CHAPTER NINE
FELICITY
A handful of sequestered days back in Knox Vandevere’s arms—vetted by his coach and select teammates—seemed like eternity.
Maybe that’s how it was always supposed to be.
Maybe I was stupid for running away from him in the first place.
But I had a good reason back then. At least, it felt like a good reason.
Now, looking back? The logic of seventeen-year-old me bore a cobweb of holes all through it.
I was smarter than that. I’m supposed to be smarter than that.
But a teenager’s logical sequence didn’t have a decade of hindsight and life experience to play back on. Mistakes were made. Other relationships. Or in my case, just the one.
One that ended badly and publicly, right in the middle of the Chimeras’ parking lot a few nights ago. Right in front of Knox Vandevere.
That last part couldn’t be scripted if I’d tried. I wanted so badly to believe in fate, but this perfect ending fell in all too well. I didn’t deserve that. Not one bit. Not for the way I treated him.
“Penny,” Knox said softly, topping up my coffee mug. He wizened up and gave me an oversized one, this time.
I cuddled the mug decorated with tiny hockey pucks—what else?—all over. “I was just thinking about why we broke up.”
Knox’s gaze weighed heavily on me. “You wanna tell me your reasoning, sweetness? Because you never did share that with me.”
“You never asked.”
“I didn’t want to be the asshole.”
I squeezed my mug so tightly that it creaked. “You were always the good guy, Knox. That was the problem.”
He blew out a long breath. Warm, rough hands closed around mine. “That’s the first time I’ve heard that one, Flick. Gentle with my mug. It was a gift when I first joined the team, okay?”
“Huh?” I stared down at my coffee that was practically vibrating in its container. “Oh. Sorry.”
“Yeah. Don’t you go murdering my mug.” He considered for a moment as he swapped the mug out of his gentle hold on my hands.
Knox rubbed his thumbs in slow circles across the backs of my hands, then the insides of my palms. I shivered at the display of intimacy, and he sent me a knowing look.
“So. I was too nice, and that made you run away to Garry-boy. Who decorated my nice windows.” Knox nodded toward the graffiti that obscured the view of the city still blanketed in a light haze of rain, though the deluge had faltered, for now.
We’d come back to his condo, the one where I spent my first night back with him, to find one window in his garage smashed and several cans of spray paint lifted.
Those had been emptied across the front of his gorgeous home.
Apparently, Garrett—supposedly—had a tantrum that didn’t stop with my assault, though we kept that piece of information to ourselves.
He must have vandalized Knox's house before he followed us out to the cabin where we had our ‘dirty’ weekend ala midweek, together. The Chimeras backed us on the dates for our alibi, and Ward Bishop, as Knox’s coach, was suitably pissed in public about his absence.
All that was recorded in the media during an interview carefully hosted under Cora’s supervision since she handled all of the team’s PR.
And Valentine was right there beside her, of course.
The police arrived and checked for prints, collecting a few.
The perpetrator would be charged and apologies plus a few selfies made their way around—also public.
Knox played the perfect host. The rich boy version of him knew how to do that to perfection but media training kicked in and he played it up.
And all the way along as they hid their secret, my heart stung that I’d invaded his home and brought this level of damage to his door. By the time everyone left, the sun was close to setting on the last of our hours solitary promised together before his training resumed.
I kicked off my jeans the moment we were alone, leaving the denim to puddle on Knox’s floor in a heap.
He didn’t seem to mind—the reverse, actually, appearing to delight in the fact I made myself at home in his house, disrupting his sanitized space.
I curled on his sofa wearing only his shirt.
He delivered me coffee while I stared at his mutilated windows.
“I’m so sorry,” I whispered, heartbroken for the effect my reappearance had on his perfectly compartmentalized life. “I knew he was controlling and an— an—”
“An asshole,” Knox supplied, sliding under my legs beside me.
“An asshole,” I finished. The events of the last few days slammed me.
I gripped the mug tight, trying to free myself from his hold, but Knox wasn’t having it.
I gave up and let him cradle my hands in his larger, callused fingers.
“Never, not once, did I think that his obsession with you would come to this. That’s why we were at the game that night. ”
Knox stopped stroking my hands. I missed the motion immediately. “You know, all you keep saying is, ‘Garry-boy loves you’ and, ‘Garry-boy wants to have your baby’. Not what I want to hear about a dead man, Flick,” he growled.
