26. Knox
Knox
Ireach for her before I’m fully awake. My hand moves across the mattress, searching, but I find nothing but cool sheets where she should be.
I open my eyes, blinking against the beams of light coming in through her sheer curtains. Empty. She’s not here.
I almost reach for my phone to check my tracking app, just like I do every morning, but then I hear sounds coming from the kitchen. Pans clanging, water coming from the tap.
She’s still here.
My chest loosens, and I let out a long breath. If she left me in her apartment without saying anything, even a goodbye, fuck. It would mess with me more than I want to admit.
I grab my glasses, then find my boxers on the floor and pull them on, running a hand through my hair.
In the doorway mirror, I catch a glimpse of myself and damn, I look like hell.
As soon as I see the scratch marks down my back, my body remembers and I feel the sting.
There’s a bruise forming on my shoulder where she bit me. I run my finger over it, smiling.
I fucking love that she left her mark on me.
She’s standing at the stove in an oversized sleep shirt, her legs bare, and her hair still tangled and pulled up in a messy bun. I don’t think she’s noticed me yet, so I take the opportunity to watch her for a few minutes. It’s my favorite activity, after all.
God, she’s beautiful. Especially like this, freshly fucked and completely unguarded.
I can see the evidence of last night all over her.
Redness where my stubble rubbed against her delicate skin.
How she’s moving slowly, probably sore from taking my cock so hard.
Her hair, a mess from my hands being tangled in it.
I know she’s bare underneath that shirt.
My cum is probably still sticky between her legs.
The thought of her walking around like that all day—marked up, sore, still carrying pieces of me inside her—does something feral and unhinged to my brain.
I’m so goddamn hard already. But I adjust myself. Later. She’s not going anywhere.
There’s a pan in front of her with eggs that are very clearly past the point of saving, and she’s just...staring at them. Spatula in hand, miles away. What is she thinking about?
Is she regretting last night?
The thought lands like a punch to the gut. I watch her body language, trying to read her the way I always have. But she’s not giving me much, especially from behind. She’s just standing there, staring at burned eggs, lost in whatever’s happening inside her head.
The eggs start to smoke, and she doesn’t move.
I push off the doorframe and cross the kitchen. She startles when she finally registers me, spinning around, spatula raised.
“Fuck!” Her hand flies to her chest. “You scared me.” I reach around her and grab the pan, dropping it into the sink.
“Pretty sure these are done,” I say, with a smirk.
She looks at the pan, eyes wide. “You probably wouldn’t want them anyway. My specialty is crunchy eggs, extra shells.”
I reach past her and turn the burner off, close enough that my chest brushes her back. She goes still. Up close, I’m reminded of how much I love her goddamn smell. I could bottle it. This morning she smells even better. Strawberry and sex and something that’s just her.
“I can make more,” she says quietly, not turning around.
“I know you can.” I take the spatula from her hand. “But I’m going to.”
“Knox, you don’t have to.”
“I know that too.”
She turns, leaning back against the counter, watching me. I can see that she’s cautious, the way she’s searching my face, like she’s waiting for the version of me she knows better to show up and ruin this.
I pull the eggs from the fridge and grab a clean pan, a whisk, some plates—all without having to look.
“How do you know where everything is?”
“I pay attention.”
She hums low. “Pretty sure you still don’t know where anything is in your parents house.”
“I don’t care about anything in my parents’ house.” I hold her gaze over my shoulder. “Never have.”
I crack the eggs and work quietly, trying to figure out how I should act. I can’t fuck this up. And the truth is, I don’t know how to do this part. In the dark, it’s easier. When she’s shaking in my arms, tears falling, taking care of her was instinct.
But this—her watching me in the kitchen, in the daylight, with our night sitting between us and everything I want to do with her ahead of us—this takes a different kind of courage.
I’m going to figure it out because I meant what I said last night. Every fucking word.
I whisk the eggs and add a little salt and pepper. If she had some shredded cheese, that would be perfect. She’s always liked her eggs cheesy. But her fridge is basically empty.
Her eyes sear into my back as she watches my every move.
“I can feel you watching me. Is there something you want to talk about?” I ask.
“I don’t know,” she answers. Then there’s a beat of silence. “What do you want me to say?”
“Whatever you’re thinking.” I pour the eggs into the pan. “You’ve been somewhere else since I walked in here.”
