Chapter 20
MAREN
Knox fills me so completely, I can barely breathe. Nothing else exists beyond the feel of him against me and inside me. Every movement presses heat through my body, building from something that’s been simmering since he stepped into my shower.
His mouth devours mine again, and I know I’ll be changed by what we do here. Knox’s cock alone is enough to ruin me. I’ve never been with someone so…well-endowed.
But it’s more than that, and I know it.
I slide my hands up into his hair again, tugging lightly, and the sound he makes against my lips is a half laugh, half groan.
“Careful,” he murmurs. “You’re going to wreck my concentration.”
“Maybe that’s the goal.” But I release his hair and slide my hands over his shoulders. I can feel the tension in his arms as they brace to hold him above me. So much control, like he’s holding back.
My breath catches at the next thrust. It’s so deep as I rise up to meet him.
He drops his forehead briefly against mine.
“Please,” I say. “Don’t hold back.”
“Was that begging?” he asks.
“Courtesy,” I reply.
His hand slides between us, a rough thumb finding my clit.
“Oh, God.”
“How’s that for courtesy?” His face watches me as he moves, like he’s studying every reaction, but what he sees there causes him to lose all control.
Suddenly, I know what it feels like to be fucked by Knox. Gone is the pleasant veneer. His mouth finds mine, swallowing the sound I make.
I don’t know what to do with my hands. I grab him, the sheets. As if sensing my indecision, he moves one hand above my head.
“Give me the other one,” he says, and I comply, gasping as he grips them both in one hand.
I’m pinned beneath his body, my arms equally pinned above my head. There’s nowhere for me to move.
Everything intensifies.
The look in his eyes.
The way he feels between my thighs.
“You like that, Maren?”
I nod, even as tears sting the corners of my eyes. I’ve never felt emotional during sex before, but I can’t seem to rein in how I feel.
“Love your fucking body,” Knox says. “Love the way your cunt is soaked for me.” He squeezes my wrists a little harder when I try to move. “Stay where you are and take it for me. Want you to give me that orgasm you’re holding back. Can you give it to me, Maren?”
God, I want to. I want to so badly. “Yes.” The word comes out on a cry.
His cock hammers into me. I’m going to be sore and have bruises tomorrow, but all of it’s delicious.
I close my eyes.
“Open them,” Knox grunts. “Want you to see who’s fucking you when you come. Want you to remember I did this to you.”
And when his lips find mine again, everything goes bright and vibrant and weightless.
“Oh, God,” I say against his lips.
“Yeah, come for me, sweetheart. Soak my fucking cock.”
My orgasm barrels through me, shaking me to the core, and ruining me forever.
Knox releases my hands and scoops his hands beneath my ass, holding me to him. His forehead drops to the pillow next to my head, so I do the only thing I can think of: I wrap my arms around him, one palm on his back, the other one in his hair, holding him close.
His movements shift. “Don’t hold back,” I whisper.
His breath stutters once.
“Maren—” The word is groaned into my pillow.
The rhythm loses its edge, need threaded through every thrust. The guttural groan he releases through his orgasm brings on a weaker and unexpected orgasm of my own.
I feel every pulse and twitch. That feeling I’ve always dreamed of. I know the condom is practical, but I can’t help but wish his cum was flooding me right now. I imagine it is. There’d be a lot. I know it. And it would slowly drip out of me in thick strands.
“Feels so…fucking good.” Knox’s words are still muffled.
We tremble together, and for a long moment, neither of us moves beyond the occasional stroke of skin or circling of hand.
Knox presses a kiss to the side of my neck, to my shoulder.
I stroke and soothe his head.
The room is quiet, apart from our breathing, like the town in the aftermath of the storm.
Knox lifts his head slightly, studying me before he speaks. “Well, that complicates things.”
Without further explanation, I understand exactly what he means.
“It might take a while to get this out of my system,” I say.
Knox runs a knuckle down my cheek. “Yeah. I’m thinking the same.”
And his kiss seals the deal.
This time, instead of jumping from the bed to leave, he stays with me, stroking my cheek, kissing my lips, moving gently within me.
The shower we take afterward is quieter than the one we took during the storm. It’s not awkward. Knox leans one shoulder against the concrete while the water runs over both of us, his arms loosely around my waist. His chin rests on top of my head like it’s the most natural thing in the world.
“Don’t get used to this,” he mutters.
“Which part?” I ask before pressing a kiss on his pec. Across his chest are the words VIRTUS FIDES HONOR. Above his heart is a raven with the words live free beneath it with his brother’s name.
“The domestic tranquility part.”
