Chapter 30 #2
"Already this wet." He circles my clit, pressing just hard enough to make me whimper. "I barely touched you."
"Knox, please—"
"Please what?" Another circle. "Tell me what you need."
"Your mouth. I need your mouth."
He drops to his knees between my thighs on the kitchen floor. His hands grip the insides of my knees, spreading me wider, and he looks up at me from between my legs with an expression that makes my stomach flip.
"Hold on to something," he says.
I grab the edge of the counter underneath me. He buries his face between my thighs.
No teasing this time. He eats me as though he's proving a point. Tongue flat and wide on my clit, then pointed and flicking, then sucking hard enough that my hips buck off the tile. His beard scrapes the tender skin of my inner thighs, and the burn makes everything sharper.
"Oh god. Knox."
He groans against me, the vibration shooting straight through my core. Two fingers push inside, curling forward, finding the spot that makes my vision blur. He fucks me with his hand while his tongue works my clit in tight, relentless circles.
I'm loud. I can't help it. The kitchen tiles make everything echo. Every moan, every gasp, every wet noise his mouth makes between my legs.
"That's it," he murmurs against my clit. "Let me hear you. Every sound."
He adds a third finger, and I cry out, walls stretching around him, then clenching. He pumps his hand faster, harder, tongue never stopping, and the pressure builds so fast I can't breathe.
"I'm going to—Knox, I'm—"
"Give it to me."
I shatter. My thighs clamp around his head, my back arches off the counter, and I come so hard I see white. He keeps going, licking me through every pulse, every aftershock. His fingers stay buried inside me until I'm shaking, oversensitive, and pulling at his hair.
He stands, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, beard glistening. His eyes are black. His cock is straining against his jeans, the outline thick and obvious.
"Turn around," he says.
I slide off the counter on shaking legs and turn. My palms press flat against the cool tile. I hear his zipper, the rustle of denim shoved down, then he's pressing me forward until my chest is nearly flat on the counter.
The head of his cock drags through my folds from behind, coating himself in the mess he made of me. I whimper, pushing back.
"Patience." His grip tightens on my hip.
"I don't want patience. I want you to fuck me."
A sound comes out of him, low and guttural. He notches against my entrance.
"Look at me."
I turn my head. He's right there, close enough that his breath lands on my cheek. His eyes burn into mine, and his expression cracks open. The hunger is still there, the feral edge that's been part of him since the first night, but underneath it is vulnerability, raw and shaking.
"I love you," he says.
His voice breaks. It's different from last night on the floor, when the words came fierce and sure.
This time they come as though he's handing them over, fragile and heavy at the same time.
In the gray morning light, with my confession still between us, the words cost him more because he's saying them clearheaded, unhurried, and looking right at me.
My eyes flood. "I love you," I whisper back.
And it's harder the second time. Because last night was the floor, the dark, adrenaline holding the words up for me. This morning there's light in the kitchen and nowhere to hide.
He pushes inside me in one long, hard stroke.
I cry out, fingers scrambling on the tile. He fills me completely, thick and deep, and the stretch makes my whole body clench around him.
"Fuck, Sloane." His voice is wrecked. He grips both my hips and holds himself there, fully seated, letting me feel every inch. "Every time. Every fucking time. I'll never get enough of you."
He pulls back and drives in again. Hard enough to shove me forward on the counter. I brace my arms and push back into him, meeting his thrust.
"Harder," I say.
He groans. "Yeah?"
"I said harder."
His hand fists in my hair, pulling my head back.
His other hand grips my hip hard enough to bruise, and he gives me exactly what I asked for.
Deep, punishing strokes that make the mugs rattle.
The sound of skin against skin fills the kitchen, wet and obscene, mixed with my moans and his rough breathing.
"You feel so fucking good," he grits out. "So wet. I can hear it. Can you hear what you sound like taking my cock?"
I whimper because I can. Every thrust is slick and loud and filthy.
He bends over me, chest pressed to my back, mouth at my ear. "This is mine. You hear me? This body. This pussy. Mine."
