Read A Dark & Stormy Knight: A McKnight Romance (McKnight Romances) for Free Online Page A

heart-shaped ass. Sol had a momentary fantasy that involved
taking her from behind, pounding his flesh unmercifully into hers. Doing the
most mundane things, she always managed to give him a hard-on; it was only fair
he give it back to her.
    He stifled a groan along with the thought
and took the case she’d pulled out of the car. “God, I hate this car.”
    “Don’t start on the car, Sol.” Her voice
was tired, and now that she’d turned toward him, he saw the weariness in her
face.
    But fighting was good. Anything that kept
him from doing something stupid, like putting his arms around her, was good. “It’s
too small, Georgia,” he said for the thousandth time since she’d bought the car
used. “It’ll crumple like an old beer can if you get into a tussle with
anything bigger ‘n a thimble.”
    “Sol, I’m a teacher still paying off
student loans, not Ivanka Trump. I can’t afford the kind of car you want me to
drive.”
    “I know that.” He also knew the teachers
where Georgia worked weren’t subject to the teachers’ union, so they weren’t
paid as well as public schools teachers, but wasn’t that another reason she
should let him help? He let his annoyance have free rein. “But you haul my
daughter around in it, so why won’t you let me help you buy a better car?”
    Her lips thinned, undoubtedly clamping down
on some sarcastic response that would ignite his temper and turn their sniping
into a full-blown conflagration.
    He almost felt sorry for needling her.
She was obviously having a tough time with her folks. Then he looked down at
the way her generous breasts pulled at her tank top, felt his cock strain
against his jeans, and wished he could think of something that would start the
kind of fight that would keep them from talking to each other for the next
twenty years.
    Too bad all the blood had migrated south
from his brain.
    ###
    “You’ll stay to supper,” Sol’s mama said
as soon as they had Eden settled in Hannah and Leah’s room.
    “I can’t,” Georgia objected. She’d known
Ruth would invite her, but as soon as Sol started in about the car, she’d seen
how he was going to be. “Daddy barely knows how to turn on the oven, and
Grams—well, Grams is too absent-minded.”
    It would be a relief to spend even a
little time someplace where she wasn’t expected to wait on someone but not if
Sol was going to be critical. Why couldn’t he just put his arms around her and
make her feel as though he was there for her?
    Ruth McKnight snorted. “Men can be so
helpless.” Georgia appreciated the moral support, though she knew Ruth had
taught her boys to be as self-sufficient as the girls. “Next week, then. You’ll
throw something in a Crock-Pot. Something your daddy only has to dish up.”
    “That would be nice,” Georgia agreed. It would be even nicer if Sol wasn’t there since he couldn’t be supportive.
    She hugged Eden, promised to see her
soon, and waved good-bye as she got into her car. It growled when she started
it. God, please don’t let anything be wrong with the car. She couldn’t
afford it, financially or emotionally. If the car went belly-up, she’d be
tempted to let Sol make good on his offer. And he would. If she believed it was
about keeping Eden safe, she’d have let him help buy a better car but it wasn’t.
It was about keeping her tied to him, about him being more than just her
ex-husband.
    He was a stubborn man who should have
married a nice, compliant Betty Crocker type, not a woman who could match him
stubborn for stubborn.
    ###
    “Hey, monster.” Sol sat down on the porch
step next to his daughter. Her lips were already stained blue from the Popsicle
his mama had given her after supper. “What’s that thoughtful look on your face
about? You missin’ your mama already?” She’d been gone only a couple of hours,
but Eden and Georgia were close.
    Eden leaned against his shoulder with a solid bump. “I wish she could stay here,
too. Grandma and