Chapter 15 Lucy
LUCY
Everything moved quickly after that.
One moment, Knox and I were having a heart-to-heart, where he told me about his Nana, his father, and the deadline to get a job. The next, I was stumbling backwards into the tent while Knox clumsily tried to unzip it without breaking our kiss.
I laughed. “Zipper too hard for you?”
“Shut up,” he bit my lip, a scolding if ever there was, his voice more of a growl than I’d heard from him, “and get inside.”
I heard the zipper finally scrape against itself as he managed to open the doorway. He shoved me lightly.
I tried to step back while sucking on his tongue, only to trip over the tent and fall inside with a yelp.
Knox laughed, even as I dragged him with me.
He landed half on top of me, knocking the wind out of me with a loud curse.
“Knox!” I complained, gasping for air. My back was on the air mattress he’d inflated an hour ago, but half my ass was on the ground of the tent, which meant right on top of the cement that made up the porch.
“Hush,” Knox dismissed—the jerk—before hooking my knees with his hands and hauling me fully onto the mattress in one smooth motion.
“Holy shit,” I exhaled, “how did you do that?”
Knox laughed. “What, manhandle you? I’ll show you.”
Before I could protest, he’d hauled me up to sitting and had stripped me of my shirt.
I shivered. “Knox, it’s freezing out here!”
But he was too busy looking at me, his stare intense and heated as he trailed over my neck and chest, then down to where I knew my waist tapered narrower.
I wrapped my arms around myself, half from the chill and half from how vulnerable I suddenly felt.
“Hey, don’t hide from me.”
Knox threaded his fingers with mine and coaxed my arms back. He guided me onto my back, pinning my hands on either side of me.
“You’re stunning.” He pressed a kiss to my mouth, then trailed lower, down my throat and chest.
His words were like a brand, and I moaned and gripped his hands harder where he had me pinned to the air mattress.
When I felt teeth on my nipple, I jumped. I grasped onto his hair and tugged, earning my own groan from him.
“You can’t be serious,” I panted, even as my other hand found its way under his shirt at the base of his spine. “We cannot have sex on your nana’s back porch.”
“We can,” Knox argued, “because she would have loved you.”
I gasped. “You don’t mean that.”
It was too good to be true. Moms don’t just approve of me.
There’s a system in place to determine whether I’m a suitable match.
Even if there was some fondness, that didn’t mean much in the world of my family.
I wasn’t anything special enough for Knox to know immediately that his Nana would have liked me at all.
Knox’s eyes blazed, and he crawled back up my body to kiss me with surprising softness.
I couldn’t help it. I melted beneath him. There was something about feeling covered and safe with Knox, and the way he kissed me felt like I was something precious.
“I mean it,” Knox mumbled against my lips, strong arms bracing him up on either side of me. “She loved people who had big hearts. People who cared about other people who may not be in their same situation. People who would go to bat for the people they cared about.”
“And you think that’s me?”
It was barely above a whisper. I couldn’t dare to hope that he saw me like that, in such a positive light.
“I know it is,” Knox caressed my face, “I’ve seen it. You would go to bat for me, wouldn’t you?”
I blushed at the knowing smile he wore. “I don’t know.”
“Lucy.” It was scolding, I knew, for that cop out answer.
I pouted. “Okay, fine. I would.” I couldn’t stop myself from exposing myself again, not when his eyes were so open. “I want you to be happy, and I hate that he’s trying to take advantage of you.”
Knox leaned back down and sucked on my neck, hard enough that I knew there would be a mark there tomorrow.
I moaned. “Knox. You can’t just use that to distract m—oh.”
I rolled my hips when he rubbed his palm against my erection through my pants, seeking more friction. I wanted nothing more than for him to touch me.
“Good boy,” he praised.
I shivered and let my head drop back against the spare blanket that was going to be our pillow for the night.
Knox chuckled. “Like I said, she would have loved you. She would have teased us relentlessly for fucking on her back porch, but she would have given us condoms and left coffee in her pot for us in the morning.”
I whined, my mind torn between the sweetness of what he was saying and the evil things his hand was doing as it pushed past my jeans.
“So that’s a yes then?”
I frowned and opened my eyes to look at him. “What?”
Knox leaned in and nipped at the shell of my ear. “Yes, you’ll have sex with me on my nana’s back porch?”
He rolled his hips into mine, and I gasped.
“God, yes, Knox, okay! Yes!”
Knox snorted. “Thank fuck.”
Then he was kissing me hard enough that I heard static, and I raked my nails against his back, words falling from my lips without permission.
This might be the best sex I’ve ever had.