Dark Sexy Knight (A Modern Fairytale) (12 page)

On her tiptoes, she arched her back away from the wall as his tongue swept into her mouth, making hot tears spill over the well of her eyes as her fingers spread and froze, shocked by the intense feeling of his hot velvet tongue sliding slowly, willfully, possessively across hers. Then she gasped, plunging her hands into his hair as he growled into her mouth, the hand around her waist moving to her ass and cupping to shove her forward. Her dress rode up to her hips as she straddled his thigh, the wetness between her legs surely dampening his jeans, her breasts crushed against his chest. Their tongues twisted and tangled, their shared pants of breath a ragged symphony.

She arched again, grinding against him, desperate to quell the throb of need building savagely between her legs. Frustrated that she could find no release, she whimpered, finally letting her head fall back against the wall.

His lips slid from her mouth, along the edge of her jaw, to her throat, to the curve where her neck and shoulder met, and there he rested, his chest heaving into hers as he panted against the bare skin of her shoulder.

“Baby,” he sighed. “Verity.”

Her name was want.

Her name was need.

Her name was truth.

Reaching for her waist, he held her gently as he drew back his knee, supporting her until she opened her eyes and looked up at him.

Her breasts rose and fell quickly as she took short, shallow breaths, staring up at him with wonder.

“Good night, Verity,” he said, lowering his arms and stepping away from her.

For just a moment he hesitated, his dark eyes locked on hers, and she wondered if he’d pull her into his arms again. Part of her hoped so, but another part of her wanted the epic kiss that had just irreversibly shifted the axis of her world to be tonight’s finale.

As if he could read her mind, he grinned wickedly at her, then backed away into the shadows of the living room, his footsteps moving toward the kitchen.

“Good night, Colton,” she whispered into the darkness, placing her palm over her heart as she watched him go.

Colt slept like shit. Again.

That kiss.

That kiss.

That white-hot fucking kiss had shocked the shit out of him.

Beneath the girl-next-door sweetness of Verity Gwynn, there simmered volcanic levels of heat that had totally floored him. Colt wasn’t sure what he’d expected, but she had answered his hunger with a fierce desire of her own that he never saw coming. He’d felt her arousal—the hardness of her nipples through her dress and his shirt, the heat of her pussy pressed against his jeans, the fucking sounds she made, the pressure of her hands buried in his hair, the way she arched against him and gyrated against his thigh wedged between hers. That kiss had escalated so fast, it made his head spin. And it made his body want. So. Much. More.

But all he’d gotten was a super-shitty night’s sleep.

After he’d cleaned up the back patio and kitchen, he’d stripped down for bed, but his body was too wired, and his fucking cock wouldn’t give up its futile fucking hopes for more. Snapping on the light, he benched for thirty minutes, but that didn’t really help either, so he jerked off, clenching his eyes shut, remembering the slide of her tongue, the way she moaned into his mouth and swallowed his groans of pleasure, the way she’d feel, tight and hot, if the day came when he made love to her. He came quickly in his hand, but his fantasies didn’t quit and he hardened again. It took beating it again in the shower to finally take the edge off his hunger, but he
still
slept like shit because he couldn’t stop thinking about her, his foolish fucking head imagining a life that included her until he finally drifted off to sleep after two.

When his alarm sounded at 6:15, he slammed the palm of his hand over the snooze button, but thankfully he’d disabled it before bed last night, and the alarm continued to blare in his ear and forced him to wake up.

Melody was up at seven o’clock every morning, rain or shine, and Colt had promised to be the first thing she saw when she opened her eyes. After leaving her abandoned last night, the least he could do was be there on time this morning.

Sighing deeply, he pushed off the covers and reached for the jeans he’d worn last night. He stared at the denim in his hands for a moment, then held them up by the waistband, taking a moment to figure out which thigh he’d wedged between Verity’s legs and then pressing the fabric to his nose. And fuck. He could
smell
her.

Clenching his jaw tightly, he closed his eyes, inhaling her scent deeply and thinking she smelled so much like fucking heaven, he couldn’t wait to taste her too. His body tightened in response to that sexy fucking thought, and he pressed the denim up to his face, practically bathing in the remnants of her scent.

Fuck.

Fuck fuck
fuuuuuck
.

He was falling for her. Hard.

Disgusted with himself, he balled up the jeans and threw them in the laundry basket, then opened a drawer and pulled out another pair of jeans, dragging them up his legs. He grabbed a plain white T-shirt from the top drawer, then pulled a black button-down shirt from a hanger in his closet, shrugging it over his shoulders as he slipped his feet into the leather thongs he’d been wearing last night.

