Chapter 10
Benji
Knox sent me a photo of a walk-in's tattoo forty minutes ago—a butterfly on an ankle, allegedly—with the caption: She cried the whole time. I think she might press charges against the butterfly.
I laughed. I actually laughed, alone in my room at my phone, like a person who finds Knox Rivera charming. It’s a problem. But right now, scrolling back through our thread, the problem is getting worse.
The messages have shifted since the alley.
I don't know exactly when, but the sharp edges wore down somewhere between Knox bitching about Mars chewing him out over inventory, and me sending him a photo of the worst band logo I've ever been asked to design.
He told me the drummer's taste was an affront to art.
I told him he tattoos butterflies on crying women for a living and can shut the fuck up.
He sent back a voice note that was just him laughing.
I saved it to my phone. If anyone ever finds out, I will relocate to another continent.
The thing is, he's funny. Genuinely funny when he drops the cocky routine.
We have this rhythm now where we go back and forth for hours, and I look up and it's 1:00 a.m., and my face hurts from smiling.
The bite mark on my neck is warm. My room smells like him because he's been here enough times that his scent is practically baked into my sheets. I should wash them. I’m not going to, and I hate myself for it.
But I keep coming back to the alley. The thing he said after. Not the sex—the sex was territorial and insane, and I'm still finding brick dust in the seams of my shirt—but what he said when the swagger dropped and his voice cracked. I'll show up. I can't figure out how to stop.
It was real. I felt it in the way his body went still against mine. But it was also vague as hell, and I've been chewing on it for days. Show up for what? For sex? For me? For the bond? What does "always" look like to a guy who already left once without a word?
He gave me something real, and it wasn't enough. The fact that it wasn't enough means I want more. Which means I care. Which means I'm a massive fucking idiot.
So I'm going to get the answer without admitting any of that. I'm going to turn it into a game.
My phone buzzes.
Knox: You've been quiet for eleven minutes. That's either murder or you fell asleep on me.
Me: Maybe I got bored.
Knox: Bored enough to open your door?
I stare at the screen. My pulse does something I refuse to examine.
Me: You're not here.
Knox: Check.
I shove off my bed, cross the apartment, and yank the front door open.
Knox is leaning against the frame, hands shoved in his jacket pockets.
He looks relaxed in a way that's different from his usual cocky bullshit.
Comfortable. Like standing outside my apartment at ten on a Tuesday is just part of his routine now.
The ease of it makes my chest tight. He hasn't earned comfortable. He hasn't earned any of this.
But here he is, smelling like ink and cold air and alpha, and the bite on my neck flares with heat the second his scent hits me.
"You could have texted that you were coming," I say.
"Where's the fun in that?" He flashes a real grin, the one that makes his eyes crinkle at the corners. My inner omega practically purrs, and I mentally tell it to shut the fuck up.
I step back, and he walks in. He's been in my room before, but tonight feels different. Maybe it’s because we just spent two hours texting like normal people. Maybe it’s because the last time we were alone, I had his knot in me and his mouth on my neck, and neither of us has mentioned it since.
He sits on the edge of my bed like he belongs there. I stay standing by my desk, arms crossed over my chest. If I sit next to him, I'm going to touch him. If I touch him, this goes the way it always goes, and I need it to go differently tonight.
"Still thinking about the alley?" Knox asks. His voice has that low, knowing edge, his dark eyes tracking me, reading my body. I want to punch him. I want to kiss him. Both urges are so predictable at this point I'm boring myself.
"I'm thinking you talk a lot for someone who said about six honest words in his whole life and then went quiet again."
He arches an eyebrow. "That bothering you?"
"Nothing about you bothers me."
"Liar."
The word lands like a dare. Something clicks in my head, and the plan I've been turning over drops right into place.
"Fine," I say, pushing off the desk. "Let's make it interesting. Whoever comes first gets to ask the other one a question. Honest answer. No deflection, no jokes, no bullshit."
Knox looks at me, his eyes sharpening. The relaxed vibe vanishes, replaced by something bright and fiercely competitive. "You want to bet?"
"I want to know if you can back up the swagger."
"I always back up the swagger."
