Chapter Eight
~ Newton ~
I’d read, somewhere, that after a really intense experience, your mind would replay it on a loop, as if it had to make sure you’d really survived and that the world hadn’t tilted off its axis while you weren’t looking.
I used to think that was just about trauma. I’d never realized it worked the other way, too—that you could survive a different kind of obliteration, and your brain would scramble to process it with the same feverish, runaway slide show.
That’s what it was like, lying in Knox McKenzie’s bed, his chest hot against my back, his hand splayed over my stomach like it owned the whole territory.
My brain had gone recursive, playing and replaying the last hour—okay, maybe forty minutes, but the man worked at a velocity I had never encountered—with the obsession of a true academic.
I was going to die here, I realized, and I would die happy, and also possibly paralyzed from the waist down. My thighs burned. My ass felt like it had been used as a battering ram in an actual war, which, in a way, it had.
I couldn’t stop grinning. I tried—there was dignity to consider—but the post-coital smile kept sneaking up on my face, and every time I shifted, I caught a whiff of Knox’s skin and it would start all over again.
He was sweat and soap and just a little bit of engine oil, and when he exhaled, it was always through his nose, like a wild animal considering whether or not to eat you.
He was asleep now, or at least faking it at a professional level. His chin rested in the tangle of my hair, and I could feel the rise and fall of his chest like the deepest drumline ever.
His cock had gone soft, but the rest of him was still rigid—arms and legs wrapped around me with an almost gravitational force, like a redwood tree refusing to yield to weather, or time, or even the threat of spontaneous combustion.
If there had been an earthquake, I honestly believed he’d just hold on and ride it out.
I’d known, of course, that sex with Knox would be intense. I’d built it up in my mind for literal years, through every lonely night and every cringe-inducing day dreams. I’d expected it to be rough, a little dangerous, maybe even overwhelming.
What I hadn’t expected was how careful he’d be in the middle of all that violence, how every bite and bruise came with a check-in, a pause, a look that asked, Are you good? Are you still here? Are you with me? I’d never had that before. Not even close.
My history with sex could be summarized as: one, college; two fast, forgettable, mostly fueled by vodka and a mutual desire to get it over with; and three, an absolute dearth of follow-up.
But this? This was, like, an Olympic sport, if the Olympics allowed biting and the use of power tools for strategic advantage.
My body was already aching, and I was pretty sure my mouth was going to taste like Knox for the rest of my natural lifespan. That was fine by me. It was possibly the only thing that could compete with my actual addiction to cinnamon scones.
He snuffled behind me, a low, pleased sound, and his hand shifted, dragging lazy circles over my belly. I felt the stirrings of life from the region I had assumed was now just a crime scene.
I was so, so not ready for round two. But I was also starting to suspect that my sense of readiness was not going to be a major factor in this relationship.
I lay there, counting his heartbeats. If I was lucky, I could memorize this, burn it into long-term storage before someone in the house came banging on the door and the spell was broken.
That was my greatest fear at this exact moment—not death, not embarrassment, not even the return of my father, but just the simple, stupid loss of this perfect, impossible peace.
He moved again, less subtle this time. His lips brushed the back of my neck, a little higher than the bruises he’d left.
“You okay?” he rumbled. The sound traveled straight through my spine and into my groin, where it set off a fresh wave of aftershocks.
I tried to answer, but my tongue was still rebooting. “I’m spectacular,” I said, which was not the word I’d intended, but it seemed to work.
Knox grunted, the same way he did when he was secretly proud of something.
I forced myself to keep going, because the only thing worse than silence was saying nothing at all. “I mean, amazing. Transcendent. Is ‘religiously fulfilled’ a thing? Because that should be a thing.”
He laughed. Not the little huff of air he used when he was mocking me, but a real, chest-deep sound that vibrated the whole mattress. “You talk too much,” he said, but it was fond, not a complaint.
I shrugged as best I could with an entire mountain range pinning me in place. “I had a near-death experience. I’m allowed a little post-traumatic monologue.”
Knox’s hand tightened, just for a second, then went back to tracing circles. “Didn’t hurt you, did I?”