I tilt my head back to look at him. “You’re the one standing here, holding me.”
He snorts softly. “Temporary lapse in judgment.” But he doesn’t let go. Instead, he presses a kiss to the top of my head, which makes me smile. “Let me wash your hair.”
He grabs more shampoo than I’d ever use and rubs it between his hands.
I turn around and tip my head back a little.
It’s messy. Knox is so…vigorous, my whole body shifts back and forth as he scrubs.
The volume of lather must be outrageous.
But his hands slip down my neck, and over my shoulders, massaging as they go.
So, I close my eyes and hope for the best, enjoying the relaxation, until he nudges me beneath the spray.
By the time we make it to the living room, I’m dressed in Knox’s shirt. And he’s wearing his jeans—unbuttoned—and nothing else.
“Did you eat?” I ask.
“Earlier, yeah. But I could eat again. Am gonna need my energy if we’re going to do that again.”
“Good answer.” I try to refocus on practicalities instead of indulging in visions of the next round. “I wasn’t sure how long I’d be staying in here after the hurricane passed through, so I have some bacon, some fresh bread. Maybe a BLT?”
“Sounds good. Why don’t I make it?”
I gesture to the kitchen. “I’m not going to turn down someone else making my dinner.”
I grab a large packet of chips, sweet chili flavor, and pull them open before offering them to Knox. He takes a few to munch on before grabbing the bacon out of the fridge.
“So, you really painted all these pictures, huh?” he asks as he pops the bacon on a skillet I point him to.
“I did. Had a goal, once, of maybe going to college to study art.”
Knox turns to face me. “Why didn’t you? You have the skill for it. You should at least have your pieces in a gallery or something.”
“It’s complicated.”
“I got all fucking night.”
I smile at that. “My father felt it was a waste of an education.”
Knox’s brow furrows. “What does that even mean? It’s not his career.”
“He put money aside for my education. Lots of it. Wanted me to go to a good college and make him proud. But there were conditions I didn’t know about until the year before I started to apply.”
Knox begins to slice the tomatoes. “What kind of conditions?”
I reach past him to grab two plastic plates and cups from the cupboard. “That I pick a ‘real’ subject. Business. Accounting. Law. Something that would be useful, lead to something he thought was prestigious.”
Knox flips the bacon, stepping back a little when it hisses and spits. “And art wasn’t useful?”
“According to him? No.” I lean back against the fridge. “His responses were along the lines of that art is a hobby, something you do on weekends after your real job is done.”
“Well, that’s bullshit.”
I shrug a shoulder. “He also said you don’t need to get a degree to get better at art. That you get better simply with practice, so he wasn’t going to waste tuition money on something I could do for free.”
The words sound a lot calmer coming out of my mouth than they did when my father said them. But I still remember standing in his office at the sheriff’s department, clutching my acceptance letter, and through furious tears, trying to convince him otherwise.
“But you could have still gone,” Knox says. “Got loans or whatever.”
“The Maren you see before you today is not the Maren I was back then. While my father isn’t much, he was all I had. He convinced me my art wasn’t good enough, and I believed him.”
Knox’s eyes go wide. “He said that?”
I pick a chip from the bag and crunch it thoughtfully. “Not exactly like that. I paraphrased about nine months of commentary into a couple of sentences, but that’s the general gist of it.”
“Your dad’s a piece of shit.”
I laugh softly. “You’re not wrong.”
After a moment, he points the knife in the direction of the paintings. “You sell any of them?”
“A few. Mostly by accident. Mainly to tourists. I hang one above the desk in the store. Sometimes a tourist will look up and decide a swamp sunset will look good above their fireplace and make me an offer.”
“Well, your old man might not know shit about art, and I won’t profess to either, but I’ve lived here my whole life, seen those views every day as I ride through the backcountry, and there’s something in them that stops me.”
Warmth spreads through me at the certainty in his voice. It’s not pity or politeness or anything like that. It’s just a simple statement.
“Thank you.”
He shrugs, like I caught him out somehow. “Guess the young girl who liked painting never gave up. Maybe you shouldn’t give up on her either.” He picks up his phone, then puts it down again.
“There’s no signal in here, remember. Are you waiting for something?”
He smiles at that. “Club business. But nothing that needs my attention tonight. You ready for some dinner?”
I am.
And later, when Knox—president of the Iron Outlaws, and a man with a hundred responsibilities pulling at him—finally sits back on my couch and stretches his arm behind my shoulders like we’ve done this a thousand times, he sighs contentedly.
Because tonight, at least for a little while longer, neither of us has anywhere else to be.