“Much as I hate it,” said Raini, “she’s right, Jolene. They’re Primes. They can’t have others deal with their problems.”
Khloë nodded. “We can’t be the ones to bring this fucker down, Grams. We can help find who hired the hunters, but then we have to tell Harper and Knox what we know.”
Jolene hissed. “All right.”
“You promise?” asked Harper. Her grandmother was a terrific liar, but she wouldn’t break a promise to someone she cared for.
Exhaling a put-out sigh, Jolene said, “I promise that I won’t overstep by killing the person behind the attack if I find them first.”
Harper smiled. “Thank you.”
“But I won’t hide that I’m looking for them. If I didn’t seek to avenge my own granddaughter, it would make me look weak.”
That was true. “Fine.”
Jolene kissed her cheek. “You take care. And get some sleep. You look like crap.”
“You make me feel so loved, Grams.”
“I do, don’t I?”
As Knox entered the studio later that day, he saw a yawning Harper do a long, languid stretch. His jaw clenched at the sight. He should have insisted on her staying home. Not that it would have achieved anything. His mate did her own thing. It was something he respected, but it also frustrated him at times.
His demon cheered up a little now that she was close. It had pushed Knox all damn day to go to her; check on her; stay with her.
Spotting him, Harper smiled as she put on her jacket. “Hey. How was your day?”
“Boring.” He crossed to her and breezed his thumb along the black smudge beneath her eye. “You’re tired again.”
“A little.”
Tanner snorted at the understatement, and she shot him a narrow-eyed look.
Raini ushered them all toward the door. “I need to lock up.”
After the studio was secure and the girls said their goodbyes and headed off, Harper looked up at Knox. “So, where are we going?”
Since Knox would rather she got some rest, he was about to suggest they go straight home when she spoke again.
“I hope it’s a place with food. I’m hungry.”
“You’re hungry?” Well, that made a nice change. If taking her somewhere meant she’d eat a little, then that was what he’d do. “Where do you want to go?”
“You’re asking me to choose what we do?”
He sifted his hand through her hair. “I like surprising you, but you’re too tired for the surprise I had in mind. You pick what we do.”
“You’re not going to be pleased about it,” she warned.
Knox stilled. “You don’t want to go back to the rodeo, do you?” Because that would be a big no.
She gave a soft chuckle. “Nothing as wild as that. I just really feel like ice cream.”
“Ice cream?”
“Yeah. And you’re more of a ‘Five Star restaurant’ kind of guy than a simple ice cream parlor person.”
“I know a good place to get ice cream.”
Her brow furrowed. “There’s a parlor on the corner.”
“I know somewhere better.”
“Really? Well, I don’t care where we go as long as there’s ice cream. Lead the way.”
Tanner and Levi flanked them as Knox led her down the strip to one of his hotels. While some places were closing, others were being opened and street vendors were setting up. The Underground would only get busier as the hours went on.
When they finally arrived at the luxury hotel and the automatic doors swished open, the cool air conditioning slid over them. As usual, some of the employees rushed to him with questions. Hiding his impatience, Knox answered them quickly and directly without breaking stride. He then guided Harper to the rear of the hotel and through a glass door. The quiet chatter of the lobby was quickly replaced by the sounds of children’s laughter, spoons scraping bowls, and the whir of a blender. “Well, here we are.”
Harper’s eyebrows flew up. It was nothing like your standard ice cream parlor, she thought. It was more like a cute, chic restaurant. The décor was white and gold, and had an almost royal look about it.
There were glass-covered cases with several tubs of different colored – and, according to the sign, award-winning – ice creams. But instead of customers lining up at the counter, they sat comfortably while waiters took their orders.
“I had no idea this was here.” Then again, she’d had no reason to come to these places before meeting Knox.
Harper plucked the menu from the stand. Damn, there were so many choices – so many different flavors, so many different toppings, and so many different syrups. They had everything, from typical flavors like vanilla and chocolate to others such as cotton candy and piña colada.
When the host appeared, she ordered a waffle cone of salted caramel covered in butterscotch syrup and little chunks of honeycomb. When the waiter walked away, she frowned at Knox. “You’re not ordering anything?”
“There’s no point,” he said.
“Why?”
“Because I’ll get so distracted watching you eat that my ice cream would end up melting all over my hand.”
Chuckling, she returned the menu to the stand and then rubbed her chilled hands together. It was a lot colder than the hotel lobby, but Harper supposed it had to be or the ice cream would easily melt. It was only right then that she noticed that Levi and Tanner hadn’t followed them inside. “Where are the sentinels?”
Knox gestured to the glass wall behind her. “Waiting for us.” Giving them some private time while also guarding them.
As a yawn crept up on Harper, she did her best to suppress it. She failed.
“You went back to work too early,” he admonished. “You should have taken the day off to fully recover.”