Five minutes later, he was pulling away from his house, his eyes fixed on the still-dark window that used to be Melody’s bedroom, and he hoped that Verity had enjoyed a better night’s sleep than he had.

Whatever thoughts he’d had about not falling for Verity were laughable at this point. It hadn’t taken long for him to get in deep—he was in
way
over his head—and unfortunately, after last night, he had zero interest in getting back out. His body was on fire for her. His mind couldn’t set her aside for more than a moment. His heart raced when he thought of spending time alone with her. The only direction he wanted to move, where Verity Gwynn was concerned, was forward.

And yet their discussion last night had added a whole new level of challenge to the possibility of a relationship between them. He and Verity had important things in common that she didn’t know about yet, but the way they handled those similarities was wildly different. So different, in fact, he had purposely kept certain vital particulars about his life to himself after she’d gotten upset with him about Ryan and group homes. And now, in the bright light of day, he wasn’t certain he’d made the right choice. He didn’t ever want her to think that he was deceiving her by omission. But the reality was that the situation was fucking delicate, and he didn’t want to fuck it up.

With almost no cars on the road this early, he had an easy twenty-minute drive north to Norcross. He slipped his access card into the card reader at the entrance to Bonnie’s Place and watched the black gate slowly slide open.

He entered the gated community, as he had a hundred times before, driving past two ten-unit condo complexes on either side of the landscaped road, all freshly painted a subtle gray with bright white trim and fronted by manicured lawns. Next, on his left, was the swimming pool and community center, with a wide wraparound porch, decorated with hanging baskets of hot-pink geraniums, and across the road from that, on his right, was the Laundromat, café, and sundries store. Turning right, onto Wellness Way, he passed two more ten-unit condo complexes on either side of the road, circled a roundabout with a bubbling fountain, and turned right again, onto Bravery Boulevard.

Pulling up in front of complex F (Is For “Friendship”), he cut the engine and looked up at the tidy building that Melody, who’d been born with Down syndrome, had called home since six months before her mother passed away from cancer.

Bonnie’s Place was exactly the sort of safe, caring, modern community that Verity had sworn last night didn’t exist.

It was a gated village for developmentally disabled adults, housing eighty residents in eight condo complexes that were staffed by a twenty-four-hour CM, or coach and mentor. It was Melody’s p.m. CM, Dawn, who had called Colt to tell him about Melody’s seizure. It was also Dawn who’d alerted the on-call doctor and seen to her care when her legal guardian, Colt, was nowhere to be found.

He checked his watch. It was ten of seven, so he hustled over to the basement apartment that the CMs shared and rang the bell. After a moment, Francisco, the on-duty CM, answered, offering Colt a wide smile.

“Hey, man!” he said, reaching out his hand, which was covered with the same sort of tribal tattoos that Colt favored.

Colt shook it, nodding at his Hawaiian friend, who’d been a CM at Bonnie’s Place since Mel had arrived, shortly after her eighteenth birthday. “How’s she doing?”

“Just checked the monitor. She’s still asleep.”

“Dawn left at five?”

Francisco nodded. “Yeah.”

“I owe her flowers. And chocolates. And my firstborn.”

“Nah,” said Francisco as Colton followed him through the apartment to the stairs that led to level one and two of the condo building. “She knew you felt bad.”

There were a total of four regular CMs—Dawn, Francisco, Brooke, and Lamont—who staffed Mel’s unit, providing direction and assistance for all manner of day-to-day needs, including personal grooming, health and safety, communication and socialization, and home management skills, such as meal preparation and home maintenance. The CMs made sure that the residents were on time for the shuttle that took them to their jobs in the local community, and stayed in constant communication with both their employers and parents or guardians.

Although the residents of Bonnie’s Place lived in their own apartments, with their own bedroom, bathroom, living room, and kitchen, it also adopted a modified group home approach in that a CM was always available in the same building and regularly checked up on the residents. Aunt Jane had approved the installation of three video monitors in Melody’s apartment so that she could be monitored for seizures.

Independence with care. Living alone with a giant safety net.

Passing the door that led to the first floor, they climbed to the second landing and Francisco swiped his card over the reader that allowed them to enter the upstairs hallway. There were three apartments to the left and two to the right, with a common room in the middle of the hallway with a window-seat alcove, TV, game table, and reading area.

“You want me to go with you?” asked Francisco.

