Beautifully Knight (Jordan Knight Fanfic, Liadan #5)

Murals and Moments

Warning: Mature (18+) content, if you'd prefer not to read, skip to next part

-MARIA-

"Just two more steps down, a few forward, a few up, and we're there, sweetie."

A mixture of anxiety, impatience, and curiosity swirled in my stomach as I listened to the sweet voice of the driver that Tony had sent to pick me up. Her warm tone intermingled with the evident harmony of rolling waves.

Humidity flushed my cheeks and seeped through the light sweater on my arms to leave a thin mist on my skin. I felt the fabric of the navy spaghetti strap dress I'd blindly wrestled over my head in the backseat of the Escalade swish around my ankles. I could only imagine my already messy hair was even more unruly as a strand slipped from my ponytail and blew into my mouth.

Instinctively, I swiped it away and reached up for the blind fold that I'd been instructed to wear to keep me in the dark for the past fifteen minutes or so.

"Not yet, Mrs. Knight-Holloway, not yet," the driver tsked, lightly tapping my hand in a motherly swat. "It's ten steps, I promise. You don't want to spoil this, trust me."

"We're almost there?" I asked as I stuck out an unsure foot and hoped I wasn't going to stub my toe in my flip-flops that really weren't meant for wearing in public.

"We're almost there. Just stay with me. I'll lead the way. I'm not going to let you fall," she replied simply as I felt her hand around my shoulders. "Two steps down, remember. One. Two."

With the last step, I recognized the thudding noise of wood and suspected we were on a dock. "Where are we going? A bar by the harbor?"

"A few more steps and you'll see for yourself."

I sighed to myself as I realized she wasn't going to tell me anything more than Tony had before he'd hung up on me—and subsequently ignored all my follow-up calls and texts.

After weeks of uncertainty, it was more than a little nerve-wracking to feel completely blind to the world around me—metaphorically and physically but it was evident that I was just going to have to comply a little longer.

"Alright, five paces up this ramp and we're there."

I silently counted to five with each rise and fall of my feet as I felt the tension build in my body while moving my way up an incline with my arm aimlessly stretched before me until it bumped into something solid.

"Careful there, we're here," the driver's voice lowered to a whisper and I felt butterflies as I pulled my hand back to the blindfold and quickly freed my eyes to find myself standing in front of a massive door.

She pushed it open and blinking, it took me a few moments to adjust to the bright lights shining down on me. As my eyes cleared, my brain slowly registered my surroundings not as a harbor dock, but rather the main deck of a yacht that extended around me in every direction.

"Welcome aboard, Mrs. Knight-Holloway," a voice sounded behind me and I turned to find myself gazing into the pair of cobalt blue eyes that never failed to rev up every emotion that I'd ever felt.

Underneath the stars peeking between the clouds in the dark night sky and before the backdrop of the gentle waves rolling back and forth behind him, my husband leaned casually against the railing as his unbuttoned dress shirt and black hair blew wildly in the wind. He held a small glass of brown liquor in his right hand and raised a cigarillo to his lips with his left, causing his silver wedding band to twinkle in the moonlight as his eyes trailed me up and down and a slow puff of smoke escaped his lips.

"I'll leave you two to have some privacy. Enjoy," the driver winked at me and squeezed my shoulder before returning back to the stairs that I realized we'd been ascending in the midst of my questions.