Page 29 of Knot Guilty

The beautiful agony persists until I’m tipping over the edge, and Maxen suddenly sits up. His hand goes to my mouth, even as the thrusting continues. I call out into his hand through the lightning shooting through me. With my clit pressed against his body still, the continued motion has me whimpering through the aftershocks.

Maxen’s hand on my mouth muffles all of it.

When he senses I’m no longer in danger of waking the whole building, he sits up and places his feet on the floor. Maxen then grips my ass and stands, spinning me around and laying me on my back. He takes over, and I’m treated to a fine display of rippling chest and ab muscles as he powers into me.

I reach down to my clit, but with my stifling pillow out of reach, I think better of it and touch my fingers to where we connect.

“Sadie, look at me.”

The desperation in his voice gets my attention, and I slowly drag my eyes to his face. “I want you to see what you do to me, Sadie.”

Maxen lifts my legs to his shoulders and leans forward. “Eyes on me,” he orders as he begins thrusting again.

Within seconds, his rhythm becomes jerky, and he grunts out my name. One more thrust has Maxen seizing up altogether before he drops a hand to the mattress to hold himself off my sore chest.

The quiet room is filled with the sound of his heavy breathing. Maxen’s half-lidded eyes and tipsy grin are in stark contrast to the powerhouse he always presents. Likewise, his kiss is sensual and soft when he lowers his lips to mine, the complete opposite of the fiery fucking from just a moment ago. So much more intimate, which scares the hell out of me.

I shove against his shoulder, breaking the kiss. “Seeing how this room is u-rated, you’ll have to scamper back off to your own bed.”

“U-rated?”

“Only for persons with a uterus.”

“I see.”

Though I expect Maxen to be angry or maybe hurt by my dismissal, that damned grin of his is back. “You don’t have to protect yourself, Sadie. This isn’t just about sex for me, but I’m not looking to shackle you.”

Maxen stands back up, pulling off the used condom. I cringe, wondering how and where Maxen will dispose of the contraceptive so that it’s not seen by others. I’m not about to ask, though. Maxen slips out the door with a wink, and I flop back onto the bed, still feeling the vibrations of the powerful orgasms.

Reveille sounds at five, and I hop out of bed feeling a little less stiff than yesterday. I dress quickly as my team plans to join the grunts for their morning physical conditioning. The workout is embarrassingly short and nowhere near as strenuous as what my team does on a daily basis back at home.

I don’t judge too much, considering they probably do more when stateside. Afterward, my crew shares a quick breakfast before breaking off to the showers. With nothing else to do for the time being, I sit down on my bed and peck out an email to Knot reporting on yesterday’s raid. Then, just for the hell of it, I email my dad. He’s going to hate that. But maybe that’ll motivate him to let Blake teach him how to use email.

I keep to my room for the rest of the day so that I’m immediately available should Chelsea and Bastien call in. It’s certainly not because I feel the need to avoid Aaron or Maxen for any reason.

The rare free time is spent reading and catching up on the news. Around seventeen hundred, Zach knocks on my door. “Yeet and Bash are on their way back.”

Lifting a single eyebrow, I tease the former green beret. “I’m gonna tell her you called her that.”

Zach laughs, not worried at all about my empty threat. “No, you won’t. If you do, you’ll only be reminding her that you’re the one that gave her that name.”

I chuckle as Zach crosses his arms in defiance, knowing he’s got me.

A couple of years back, a few of the Knotheads I work with came to Gatlinburg to check out my hometown. Chelsea, Birdie, and Brock came, and of course, Aaron was there. Being the adrenaline junkies they are, the group wanted to try their hand at whitewater rafting.

Halfway down our run on the Ocoee River, a small green snake dropped into our raft from the tree canopy above. Now, everybody knows that green snakes are harmless. Everyone but Chelsea, I guess. As soon as she spotted the tiny green danger noodle, she yeeted herself right out of the raft and took the next set of rapids, ass in the water and toes in the air. I’ve called her Yeet ever since… sparingly.

When the pair have had almost enough time to make the drive back to base, I head out into the heat to join my team to get some food and be on hand to hear Yeet and Bash’s report. Given their early start and long day, I’m sure they’ll be ready to crash right after.

Their dirt-covered Sentinel pulls up to the dorm building, and two ragged operatives spill out. “That bad, huh?” I ask.

Bastien removes his hat and slaps it against his leg. The fabric releases a cloud of dust, a fitting match to the thunderstorm in his eyes. “Intel had the location on the map right but not the spot of the weapons. Caves. A big network of caves. And compared to the amount your guys found, this was the motherload. Heathman and Morrison even stuck around to have more available bodies. We offered to stay. Heathman accepted, but the feds overruled him.”

“Idiots,” I mumble. “All right. You two—”

Yelling coming from HQ has all of our heads spinning in that direction. Sergeant Avara storms out of the building as other men scatter, yelling as they go. Something’s happened.

Spotting my group, Avara sprints over as the rest of my guys fall in, attracted by the commotion. “First platoon came under attack. They’re pinned down in the caves. We wouldn’t even know except that Masters was outside stitching up a bullet wound in his own leg and called it in.”

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