"Yours," I gasp. "All of it."
He reaches around, finds my clit, and rubs in fast, tight circles while he fucks me from behind. The dual sensation makes my knees buckle. He catches me, arm banding around my waist, holding me up while he drives into me.
"Come on my cock," he says against my ear. "I want to feel you."
"Knox! I'm close!"
"Then let go. I've got you."
I come hard, clenching around him, legs shaking, his name torn out of me in a sob. He fucks me through it, pace brutal, and I feel the moment his rhythm breaks.
"Fuck, Sloane—"
He buries himself deep and comes with a groan that vibrates through my spine.
I feel him pulse inside me, the warmth of it, and my walls flutter around him in weak aftershocks.
We stay bent over the counter, breathing hard.
His forehead drops between my shoulder blades.
His hand is still on my hip, thumb tracing circles I can feel will be bruises by tonight.
After a minute, he pulls out. I feel him drip down my thigh and my face goes hot. He sees it. Of course he sees it.
"Stay there," he murmurs.
He grabs the kitchen towel and cleans me up with hands that are gentle in a way that doesn't match what he just did to me. Wiping between my legs carefully. I shiver.
"You good?" he asks, tossing the towel.
"Better than good."
He turns me around, pulls me against his chest, and holds me there. My cheek is on his bare skin, his chin on top of my head.
I can hear his heartbeat easing. Mine syncs to match it. We stay there. His hand strokes paths up my spine.
"We should probably get dressed," I say eventually.
"Probably." Doesn't let go.
I smile against his chest. "Knox."
"Five more minutes."
I don't argue.
We get dressed. He helps me into my clothes with the same careful attention he uses for everything, lingering on bare skin.
He starts a fresh pot while I set out mugs. We end up at the table with our knees touching underneath, steam curling between us. The quiet between us is warm, but thin, the first ice over a lake. The weight of the day pressing underneath.
"We need to tell them," I say at last, small but clear.
He doesn't pretend not to know who them is.
"We do." Mug down, full attention on me.
"Because they'll stand with you. Because whatever your father and Alice are planning, you shouldn't be staring it down with just me between you and them.
You deserve the whole damn room pointed in your direction when the hit comes.
Say the word. I'll text Malachi. We'll do it today.
Before you can talk yourself into hiding again. "
His voice has shifted, tighter. The register he uses when something at the club goes sideways, the one that means his body has already started running calculations his mouth hasn't caught up to. Exits, angles, who stands where. A briefing. And the mission is me.
The fear rises fast, familiar ice in my veins, but thinner than last night, stretched over the space his body and his words carved open. It tightens my lungs but doesn't clamp them shut.
"I'll text him," I whisper, because if I let Knox do it, some stubborn, frightened part of me will decide this is happening to me instead of with me.
Because he said I love you an hour ago, and I said it back.
If those words mean anything, if they're not just sounds I made while he was inside me, then they mean I can walk into a room and say the rest out loud.
His face softens. Pride, maybe, or that infuriating, devastating tenderness he keeps aiming at me as though I've done something to deserve it.
"Then do it. I'm right here."
My fingers shake as I pull my phone off the table. I open Malachi's thread.
Need a meeting, I type, the letters blurring before they sharpen. Today. Everyone.
My thumb hovers over send for half a breath. Knox's grip tightens once. A silent push. I hit send. The read receipt pops up almost immediately.
Done.
No questions. No delay. Just that.
Knox's thumb is still moving over my skin, a heartbeat outside my body.
I stare at Malachi's one-word answer until the letters stop looking like a threat and start looking like what they are: a door.
I set the phone face down. Knox doesn't let go of my hand.
Light through the window has shifted, gray bleeding toward gold. Dust motes spin lazily in the beam cutting across the table, floating over our joined hands. I focus on that. On the tiny flecks drifting, the warmth of his palm, the solid heat of his knee against mine. And hold on.
Whatever comes next, however bad it gets, I have this. His fingers are tangled with mine; the hummingbird-fast beat of my heart gradually syncs to the steady drum of his.