

  “It smells like summer,” she said as Dylan reached for a shot glass and poured out a little for her to try. The flavours burst in her mouth: sweet aniseed, fragrant herbs, and smooth, warm alcohol. “Wow,” she laughed. “That’s… potent.”

  “Yes it is,” Dylan murmured, setting the bottle to one side and opening a bottle of Cava from the fridge.

  “This is turning into my kind of Friday night,” Kara said, as Dylan reached down a champagne flute from the overhead rack and poured her a glass. She watched him as he studied the bottles on the bar, selecting the odd one and either shortlisting it next to the Hierbas or else putting it back in its place behind him on the shelf.

  “You’ve done this before, huh?”

  He shrugged. “Some.”

  “Can you toss the shaker behind your back? Please say yes,” Kara giggled, halfway towards a Tom Cruise fantasy already.

  Dylan rolled his eyes. He’d cut his teeth on all that stuff, it was second nature.

  “For sure. But I’m not doing it for you now.”

  “You so are,” Kara placed her Cava down. “I’d like a Sex on the Beach, please barman, followed by a Slow Comfortable Screw.”

  Dylan shook his head, the trace of a laugh on his face.

  “Predictable.” He measured Hierbas into a glass cup and then into a silver beaker.

  “A Screaming Orgasm then?” She tilted her head to one side winsomely and batted her eyelashes. “Please?” Just saying the words warmed the pit of her stomach, because Dylan Day was capable of exactly that with just a few flicks of his fingers. It was verging on embarrassing how easily the man could make her come.

  He lifted his amused eyes to hers, and then reached for a mortar and pestle. She sat for a few seconds as he plucked fresh mint from a plant on the back of the bar then set to work. She watched his hands, the slow grinding motion as he crushed the leaves. She wanted them on her instead.

  Reaching behind her neck, she pulled the ties of her halter necked sundress open and let it fall to her waist.

  Dylan ran his tongue over his lips. He paused, then seemed to think better of it and continued to add a little Cava to the crushed mint.

  Kara unclipped her strapless bra and peeled it from her body, holding it up for a second and letting it fall fluidly from her fingertips. She didn’t need to look down to know that her nipples were hard. Her body was screaming for him.

  “Slippery Nipple?” she said, her eyes on his as she slid her hands over herself, tweaking her nipples lightly for his benefit. She had him and she knew it. His eyes darkened. He set the cocktail equipment down to one side and walked slowly round to her side of the bar.

  Swinging her stool around to face him, he opened her knees and moved to stand between them.

  “I think I’d better test that claim, English,” he said, and Kara sighed into his mouth as it covered hers at the same time as his hands covered her breasts. He rolled her nipples slowly, his tongue sliding over hers.

  “You lied,” he murmured. “Not slippery.”

  He reached for the bottle of Hierbas and tipped a little into his mouth, then lowered his head and closed his mouth over her nipple. His hands spanned her ribcage above her pushed down dress, holding her steady as he kissed his way over her curves to give her other breast some attention. Heat, and the slide of his tongue around her sensitive nipple, then delicious suction.

  “Now they’re slippery,” he said as he raised his head. “Slippery, and sexy, and delicious.”

  His mouth tasted of warm, sweet summer sunshine when he kissed her again, a sensual assault, his hands sliding into her hair.

  “If I fucked you right now, would you be slippery there too?” he breathed, pressing the hardness of his cock into the silk of her knickers below her rucked up skirt. Just as Kara decided that Hierbas was her favourite drink in the whole wide world, he pulled back, dropped a kiss that lingered on the hollow at the base of her neck, and then returned to the other side of the bar.

  She stared at him, her breath coming in less than regular gasps.

  “I’m working,” he said, steadily. “And you’re a beautiful distraction.”

  He strained the mint infusion into the Hierbas in the metal shaker. His eyes ran over the coloured spirits in front of him.

  “Which one, English?” he said. “Which one would you choose?”

  Did he actually expect her to have a lucid opinion on anything other than how much she wanted him to get naked? In the background, Bob Marley helpfully suggested she should stir it up as she scanned the bottles quickly.

  “The blue one,” she said, at random.

  He frowned thoughtfully, then shrugged and picked the blue curacao out of the line up. Lurid as it was, its bitter orange flavour might just harmonise well. He measured it out and added it to the mint and Hierbas in the shaker.

