20. Sawyer
Sawyer
Ican’t sleep. More like, I won’t sleep. Maybe I will eventually, once I’m sure his breathing stays even. Once every little creak in the apartment doesn’t have me on edge.
So I watch him instead, enjoying the way his face relaxes.
He looks beautiful, even with the bruises.
It has to be the whole letting his guard down thing.
Something he never does awake. He’s always keeping that careful control, emotions locked up tight.
When he’s like this, I can almost pretend that the last few hours didn’t happen.
That he’s just here like before. That we’re just two people in bed, nothing chasing either of us.
Not ghosts of ex-boyfriends or big scary hit men.
Okay, I know Owen’s not haunting me, and I’m not sure if Ella’s father is a hit man, but that’s how I picture him.
Still, playing pretend is nice.
Around four, he says my name. Low enough that if I wasn’t right beside him I wouldn’t have heard it. His brows knit together, eyelids twitching. Whatever he’s dreaming has him held tight.
I place my hand gently on his chest again, the way I did earlier, and it’s enough to settle him. His face smooths back out, and he stays asleep.
I’m restless but don’t want to move, so I lie here, running options in my head for how to solve this mess we’re in.
How many more nights can we stay like this, hiding out, living on edge, before something worse happens?
How long can we keep pretending a guest house and tiptoeing through life will work?
Around five, I give up on sleep and grab my phone off the nightstand, angling the screen away from him. Pulling up my notes app, I scroll by the list I made recently, all my plans that now seem so unimportant. Instead, I click new, and write the first things that come to mind.
Email work—family emergency
Email professor—same
Pack for guesthouse
Figure out what to tell Mom
How to end this?!
I stare at the last line for longer than I mean to, different scenarios running through my mind. Those four words mock me with how much they encompass. I guess skipping sleep and having the shit scared out of me isn’t conducive to active brainstorming anyway.
For now, all I can do is knock off numbers one and two on the list.
I type out the emails quietly, keeping them as brief as possible without arousing suspicion.
After everything that’s happened this summer, my job thinks I’m barely holding it together as it is.
What’s another week of unpaid time off? Unpaid.
Fuck my life. I better email my lawyers.
I’ll need that settlement from Wonder World sooner than later.
Wonder World.
What Knox said.
So much has happened, I almost forgot. He talked about paperwork Richard has, something about our father’s being involved with Velocity in some way, that they could be responsible for the accident. He info dumped so much in such a short amount of time, I didn’t absorb it all.
I add one more line to the list.
Get all the details about Velocity!
By the time the sky’s gone from black to misty gray, I’ve sent all three emails and stared into space thinking. If what Knox found is true, if our parents let that coaster get built on unstable ground, they need to pay. The thought makes me sick.
It’s a longshot, but maybe a good old fashioned Googling will pull something up. I tap my browser and start to type Velocity roller—then stop myself. What am I doing? One search and I’ll be flooded with articles and videos from the accident. That’s the last thing I need right now. Maybe ever.
Delete. Instead, I type Moretti, and hit enter. Random shit populates on my screen. Some Italian brewing company, a dude’s Instagram page, a pizza place in Chicago. In short—a waste of time. I try adding New York, and that only added other pizza places and social media links.
I need to know more before I can narrow my search. Hopefully Mr. Pain In My Ass will wake up in a talking mood today. I never know with him.
Like he heard my thoughts, Knox wakes a short while later, disoriented for a second until his eyes find mine. His features smooth and shoulders drop an inch.
“Hey,” I say. “How are you feeling?”
A groan is his answer. Can’t blame him.
“Let me get you something to drink and some ibuprofen. You’re swollen as fuck.” I move to stand, but his hand reaches for me. “What’s wrong?”
Even with one eye half open, he studies me. “You didn’t sleep.”
“I’m good.” He attempts to sit up and bites back a hiss. “Knox, just stay down. Your ribs.”
“They’re fine,” he lies. The way his jaw locks tells me exactly how not fine they are.
“Sure. That’s why you look like you’re about to pass out just sitting up.” I press my fingertip against his sternum with easy pressure, and he actually listens for once, sinking back against the pillow with a breath that shudders on the way out. “I mean it. Don’t move. I’ll be right back.”
I get him a glass of water and a couple ibuprofen, and he swallows both without arguing, very un-Knox like. He’s never this compliant. I could get used to it.
“Good boy,” I tease. “Maybe you need to get your ass beat everyday…makes you a good listener.”
“Ha. Ha.”
I turn back to grab an ice pack and a granola bar.
It’s about the only edible thing I have in the place right now.
He takes them like a dutiful patient and once he’s got some color back and he’s not groaning with each deep breath, I take a good look at him.
It’s dim in here, but ugh, he’s crusty as hell.
“I’m going to run you a bath. You need heat on those ribs before they seize up worse.”
“I don’t—”
“Hey, who’s in charge here?” I raise a brow. “Bath. Now.”
He glares at me, but it’s weak, and within minutes, I have him up and in the bathroom.
I turn to run the water while he pees, and when he reaches my side, I get a good look at those ribs in the light.
My stomach drops all over again. One side is worse than the other—large splotches of purplish black with raised puffy skin around the area.