My eyes widened, and I stared wildly in the direction of the door. “If anyone hears—”
No one had reported my unfortunate ex missing yet, and so no one was looking.
I wore a brand new ribbon around my throat that Knox presented me with the day we drove home from the cabin, stopping in at a small jeweler on the edge of an even smaller town.
The soft gold satin was broken up by a cluster of diamonds studded across the center.
Its width was perfect to hide the red line that hadn’t yet faded, and Knox couldn’t keep his hands off me, stroking the ribbon like a sign of ownership.
No part of me hated that. Not this time around.
What I didn't want was for any authority figure to investigate what actually happened that night in the woods, not on anyone’s part. To work out just who the Chimeras were, and what they did to protect the women they loved. Cora had her own story to tell, as did Shannon’s wife, I’d learned.
Now, I joined those ranks too, because of Knox.
I was alive because of Knox.
"You're safe," he murmured, reaching around me. I curled into the circle of his arms. “But fuck the opinions of a man who never should have been in our lives, Flick. Don’t give power over you. Not now.” His eyes searched mine, seeking answers I wasn’t sure I had to give him.
I huffed at him. “I never said any of that—”
He held up a finger without letting me go. “What I’m not hearing is that you came to see me play. Huh, sweetness? Is there any of that in there?” Knox searched my face, his eyes meeting mine.
There was only one correct answer to this question for a man with an ego his size.
“I was there to watch the Basilisks play that night,” I said promptly.
Knox’s eyes darkened. “Is that your only answer, sweetness?”
“Mhmm,” I murmured sagely. “Wha–oh!” A faded shriek left my beribboned throat as Knox scooped me into his arms and tossed me over his shoulder. A resounding smack echoed across the open plan space.
My cry died a sharp death when the hard hand that delivered my punishment for sassing him went on a little tour.
I whimpered as Knox discovered my lack of panties beneath his shirt.
One moment I was over his shoulder, his fingers tracing the soft, damp lips of my pussy.
The next I was airborne. My back hit the soft mattress, and I bounced.
“What the fu—” I breathed, then he was on me. Or, more accurately, over me.
Knox caged me in. “You were prepared for this, huh, Flick?”
I shook my head. “I just wanted the restrictive clothing off.”
His hand came down on my hip, squeezing. A quick glance over his shoulder confirmed my lie. “I don’t see any panties in that pile of denim, sweetness. Do you wanna try again?"
I licked my lips. “I really just wanted everything off.”
Knox’s gaze coasted over the shirt I wore. “Undo the buttons. Now, sweetness,” he murmured when I hesitated. “Unless you’ve changed your mind.”
It was the one out he’d give me. I knew that. My only escape route.
I didn't plan on taking it.
I reached up, working the first button that seemed too tight in its enclosure. His hand closed over mine, stopping me.
“What?” I stared up at him, all too aware of his body arched over mine, my borrowed shirt hitched up to the tops of my thighs with nothing underneath. The only place we touched was our joined hands. “What did I do wrong?”
“Tell me why you left that night. Way back when we were dating the first time. When I came to get you for the dance. Why did you walk away from me?” Knox’s voice strained.
Hell, he was hurting as much as I did. Still.
The vision of him swam before me, replaced with the far younger version, the innocent one. “I don’t know.”
Lie. I knew exactly why.
One arm braced over my head, taking his weight. A gentle, sweet touch glided over my cheek, sweeping away the tear that coated my skin like rain. “You do, Flick. You’re the only one. You've always been the only one.” His voice cracked as the meaning of his words changed.
My eyes shuttered, blocking him out, but the panic in my chest, knotting tight, eased with every stroke of his fingers. “Because you’re a Vandevere, and I’m just…me.”
Knox huffed out a soft laugh above me, his breath puffing against my lips. “Of course you’re you, Flick. Who else would you be?”
My eyelids slammed open, and I flared at him. “This is what I mean. You never saw it. You never got it. And you were so damn sweet and cute and nice that I didn’t want to break your naive little school boy heart by telling you.”
He looked back at me, nonplussed. “So tell me now.”
I looked away, but his damn fingers were insistent, catching my chin and turning my face back to his. To the darkened eyes that stared down at mine, relentless and unyielding. “Knox…”
“I’m a big boy, Felicity. I'm pretty sure I’ve grown up since then.”
Pretty sure that’s on the list of things that never happened.