Colt shook his head. “No, thanks. I got it.”

Francisco slapped him on the back. “Stop beating yourself up. You’re allowed to have a life, you know.”

“I should have been here.”

“You
will
be. Next time.”

“Thanks, man.”

Francisco winked at him, then turned back around as Colt headed for the third door on the left, swiping his card over the reader beside the doorbell. The light on the keypad changed from red to green, and as quietly as he could, Colt eased into Mel’s apartment.

In the months before she died, Aunt Jane had decorated the apartment with loving care: a fluffy lavender rug covered the floor of the living area, which had a violet love seat and a purple-upholstered easy chair. A TV sat on a stand in the corner, and Mel’s unit had sliding doors that led to a small balcony, large enough for two chairs and a small table, where she liked to eat her breakfast. Crossing the living room, Colt pressed his ear to her bedroom door but heard nothing, so he backed away and headed for the kitchen, opening the fridge to take out four eggs, butter, and milk.

He pulled down a bowl and whisked the eggs with milk, then melted butter in a skillet before pouring the raw eggs into the hot pan. As it sizzled and spat, he checked the clock: 6:58. He poured two glasses of orange juice and took them out to the table on the balcony, then shoved two pieces of oat bread in the toaster. Just as they popped up, he heard her bedroom door open and her familiar voice say, “C-C-C-Colton?”

Melody didn’t speak like a typical adult. Her speech was low, stilted, and somewhat garbled to an untrained ear, but since she’d been all but a sister to him since he was a young, angry preteen, Colt didn’t really notice anymore.

“Got breakfast started, Mel,” he called from the kitchen. “Juice on the table. Eggs done. Buttering the toast. You hungry?”

“Yeah. I’m hungry, C-C-C-Colton.”

She shuffled into the living room, and he looked up to catch her stretching. Her reddish-blonde hair was still in the French braid that Dawn must have plaited before bed, and her Hello Kitty pajamas were wrinkled.

“I had a s-s-seizure last night.” She clicked her teeth together, looking at him through her thick glasses.

“I heard,” he said. He finished buttering the toast and cut it in half, placing two pieces on her plate and two on his, then picked up the plates and turned to face her. “I’m sorry I wasn’t here.”

“Dawn was here.”

“I know. I’m still sorry I wasn’t.”

“It’s . . . okay, C-C-C-Colton.”

He scanned her face with his eyes. Her familiar freckles. Her chapped lips. Her bright blue eyes. Her ruddy cheeks. Her cheerful smile. And he did what he always did. He smiled back because he loved her.

“Ready for breakfast, Mel?”

Her smile widened as she turned for the balcony. “I’m always ready for breakfast, silly. You know that.”

***

Since Colton was working the evening show, he didn’t need to be in until four o’clock, which meant that Verity, who was working the matinee shift, hadn’t seen him since last night.

It was probably for the best because, after last night’s kiss, she wouldn’t have been able to keep her eyes off him if he walked by or stopped to visit her, and she definitely would have taken a bathroom break right about the time he entered the arena to fight Artie, so she could watch him fight for a few minutes.

It was impossible to miss—even upon first meeting—that Colton Lane was a force field of sexual energy. From the intense, angry set of his jaw to the hard, coiled strength in his frame, she’d been mesmerized by the hard-core masculinity of him. But she couldn’t have predicted their mutual chemistry. It was one thing for him to be sexy—to make
any
woman’s mind beeline straight to the bedroom when he was in sight—but it was quite another to discover that together they were combustible.

All day she’d relived their kiss, daydreaming into space, squelching little whimpers and soft sighs as she remembered the way his hand had masterfully cupped her skull, the way his arm had braced her back, his knee between her thighs, her soaked panties rubbing against his jeans. Just as she’d somehow known he would, he’d owned her with that kiss. Completely.

But she’d also felt
his
arousal, heard
his
groans, felt the pressure of his fingers against her scalp, and seen the desperate want in his eyes before he dipped his head and claimed her mouth with his. She recalled the way he’d grabbed her around the waist when she decided to leave the patio before their night together had even begun—the way he’d held on to her, sliding his lips along her throat and shoulder, begging her not to leave him.

It was intoxicating for her to realize that this sexy, beautiful Viking Knight with a heart of gold wanted
her
, liked
her
, little Verity Grace Gwynn from nowhere, when it felt like he could have anyone. She leaned her elbow on the glass case as a customer stood before her, trying to decide between a Celtic cross and Thor’s hammer, and Verity fingered the charm she hadn’t taken off since last night.