7. Knox
Chapter seven
Knox
The food had been edible. I didn’t lie about that. But was omitting certain information considered lying too?
If I was being completely honest, the spaghetti was half-done. The sauce was too thick and salty, and my taste buds were angry at me for subjecting them to such horrors. But I didn’t mind any of that because Nina cooked it. For me.
It was crazy how pleased I was. Seriously. I’d had to stop myself from smiling like a fool when she said it before I remembered it was probably one of her elaborate hoaxes to convince people she was the opposite of who they thought she was.
Still, the look on her face seemed genuine.
I had no idea what propelled me to humor her. Didn’t I swear that I’d rather chew broken glass than eat anything she cooked? On a normal day, I would have run as far as my legs could carry me. But today was an odd day.
First, when I got to the office that morning, Sean had been particularly excited for some reason. Apparently, his girlfriend had learned some new, to-die-for trick with her tongue, a story I’d begged him to keep to himself. He had a weird knack for oversharing sometimes.
Then, we presented our proposal to the directors of Cornerstone Corp, and they liked it. At least, it seemed like they did. There had been some unexpected questions thrown at us, but I’d been preparing too long for this to be taken unaware. I think we did well, actually, because I felt pleasantly relieved afterwards.
That was until Stacy Wilkson, our head crisis manager, informed me of a rumor she heard about us not being the only firm in the running for Cornerstone’s corporate positioning project.
They were keeping their options open then. It was smart, even I would admit that, but all it did for us was create a sense of insecurity that would no doubt grow as the days progressed. I asked Stacy to keep her ears to the ground in case she heard anything else.
I still didn’t know how to feel. On the one hand, if there was any proposal we’d ever presented, this was the best. I genuinely felt like we got through to them. But on the other, the news of their open-mindedness left me reeling with different possibilities.
As CEO of Coleman Media, I implored my team not to think about negatives and keep their fingers crossed. It was the only thing we could do at the moment while we hoped for the best. I understood their concerns. They were mine as well. This was make it or break it for us. We already lost one major client; we couldn’t afford to lose another.
If we got this deal, then we would all keep our jobs. The job market right now was tight as fuck. No one wanted to start from square one again.
Coleman Media was my baby. I started the company when I was twenty-eight, and it was like a dream come true. Years of hard work and sweat had been dedicated to making the company what it was today. I just couldn’t imagine seeing it washed down the drain.
So, yes. Landing this project meant way more to me than anyone would ever know.
With this company, I’d been able to see Lindsay through college at NYU and take care of Mom back in California. Claire Coleman never really recovered from her husband's death. She never spoke to Lindsay and me about it, but I knew she hurt every day she spent without him. I couldn’t take away the pain; I could only ease her burdens. And so from the moment my dad died, I took charge of the financial responsibilities of the house. I worked menial jobs as a twenty-three-year-old fresh out of college, then eventually interned at a local PR agency that took more from me than it gave for a few years before I could start my own company with a few friends.
Because of this, most of my young adult years were spent constantly working and searching for the next best thing. Sean once told me I seemed to have lost an appreciation for the present because I was always in pursuit of a better future.
He was probably right. For all his faults, Sean was wise. Sometimes. Still, it didn’t change the fact that this was the life I was used to. The need to be certain that this wasn’t all there would ever be, and only financial assurance could give me that.
Some might call me a workaholic, and they would be spot on. I’d dined with poverty, and my pallet had not liked the taste. My biggest fear in life was being a failure, which ultimately translated to being poor. There was nothing remotely poetic about it. It was a terrible place to be.
My father hadn’t been rich. His father before him was even worse off. As a construction worker, he only made enough for his family to eat, his children to go to school, and to cover the house expenses. But that was about it. I’ve been working for my own money since I was sixteen.
Once, I would have said that my father had been fulfilled with his life. He had a wife who loved him and children he loved and cared for. I mean, what else could a man want? He left every morning to whatever site he was at after a kiss from Mom, and when he came back each night, she was all huge smiles and hugs. The perfect picture of contentment and domestic harmony.
But the truth was, Warren Coleman was just not ambitious. He’d been too comfortable with his life and his situation in general, never striving for anything more than what he already possessed. And in the end, it cost him. When the accident happened, we’d been too broke to pay his medical bills, his insurance too insufficient to cover much of anything.
A complete lack of financial security and planning that propelled our family straight into hardship.
I wanted more. If I ever had a family, I would never put them in that position. My desire for financial stability was not pretentious, but necessary. And maybe sometimes I forgot to step back and bask in the present, but at the end of the day, if there was nothing to bask in, then what was the point?