It reminds me of the paint color I wanted for my bedroom during my broody phase in middle school. Glad Mom talked me out of it.
When he finds me scrutinizing, he hides them with his palm. “Think he was wearing steel toe boots. Looks worse than it feels, though.”
“Bullshit.”
He grimaces in response.
When the tub is half full, he lowers himself in with a hiss through his teeth, eyes falling shut the second the heat hits him.
I back away a step, but his voice stops me.
“Stay,” he says without opening his eyes. “Please.”
I swallow hard. “Okay, sure.”
“Not asking for help. Just don’t want to be alone right now.”
If anyone understands that, it’s me. I kneel on the bath mat and push up my sleeves, reaching for the clean washcloth. His half lidded eyes follow the path of my hands as I dip it into the water and squeeze some body wash on.
I start with his shoulders, dragging the cloth along one, then the other. “So tell me about that paperwork you found. About Velocity?”
“That your plan? Get me all relaxed so I spill my secrets?”
Just to be a brat, I drag the washcloth lower, down his abdomen, stopping right above his pelvis. “You already told me everything, remember? Your long-winded word vomit.”
His breath catches as I, not so subtly, let my knuckles graze his hardening cock. “Fuck, Sawyer—”
“You said our fathers did some shady shit? Something with the foundation?” His hand finds mine under the water, holding it in place right over his bobbing length.
“Please. I beg you,” he says, tormented. “Don’t talk about our fathers when you’re teasing my dick.”
A smile lifts the corner of my lips. “I’m not. I’m just helping you get clean.”
Then his eyes meet mine, pupils blown. Holding my gaze, he pulls the washcloth from my hand and guides my fingers around him instead. “You’re not?”
How is he so hard when he’s this beat up?
“No.” It comes out in a rush of breath. I hate to admit that he’s affecting me.
We shouldn’t. I shouldn’t. He’s got bruises the size of dinner plates, and what we have is still a complicated mess.
But his fingers tighten around my hand until I’m holding him in a tight fist and he guides me higher, up to his head, then back down. One slow pump.
His head falls back against the tub as a groan leaves his lips. This is nothing. We’ve touched like this. Done more. I can make him feel good.
He sighs in relief and my mind is made. I take over, jerking him off slowly, watching his chest rise and fall as he fights to stay still. Then he’s reaching for me, finding the hem of my shirt and slipping his fingers beneath.
Water drips down my stomach, soaking my clothes as he glides his way up my curves, cupping my breast. He teases my nipple, pinching lightly until I bite back a moan.
“Feels so good,” he says, lifting his hips slightly, splashing water over the edge. “Faster. Please.”
It’s the please coupled with the sensation of his fingers that has me lost in lust. High on the sounds of him sucking air through his teeth. I want to rip off my clothes and straddle him. Ride his thick cock until I’m screaming with pleasure.
I up my pace, swiping my thumb over his crown, collecting his precum before it washes off into the bathwater. His breaths are ragged, his eyes scrunched in concentration. I could stop right now. Punish him. Make him beg and plead to come.
“Sawyer.” He says it like it’s the only word he knows. The only name that exists in his world.
“Come for me,” I say, pushing away the thoughts. I want this as much as he does.
His cock twitches, balls drawing tight, right before he groans, spilling over my hand, threads of it clouding into the bathwater.
Then he’s boneless, chest heaving, as he relaxes lower into the water. “You’re going to be the death of me,” he says, eyes still closed.
“Pretty sure Moretti’s guy already one-upped me there.” I rinse my hand off, and immediately regret bringing it up when his face shutters, that easy, loose look from a second ago morphing right back into something guarded. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to bring that up.”
“No, you’re right.” He opens his dark eyes and finds mine. “We can’t just pretend that didn’t happen because it’s easier.”
“Yeah,” I say, annoyed with my big stupid mouth for ruining the moment. I push up to stand. “I’ll let you finish up. I’m—”
“Sawyer,” he interrupts. “You’re right. I mean it.” I can already see his muscles shifting back to his baseline, tight with anxiety. “We’ll talk when I’m done. Figure some shit out.”
I nod, hating that we have to deal with this. I’m just so tired. It’s hitting me. Tired and fucking horny now. “I’ll grab you a towel and leave it on the counter.”
I leave him to it, giving him time to wash away the blood and sweat, and by the time he’s toweled off, boxers on, and back in bed, the adrenaline’s finally draining out of both of us in one long exhausted wave.
I curl up beside him, careful of his ribs, and my phone buzzes against the nightstand before either of us speaks a word about Velocity or fathers or anything else too heavy to deal with.
“That’s probably Gia,” I mumble, not moving an inch to get it.
Knox reaches over me to grab it instead. He somehow already knows my passcode, and reads the message. “She says she can get you to Miriam’s tonight. Wants you packed by six.”
“Mmm. Good.” I burrow deeper into his side, half asleep already. He’s warm and comfortable and everything I need right now. I’m floating in that space between dreaming and lucidity, and it feels incredible. “Should ask my dad.”
“What?”
“Mmhm.” I’m babbling at this point, riding the edge of sleep. “David…He’d know. Always knows.”
“Sawyer?”
I fall into darkness.