  Kara crossed her legs and picked up the glass of Cava he’d just topped up for her, learning patience, now beginning to enjoy his slow game because she was pretty certain that it would end with what she so much wanted. She held out a cautionary hand as he screwed the top onto the cocktail shaker and hefted it.

  “Take your shirt off before you do that.”

  “Before I shake the cocktail?”

  “You heard me, Sailor.”

  He sighed for effect, but she didn’t mistake it for genuine boredom because his eyes told her how hot he was for her. He was as into this as she was.

  She pulled her bottom lip between her teeth and held it there as his fingers worked the buttons on his shirt open, revealing inch on inch of golden goodness. His shoulders gleamed as he rolled them to shrug the shirt off and dropped it.

  “Better?” He lifted his hands to the side, palms up.

  She slowly released her lip, now plumped from having been bitten, and watched his eyes follow the movement, with satisfaction.

  “For now.” She sipped her wine. “Now, toss things.”

  He looked away, shaking his head, half laughing.

  “I don’t do this stuff anymore,” he protested, picking up a bottle of neon yellow liqueur by the neck and flicking it in a graceful arch over his head. Kara watched, wide-eyed, as it somersaulted a couple of times then landed neatly in his other hand. She clapped with delight.

  “Wow!” The display of his body moving under the bar’s spotlights and the way he made his showmanship look so easy was thoroughly intoxicating.

  “Topless barmen. Write that down for your next business meeting with Lucien.” She rolled her gaze deliberately over his body. “A winner every single time.”

  “Sexist, English. So sexist,” he chided.

  She shrugged, not in the least bit sorry.

  “Now, make me a cocktail. Something sexy.”

  She sat back, unselfconscious with her body on display. He was in her thrall and he knew it. He studied her for a few seconds, and then seemed to make his decision. He turned his back on her, and she caught her breath, admiring him all over again. He was a man at home in his skin, from his lithe, sun-kissed shoulders to the lickable dip at the base of his spine revealed by the jeans slung low on his hips. Tawny lights gleamed in his hair when he moved, stretching for a bottle. There was a grace and a strength to the man that stopped her breath for a few seconds.

  And then he tossed a cocktai
l shaker over his shoulder and caught it as he turned about, flipping a bottle from the bar so a little of its peachy nectar went into the shaker. Rum flew overhead next, the bottle spiralling into his hand to be tipped into the shaker too. It was like a well-rehearsed circus act, as natural as walking the tightrope for the acrobat. Bottles rolled from his wrist to his shoulder and back into his hand again in a blink, ice cubes jumped one, two three in the air before hitting the tumbler. And then he was done, screwing the lid on before shaking the concoction high then low. He slid a glass along the bar and tipped the cocktail out with a final flourish, crushed ice suspended in glittering golden liquid.

  “One Naked Lady.”

  Kara gave him another burst of applause, her eyes round with delight. His hand caught hers as she reached for the glass.

  “Not until you’re a naked lady too.”

  She paused for a heartbeat, then kicked off her shoes and shimmied down from the stool. Her dress didn’t take much encouraging to fall down her hips, leaving her standing in the briefest scrap of midnight blue silk.

  “I’m afraid I’m going to have to insist on full nudity, lady. House rules,” he said, his fingers still around her glass. The gravelly edge to his voice told her that he appreciated what he saw.

  “I really do want to taste that drink,” she murmured, running one finger inside the top edge of the silk.

  “I really want you to taste it,” he said. “Take your panties off, English. Be naked for me.”

  Kara glanced behind her at the deserted dance floor, at the luxurious booths set around it which would very soon be filled with pleasure seekers. She was completely certain that no matter what happened in this place after opening night, no one would feel more filled to the brim with boiling, molten lust that she did at that exact moment. She burned with it. Burned for him.

  Walking around the bar to where he stood watching her, she paused close to him and brushed her hand down the centre of his body, lower to give his crotch a light massage, then sashayed past him to run her hand over the elegant supportive column that rose from the bar to the ceiling. Covered in tiny mirrored tiles that reflected the colours and lights around it, it created a sparkling, soaring cascade of light when the club was in full flow. The bar beyond it wasn’t stocked yet, and the surface was clear. Perfect.