8. Chapter 7 – Knox
Chapter 7 – Knox
I watched the sexy brunette walk away, unable to stop myself from appreciating the way her long legs gracefully moved with each step. I knew that was exactly why she wore leather pants and heels, but I didn’t dwell on it too long.
My attention immediately returned to my sexy girlfriend, who was also staring at the tattoo artist as she walked away. And if my eyesight was right, she was staring at her ass too.
“Hannah.” I spoke, and she jumped, blinking rapidly and looking back up at me with a weak smile on her face. “What the fuck just happened?”
Her face fell and her shoulders sagged as she glanced back toward the door one last time, like she was hoping for another glimpse of Lex.
“I don’t know.” She finally said and looked back up at me. “I think I just want to go home.”
“Let’s go.” I grabbed her hand and led her through the crowd. There was something going on in her head, making her act strange, and I was desperate to get to the bottom of it. That entire interaction at the table was the most bizarre dealing I’d ever witnessed with Hannah, and I needed to get some answers.
“My car—” She pointed to the lot out back of the restaurant where she had parked it, but I just shook my head and pulled her toward my bike on the street.
I took her bag and cinched it up, before sliding it into the saddlebag that held her gear.
“Knox.” She tried one more time, but I shook my head again, holding onto the anxiety inside of me by a thread .
I wrapped my hand around the back of her neck and pulled her forward, flush with the front of my chest, and bent down to press my forehead against hers. “I don’t know what just happened back there, but there are two things I do know, Hannah.”
“What?” She whispered like she was almost afraid of my answer.
“One; I’m going to get to the bottom of it. And two, if I don’t feel your body wrapped around mine, even from just the back of my bike for now, I’m going to lose my mind while I try to figure out yours.” I kissed her roughly, pushing my tongue into her mouth and she welcomed it, surprising me when she bit it and whimpered against my lips. “Now get on my bike.”
“Okay.” She whispered as I threw my leg over the motorcycle and pulled the stand up, holding my hand out to help her on.
The moment her body pressed against mine and she wrapped her arms around my stomach, some of the unease settled in my gut.
“Hold on tight, baby.” I warned as I started the engine, revving it a few times to tell the surrounding cars I was pulling out, my turn or not be damned.
“Always.” She replied over the roar of the pipes and tightened her hold, sliding her fingers inside of the metal buckle of my belt, which was her favorite spot to hang on.
I moved us through the downtown traffic, splitting lanes and taking alleys until the congestion opened up and we hit the rural route leading us toward our house and with each minute that passed, leading us further from the city and closer to our slice of paradise, she settled and relaxed into me more and more.
As I drove through the winding blacktop driveway, the trees blocked the house, but I could see the glow of the porch lights before we broke through into the clearing. I drove the bike directly into the open garage bay and turned it off as my ears rang from the sudden silence. She slid off the back of the bike, grabbing her work stuff, but I took it from her hands and carried it for her as we left the garage, heading for the house.
She was silent .
Alarm bells rang in my head as my normally chatty girl held all of that chaos inside of her head instead of sharing it with me like usual.
Halfway up the steps of the front porch, Brody walked out of the screen door wearing a pair of low riding jeans and nothing else. “When did you get back?”
“Earlier.” I said, grabbing him for a quick hug as Hannah lingered at the top of the steps, still silent. “I ran into Hanny at T’s.” I glanced back at her, and she was wringing her hands together in front of her. As Brody noticed the tension between us, his demeanor changed, and I accused, “What the fuck happened while I was gone?”
He snapped his head to me with a scowl. “What do you mean?”
I leaned back against the porch post and crossed my arms, nodding to Hannah, whose eyes were wide as they flicked between the two of us.
“I mean, did you know our girl was on a date with a centerfold model, who had enough big dick energy to put you in your place like a good little boy?”
“I wasn’t—” Hannah started and then wilted a bit when Brody turned her way.
“You said you were going to dinner with the tattoo artist.”
“ Lex .” I interjected for him and raised my brows at him. “Big, big dick lesbian energy wrapped up in a shiny leggy package.”
“Will you stop it?” Hannah cried, looking at me with a look on her face I’d never seen aimed my way before.
Brody, sure. But not me, and her hurt look and teary eyes cut me deep.
“Hannah—” I froze, feeling like I’d landed in some twilight zone since returning home. “What’s going on?”
