Chapter 1 #2
She nods, the name landing where she expected. "Lena," she says after the smallest pause.
It lands wrong. Too smooth. Too delayed. A lie that wants to be believed. I let it sit. For tonight, it can be true enough.
"What do you do, Knox?" Her tone suggests she narrowed it down before asking.
"Security," I say. The easiest version of the truth.
"Ex-military security," she says, more statement than question.
Close enough. That's what people called it when they needed a shape for something that never made the books.
"Something like that."
She files the non-answer away. Fast. Dangerously fast.
Her gaze travels up my arm, across my chest, to my mouth. Every nerve she passes over pulls taut. Heat climbs the back of my neck.
I lean in a fraction, voice low. "Don't look at me like that unless you want me to do something about it."
She stills. Doesn't look away.
Her stare locks on mine. Pupils blown. Breath caught between her teeth. Half bracing, half reaching.
"What?" she asks softly. "Why are you looking at me like that?"
"No." My voice comes out rougher than I meant. "Trying to decide if you're trouble."
Her focus drags down my chest. Takes its time. When it lifts, the color's darker.
"You strike me as a man who doesn't mind trouble."
A breath escapes me, almost a laugh. "Depends on the kind."
"What kind am I?" she asks, tapping the rim of her glass with her fingernail. The sound is faint, but it carries a dare.
"The kind that keeps a man up at night," I say. "Whether he touches you or not."
That earns me another almost-smile. This one lasts a heartbeat longer. Sharp and bruised and entirely too tempting.
"You don't scare easily, do you?"
"Not by you," I say. "You're the one shaking."
She doesn't deny it.
She reaches into her sweater pocket and fishes out a couple of folded bills. Her knuckles whiten around the fold before she smooths them flat. The motion knocks a hotel keycard sleeve loose behind the cash. It slips forward, showing me the logo and the neat, dark ink: 1512–Floor 15.
She doesn't catch me noticing.
The cash slides toward the bartender. "Keep the change."
Then she stands, sliding off her stool. At the edge of the bar, she turns back. Her chin tips up, cutting the rest of the room out of the frame. My pulse kicks once, hard.
One sharp click. She taps the keycard sleeve on the bar. Her gaze holds mine, heavy and unspoken, before she turns and walks toward the elevators.
Shoulders squared. Spine straight. Her shadow long and lonely behind her.
She doesn't look back.
A flush crawls up my neck. My knuckles ache around the glass.
I count to ten. Finish the rye. Stand.
This is where containment ends. Once the door opens, whatever this is won't stay clean.
By the time the elevator opens on the fifteenth floor, I've told myself three times this is a bad idea. Nothing about the way she watches doors and wraps herself around that fake name says casual hookup. She smells like cheap hotel soap and adrenaline. My hands won't unclench.
Yet my body is already half hard imagining her saying my name.
Every instinct says walk. She feels like a fault line, and my own mess isn't cold yet. Wanting her doesn't change that. It just makes the choice louder.
I knock anyway.
The door opens a crack with the security chain still latched. One eye. Half her face. Then the chain rattles, metal sliding, and the door swings wider.
She's still dressed. Boots off, toes bare against the ugly carpet. Sweater sleeves shoved up her forearms. Her hair’s come loose, falling in dark waves, wilder than downstairs.
Softer this way.
We stare at each other. The air feels thick, threaded with whatever we started in the bar and haven't decided whether to finish.
"You hesitated," she murmurs.
"How do you know?"
She steps back, giving me room to enter. "I heard your footsteps stop. Then start again."
She was listening. Waiting. Maybe as uncertain as I was.
"I was deciding."
"About what?"
"Whether I was going to be careful with you." The threshold passes beneath my feet. "Or honest."
Her knuckles whiten on the doorframe. "And?"
The door closes behind me with a soft, final click.
"Still deciding." I turn to face her. She won't look away. "But I came in, didn't I?"
Her breath catches high in her chest. She looks at me as if I'm the storm she's chosen to walk into. Swallowing, she steps closer, then stops. Her fingers toy with the hem of her sweater. She's shaking.
My knuckles tilt her chin up. Her chest hitches. Pulse skitters under my fingertips, wild and unsteady.
"You're wound up," I murmur. "Been holding yourself together all damn night."
Her lashes flutter. "I'm not—"
"You are." My thumb drags along her jaw. "You're looking at me like you want something you're afraid to ask for."
Her knees give. One hand slides up my chest, tentative, testing. Her palm scorches through my shirt.
