Chapter 37
KNOX
Maren pulls in, first, and I pull in the bike alongside her before killing the engine.
I swing my leg over the bike and move to her door to open it for her.
“Out you get, sweetheart.” I guess, at some point on the ride over, the tears she’d tried to hide at the store had spilled over, because there are those nearly invisible silvery tracks of them on her face.
I cup her cheeks with my palms and brush my thumbs over them. “Don’t like that you cried without me.”
Maren drops her forehead to my chest. “I thought they might make you feel worse.”
She’s right. They do.
“Doesn’t mean I don’t want to know how you’re feeling. Don’t want you to hide being hurt or sad or unhappy from me. Can’t fix it if you do.”
Her eyes meet mine. “I had to keep telling myself I was fine.”
I run a thumb over her lower lip. “You are fine.”
Maren sighs as I pull her close again, holding her tight. It’s quiet. Just the ticking of engines cooling, and the hum of insects dancing above the surface of the water.
“We should get the groceries and my stuff inside,” she says.
Despite the circumstances, I love the domesticity of this. It’s a dangerous fucking thought.
I remove the cover on the back of her truck. Wasn’t really paying attention when I shoved in the year and a half’s worth of groceries Maren bought, but I can see she’s brought a lot of things with her from her place too.
And I fucking love that she cared enough to do this.
I grab the heavier bags, first, the water, and a crate of canned shit that will probably last us until the next apocalypse. Maren grabs the lighter bags of produce and bread. I really hope she got meat.
When I come back down, she’s already lifting more.
“Leave it,” I tell her.
“I’m not helpless.”
“I know that,” I shoot back. “But let me carry it. You go figure out where you want to put everything. Throw out any shit you don’t want or need, to make space.”
She shakes her head. “I’m not throwing your stuff out.”
“There’s nothing in there I really care about. Do what you need to so you feel comfortable. To love it as much as you love your own place.”
She smiles and grabs another two bags anyway. “Don’t get mad at me when I toss that ugly painting in the hall.”
“If you put one of yours up in its place, then I’ll be a happy man.”
We move back and forth like that for a few minutes. No rushing. Just the slow and steady rhythm of unloading and unpacking groceries. Sometimes, I reach for her as we pass each other on the stairs. A stroke of my fingers against hers, a tap on her ass if her hands are full.
Then, it’s her things.
A box of paints with splashes of paint on the tubes so she can see what color is inside. Her easel. A duffel bag of clothes. A tote bag of shoes.
When I offload some canvases wrapped in brown paper, I find myself eager to watch her paint. Guess I’d be a happy man with a beer in my hand and sports on TV on a Sunday afternoon while she paints.
All this means something, because it means Maren is no longer a visitor here.
I’m sure everyone thinks this is all moving way too fast. That we’re rushing something that doesn’t have to be rushed. Sure, I’m forty-four and suddenly keen to have a wife and be a father.
And yet, none of that’s driving this.
It’s simply the woman clanging about in the kitchen, humming some undecipherable tune, who makes me bone-deep happy.
Inside, I drop everything in the living room for Maren. My first instinct is to want to put everything away for her. But I also want Maren to claim the space she wants as hers.
She moves about in the kitchen, sliding things into cupboards, rinsing fruit and setting it to dry on paper towel on the counter.
Not sure I’ve ever washed a strawberry. Figure a little bit of dirt never hurt anyone.
I drag my hands over my jaw and decide I need to be honest with her before we unpack all her things, no matter how much I want her to stay.
“Maren,” I say quietly, and wait for her to turn and face me.
When she does, I’m struck by how pretty she is.
How perfect she looks here, mixed into my life.
“Sweetheart, part of the reason I never had an old lady is because I knew exactly what it would mean for the woman. Targets, leverage, and weak points I can ill afford.”
Her throat moves as she swallows. “And now? Because…are you having second thoughts about asking me?”
“God, no,” I say, walking towards her. “But today was a reminder of what this life can be about. You don’t dip a toe in it.
You can’t stand on the fringe. You’re in, or you’re not.
And when you’re in, people can use you to get to me.
And I think I’m a selfish fuck for asking you to handle that without you really knowing what it involves.
I’m standing here, watching you unpack groceries and thinking about where you’re gonna set up your easel, and I don’t want to give any of that up.
But, while I’m all in, I want to give you an out.
I can’t guarantee you a life without danger, even though all I want to give you is safety. ”
The words hang between us. And all I can think about are those tear tracks that stained her cheeks.
Maren steps from behind the kitchen island, straight into my arms. “I know we can’t pretend it’s safe. But we can’t let it control us either.”
I press a kiss to the top of her head. “Meaning?”
“Meaning, I guess I need to listen when you tell me something isn’t safe. But you can’t tell me the world isn’t safe every day, all the time, or the warning won’t have any impact.”