She gave a soft snort. “Says the guy who’s probably never taken a day off in his life.”
“There have been a few.”
“I don’t mean days where you worked from home. I mean days of no work whatsoever – no calls or texts or emails to business associates. Can you honestly say you’ve ever had one of those days?”
No, he couldn’t. “Point taken. But you still should have taken the day off instead of pushing yourself.”
“Those bastards aren’t disrupting my life.”
He sighed. “So stubborn.”
“Proudly.”
Tapping his fingers on the table, he said, “I want to ask you something. It’s probably not fair of me to ask this of you – it’s not a customary thing among demons and is more of a human convention, but I’d like you to do it.”
Dubious, she frowned. “You’re not going to ask me to get married in a church, are you?”
Mouth curving, he took her hand. “No. These rings say we’re bound.” He smoothed his thumb over the black diamond, adding, “I’d like you to take my surname.”
Her brows almost hit her hairline. “Well, that wasn’t something I’d have ever expected you to say. Maybe I should have. Your possessiveness knows no boundaries.”
“I won’t deny that.”
“At least you’re admitting it. Changing my surname doesn’t seem necessary. I mean, it’s not like people are under any doubt that we’re together.”
“It’s important to me.”
“No, it’s important to your possessive streak.”
It was more than that. “I want my mate to share my surname.”
“Keeping my surname doesn’t mean I’m not fully invested in this relationship or that I don’t believe it will last,” she assured him.
“I know that. And I fully admit that I want you branded in as many ways as it’s possible to brand someone.” Knox didn’t even care that that was unhealthy. He’d made his peace with it long ago. “But this isn’t about taking possession of you.”
“Then what is it about?”
“I understand that your family name means something to you – the Wallis imps supported and loved you while your maternal family rejected you.�
�� For that reason, they’d always have his respect and backing. Well, all except for her father anyway. “I don’t have a family to welcome you into. We’ll be making our own family, and I want us to do that with one name.”
Her chest tightened. “Did you really have to put it that way? I don’t know how to argue that.” It was too sweet.
“So don’t.” He leaned forward. “At least think about it.”
“I’ll consider it.”
“Thank you.”
The waiter then reappeared, and Harper took the bumpy waffle cone with a wide smile. “Thank you.” She licked at the piece of art and groaned; the salted caramel ice cream was smooth and cold on her tongue. “You’re totally missing out,” she told Knox.
Eyes on her mouth, he said, “Oh, I assure you, I’m not.” He barely took his eyes off her mouth the entire time she ate. By the end, he was so damn hard he knew it would hurt to walk.
When she was done, she cleaned her sticky fingers with a lemon wipe. “Ready to go?”
He was ready to get her home where he could take her as he’d wanted to since the previous night. He let her see that in his expression, and he had the pleasure of seeing her pupils dilate and her cheeks flush. “I’m ready to go. Are you ready for me?”
“If it involves me coming multiple times, I’m totally ready.”
His cock twitched. “You’ll come as many times as I want you to.”
“I don’t know… maybe I’m still a little too fragile for you.”
He snorted, rising to his feet. “Fragile is never a word I would use to describe you.” He kept possession of her hand as he guided her out of the parlor. Levi and Tanner fell into step with them as they walked down the long hallway, toward the exit.
Up ahead of them, the door to the hotel’s restaurant opened and a bunch of people filed out. Harper recognized three of them: Thatcher, Jonas, and good ole Alethea. The males were both Primes, and Alethea was Jonas’ sister. She also happened to be a pain in Harper’s ass and liked to flirt with Knox – as if shaking the sheets with him in the distant past gave Alethea some rights to him.
For a while, a whole lot of females had flirted with Knox, but the majority had recently stopped. They’d seen the black diamond he gave Harper and had accepted that it meant there was nothing at all temporary about her place in his life. She suspected they’d ceased to be bitches to her as they’d rather not make an enemy of Knox. Smart move on their part.
Alethea… well, she didn’t demonstrate the same wisdom. In fact, at that very moment, she shot him a sultry smile and said, “Evening, Knox.” Her gaze then cut to Harper, and her smile fell. “Sphinx.”
“Dolphin.” Yeah, Harper liked to call her that since, as an encantada, Alethea could shift into the form of a dolphin. It was kind of a random ability for the ultimate sex demon, in Harper’s opinion, but whatever.
“Knox, good to see you,” said Thatcher, bushy eyebrows lifting slightly. It was probably wrong just how badly Harper wanted to pluck them. “How are you?” he asked.
Knox inclined his head. “I’m well, thank you.”
Thatcher nodded at Harper – it wasn’t so much a nod of respect from one Prime to another as it was a simple acknowledgement of her presence, but she let it go. She wondered how long it would take the Primes to realize she just really didn’t give a shit if they accepted her or not. The fact that she was a Wallis would always be held against her to some degree.