I wanted to turn around and see his face, but there was no way to move without waking the whole bed. “If you did, I probably deserve it. I mean, on the scale of things I’ve done to piss off fate…”
He snorted. “You’re not funny, Bridger.”
I rolled my eyes. “I’m hilarious. You just have a terrible sense of humor.
” My brain, emboldened by the success of my tongue, tried to remember if I’d made any humiliating noises during the proceedings.
I was pretty sure the answer was yes. I was also pretty sure I would replay them in my head for the rest of time.
Knox must have caught my shift in energy, because his hand stilled. “You good?” he asked again, but softer, less rumble, more worry.
I reached back, blindly, and found his wrist. I squeezed it, more for my own reassurance than his. “I’m more than good,” I said, willing him to believe it. “I think you might have ruined me for anyone else.”
He was silent for a long beat, then said, “Good.”
And that was that.
We lay like that for a while, not talking, just breathing together.
I tried to catalogue every detail for later—the way his skin was hot, almost feverish, where it touched mine; the way his arm felt like a steel cable, but with just enough give to cradle instead of crush; the faint scrape of his stubble against my shoulder, which I was certain would leave a mark if I didn’t exfoliate before morning.
I’d never felt so safe and so completely at someone’s mercy at the same time. It was addictive, the way a panic attack was addictive, except this was the upside-down version—euphoria instead of terror, float instead of fall.
I could get used to this, I thought. I wanted to say it out loud, but something in me knew it was better to let it be, for now.
A breeze came through the open window, carrying the scent of grass and rain. The house was utterly quiet, which meant it was either the dead of night or every single McKenzie in a five-mile radius had conspired to give us a moment alone. I did not put it past them.
I was about to drift off when Knox moved again, this time rolling onto his back and dragging me with him so I sprawled across his chest like a very needy, very contented cat. His hand traced up my spine, slow and deliberate. I melted into it, boneless and happy.
After a few minutes, he said, “You ever done that before?”
I blinked, unsure what “that” encompassed. “Define ‘that.’”
He let the question hang, then said, “With a guy.”
I thought about lying, just to seem cooler, but the whole point of this was to stop hiding. “I mean… I had a boyfriend. In college. Briefly. But it wasn’t…” I trailed off, not wanting to undersell, but also not wanting to oversell the bleak reality of college twinks in the Pacific Northwest.
He considered this. “Didn’t seem like your first time.”
I grinned, cheek pressed to his chest. “You’re a very good teacher,” I said. “Also, I’m a quick study. Also, I may have watched a lot of tutorials on the internet.”
He made a noise that was part snort, part groan, and I realized with something like awe that Knox McKenzie was blushing. Not a lot, but enough for the heat to rise through his skin.
I tried to look up, but he clamped a hand gently over the back of my head, pressing me down again. “Stop talking,” he said.
“Can’t,” I said, muffled. “It’s a medical condition. You have to let it run its course or it gets worse.”
He exhaled, and I could feel him shaking with silent laughter. “You’re going to be the death of me.”
I almost said “promise?” but decided it would be funnier to keep him guessing.
He pulled the comforter over us with his free hand, then tucked it around my shoulders. The night was still and warm, and the only thing left to do was wait for sleep or for the next aftershock of dopamine to hit.
I didn’t know how long we lay there. Time had stopped mattering somewhere between the third orgasm and the point where my body gave up all pretense of being an independent organism and just melted into his orbit.
I was dozing, or pretending to, when the sound of tires on gravel snapped me fully alert.
I wasn’t sure if Knox heard it, but my own sense of fight-or-flight was tuned to exactly two frequencies—the sound of my brother’s boots on a linoleum floor and the sound of an unrecognized vehicle approaching from the main road.
I tensed.
Knox noticed immediately, his hand tightening fractionally on my waist. “What?” he said, voice instantly on high alert.
I listened. The engine was low and even, definitely not a McKenzie truck. It rolled to a stop just outside the house. The silence that followed was even more ominous.
Knox rolled out from under me, rising in one smooth, catlike motion that was both unfair and extremely hot.
He was naked, of course, but didn’t bother reaching for anything—just stalked to the window and peered out through the slit in the curtains, every muscle tensed like he was ready to take down a bear with his bare hands.