Chapter 26 Lottie
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
LOTTIE
“You good?” I ask, slipping his leather jacket off and hanging it on the hook by my front door.
“Yeah,” he mutters unconvincingly as we both take off our shoes. I watch him struggle to grin before kissing me on the forehead, lips stiff.
“You know it’s impossible for you to hide anything, right? We haven’t known each other for long, but it’s been enough that I can tell when you’re not feeling your joyful, optimistic self.”
This time, his smile comes more naturally. “You think you know me by now, huh?” He reaches out to grip my hips. “I kind of like that.” I don’t tell him it kind of terrifies me.
He leans down to kiss the tip of my nose, the top of my head, before wrapping his arms around my waist and bringing me into a tight hug.
Not able to help myself, I melt against him as my hands glide up his back, the feel of his muscles beneath my fingertips sending shivers down my spine.
“I’m sorry about tonight. My family is… a lot. ”
He quickly pulls away enough to cup my face and look me straight in the eye. “Hey, no. Your family is amazing. I loved getting to know them tonight. Seriously. And getting to see you with them was a blessing. You are so loved, Lottie.”
I smile softly up at him, remembering how excited everyone was to meet him, how easily and quickly they accepted him and brought him into the fold. The way even the kids seemed to love playing with him. “Yeah, they seem to have really liked you too. It was kind of cute.”
“It was fun. Although Alejandro didn’t seem to be particularly fond of me.”
Ah. There we are.
“So that’s what’s bothering you?”
Knox hesitates, pulling his brows together. “Not exactly. He’s just—He said some things before we left that—”
“What did he say when he pulled you aside?” I pull away from Knox’s arms and angrily search for my phone ready to unleash a fiery storm of rage on my brother.
He takes my hands, stopping me from my frantic search. “Hey, stop. It’s fine.”
“It’s not fine. Did he threaten you or something? He had no right to do that and—”
“He didn’t threaten me, for Christ’s sake. He apologized for being an ass at dinner.”
“He… Apologized? Alejandro Veracruz? I have literally never heard my brother apologize to anyone other than his wife. Maybe my parents, but he was the favorite, so he could get away with anything.”
Knox shrugs, and pulls me back into him, pushing my bangs away from my face. “Can we not talk about your brother? Or about anything else for that matter.”
I nod, quickly falling prey to his blue eyes as they lock on mine. I had my own awkward family interaction tonight by way of my sister apologizing for her behavior last week. Or should I say her half-apology.
“I’m allowed to have an opinion,” she’d said as soon as she was able to get me alone at Alejandro’s. “But I know I’m not entitled to give it unrequested—especially when it comes to this topic. And I’m sorry for bringing it up again despite you having asked us several times to stay out of it.”
“So you’re sorry you said it, but you’re never changing your mind about it?” I asked.
With a sigh, she pinched the bridge of her nose. “I’m being honest, here, Lottie. I’m sorry I upset you. But I’m not going to change my mind. I will however shut up from here on out.”
“At least there’s that,” I muttered.
“I see our talk did have positive consequences, though.” The corners of her lips quirked as she nodded toward Knox, her voice dropping to a whisper. “You’re welcome.”
It’s the closest I’ve ever been to committing murder in my entire life.
Knox’s hands travel to cup my jaw, he runs his thumb softly over my lower lip, and I leave everything that is us tucked away in a drawer inside my brain.
I can’t remember the last time anyone looked at me like that—like their world begins and ends with me.
The look in his eyes is everything I want and don’t want to see, so I shut mine to control the swell of emotions building inside. How did we get here so fast?
As if not able to control himself any longer, Knox presses his lips to mine. He groans in relief, like he’s been waiting years to kiss me even though it hasn’t even been an hour.
“I’ve been fucking dreaming of being alone with you again all day. It’s been killing me. And I finally have you, and I really don’t want to waste time on things that don’t matter, like— no offense—your brother’s opinion on me or our relationship.”
I nod in a daze, barely even processing his words as every atom in my body aches for him to kiss me again and never stop.
Thankfully, Knox reads me perfectly as I fist my hand in his soft Henley and he bends down once more to take my lips in his.
This time, it’s more forceful, the air charged with the knowledge that we’re finally alone, locked away in my loft, the whole night ahead of us.