Jonas’ smiling eyes danced from Knox to Harper. “It’s a pleasure to see you both. We haven’t spoken since the celebration of the Underground’s anniversary, have we?”
“No, we haven’t,” said Harper. She didn’t mind Jonas. He was an okay guy, and he did his best to control his dumbass sister.
“Did the Showcase agree to sell?” Jonas asked Knox.
As the boys started talking business, Alethea examined Harper from head to toe and smiled smugly. Yeah, Harper was quite aware that she resembled the living dead and she hated that the dolphin was standing there looking the image of perfection. Alethea’s smug smirk only rubbed salt in the wound. And because Harper could be a bitch too, she said, “So, how’s life in the Red Light District?”
Behind her, Tanner snickered.
Alethea’s eyes tightened. “You overstep far too often, sphinx. I have to say, you look rather weary.”
“And you look rather bitter,” said Harper. “Still pissed about the rings, huh?”
Alethea licked her teeth. “I won’t lie, I don’t think you’re the right person for Knox. But my brother is right – Knox is our ally, we should support his choices.”
Like Harper would ever believe that. She smiled. “That’s good to hear, even if it is complete tripe.”
Alethea’s mouth curled. “I said we should support his choices. I never said that I did.”
And that was why Harper still believed that Alethea could be one of the Horsemen. On the one hand, it could be said that surely she wouldn’t draw so much of Knox’s attention to herself if she was secretly conspiring against him. But Alethea was a she-demon scorned, and scorned she-demons were malicious creatures – especially when they had an ego as wide as hers.
“And I’m not the only one who’ll never support his choice to have a Wallis for a mate,” clipped Alethea.
“Ooh, I cared for about a ninth of a second. Then I remembered how stupid and insignificant it is.”
Alethea leaned forward. “Did you know that in the dictionary, your name is under the word ‘bitch’?”
“Not sure why you’re smiling. I’m not the one who had to look up the word.”
Alethea sucked in a breath and went to bark something else, but then the boys ended their little conversation.
Knox put a hand on Harper’s back. “Ready to leave?”
“Totally.” Harper gave Alethea a winning smile. “Well, it’s been great talking to you. You know how much I enjoy these little chats we have.”
Slipping his arm around Harper’s waist, Knox nodded at the other three demons. “Enjoy your evening.” Leading her out of the hotel, he said, “It’s hard not to intervene when she speaks to you that way.”
“I appreciate that you don’t. She needs to understand that I can defend myself just fine. Also, it’s really fun to toy with her.”
Knox’s mouth quirked. “Yes, I’ve noticed you enjoy it. My demon finds it just as amusing. But we’re going to push her and the others out of our minds now.”
“I have no issues with that plan, just so you know.”
My plan also involves you. Naked. In our bed.
Still have no issues with the plan.
Good to know.
Harper smiled. The anticipation crept up on her and taunted her the entire journey home. But when they finally walked into their bedroom, he looked at her just as he had this morning – like he was afraid he’d break her. She frowned. “You’re not going to tuck me into bed, are you?”
“I couldn’t even if I wanted to.” Knox thrust his hands into her hair, growling. “Open for me.” He kissed her, drinking her in. She tasted like Harper and caramel and honeycomb. And he couldn’t get enough. He tilted her head, licking deeper, taking more. Taking everything.
Her hands delved into his hair, nails digging into his scalp. Groaning, he shoved his hand under her shirt and bra and closed it around her breast. It was soft, round, and plump. Perfect. Her hard nipple brushed against his palm; he wanted it in his mouth.
Bunching the bottom of her shirt in his hands, Knox slid it up and over her head and then whipped off her bra. The sight of the tattoo-like brand of thorns circling her breast made masculine satisfaction whip through him. She was his. Every single inch of her belonged to him. Only he could touch her, taste her, drive deep inside her. No other male would ever have her. He’d kill anyone who tried.
Taking a fistful of her hair, Knox pulled hard, arching her back. He latched on tight to her pierced nipple, flicking the ring with his tongue and tugging it with his teeth. He breez
ed his thumb over the white ink ‘So it goes’ tattoo beneath her breast – her own personal reminder not to dwell on things that were out of her control.
“Undo your jeans,” he rumbled. “I want them off.” He needed to fuck her hard and deep.
Harper’s shaky fingers fumbled as she awkwardly snapped open her fly. He helped her shove down her jeans and panties, and then tossed her on the bed. Breathing hard, she watched as he quickly shed his own clothes, eyes drifting over her with sheer unadulterated possession. Naked, he truly was a sight to behold. Not an ounce of fat there. His body was all solid muscle, controlled strength, and sleek skin that hummed with power. Then there was his long, thick cock that was currently standing to attention.
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