I close the space, press her back against the door, cage her in with my body and weight, nothing but my thumb on her jaw.
"You tell me to leave," I say, low and absolute, "and I'm gone."
She shakes her head so fast it blurs. "No."
"No what?"
"Don't leave." Her voice cracks. "Don't. I want this."
My mouth finds hers, barely a touch to let her taste what comes next. She rises onto her toes, chasing it.
"Greedy," I whisper.
She gasps. Fever and adrenaline on her skin. She meets me, hands fisting in my shirt, pulling me closer until her breasts press against my chest, hard points through fabric.
The kiss breaks. My mouth drags down her neck. She gasps, tilts her head back. My teeth scrape a line along her throat.
"Don't stop," she whispers.
"Wasn't planning on it."
My teeth graze her collarbone. My hands claim the curve of her hips. She grinds against me, hips lifting into mine.
"You feel that?" The words scrape out of me. "That's what you do to me. Standing there. Breathing."
She helps the sweater off, arms rising, hair falling loose and wild. Black lace at the curve of her ribs. Pale skin. My mouth goes dry.
"Christ," I breathe. She crosses her arms over her stomach, suddenly modest or scared. I catch her wrists, tugging them away. "Don't hide from me."
"I'm not—"
"You are." I take one nipple through the lace between my teeth and tongue. She cries out, fingers tangling in my hair, holding me there. I suck, graze with teeth. She shudders, hips bucking.
"You like that?"
"Yes." Her voice, broken.
I move to the other side to give the same attention.
Her body loses whatever fight was left. I unhook her bra with one hand and drag it off.
She rips at my shirt. I pull it off. Her eyes map the tattoos, the scars I don't explain.
She traces them, fingertips careful, almost reverent, as though she's never touched a man's bare skin before and doesn't want to get it wrong.
I shudder. My cock stiffens.
"You're staring," I say.
"You're—" She swallows. "I shouldn't want this."
"But you do."
She nods. A guard drops, soft. Exposed. Then her jaw sets, and her palm plants between my ribs, pushing me off a step. Her stare goes wide, almost angry, fighting a war I can't see. For a long second she stands there, palm braced against me like a door she hasn't decided to open or close.
I don't move. Don't speak.
She digs into my shoulders. Pulls me in.
I cup her through her jeans. She bucks into my hand, grinding into my palm with a desperate, graceless roll of her hips.
I unbutton her jeans and peel them down.
She steps out before kicking them aside.
The black lace is soaked through, clinging to her, and the smell of her arousal hits me so hard my cock throbs.
I drop to my knees.
She makes a small, shocked sound. "Knox—"
I hook my fingers in her panties and drag them down, inch by inch. "Say it again."
"Knox." Her voice trembles.
"Good girl." I strip her bare and spread her with my thumbs. She's swollen, glistening, clit flushed dark pink and twitching. Mine. The thought hits before I can stop it. "Look at you. Dripping for me. You don't get this wet for anyone else, do you?"
She shakes her head.
"Say it."
"No." The word barely makes it out.
I lock eyes with hers, lean in, and drag the flat of my tongue from her entrance to her clit in one slow, filthy stroke. Her hips jerk off the door. Her hands fly into my hair.
"You taste"—another lick, slower, pressing harder—"fucking perfect."
She moans, head lolling back. I grip her hips, bury my face between her thighs, and eat her like I'm starving. Messy. Greedy. Tongue fucking into her, then dragging back up to suck her clit until her legs shake.
She's loud. Louder than she expected, if the way she clamps a hand over her mouth is any tell. I reach up and take it away.
"Let me hear you."
Two fingers slide in. She clamps down. My vision blurs. She gasps, sharp and bitten off,then her whole body locks for a second before she forces herself to relax. Tight. So fucking tight it takes effort to push deep. I curl my fingers inside her, find the spot that makes her legs buckle, and press.
She screams.
"There it is," I murmur against her clit. "That's the spot that's going to make you fall apart for me."
I work her with my mouth and my hand at the same time. Tongue circling, sucking, flicking while my fingers drive in and out, curling on each stroke. Her thighs clamp around my head. Her hips grind against my face, chasing it, and the sounds she's making are wrecked.
"Please…" she whispers.
"Please what?"
"Don't stop. Please don't stop."
I suck her clit hard enough to make her scream, then pull back and sink my teeth into the soft skin of her inner thigh.
She's shaking when I shove a third finger in.
She shatters. Her whole body convulses, clenching around my fingers in rhythmic waves, slick running down my wrist. I keep going, licking her through it until she's shaking and shoving at my head.