With a whimper, I let him tease my lips with his tongue before opening my mouth, succumbing to the onslaught of emotions brought on by the taste of him.
I slide onto my tiptoes, needing to get closer to him as fast and as much as possible.
With a hungry growl, Knox nips at my lower lip, sliding a leg in between my thighs.
I pull away in a gasp, needing to catch my breath as the heat growing low in my belly starts to spread, the hunger becoming too difficult to deal with.
“God, you have the most incredible lips, Lottie. Kissing you feels like…” He shudders out a breath, eyes still on my mouth.
“Like?” I smile against his mouth.
“Everything.”
The scent of whiskey and leather overwhelm me when Knox’s hands fists into my hair, tilting my head the way he wants to in order to reach my neck.
I mourn the loss of his lips on mine until I feel his hand on my lower back, moving me back and forth over his thigh.
The way I’m panting is almost embarrassing, the noises coming out of both of us intense.
We haven’t even had sex and I’m already so close to orgasming it’s ridiculous.
But I’m sore, and it’s equal parts pain and pleasure. Still, I power through because I just don’t want to make it uncomfortable. However, on a particularly hard downward stroke, I wince, and he notices.
“Just a little sore.”
“I haven’t been giving you enough breaks it seems.” I don’t mean to burst his bubble—or reveal intimate information about my health—so I let him think it’s all the fucking that has me in pain, and not the endo.
“Come here. Let me kiss it and make it better.” He gives me a deep, dizzying kiss, swirling his tongue inside my mouth, showing me what he plans on doing in just a few moments’ time on a different part of my body.
Nearing total combustion, Knox walks me backwards to the edge of my bed, biting my neck, following it with a sweet kiss before tossing me onto the mattress.
He pulls his shirt over his head in one swift movement before barking, “Take your clothes off. Now.” But I’m hypnotized by his body, his tattoos; by the way he moves, every muscle flexing effortlessly and beautifully as he unbuttons his jeans and pushes them down along with his underwear.
Once he’s naked and fully erect standing before me, I’m wet and my mouth is watering.
“Lottie. Take. Your. Clothes. Off.” I shiver at his commanding tone, but don’t hesitate another moment.
“Good girl,” he says, eying my naked body with admiration once I’ve stripped.
“You have the most amazing tits,” he says, his voice more like a growl than anything else.
You should’ve seen them ten years ago, I almost say. But I don’t want to remind him of our age gap or think of how much better I looked when I was younger. So I crawl towards him instead, needing him inside me. Wanting to forget everything that isn’t us, now.
“No. On your knees, hands on the headboard.” His voice is almost a growl. I inhale sharply, staring wide-eyed. “Now.”
I scramble to get into position as I feel the bed dip behind me.
Not long after, I feel the heat of his body as he scoots below me between my legs, his arms wrapping around my thighs, holding me by the hips as he lines his mouth just below my core.
I claw at the headboard, feeling his tongue tease me, swirling patterns on my inner thigh.
Whimpering, hips moving, aching to feel his tongue on me, in me, anything to relieve this need.
“Please,” I beg. “Please.” Legs shaking, I can barely breathe as I wait for him to do something, anything.
He chuckles against me, hot breath on my wet folds, and I can’t help the moan that bursts through my lips when he finally, finally presses his lips to them. His kisses me deeply there as if it were my mouth. Like fucking. Kissing that feels like fucking.
And I’m a mess, rocking on his face, wanting more, needing more, crying out when he presses his tongue flat against my clit.
I’m hot and cold and my world shatters around me but makes sense at the same time as he laps at me, tastes me.
I call out his name once, which makes him growl and tighten his grip on one thigh, before I feel him release my other.
I barely notice the way the bed begins to shake, off-beat from my own rocking.
In a fog, I look over my shoulder to see his left hand move furiously up and down, wrapped around his cock as he tongues me.
Suddenly, the need to have him in my mouth and pussy at the same time overpowers me.
I make to move, to reposition myself, which he isn’t happy about.
“What are you—?” Until he realizes what I’m doing, that is.
“Fuck, yeah,” he groans, helping me turn over his face, growling into my pussy as I fold over his body.