27. Sawyer
Sawyer
The hotel lobby’s quiet right now, and I hate it. Every small sound feels too loud but my thoughts are even louder. I’ve been staring at the same reservation on my screen for five minutes, listening to a couple bicker across the room.
I keep replaying my night with Knox. And not just the obvious parts, but the small things he did. They’ll be burned into my mind for the rest of my life.
And the promises he made. God, I want to believe him. That’s the problem. I want it so badly it feels like pressure behind my sternum, this desperate, humiliating need for it to be real. For the version of Knox I had last night to be the one that exists in the daylight too.
For the simple things like dinners together and kisses in the dark. For summers at the lake, quietly reading side by side. For giving each other shit and taking it as much as we give, laughing always, because we know we’re never serious.
But I’ve known Knox Aldrich my entire life, and he’s never made anything easy.
The bickering couple finally disappears behind the elevator doors and it’s back to suffocating quiet.
I pull up the next reservation, searching the notes for the check-in time, but my eyes keep scanning past the words on the screen.
The thing I can’t stop circling back to, the thing that scared me more than it probably should have, was his face when I showed him the texts between Owen and Ella.
I figured he’d be confused like me, maybe even suspicious.
But I never expected that kind of anger.
He went somewhere else inside his head, blocking me out entirely. It was jarring as hell.
What does he know that I don’t?
I push the thought away for the hundredth time today, but it slides right back.
I’m so fucking tired. Tomorrow, I’m going to go to Ella myself.
No more games, no more beating around the bush.
I’ll call her in the morning to set up a coffee date.
Face to face, she won’t be able to lie to me. Or at least, I hope.
The lobby phone rings, and I answer it with my practiced customer service voice.
Someone on the third floor needs a restaurant recommendation, which pulls me out of my head long enough to rattle off three places within walking distance and wish them a pleasant evening.
I’m good at that part. The seamless pivot, the warm voice, the ability to make a stranger feel like the only person in the room while my brain is somewhere else entirely.
I should have stayed in theater classes.
The silence comes back too soon, and so do the thoughts about Knox.
I check the clock. I’ve only been here an hour. It feels like a lifetime. I straighten the stack of room keys that are already mostly straight, refill the pen holder, and realign the brochure display for local attractions I’ve never once seen a guest actually look at.
I’m so deep in my own head that I almost miss one of the bellmen dropping something on the desk as he passes.
“A guy asked me to give you that.” He heads toward the lobby entrance.
“What guy?”
“I don’t know, some guest. Tall, darkish hair.” He pushes through the door. “He checked in before you got here.”
The paper sits on the center of the desk. Hotel stationery, folded twice with nothing written on the outside.
I unfold it slowly, like something inside will jump out and bite me.
Room 214. Come up when you can. — K
I read it three times, hoping that the words are going to rearrange themselves into something that makes more sense.
That’s Knox’s handwriting. He’s here. Checked in, paid for a room, didn’t call, didn’t text, didn’t come to the desk himself, handed a note to a passing bellman and waited.
What the hell is going on?
I reach into the pocket of my blazer and discreetly pull out my phone. If my manager catches me with it out, I’ll get reprimanded. Or maybe I won’t. Who knows anymore, since they all treat me like I’m two seconds from snapping.
Me: What’s going on? What is this note?
I read it again before folding it back up and slipping it into my pocket. The lobby phone rings, this time a call that I transfer over to housekeeping, and by the time I hang up, he still hasn’t texted me back.
The rational part of my brain, the part that has witnessed Knox’s cruelty for years, tells me to put the note in the trash, finish my shift, and go home like a person with self-preservation instincts.
The irrational part has me staring at the elevator.
I last another forty minutes, contemplating my options, before curiosity gets the best of me and I call our float to cover the desk, telling her I’m not feeling well, which isn’t entirely a lie. She, of course, is lovely and helpful, telling me to head home early.
Instead of taking the employee exit out to my car, I climb the back stairwell to the second floor.
And now I’m standing in front of room 214, breathing hard, wondering if I’m making a mistake.
To hell with it.
I knock twice and the door opens right away like he’s been standing on the other side waiting for me.
He looks…God, he looks like hell, and that says something considering we’ve both looked exhausted and spread thin since the accident.