“I don’t know!” She yelled as those tears fell over her lashes. “But don’t you dare stand there and insinuate I was doing anything improper in the middle of the damn restaurant because I wasn’t!” She ended in a scream.
“Then what were you doing?” Brody asked calmly, which was odd.
Hello, twilight zone.
“I don’t know!” She shook her head as her bottom lip quivered.
“But it wasn’t platonic. Not completely, was it?” A rage I didn’t recognize built inside of me as I finally understood what I was seeing at the bar, and I recognized the fear in her eyes.
“I—” She hesitated and swallowed. “I think I’m bisexual.”
The entire world stopped spinning and everything around us drifted away as gravity no longer grounded us. “You’re what?” Brody scowled, shaking his head.
“For a few months now I’ve wondered,” She closed her eyes in pain. “I think meeting Lex confirmed it.”
I walked away from her as panic burned in my heart.
You’re not enough for me anymore.
I want something different.
This isn’t working.
I imagined hearing her say one of those things next, putting the nail in the coffin of the only life I’d ever wanted; her and Brody.
“I’m sorry.” She cried, but I couldn’t stop. Seeing the hurt in her eyes, my world flipped and I couldn’t stand it. “Knox! Please don’t leave.” I could hear the tears in her voice and my feet stopped moving as my need to comfort her battled with my need to digest what she just said. “Please don’t leave me.” She sobbed. “I won’t do anything. Ever. I just wanted to understand what my mind and body were mis-communicating. I’ll just turn it off. I’ll figure out how to make it stop, please. I’m so sorry!”
My chest cracked open as I turned to face her. Tears streaked her face and her skin turned red and blotchy as she panicked. Brody stared at me with so much uncertainty in his eyes. I was positive I’d never seen him so unsure before. Since I met him in kindergarten, he radiated confidence every day, but her revelation left him shaken and uncertain. “My god, Hannah.” I shook my head as I stalked back toward her. Fear and anxiety overcame her, causing her to shrink down into herself. Of us. Of what we would do or say in response to her honesty.
“Knox.” Brody’s hesitation rocked me as I neared them again, but I didn’t stop. I grabbed Hannah in my arms and held her to my chest so tight I was probably cutting off her air, but she squeezed me back just as tight, sobbing harder now that I was comforting her.
“You can’t turn it off.” I told her, smoothing my hand over the back of her head and Brody slid behind her, holding us all together as chaos still swirled. “And I never want you to. I never want you to hide your heart from us, baby.”
“Never again.” Brody agreed, and I was glad he did, because I would physically beat him into it if I had to. “Do you remember the night Knox came out to you as bi?” He asked, kissing the back of her head and showing his gentle side that only we saw. “The night you held him all night long, afraid that you would no longer be enough for him.”
She shuddered as she took a deep breath and said something too muffled to be understood.
“Try again.” I said, pulling her face back enough to speak freely of my shirt.
“I was so scared you’d leave me. Or stay with me out of obligation.” She admitted and then buried her face back into my chest.
“And instead, what did I do?”
“Fucked your best friend.” She murmured, and I heard the tiniest bit of a smile in her still muffled voice and Brody snorted.
“She’s not wrong.” He winked at me.
“Kept open lines of communication with you as I explored my sexuality.” I corrected her. “With you by my side.”
She shook her head, negating that idea. “I don’t want to explore. I don’t want to do anything ever again to feel like this.
“Hannah.” Brody warned. “Your sexuality can change as you get older. There’s nothing wrong with that.”
“And if I said I was full lesbian and never wanted to see your penis ever again?” She scoffed.
“Hit me in the nuts next time, babe. I think it will hurt less.” He deadpanned and then picked her up, pulling her out of my hold to sit down on the bench before nodding for me to join them. Which was no problem, because I needed to be close to them both right now, too .
“I’m afraid you’re going to hate me.” She admitted. “And I never want that to happen. Just because I’m attracted to females doesn’t mean I ever have to act on it.”
“Just take a deep breath and hold on. You’re putting the cart before the horse.” I reminded her, wiping my thumbs under her eyes to clear the last of the tears. “Let’s start with when you first noticed something was up.”
She groaned and laid her head on Brody’s chest, soaking up his gentle affection, because he usually wasn’t one to cuddle. “I don’t know, a few months ago I noticed I was seeing other women more often. And not just the normal way, like their outfits or styles, but them.” She took a deep breath, “Their bodies and builds.”
“And why didn’t you say anything?” Brody probed.
