Chapter 7 Knox
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Knox
I was fighting a losing battle with my cock, and the fact that Lina was currently kneeling between my spread thighs wasn’t helping. At all.
She was focused on cleaning a particularly nasty gash on my ribs, her small hands gentle but efficient.
Every careful touch sent electricity through my body that had nothing to do with our mate bond and everything to do with the position we were in.
All I could think about was how easy it would be to grab her hips and pull her closer.
To show her exactly what she was doing to me with those careful touches and that concentrated furrow between her brows.
Fuck.
I gripped the couch cushions hard enough to feel the fabric strain under my fingers, trying to think about literally anything except the woman currently driving me insane.
Tax forms. Traffic jams. That time Cole got food poisoning and spent three days describing his symptoms in graphic detail. Nothing worked.
My wolf was practically vibrating under my skin, demanding I claim what was ours.
The beast had been restless since I’d left her shop earlier, pacing and snarling about leaving our mate unprotected.
Now that we were here, with her this close, smelling of honey and coffee and mine, it wanted nothing more than to complete what we’d started.
Not yet, I told it. She doesn’t even know what we are.
The wolf didn’t give a shit about logic. It just wanted.
“You were out there,” she said quietly, peeling my ruined shirt away. The fabric stuck to the wounds, making me hiss. “During the attack. These are from-”
“Don’t.” I caught her wrist through the fabric, gentle but firm. “Please.”
I couldn’t let her finish that thought. Couldn’t let her connect the dots between the wounds and the beasts. Not yet. Maybe not ever. The look in her eyes stopped any further questions though. She saw my desperation, my fear for her, and let it go.
For now.
It had been weeks since I’d walked into her coffee shop and fucked up my entire life in the span of thirty seconds.
I’d arrived in Pine Valley incognito, tracking a pack of rogues that had been causing problems along the coast. Simple mission that any Alpha worth his title should be able to handle.
Wait for them to make their move, neutralize the threat, prove I was still capable of protecting our territory after. .. after Blake.
My brother’s face flashed through my mind and I shoved it down. Not now. I couldn’t think about my failures now.
The plan had been straightforward. Set up in the local hotel with Noah, Cole, and Hunt.
Scout the town. Establish patterns. Wait for the rogues to show themselves.
Quick, clean, efficient. Exactly the kind of mission that would remind my pack that I was still their Alpha, still strong enough to lead despite what the whispers said.
Instead, I’d walked into Winters’ Books & Brews and seen HER.
The memory hit me with perfect clarity. The bell chiming as I entered.
The scent of coffee and old paper. And then her, behind the counter, arranging a display of bookmarks with intense concentration.
Dark hair piled in a messy bun, one strand falling across her cheek.
When she’d turned at the sound of the bell, our eyes had met and she’d dropped an entire armful of books.
The crash had been spectacular. Books scattered everywhere while her face turned the most amazing shade of red.
She’d immediately dropped to her knees to gather them, muttering apologies to the books themselves, and I’d stood there frozen because my wolf had suddenly perked up in a way it never had before.
Interested. That’s what it had been. For the first time since Blake died, my wolf was interested in life beyond guilt and pack business.
“Books? Yes! I mean, we have books. Many books,” she’d said, scrambling to her feet with her arms full of paperbacks, and I’d been gone. Completely, utterly gone.
One look. That’s all it took. One fucking look and I was addicted.
I’d ordered my coffee from the purple-haired barista who’d eyed me with appropriate suspicion, taken the thriller Lina recommended with hands that definitely didn’t shake, and claimed the corner table where I could watch her without being obvious about it.
Then I’d pretended to read while actually memorizing every move she made.
The way she hummed when she cleaned. How she bit her lip when she was thinking.
The animated way she talked about books with customers, hands flying everywhere as she described plots.
My wolf had been fascinated. Hungry. Demanding MORE.
So I’d done the only thing that made sense. I’d completely lost my fucking mind.
Every day at 4 PM sharp, I returned. Threw my carefully maintained low profile out the window because I needed another hit of her laugh, her animated book recommendations, the way her whole face lit up when someone asked about her favorite authors.