“Fair,” I say.
“And it means you don’t make decisions about my best interests for me, you present the situation and we decide together what that means, rather than you unilaterally deciding.”
The tight band around my ribs aches a touch. “Agree. But that means you’re going to have to follow my lead when I say it matters. No arguments in the moment.”
Maren looks up at me, and the corners of her lips lift in the sweetest smile. “Deal.”
“And you don’t keep anything from me. Not warnings. Not gut instincts. Not anything that feels off. It’s never too small, and you’ll never be bothering me.”
Silence settles between us as we hold on to each other, swaying slightly to music that isn’t playing.
“I learned something this afternoon,” she says quietly.
“Yeah? What was that?”
“That I’m not untouchable. That it’s easier to get to me than I thought.
And the last few times, I’ve managed to get away from them.
But today, I realized that, next time, I might not.
When I realized the hands around me weren’t yours, I panicked.
I mean, if they can get to and hurt Vandal like they have, what could they really do to me?
I think I should increase my own safety.
Maybe share my location with you at all times, carry a weapon, get some mace. I don’t know. Just…things.”
“Those sound like wise steps, and I can help you with all of them. Something in your truck too, a weapon within easy reach. A tracker in your truck.”
“I guess I can’t be naive about what being with you means.” But there’s no judgment in her tone. Just pragmatic assessment.
“That’s fair.” I slide my hand up her back, settling at the base of her neck, where I squeeze gently.
She sighs into my touch, and I knead a little harder.
“You’re not weak for needing a little protection, Maren. But you don’t get to pretend you don’t need it either.”
She huffs a quiet breath. “Don’t get used to being right, Knox.”
I grin at that, enjoying the feel of her as I slide my hand up and down her back.
“Knox.”
“Yeah, Maren?”
She looks up at me. “You think you could take me to bed?”
I grip her hips and lift her so she can wrap her legs around me. “With pleasure, sweetheart.”
As we walk, she buries her head against my neck, and I scoop my hands beneath her ass.
When I push the bedroom door open with my boot, I realize that I’ve slept here a thousand nights but have only ever considered it a secondary place to crash, after the clubhouse.
Now, it has meaning, because it’s the foundation of the place that Maren and I will build our future in.
I close the door behind us and help Maren find her footing as I put her down. My hands find her waist, and I pull her to me, stooping to find her lips because I want them on me more than I want my next breath.
There are things to unpack and things to find a home for, but all of it can wait.
Her mouth opens to me, her lips soft and sure. The way she kisses me is guaranteed to undo me every single time, and I slide my fingers into her hair, holding her face exactly where I want her so I can savor this.
I don’t want to rush, because I’ll look back and remember this as the day Maren moved in. I know she hasn’t agreed to it yet, and I know she thinks she’s only here for a few days, until the danger blows over, but I’m going to convince her to stay.
I reach for her bait shop polo shirt, and tug it over her head, revealing a pretty pale blue lace bra. She tilts her head to the left as I run kisses along her neck and down her jaw.
My hands shift along her waist, her breath catching when my thumbs brush over her ribs. She lets out the smallest sounds, and it hits every part of me.
Maren reaches for my cut and shoves it off my shoulders. I wriggle out of it and drop it over the chair. Then, her hands slip beneath the hem of my T-shirt, and I tug the back of the neck to pull it over my head.
She places a run of kisses along my pecs that feel playful and claiming.
I can’t keep my hands off her. They want to explore every part of her, all at once.
“Let me,” Maren says as she reaches for my belt. She frees it, then my button and my zipper, before shoving my jeans and boxer briefs down my legs.
“Gotta take my boots off,” I mutter, trying to disentangle myself from her.
But she stuns me by dropping to her knees. “Not yet.”
When she takes my cock in her hand, I forget all about how hard the floor is and how I should have gotten a rug to protect her knees. Because the minute I see those soft lips of hers, wide open to take my cock, I get dizzy.
And then, her mouth, wet and warm, closes around my cock, and I swear I see Jesus.
I grasp behind me for the dresser, leaning back to place both palms on it. Maren has to shuffle a little closer, and my cock pops out of her mouth, for a second.
“Sweetheart, you’re gonna hurt your knees.”
But she simply looks up as she runs her tongue the full length of the underside of my cock before flicking the tip.
I suck in a breath, just as Maren sucks me back into her mouth.
And, God, does she give an exquisite blow job.
Licking and sucking. Focusing on the length, then the head.
I’m harder than a rock.
And the visual? Fuck me. I stroke her hair, wondering where all my dirty talk went because I’m fucking speechless.
Her head begins to move faster; her sucking gets harder.
She moans with her mouth full, the vibration piercing down my cock.
“Fuck, shit,” I gasp, pulling myself out of her mouth.
Because if I don’t, I’m going to come before she does.