The way I saw it, my need for control was essential in a world filled with chaos. It helped to segregate the good from the bad and gave me a perception of authority over my environment, however false it may seem. I needed to feel like I wasn’t losing my shit, or I really would go crazy.
Pulling off my clothes, I grabbed a towel and headed to the bathroom for a shower. Passing by Nina’s room, I inhaled the familiar smell of lavender and lemon, a weird mix that was now ingrained in my brain.
There was no point in fighting it anymore. I wanted her.
Trust me, I’d gone through all the fucking motions. If this was just about wanting to sleep with a woman, then I would have done that a long time ago and been done with it. My ex-girlfriend had me on speed dial and she called me an unhealthy number of times most days.
No. This was a Nina problem. And the only thing capable of quenching the thirst that was growing for her was a hot fuck.
As I lathered my body with soap, I thought about how she stood in this exact spot many times, doing the same thing I was doing now, running soapy hands down her sumptuous body as her fingers grazed rosy nipples and dipped down to the heavenly place between her legs…
I cursed. My dick was hard. My dick was always hard when I think about Nina now. Hell, the entire bathroom reeked of her. Every passing second I spent in this house reminded me she was only a room away, probably naked since she detested wearing actual clothes, and that image wrestled with every shred of decency I had.
Tonight, I’d been so close to reaching over the counter and taking her lips to mine. Thank God I had the sense to hold myself back. And what was that tense moment that passed between us? It felt like silent words had been spoken and dark promises made.
What would have happened if I hadn’t broken eye contact? If I’d reached forward and kissed her? Would she have let me, or would the night have ended with me sporting a red cheek?
Honestly, I had no fucking idea. And now that the moment passed, I guess we would never know. Still. It was pretty great of her to cook for me. Even after I’d said such mean things to her, she tried to do something nice for me.
The sudden change of heart was puzzling, but frankly, I was in a better mood than the last few days. For once, I really didn’t want to fight with her.
Granted, she pissed me off so badly that I sometimes wanted to shake some sense into her, and there was the issue of her tragic unauthenticity. But damn it, was she fucking hot. And beautiful. And delicate, like a flower that needs constant attention, or it would wither.
How long has it been since you had sex, man? You sound so thirsty. Get a fucking grip. And try I did, because my mind couldn’t stop replaying the image of her full tits and perky ass. and yet the only thing I could get a grip on was my erection. I wrapped a hand around the thick shaft, giving it a few firm strokes.
Pleasure shot through my body and I hissed, closing my eyes and letting the sensations take over. I went back to that night in the kitchen, imagining her leaning a little too far over the counter so that her breasts spilled out of that flimsy top.
In my head, they were perfectly round, plump, and heavy, and I had to place a hand on the wall to hoist myself up because my knees suddenly felt weak. I wasn’t even aware that I had a breast fetish. Or was this purely a Nina effect? This woman was killing me.
My hand stroked faster, and I knew I couldn’t hold out for long. Fuck me. I hadn’t even gotten to her ass yet. I was panting as I envisioned her giving me those luscious tits to suck on, egging me on, begging for me to taste her creamy, supple flesh.
My mind conceptualized the sounds of her moan, high and breathy, as I reached forward and covered one rose-colored nipple with my mouth. Mind-numbing pleasure zapped down my spine as my orgasm hit me with the force of a speeding train, and I groaned as I spurted ropes of cum down the tub, my hips jerking.
It took about ten seconds for the panting to stop and for me to come back to earth, and I was immediately smacked in the face by shame. I just masturbated to my little sister’s best friend. I was going to hell.
Resting my forehead on the wall, I licked my lips, suddenly parched. The longer I stayed in this house, the crazier I was going to get. But save for going back to the hotels, which had already eaten a hole through my savings, the only other choice I had was staying with Sean. That was even worse than the hotel, because if I knew anything about my friend, it was that he was a fucking sex addict. I’d probably be subjected to watching him and his girlfriend experiment on each other.
I was stuck here. In a house of temptation with a young-as-hell, out-of-bounds woman with a tendency to run her mouth and a body to die for.
Lindsay would be ashamed of me.
I had to stay away from Nina. Enforce some sort of restrictions. She was too young for me and too different and, most importantly, she was like a sister to my sister. It was going to be difficult, because even if I didn’t see her physically, her intoxicating smell permeated the air all day every day. It made me think of her way more than I should and want her in ways that I had no business with, but I had to stop.
For all our sakes.