“I don’t know what this is,” she says finally. “I don’t know what last night means or what today is supposed to look like or—”
“Sawyer.”
“Like how are we just here making eggs like everything is—”
“Sawyer.” I set the whisk down and turn around.
I cross the kitchen slowly, watching her arms drop to her sides. When I reach her, I tip her chin up with two fingers, making her look at me.
“What I told you last night, I meant it. Every single word.” She searches my face with that cautious expression but I hold her gaze. “I’m not running. Not this time. And neither are you.”
I drag my thumb down her bottom lip, and my cock twitches at the sight of it swollen and pink from last night. From me and my mouth claiming her.
She breathes heavily, her eyes darting from my eyes to my lips. I lean in slowly, giving her time to back away, when she doesn’t I brush my lips across hers. A small taste of everything she’ll get from me.
She makes a soft sound against my mouth, testing my self-control.
I pull back just enough to look at her. Her eyes are still closed, lips parted. So perfect, I have to force myself back to the eggs before this batch burns too.
“You’re insufferable,” she says after a few moments.
“Yeah. But lucky for me, you love it.”
We eat while I ask her what she has planned for the day.
I’m disappointed when she says she has a shift that evening.
But I guess it’s better that I don’t come on too strong.
Not yet. We’re both still grieving in our own fucked up ways.
Still living with the trauma and aftermath of the accident.
She doesn’t need this thing between us to be a cause for more stress.
And unfortunately, until this deal goes down, I can’t take this relationship out in the open. Not until after, when I can end things with Ella.
She pushes most of the eggs around on her plate, and I bite my tongue, instead of telling her she needs to eat. I know she fucking hates to be pushed when it comes to food.
“So, elephant in the room?” she asks.
I look up, swallowing a bite. “Which one?”
“Ella. Your girlfriend.”
Well, fuck. Apparently, Sawyer’s not only perfect in every way but also a mind reader.
I get up to grab a bottle of water from the fridge, grabbing one for her as well. “What about her?”
She blows out a breath. “I don’t know. Maybe I’m just wondering when you’re going to end things?”
Her tone is clipped, and I get it. I wish I could be honest with her, but I can’t.
Not with this. It’s the one fucking area of my life I have to keep guarded.
She’s still David Thorne’s daughter. I may have gotten it through my thick skull that she had nothing to do with his embezzlement, with him ruining us, but I can’t trust her not to run to Daddy with information that would incriminate my family’s business.
We’d never survive that, especially not now.
I hand her the water bottle, and she sets it down next to her plate, questioning me with those blue eyes.
“Soon,” I say, trying to push every ounce of truth I can into that one word. “Very soon, Sawyer. I promise.”
Her chin tips in response, and she goes back to pushing her eggs around. “I may have been horrible to Owen, but I like Ella. She doesn’t deserve this.”
I reach across the table and take the fork from her hand, before linking my fingers through hers. “You weren’t horrible to him. Stop putting yourself down. You’re fucking human. We both are.”
“Don’t,” she says. “I don’t want to talk about him. Not right now.”
“Okay, that’s fine.” I avoid informing her that she brought him up and continue. “With Ella and me…it’s not what you think.”
I squeeze her hand and wait for something, anything from her.
“There’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you. Something…I saw in Owen’s phone.”
“Okay. Ask me anything, I’m done fucking around. I meant that. No more games. No more running.”
She nods. “I know Ella is a friend of the family. Or that’s what Owen told me.”
“Yeah,” I lie. “In a way.”
“How close were him and Ella? Like…” She hesitates, choosing her words carefully. “You know what? Fuck it. Were they ever together? Like maybe before him and I started officially dating?”
My jaw clenches. What the fuck did she see on his phone?
“Not that I know of. Neither of them ever mentioned it. And we didn’t meet her until after shit went down with your father. Why do you ask?”
She pulls her hand away, and picks at the moist label on the water bottle. “Nothing. Like I said, just some texts that seemed kind of different. It’s fine.”
“Show me.”
Anger starts to rise up in my chest. If that little prick put up a fight to date Ella because he was so in love with Sawyer.
If he refused to do something for the family for once, instead of letting it all fall to me, in the name of love.
Then went behind my back, behind Sawyer’s back, and fucked around with her?
Fuck. I’ll dig up his body so I can kill him myself.
“No, Knox. It’s fine.”