"Then this should be easy." I pull my shirt over my head and lob it at him. It smacks his chest, and he catches it one-handed with a smirk.
Game on.
He takes the deal too fast. My brain registers that—why the fuck is he so confident?—but the competitive adrenaline is already firing. I’m not backing down from my own dare.
We start with kissing. His mouth crashes onto mine, my hands fisting in his dark curls.
It's different from the alley. We're both trying to set the pace instead of matching it, turning the kiss into a messy, laughing struggle.
He bites my lip; I bite him back. Neither of us yields an inch.
I shove his jacket off his shoulders and yank his shirt over his head while he works the button of my jeans.
We strip each other between teeth and tongues, making a race out of who can get the other naked faster.
We end up facing each other on the mattress, completely bare. I wrap my hand around his cock at the exact same second his fingers close around mine.
A race. Both of us working each other. Neither of us willing to lose.
I set a pace designed to absolutely destroy him—fast, twisting, my thumb catching the sensitive head on every upstroke, exactly the way I remember making him groan in the hallway.
Knox matches me effortlessly. His grip is firm and steady, his thumb doing something maddening to the underside of my cock.
His eyes are locked on mine, his mouth curved in that infuriating smirk.
I'm going to wipe that smirk right off his stupid face.
"That all you got?"
"Sweetheart, I haven't even started." He twists his wrist. My hips jerk off the mattress. I cover it by speeding up my hand, satisfied when his jaw tightens.
"You're shaking," he taunts.
"That's anticipation. You're the one who's leaking."
"So are you."
"Yeah, well, I'm not the one who's going to lose."
He laughs. A real, warm, surprised laugh.
The sound does something to my stomach that has absolutely nothing to do with his hand on my dick.
I've never heard Knox laugh like that—like he's actually having fun, like I'm genuinely funny, like sitting naked on my bed trying to make me come is the best time he's had all week.
He looks younger, less armored. I stare at his face instead of focusing on the game, and that's how he nearly gets me.
A sharp twist of his wrist sends a jolt straight to my spine, and my hips buck wildly.
I file the laugh under dangerous and refocus.
Time to escalate. I let go of his cock, slide down the mattress, and take him into my mouth in one fast, ruthless motion. The nuclear option.
Knox groans, his hips lifting off the bed.
His hand tangles in my hair, and I feel him go rigid against my tongue.
Got him. I work the head, taking him deep, my mouth wet and relentless.
The muscles in his thighs shake under my hands.
His grip in my hair tightens. I'm literally thinking game over, Rivera, when he yanks me off.
His hand is firm in my hair, dragging my mouth off his cock with a wet, obscene smack that echoes in the room.
"Fuck, you fight dirty," he rasps.
I grin up at him, lips swollen, his taste heavy on my tongue. "I fight to win."
He flips me. One second I'm between his legs, the next I'm face-down on the mattress with his heavy chest pressed to my back, his mouth hot against my shoulder.
His breathing is ragged. I can feel how hard his cock still is against my thigh.
I almost had him. My mouth was doing its job, and he pulled me off because he was losing.
His hand slides between my legs. His fingers find my hole, already slick—I've been wet since the first fucking kiss, my body betraying me like always. He pushes two fingers inside me with the brutal efficiency of a man who’s memorized the layout.
"Hey—" I try to reach behind me for his cock, but the angle is impossible. His other hand pins my hip to the bed. His fingers curl inside me, striking my prostate with pinpoint accuracy, and my vision physically tilts.
"What was that about winning?" he murmurs against my skin.
I want to kill him. I also want him to never, ever stop doing that with his fingers.
I manage to wrench my arm backward, blindly finding his cock, and start jerking him off from the most ridiculous angle.
It’s sloppy and uncoordinated, both of us working each other from positions designed for anything but efficiency, but neither of us stops.
"You're—not going to—I'm not losing to you—"
"You're losing to me right now."
"Fuck off, I'm—oh god, don't stop that—"
"Which one? Stopping or not stopping? Pick one."
I squirm free, flip onto my back, and drag him on top of me.
He lands heavy and warm, our cocks sliding together.
We're both dripping with precome, my slick making an absolute mess of my thighs, and the friction is devastating.
We're face to face, breathing the same air, his cock pulsing right against mine.