“Because I didn’t know it had to do with my sexuality.” She cried, sitting up. “I thought I was just more observant or something. I don’t know.”
“What changed?” I asked, pretty sure I already knew the answer to the question.
She bit her bottom lip and dropped my gaze, avoiding the topic.
“You can’t hide things from us, Hannah, because then you make us insecure and fear that you’re going to leave us.” Brody told her, doing a pretty good job of expressing the fear in my chest as she avoided the question. “That you don’t want us anymore.”
“I’ve never cheated.” She said firmly, reassuring him. “I’ve never touched anyone else.” She looked at me. “Not in my life.”
I confirmed what she needed me to. “I believe you.” When we were fresh out of high school and wrapped up in this weird love triangle between the three of us, she was a virgin and gave herself to us first. On the same night, so it would be ‘fair’. Since then, we all had only been with each other. And knowing no other man had ever touched her, calmed something inside of me. But if I was being honest, the idea of another woman touching our sweet, loving Hannah didn’t appall me either.
“Then what changed?”
“I met Lex.” She confessed, “And from the first second of being in the same room as her, I felt tension building. ”
“Is she a lesbian?” Brody asked, having not met Lex.
“Yes. She didn’t say anything about it until tonight, when we were talking about my relationship with you two. But it’s not something you can miss with her. She just has—” She hesitated, trying to find the words.
“Big dick energy.” I stated, for the third time, because there was no other way to describe the air about Lex. “Some lesbians have that alpha dog mentality, though, they’re usually the masculine ones.”
“And Lex isn’t?” Brody raised his brow at me, but I let Hannah answer.
“No.” She shrugged, “I mean, there are things about her that give off masculine vibes, but I think that’s more in her personality. No, she’s feminine. Really, really feminine.” Her eyes got this faraway look in them as she talked about the tattoo artist and I watched her closely, trying to figure out what she was feeling exactly.
“So you were attracted to her, but unsure why,” Brody expertly kept the conversation going.
“It was more than just an attraction.” She said, and then deflated. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Why?” I asked.
“Because it makes me feel guilty. Like I cheated.”
“That’s how I felt when I first started feeling things for Brody.” I reminded her. “Like it wasn’t fair to you, but that wasn’t true at all. I realized after a while that growing feelings for him didn’t detract from the feelings I had for you, not at all.”
“She’s not our best friend, though!” Hannah cried, “She’s a stranger and on the outside of this relationship. Your feelings for Brody didn’t threaten me because I loved him too.” She looked at the man holding her. “I understood why you were in love with him, and to me, it wasn’t intimidating.”
“And you think your feelings for Lex or any other female will threaten us?” Brody scoffed, like it was absurd.
“You didn’t see Knox at T’s.” She shook her head, “He was feral.”
Brody looked over at me, and I tried to think back to that exchange through Hannah’s eyes. “I admit, I felt threatened,” I said. “But only because I didn’t know about it. I felt like I was walking in on a secret. ”
“I’m sorry.” She stared down, and I hated seeing her so beaten by her feelings. And mine, because I didn’t handle everything right.
“Come here.” I lifted her out of Brody’s arms and placed her in my lap, straddling me so she was forced to look at me directly. Holding her chin with my thumb as my fingers wrapped around the back of her neck to make sure she didn’t hide. “I won’t lie to you and say I’m not scared of this change. Because I’m human, and any change that might threaten this relationship is terrifying to me. Since I was a teenager, I knew I wanted to spend the rest of my life with you. And once Brody and I stopped trying to get you to choose between us, I knew he was going to be a partner in this life too, right next to you, for life. So the fact that you potentially want something else outside of this trio is unsettling, but it’s not impossible.”
“I don’t want anything else.” She slid her hands up my chest and around the back of my neck. “I just want you and Brody.” She grabbed his hand and held onto him as she leaned forward to kiss me. “Forever. Just like this.”
I yielded to her need to find a balance in life again, even though I growled in frustration at her obvious attempt to backpedal and bury everything she had unearthed about herself. “Although I don’t believe you, I’m willing to set aside the conversation for now. Because I’ve been gone for thirteen days, and I miss you both more than I thought was possible.”
A friend of ours was opening a custom shop in Ohio, so I went out to help him get it set up and organize the opening. But being separated from Brody and Hannah for that long was the worst thing in the world, and I hated it more than anything.
