Chapter 16
SKYLAR
Knox’s kiss isn’t gentle. It isn’t sweet.
It’s brutal. Honest. Raw.
He isn’t just melding his mouth to mine or forcing my tongue to meet his.
He does it so I can find my way back to him.
It’s about steadying me. I can feel it.
His hand anchors me by pulling my hair, protective despite its roughness. He isn’t groaning or moaning anymore, either.
He calms me with his mouth because he can tell how late it’s getting. How exhausted I am.
This kiss is purely functional, and yet I still feel his worship with every press of his lips.
My heart swoops, and I sob as I keep screaming into his mouth.
I’m being tended to in the most primal way possible.
When he deepens the kiss, I almost hear the words he doesn’t say—Stop fighting yourself. Save your strength. I’ve got you.
I believe him.
I shouldn’t.
He kidnapped me. Speaks so casually about murdering people.
About turning them into leather.
But my soul doesn’t care about right and wrong. My body doesn’t either. While my instincts tell me to run, I sink into Knox, physically and emotionally.
I already figured out what they were doing here, but hearing him say it—that name—I still broke down.
And he caught me.
With my arms thrown around his neck, my captor welcomes me into his embrace. He doesn’t care if I’m losing it or not, just folds his arms around me, pulling me to the edge of the chair, as close to him as possible.
He’s on his knees, compromised in a way. I could hurt him.
Except…what good would it do? Naked, barefoot, and exhausted, I wouldn’t make it very far.
Besides, I don’t want to hurt him. Don’t wish anything bad to happen to him. And…yes, I’m falling for him.
Shame has my throat locking. The feelings I have toward this beast are unnatural. Sick.
They’re there, inside me, nonetheless.
When I cling tighter to him, Knox hums, pulling me closer. He treats me like I’m the only thing in this cursed town worth protecting.
We turn people into leather.
That last reminder of what he does for a living hits me harder than the ones that came before it. It slices through the warmth I’ve been drowning in.
He’s dangerous, dealing in death. I don’t really know him. I’m half his size.
I can’t afford to blur the lines. Can’t forget how he could kill me at any given second.
So, as much as it hurts, the first thing I have to do is pull away. I ask him to let me go by flattening my trembling palms against his chest.
“Don’t, Skylar.” His voice roughens against my mouth.
“No,” I whimper.
Hand in my hair, his fingers yank me closer. His teeth graze my lip, sending another bolt of need between my thighs.
“I can’t—I don’t—”
“Skylar, shut up.” His affection is quickly escalating into lust. Heat pools between my thighs at that. “Let me take care of you. Let me keep you.”
Keep me? As what? A lover? As leather stretched over his frame once he’s finished using me?
“No.” My eyes fly open. My nails bite into his chest as I pull back as far as I can. “No, I want out of here.”
“You’re not going anywhere,” he murmurs, his fingers sliding to the back of my head, massaging my scalp. Confusing me. “Shh. Easy now.”
I refuse to take solace in that. Even if I stay where I am, even if our foreheads press together and it feels so, so nice.
“Hides.” My lips brush his as the word forces itself out of me. “Living-hides.”
“Not you.” His teeth nip my lip, grounding me through pain. “Never you.”
“You might be lying.” I want to believe I can tell…but can I? “I don’t even know you.”
Knox grunts. His hands clamp down on my knees, and in one push, I’m shoved back into the chair. His stare pins me in place, hard and unrelenting.
I watch him, my curiosity tangled with terror.
He curses low, jaw tight. “Skylar, you aren’t—”
“Aren’t what?” My question is a desperate one. I need him to give me the assurance my fractured mind is aching for.
“I told you, you’re not a living-hide.” Knox wipes away my tears, his thumbs are rough as they stroke my skin. “You’re something better.”
“Please. I don’t want to die like this.” My teeth chatter. I suck in a deep breath while he observes me. “Or be tanned. Or sold. Please. You like me, don’t you? I mean, I—I like you.”
This is worse than admitting to being curious, but just as true. I’m begging him to keep me alive while telling him I have feelings for him.
Feelings I’ve had since the moment we set foot in this town.
“No one’s going to kill you.” He scoops me up, careful about my bandaged thigh. “And I do like you. That’s why you’ll be treated better than the others. Like you’re mine.”
We get to the door leading to his basement.
I can’t fight him. Can’t escape. Exhaustion threatens to take me under. My eyelids are heavy.
Knox’s warmth doesn’t help my situation. Being in his arms is like curling beneath blankets on a winter night. The temptation to relax and let myself drown in him is painfully strong.
“I don’t want to be any kind of living-hide.” While he stomps down the stairs, I grab his face. Pull it down to me. “Don’t do this to me.”
He stops at the bottom of the stairs. The smells of tanning surround me. The sounds of the air vents and the rusty fan reach us.
Goosebumps rise all over my skin.
“Trouble.” His hands flex, pinning me tighter to him. “Just wait.”
“For what?” Ice shoots up my spine at the command.
“For me to show you that you can trust me.” His body heat seeps into mine. “That I’m going to make you last forever.”
Last? Who talks like that? Who is this man?
And how does he twist something that should terrify me into something almost…affectionate?
Maybe that’s not an act. Maybe the gentleness is just as real as the brutal parts of him.
When I dare to look up, I see just that. His entire expression has morphed into that of concern. Of love.
We’re both sick. The sickest.
“Oh, no,” I murmur to myself.
“What is it?” Knox lowers me into another chair draped in towels. Fresh. Clean. Prepared for me.