When he steps back to let me in, I avoid brushing against him. I’m too weak for physical contact. I’ll break and be in his arms in seconds. The door shuts with a thud behind me, and for a moment we just stand there in the narrow entryway looking at each other.
“You came,” he says, sounding as wrecked as he looks.
“You knew I would.”
He smiles but it doesn’t reach his eyes. “Yeah. I did.”
The room is dim, with only the lamp on the nightstand throwing a warm circle of light across the bed.
There’s a tie draped over the back of the chair, and a jacket slung beside it.
I take him in. He’s dressed nicely, or was.
The shirt’s slightly untucked now, and the sleeves are rolled to his elbows.
“Are you going somewhere?”
“Later.” He holds out his hand. “Come here.”
There’s so many things I need to ask him.
Questions firing around in my head nonstop.
I have about a hundred of them lined up, starting with what are you doing here and ending somewhere around what did you know about Owen and Ella and why won’t you tell me.
But he’s looking at me like I’m the only solid thing he can grab onto in a room that’s dissolving around him and the questions fade before I can get them out.
I close the space between us, my heart pounding.
His hands find me before I reach him, cupping my jaw, tilting it up. His eyes move over my face, searching for something I don’t have the answer to but wish I did. Making sure I’m real, maybe. That this isn’t another dream we’ll get pulled from.
Then his lips meet mine, and I taste the hunger. The way he’s been waiting to do this all day, and he’s finally exactly where he wants to be.
“Sawyer,” he breathes, hands tangling in my hair, pulling me closer like an inch between us is still too much.
I’m already panting, already aching, my body one step ahead of my brain. When his erection presses against me, I don’t think. I’m done thinking. I reach for him, stroking him through his pants.
“Oh fuck.” His groan vibrates through my chest and he drops his head to my neck, mouth hot against my skin, kissing and sucking his way to my ear. “Clothes. Off.”
As fast as he says it, I’m already half naked, and so is he. There’s no waiting, no should we do this? We’re both so unraveled, it’s a miracle we even get our clothes off.
“Please.” I beg, not even knowing what I’m asking for anymore. Just more, just him, just anything to quiet the ache building under my skin. His hands are all over me, tracing every line, every curve, while I pull him in for a kiss, slipping my tongue into his mouth.
I touch his chest, his shoulders, sliding my palms up the back of his neck. God, I love the way his breath changes with my hands all over him. That small show of his control slipping as much as mine.
He grips the backs of my thighs and lifts me like I weigh nothing, and I wrap my legs around him, our mouths still tangled together. He rocks, sliding his cock against me, so close to where I want him, that I whimper into the kiss.
“Fuck me, Knox.”
My back hits the mattress. He pulls back just enough to look down at me, chest heaving, jaw tight, eyes dark with need. “Not yet. First, you’re coming all over my face.”
I don’t have a second to react before he’s on the bed, face in my pussy.
“Oh my God.”
His tongue slips between my folds, and he licks slowly, savoring, memorizing.
“You have no idea how long I’ve wanted to do this.” His voice is like gravel. “Too fucking long, Sawyer.”
He licks again, holding my thighs open wide. I feel vulnerable, exposed, but also wanted. Like Knox eating my pussy is something for him. His nose grazes my slit, and he sucks in a breath, then groans. It’s so fucking erotic, I feel myself getting wetter.
“My God, baby. You’re so wet.”
I wrap my fingers in his hair, pulling, pushing, I don’t even know. I just need him to make me come. But he’s savoring this, and knowing Knox, he’ll take his time. I try to buck my hips but he holds me down by my thighs, keeping me exactly where he wants me.
“Knox,” I whimper and squirm. “Please.”
He licks slowly, once, stopping on my clit. “Fuck, I’d spend days between these legs. But I’m too desperate to hear you come.”
Then his fingers slip inside me, and he starts rubbing my walls, his tongue matching the rhythm. Flicking, pressing, lavishing my clit until I’m shaking and crying out.
I know what will push him over the edge.
“Knox, oh fuck. Knox.”
I repeat his name and he groans. The vibrations are too much. I pull his hair as every part of me comes undone. Waves and waves of euphoria roll through me. And he doesn’t stop. He clamps his lips around my clit, sucking hard until I’m shaking and begging.
“Please, fuck me. Please. I need your cock.”