CH.119

Serena huffed out an indignant breath. She raked her nails over Knox's ridiculously sexy, rippling abs, pouting like a naughty child.

As much as she wanted to rail against him, to demand answers to the million questions swirling through her mind, she knew that pushing too hard now might cause him to shut down completely. And right now, with so much still left unsaid between them, that was the last thing she needed.

Her delicate fingers continued their wandering path downward, trailing with featherlight caresses along the defined V-line of his lower abdomen that disappeared tantalizingly beneath the thin, rumpled duvet covering their naked bodies.

She immediately jerked her hand back as if scorched when her questing fingertips inadvertently grazed the thick, velvety steel of his impressive manhood, the blazing heat of his arousal searing her soft skin.

"Oh my god!" Serena gasped out in a strangled cry, her cheeks turning a brilliant shade of scarlet as the mortifying realization of what she'd just groped slammed into her with the force of a freight train.

She was made excruciatingly, shamefully aware of their naked, tangled forms beneath the disheveled bedsheets, of the lingering ache between her legs serving as a delicious reminder of how he had claimed her, ravaged her with that incredible length just last night.

Even with the weight of his much anticipated revelations hanging heavy between them, her damn traitorous body still responded to his sheer proximity with a fresh surge of throbbing desire.

Her feminine core clenched with renewed need, aching to be filled and stretched again by his thick invasion.

'Oh, Lord...! Why is my mind so full of dirty thoughts these days? Why can't I have enough of this male siren?’

"I-I'm sorry," she stammered as embarrassment flooded her system. "I didn't mean to... I wasn't trying to..."

Knox let out a deep chuckle. "Don't apologize, little one. It’s all yours. You're welcome to touch me anytime you like. However, you should be ready to face the consequences." he murmured.

Serena blushed even more.

She forced herself to sit up, twisting her torso away from him first that gave Knox a chance to reposition his larger form and make himself more comfortable on the sheets.

A small yelp escaped her lips as she turned her body to face him but froze with her mouth instantly falling open in a soundless cry of shock and drooling shamelessly at the overwhelming sight that greeted her.

Knox was lying there sprawled out beside her in all his glorious, nude perfection, with both hands tucked casually behind his tousled hair as he regarded her dumbstruck, gaping expression with open amusement dancing in his amber depths.

His full lips, slightly parted to reveal a teasing glimpse of straight white teeth, were curved into a lopsided smirk that somehow managed to appear both wickedly sensual and insufferably smug all at once.

But it wasn't his state of wanton undress, wasn't the mouthwatering display of his tattooed body that stretched in an elaborate, winding trail from his thick, corded neck down across his abdomen and laid bare before her hungry stare that had stunned Serena into such silence. No, it was the fact that he wasn't wearing his customary mask, leaving his striking, inhumanly beautiful face bare and exposed for the first time since she'd known him.

Serena couldn't believe her eyes as she drank in the masculine perfection of his chiseled features with shameless, ravenous hunger.

She shifted back slightly on the bed, wincing at the delicious ache that shot through her tender depths with each subtle movement, and let her wide, roaming gaze trail a scorching path from his otherworldly, unforgettable face to the sculpted contours of his body yet again.

Those defined, hairless pecs with their dusky, peaked nipples that she knew from experience were achingly sensitive to her teasing tongue.

The ridiculously etched eight-pack that seemed to be carved from steel, each deep groove and crevice begging for the caress of her fingertips, her lips and her tongue.

Serena unconsciously licked her lips, utterly entranced by the unfiltered glimpse at the primal, devastating beauty of the man she had inexplicably been blessed to call her husband.

"Dear god," she breathed, "You're... you're absolutely breathtaking." the words escaping her in a reverent whisper.

Knox's smirk widened at her unabashed admiration. "I'm glad you approve," he flashed a wicked smile.

‘Oh lord…! what extraordinary deeds have I done in a past life to earn myself such a surreally beautiful and insanely powerful creature as my eternal partner?’

Serena had seen glimpses of his body already, of course, had felt every glorious, throbbing inch of him.

She had explored every ridge, every bulging vein with her lips, her tongue as she brought him to completion in her greedy mouth.

However, this was the first time she was beholding his actual face without that damnable mask shielding it from her hungry stare.

Those full, sinfully red lips that had devoured both her mouth and her dripping femininity with such scorching, dizzying intensity were finally exposed perfectly to her.

As was the sharp angle of his aristocratic jaws, the straight, noble line of his nose, and the high, brutally carved cheekbones that lent an aura of dangerous, predatory elegance to his features.

‘But hold on...why did those striking, unforgettable features look so hauntingly, achingly familiar? Where have I seen this breathtakingly beautiful face before?’

Serena was so lost in her dazed scrutiny, in the futile attempt to discern if she'd caught an unmasked glimpse of Knox previously, that she didn't notice the self-satisfied, undeniably cocky smirk that curled those sensuous lips in response to her staring.

"Like what you see, love?" Knox's deep, rumbling baritone finally pulled her from her lust-addled reverie.

There was a distinctly predatory edge to his tone that seemed to caress her very nerve endings like a physical touch and raise the flames of desire burning low in her belly into an inferno.

Serena swallowed. Hard. Her throat suddenly felt dry as the Sahara. "I... yes," she admitted, her voice barely above a whisper. "God, yes. You're... you're incredible. But..."

"But?" he prompted, one dark eyebrow arching in question.

She hesitated, worrying her lower lip between her teeth as she struggled to find the right words. "I can't shake the feeling that I've seen your face before. Somewhere. It's driving me crazy trying to remember where."

A shadow seemed to pass over Knox's features, something dark and unreadable flickering in the depths of his gaze.

For a moment, Serena feared she'd said the wrong thing, that he would retreat behind that impenetrable mask of stoicism he wore so well.

However, his expression softened once more. "Perhaps you have, little one," he murmured cryptically as his hand trailed down her the curve of her back. "Now, about that little interruption earlier," his voice took on a teasing note.

Serena pulled back slightly, raising an eyebrow at him. "What interruption?"

Knox's grin was wicked.

Before Serena could press him further for an explanation, Knox surged forward and in the blink of an eye, she found herself pinned beneath him with his scorching heat enveloping her.

"This one," he said and captured her lips in a searing, soul-deep kiss that stole the very breath from her lungs.

Serena moaned into his mouth, all thoughts of their earlier conversation melting away as she lost herself in the feel of him, the taste of him. At least for just this moment.