Chapter 4
Knox
Imake it exactly half a block before my legs stop fucking cooperating.
It isn't a conscious decision. I don't stop and gaze up at the building like some kind of romantic movie bullshit. My boots just quit moving. I stand there on the sidewalk in jeans that smell like another man's slick, and my brain hits a brick wall.
I turn around, walk back to the front steps, and sit down.
The concrete is freezing. My jeans are a situation I'm actively choosing to ignore. If I think about the fact that I just came in my pants in a hallway while an omega I ghosted months ago ground his cock against my thigh, I’m going to have to figure out why it was the best fucking orgasm of my life.
I don't do that. I don't sit with shit. But the night air is cool, Benji's scent is still burning in my lungs, and my body refuses to leave.
Every time I think about standing up and walking to the subway, something pulls tight in my chest. I keep catching myself leaning back toward the building. Toward him. Toward whatever the hell happened at that door when his scent hit me and my brain short-circuited.
The light is on in one of the third-floor windows. His window. The smart move is to go home, take a shower, and pretend this was just a weird night. That's my move. Walk away clean. No mess. I’ve been running that play for years.
My ass stays on the concrete.
I sit there running the same broken loop—he catfished me, it was Benji, I came like a fucking teenager—until footsteps click up the sidewalk. Keys jingle. Someone stops a few feet away.
I look up. There's an omega standing there with his keys clutched in his fist, looking mildly homicidal. Tall, sharp cheekbones, tight curls. He has the kind of posture that says he’s never been intimidated by an alpha in his life.
I don't know him, but the way he’s looking at me says he knows exactly who I am.
He takes me in—the alpha on his steps, the smell of sex and Benji's scent rolling off me, my face. His expression goes from suspicious to ice-cold in a fraction of a second.
"You're Knox." Not a question.
"Yeah."
"The one who ghosted Benji."
My usual move is to flash a smirk and deflect, but I can't find the grin. "Yeah," I say, quieter than I mean to.
He shifts his weight. His face goes completely still. "You know what I think? I think you came here expecting easy, and whatever happened up there wasn't easy, and now you're sitting on my steps looking sorry for yourself instead of leaving like you should."
"I'm not sorry for myself."
"Then what are you doing here?"
I look at the sidewalk, then back up at him. The honest answer slips out before I can coat it in bullshit. "I can't leave."
It hangs there, heavy and pathetic. I try to add a joke, a smirk, anything, but my filter is shot. I just told a stranger the truest thing I've said in six months.
His eyes narrow. He’s not impressed, but something shifts. "If you hurt him again," he says, his voice dropping low enough to rattle my spine, "I won't come out here for a conversation. We clear?"
"Clear."
He walks past me, up the steps, and pulls the door open.
"Hey," I call out. He pauses. "I deserved the catfish. I know that."
"You deserved worse," he says, and the door clicks shut behind him.
I know exactly what’s about to happen. That was Shay—has to be, the protective one from the group chat. He's walking up those stairs right now to tell Benji I'm still here. Which means something is coming. I could still go. I could stand up and walk away.
My ass stays on the concrete.
A few minutes later, the heavy door opens behind me.
I don't turn around. His scent hits me before his voice does, rolling down the steps and sinking right into my chest. My whole body lights back up.
Every nerve. My cock stirs in my ruined jeans like it didn't just get off an hour ago.
Whatever this bond is, it's not letting go.
"You're still here." Benji's voice is flat and furious from the doorway above me.
I stand up and turn around. He's changed his jeans—clean dark ones.
He stayed upstairs and cleaned up, expecting me to be gone, but I didn't leave.
His hair is pushed back, his jaw clenched so tight the muscle jumps.
He looks like he wants to put me in the ground, but he smells like everything I never knew I was looking for.
"You gave me the address," I say. My voice is rough. "I showed up. I'm not the one who runs."
It’s a cheap shot. I am literally the one who ran. But it lands. His eyes go hot. He grabs the front of my jacket, hauling me through the door and up the stairs. I let him. Wherever Benji's dragging me is where I'm supposed to be.
He shoves me through his apartment door, slams it, and pins me against the hallway wall. We're back in the exact spot from an hour ago, except the air is thick with both our scents. Benji is standing in front of me, chest heaving, fists at his sides.
"You want to know what you walked away from?" His voice is mean. His hand is already on my belt. "Let me remind you."
He drops to his knees.
Benji on his knees in his own hallway, looking up at me with that sharp jaw, his nose ring catching the overhead light.
He's not kneeling for me. He's kneeling at me.
Like this is an act of war. His hands are fast and rough on my zipper, yanking my cock out of my damp underwear.
The look he gives it is the same look he gave me in the doorway—like it's something he's going to use and throw away.
He takes me deep on the first stroke. No warmup, no teasing.
Just my cock hitting the back of his throat, his mouth hot and tight and furious around me.
The flat of his tongue drags along the underside, slick and deliberate.
I slam my hand flat against the wall behind me to keep my knees from buckling.
He grabs my hips, fingers bruising, setting a punishing, relentless rhythm.
I reach for his hair. He slaps my hand away without missing a beat, shoves my wrist back against the wall, and pins it there for a second before gripping my hip again.
I don't get to touch him. I don't get to set the pace.
I get to stand here with my back against the plaster and take his mouth and his fury.
His tongue does something on the upstroke that makes my head fall back. I let out a low, gutted groan. My thighs are shaking. He pulls almost all the way off, lips dragging along the head, then takes me back to the root in one solid thrust. I'm gripping the wall with both hands now.
My knot is swelling. I can feel it thickening at the base, and Benji feels it too.
His hand wraps around the swell, working it in tight, controlled strokes that won't let me fully knot.
He keeps me right on the fucking edge, and the denial is maddening.
He knows exactly how to keep me desperate.
Every time he looks up at me, his eyes are wet, but his expression is pure triumph. No mercy.
I come fast. Again. My body locks up, spilling into his mouth with a ragged sound that's mostly his name lost behind my teeth. The bond cranks the orgasm past anything I'm used to. I shake against the wall, trying to stay on my feet.
Benji swallows, pulls off, and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. He looks up at me, his face pure victory.
"Remember that," he spits, "next time you think about disappearing."
He stands up and turns to walk away.
Something in me that's been dark all night flickers back on. He actually thinks that's how this ends. That he gets to drop to his knees, wreck me, and walk away victorious.
No. I'm not done. I'm nowhere close to done.
I catch his wrist.
He stops. Turns his head just enough for me to see his profile. I pull him back, close enough that his scent floods my lungs all over again. I look him dead in the eye, my voice dropping into a low, steady rumble.
"Where do you think you're going? I'm not finished with you."
His breath catches. His pupils blow wide. And he doesn't pull away.