I’d read more thrillers in two weeks than in my entire life, just to have an excuse to talk to her.
She worked in silence now, cleaning wounds that looked worse than they were. Wolf healing was already kicking in, knitting flesh back together at a rate that would horrify her if she noticed. I sat perfectly still, trying not to react every time her hands got close to bare skin.
“Why here?” she finally asked, giving in to the questions I could see burning in her eyes. “If no hospitals, why come here? You have friends, presumably. Family. People who aren’t me. People you didn’t specifically tell to stay away from you. How did you even get in?”
The last question had a hint of accusation that almost made me smile. Almost.
I stayed quiet for so long she probably thought I wouldn’t answer. Truth was, I was trying to figure out how much truth I could give her without revealing everything.
“I couldn’t stop thinking about you,” I said finally, the words raw in my throat. “After I left. Before the attack. I kept wondering if you were safe. If those things had found you. If you were...”
Dead. The word stuck in my throat. The image of her torn apart by rogues had nearly driven me insane during the fight.
Her hands stilled on the bandages. “So you broke into my apartment?”
“Would you have let me in if I knocked?”
We both knew the answer to that. She wouldn’t have. Not after I’d told her to stay away. Not after I’d run like a coward from the bond snapping between us.
The position we were in suddenly felt more intimate. Her between my thighs, me shirtless and vulnerable, both of us dancing around truths neither wanted to fully acknowledge.
“This is insane,” she muttered, smoothing down a bandage with more force than necessary. “You’re insane. I’m insane for not calling the cops. Or animal control. Or an exorcist.”
“You’re not going to call the cops.”
“How do you know?”
“Because you already would have.”
She huffed but didn’t argue, because we both knew I was right. Instead of calling for help, she’d patched me up. Instead of running, she’d stayed. My mate, even if she didn’t know it yet, taking care of me despite every rational reason not to.
“Are you okay?” she asked suddenly, pausing in her work. “You’re really tense.”
I looked down to find I’d been gripping the couch so hard I’d torn through the fabric. Stuffing poked out between my fingers.
“Sorry,” I managed, forcing my hands to relax. “Just... the wounds.”
The lie tasted bitter, but not as bitter as the truth would have been.
That I was fighting every instinct screaming at me to claim her.
That having her this close without being able to touch her properly was torture.
That my wolf was about two seconds from taking control and showing her exactly what she meant to us.
I hadn’t told my team shit about her. Noah had asked once why I disappeared every afternoon, and I’d shut him down with my Alpha voice.
They knew better than to push after that.
If they’d discovered I was spending two hours every day mooning over a human girl, I’d never hear the end of it.
Hunt especially would have had a field day.
Worse, they’d want to know why. And how could I explain that I didn’t know why? That there was just... a pull. A need to be near her that went beyond attraction or interest. My wolf wanted her with an intensity that should have scared me but instead just made me reckless.
So I’d kept going back, telling myself it was harmless. Just coffee. Just books. Just slowly driving myself insane with want for a woman I couldn’t have. A human woman who had no idea monsters were real, much less that one sat in her shop every day fantasizing about marking her as his.
The corner table had become my torture chamber. Two hours of watching her work, catching glimpses of her smile, breathing in her scent until I was half-drunk on it. Then I’d return to the hotel and take the coldest shower possible while my wolf howled about wasted opportunities.
“This one’s deep,” Lina murmured, examining a claw mark that ran from my ribs to my hip. “You really should see a doctor.”
“No doctors,” I repeated, watching her work. The torn, bloody clothes she still wore from the attack made her look fierce. Survivor written in every line of her body.
She’d survived because of me. But she’d been in danger because of me too.
Everything had changed yesterday. Or was it today? Time blurred together when your world imploded. I’d been at my usual table, reading the same page for the fourth time because Lina was wearing a dress that made her legs look incredible, when Mrs. Callahan had started her matchmaking routine.
The old woman’s shrill voice carrying across the shop. Talking about her son. About how Lina was too pretty to be single. Too pretty to be wasting away behind a counter.