“I—” Maybe if I hear him say that he loves me, it could help. Maybe we’ll be mad together, and I won’t feel so alone anymore. “Knox…”
His cock jerks under the towel, his stare scorching over my bare skin. He reaches out to me with his hand, and I wait eagerly for him to touch me.
He does, pushing his thumb into my mouth, coating it with my spit.
My heart stutters when he pulls out, bringing it to his mouth and sucking. He’s practically savoring it, then he growls before letting it pop free.
I melt into the chair, fingers clinging to its edge just to keep myself tethered to the earth.
“Don’t move.” The sudden shift in him knocks the breath out of me.
Before I can process it, Knox is already out of sight, heading somewhere behind me.
“What’s going on?” My gaze locks on the hooks in front of me, as if they might hold all the answers.
I can’t bring myself to look back. I don’t want to see him walking up the stairs, away from me. It’s not until I hear clothes rustling that I let out a relieved sigh. He’s getting dressed, that’s all.
I sink my teeth into my inner cheek to bite back an embarrassed sob. In less than a day, this is what I’ve turned into. Painfully dependent on my captor.
He’s gotten into my head, deep and fast. If I keep letting him do that, to reside there and play games with me, I might just let him do anything.
“Trouble.” In a plain T-shirt that stretches over hardened muscles and faded jeans falling over a tapered waist, Knox is back.
A shadow. A menace.
Crowding my space.
Annihilating my doubts.
Owning me.
My lips are about to break into a smile, and then I see it.
He has a bottle in his hand. Clear, thick oil sloshes inside as Knox tests its weight.
It’s…tanning oil.
What he uses on his other hides.
On the people they’ve killed.
“You lied to me. I really am your…” My heart, I think it’s stopped beating. “Your living-hide.”
“No, I said you were mine.” He cocks his head, studying me with something closer to clinical fascination than lust or hate. “I meant it.”
“You’re going to kill me.” A shiver rakes down my spine, tightening my throat. “I was right.”
“No, you weren’t listening.” His tone isn’t angry, but full of conviction that, one day, soon, I will.
He sets the bottle on the floor behind the chair before coming back to me, lifting me as if I weigh nothing.
Despite everything, I offer no resistance, my body going limp in his hold, giving Knox all the permission he needs to carry me.
He does, taking me around the chair, setting me on my feet next to the bottle. When he arranges my hands to rest against the chair’s back.
There’s a quiet confidence about him.
And—crazy as it sounds—that confidence steadies me. No matter how afraid I am, he soothes me.
“You’re important.” His chest expands against my back, his hands folding over mine. “I tend to what’s mine. I keep what’s mine. And you, Skylar, you belong to me.”
He lets go of me, robbing me of his touch that I absolutely shouldn’t crave, but then, before I can beg him to touch me again, he’s back.
His hands glide over my body. He’s meticulous and pensive as he works the oil into my skin. My shoulders. My arms. My wrists.
Despite his devotion, doubts slip in, telling me this is the calm before the storm.
My head falls between my hands, bracing for the axe I fear will hit me at any moment now.
But seconds pass, and nothing comes. No pain, at least. Only the press of Knox’s palms as he lathers the oil, rubbing it methodically into me, not missing an inch.
It feels like he’s not just coating me. He’s transforming me. Turning me into something better. Something his.
A man who wanted me dead would’ve been careless, cruel. He would’ve splashed the oil over me like I was just another hide strung up on a hook.
Not Knox.
That certainty does things to my heart. Dark, dangerous things.
What Knox is doing to me—how he’s treating me—is the first time I’ve been cared for. I can acknowledge that now that I’m no longer scared of him.
“I’m yours.” The truth escapes me, my whole body echoing the vow. “I am.”
“Trouble.” A kiss to my neck. “Such a good girl.”
“Thank you.” My body reacts to the oil, to his care, by tilting my hips up. By offering more of myself.
“This…” His hands linger on my waist. “Preserves you. Keeps you supple. A hide that cracks is ruined forever. With you, I won’t let that happen.”
My heart expands as I listen to him. He’s reaching out to me, teaching me about his life. His explanations are another proof that I won’t die here.
My pussy clenches on air when he slides his hands forward. When he coats my stomach, the curve under my ribs. My breasts.
My nipples harden when he rolls them between his fingers. A low growl vibrates in his chest, but otherwise, he stays controlled.
In his own way, he really is worshipping me.
This precision, for him, isn’t a matter of detachment. It’s his version of affection.
The thought steadies me, and I let myself lean back farther into him.
More oil. More of Knox’s fingers. More of his devotion.
His almost clinical movements make me heady.
Make me feel safe enough to speak. “Hey, Knox?”
“Hmm?”
“This isn’t regular tanning oil, is it?” I think I already know that answer. I ask just to be sure and to satisfy my endless curiosity about him. “It doesn’t smell like anything. It’s not thick. Not waxy.”
Almost immediately, he stops massaging oil into me.
Slowly, he steps to stand by my side. “Look at me.”
Though my head is heavy, I obey, tilting my head.
His gaze holds me there, thicker than the air in the room.
“You…” When he sinks his teeth into his bottom lip, it’s as if he’s trying to suppress his arousal. “It wasn’t on Jett’s tour. You know about tanning.”
“Yes, I do. I wanted to learn a little about it before we came here.” Heat sweeps over me under the weight of his attention. Guilt sweeps in just as fast. The axe, Bronwyn being tortured, it’s my fault. “I was so excited. I—I’m the reason we’re here, Knox.”
“Make no mistake, Trouble. You didn’t come here for the museum.” His thumb, wet with oil, traces my jaw. I lean into him, incapable of doing anything else. “I’m the reason you’re in Colbert. You were always supposed to come to me.”