“I missed you too.” She kissed me again, and this time she ran her tongue over my bottom lip, teasing me with just the simple touch. Anytime our girl used tongue in a kiss, meant she was needing something more than just a kiss. It was always her tell, and my body reacted instantly to her call for love. “Our bed was empty without you.”
Brody snickered next to us and leaned in, kissing her neck while putting his hand on the back of my mine, massaging the muscles. “Don’t act like I didn’t keep you warm in his absence. ”
She pulled back and smiled at him. “You gave me many wonderful orgasms too, but you know what I mean.”
“I do.” He kissed her, biting her lip in his dominating way and making her whimper as her body rocked forward in my lap before he turned his face to me and kissed me. “I know exactly what she means.”
Brody’s affection was always rough and needy, where Hannah’s was always sensual and erotic, and I was so fucking torn about what way I wanted them at that exact moment.
“I need to fuck.” I stated plainly, “One of you is going to take it tonight and I can’t guarantee that I can be gentle. Because I haven’t had a single orgasm in thirteen days, and I’m aching for release.”
I watched the stress of the day melt out of Hannah’s eyes as my girl let her desire to please take over her thoughts. “I can help with that.”
“Can you?” I questioned and then protested as she slid out of my arms. “This seems counterintuitive.”
“Give me a few minutes, then join me in the bedroom.” She winked at me and blew a kiss to Brody before running into the house and up the stairs.
I lost sight of her when she turned the corner at the top of the stairs, and I glanced at Brody. “You think she’s going to use sex to distract us into thinking she isn’t missing something?”
“Of course she will.” He sighed, leaning back on the bench and adjusting his already growing erection. “But that doesn’t mean we’re going to let her deflect.” He looked back at me. “If she wants a girl, are we going to give that to her?”
“I’d give her the moon if she asked for it.” I replied confidently, meaning every single word.
“And if she asks for Lex, will you let her have that?” He raised his brow at me. “Because that’s the part you seem to be hung up on.”
“There’s something about her I can’t put my finger on.”
“Lex? Like what?”
I groaned, rubbing my hand over my face as I admitted something that crossed my mind on the way home while my world spun out of control. “Like she may be the absolute best mix of you, me, and Hannah, all wrapped up in one sexy as fuck package.” I hated admitting that she was sexy because it felt like a betrayal to Hannah.
“That doesn’t sound like a bad thing.” Brody shrugged, trying to imagine it.
“It does if she can give Hannah everything she needs. Eliminating her need for us.” That was my biggest fear, to be honest. She was feminine and sensual, able to give Hannah that womanly style of touch. But she was also dominant and alpha, and if she could give Hannah that as well, what would she need us for?
Brody scoffed, standing up and holding his hand out to help me up, pulling me to my feet. “There’s one thing that girl can’t give Hannah, even if she tried.” He stated, and I raised my brow questioningly. “Dick. Even the best strap-on won’t replace the way we feel when we’re buried deep inside our girl.”
I snorted and shook my head, trying to find peace in his confidence. “Maybe.” I opened the screen door and went inside. “I hope we never have to find out.”
“Oh, boys!” Hannah’s sweet honey voice called from upstairs, replacing any doubt with need inside my brain. “I’m ready if you are.”
“Oh, I’m fucking ready.” Brody grinned, rubbing his hands together as he started for the stairs.
I leaped forward, cutting him off and taking the stairs two at a time as he started chasing me. “Get in line, fuck wad. I’m first.”
“Asshole.” He cursed, grabbing my shirt, and trying to shove me into the wall to get past me on the way to the bedroom.
Hannah’s girly giggle sounded from the bedroom as we crashed into the door frames and walls lining the hall on our way to her. “No fighting, or I’ll make you both sit in the corner and watch.”
We made it through the door at the same time, nearly getting stuck with our wide shoulders wedged. When we cleared the frame, we both froze, transfixed by the sight before us. She lay in the center of our bed, propped up on the pillows, wearing a pink nightgown. It pushed her breasts up and I could see her nipples through the thin lace covering them. Licking the pads of her fingers, she spread her legs, bent her knees, and then ran her fingers over her clit.
“Hannah.” I growled, stiffening to a rock in my jeans as I watched her show.
“Care to join me?” She licked her lips as she ran her dainty fingers through her wet pussy lips.
“Bet I can get her to scream my name first.” Brody challenged, pulling open the button on his jeans and shoving them down as he walked to the end of the bed.
“Game on.” I agreed, pulling my shirt off over the back of my head and tossing it at him.