Chapter 4 #2
I stared down at my fingers clutching the plastic coffee cup, convinced this had to be a dream.
I never knew letting Knox see my filthy stickers would lead to something like this.
It felt so absurd and impossible that I kept wanting to tell him to drop it.
I could thank him for the coffee, apologize again, and be on my way.
But instead, I let my curiosity win. After glancing over my shoulder to make sure we were still alone in that corner of the park, I asked, “What exactly… would that look like?”
Knox's lips pressed together firmly, and his eyes traveled from my eyes down to my fingers, still curled around the cup. I trembled internally, excitement flowing through my nerves like an electric current.
“Well,” he said, that gravelly voice making me shiver. “It’s like you said last night. You’d set some guidelines for me, and a timeframe. We’d establish a safe word.”
I just nodded. “Okay.”
“Everything else would be up to me,” he said, and the words instantly made my pussy twitch.
I clenched my thighs tight like he’d be able to tell how turned on I was.
But it wasn’t like I had anything to hide from him anymore, was it?
Fuck, he could probably smell how horny I was.
I dipped one hand between my legs, sliding it into the warm crevice at the apex of my thighs.
As I shifted in my seat, Knox’s eyes tracked my movement.
Could he see how much power he already had over me?
My mind was filled with questions–at least a dozen of them. But with his penetrating gaze turning my brain into total mush, I only managed to ask, “When?”
“I don’t know. Should it be scheduled,” he began, pulling his phone out of his pocket. I watched him navigate to his Notes app. “Or do you want to be… taken by surprise?”
Oh, fuck. Just hearing him utter the word “taken” in this sense had me horny as fuck.
Though my heart threatened to beat out of my chest, I forced myself to say the words on the tip of my tongue.
“If we do this, then I want you to surprise me,” I said, digging my nails into my inner thigh.
“Maybe we could give it a two-week timeline, but I don’t want to know when you’re coming. I want it to be like–”
I stopped, faltering for a second. How could I really say all these words out loud? How could this be real? Maybe I could still pretend I’d been just joking the entire time, and I could run back to my car without looking back.
“Say it,” Knox commanded, and that was when I knew I wasn’t going anywhere.
“Like you’re an intruder breaking into my apartment,” I said, the words stringing together like I needed to get them all out in a hurry.
“A stranger. If this actually happens, I want to feel scared, Knox.” I spoke fast, my heart going into overdrive.
I couldn't believe I'd just said any of that out loud. But I’d meant every word, so I reiterated my last point to make sure he understood. “I want the fear to feel real.”
Knox didn’t even blink or flinch. In fact, I watched him tap away on his phone, keeping a record of everything I told him. My God. Brody wanted me to see a priest when I talked about this stuff, but Knox was sitting there taking notes.
“You can stop talking about this in the hypothetical, Hallie. It’s going to happen,” he said, and I nodded like a child being scolded. “Now, just tell me what’s off the table.”
My lips parted, but I struggled to answer. The thing is, I didn’t want to provide him with a list of specifics. I wanted him to truly be in control of everything that happened to me, but I didn’t know how to say it.
He glanced up from his phone screen at me, likely sensing my hesitation. “Do you want me to be… rough with you?”
I stared back into his eyes, imagining how rough he might be. Despite the way he slammed me up against the wall the night before, there was this lingering trickle of doubt that he was capable of doing any of this to me.
There we were, making our plan and putting things in motion to bring this fantasy to life, but I still couldn’t believe that it was going to happen. Because he was still Knox Ballard, and I was still Hallie Rutherford. This wasn’t us.
“Can you?” I asked.
“Can I what?”
“Be rough with me.”
He laughed under his breath. “Yeah, I can handle that.”
The sheer confidence in his answer brought another question to the surface. I shuffled my feet on the pavement, one hand still resting between my thighs. “Have you done this before?”
Knox blinked, his lips parting as he studied my face. “No. Not this, specifically. I’ve dabbled in a little roleplay and BDSM, but many of my partners have been more… vanilla than I would’ve preferred.”
I turned away, staring at the reflection of the trees on the windows of the apartment building across the street from the park. I cleared my throat, knowing I needed to set at least a couple of boundaries.
After all, I didn’t know what I might be getting myself into.
“I don’t want to bleed,” I said, feeling a little more confident. In my peripheral vision, I saw him nod his head. “And I don’t want to bruise anywhere that I’ll have to explain to my family. Ass and thighs only.”
“Okay.” He nodded, and I watched him add something to his notes. “And how do you feel about… degradation? Or praise?”
I felt the tiniest twinge of frustration, worrying Knox wasn't fully understanding what I wanted out of this. “Other than what I just said about bleeding and bruising, my preferences don't matter.”
“Fine, then I'll decide. Everything that happens to you will be entirely up to me.”
Okay, maybe he did understand just how badly I wanted to be used by him.
“What about our safe word?” Knox asked, his eyes on the hand wedged between my thighs. “It can't be ‘no’ or ‘stop’, because I suspect I'll be hearing those words from you a lot when you think you've had enough.”
Oh, fuck. I felt a hot trickle between my legs, and it seeped through my panties.
I knew he’d only said that to get a reaction and prove he knew what the fuck he was doing.
But the thought of him pushing me past my limit while ignoring my pleas made my body react–without him even laying a finger on me.
I dragged my thumb along the damp, warm seam of my shorts, my clit throbbing just beneath it. “I–I don’t know,” I sputtered out.
“How about you tell me ‘red’ when you want me to stop, and ‘yellow’ if you need me to ease up?” he suggested, watching my thumb move.
“Okay.”
“And unless I hear you say those words, that means I have your consent, right?”
“Right,” I said, focusing on his thumbs tapping on his phone. “No matter how much I struggle or beg, no matter what I do, I don’t want you to relent unless I use the safe words. Even if I… cry.”
Knox nodded once, inhaling through his nose as he processed my words.
“Okay,” he said, clearing his throat as he lowered his phone to the bench beside him.
“So this is what I’m hearing. You want me to break into your apartment and have my way with you, and you don’t want to know when it happens.
No blood, no visible bruises. If you say ‘red’, everything stops.
And unless you do, I’m not going to hold back. ”
His eyes met mine again and he waited, like he wanted my confirmation that this was exactly what I desired from him. I slowly nodded, swallowing. “That just about covers it.”
Knox’s feet shifted, and he put his phone in his back pocket. “Okay then.”
That meant we were done.
We’d covered the “consensual” part of this agreement. The rest was up to him.
“You can change your mind anytime, Hallie,” he said, his voice a little softer now. “It won’t upset me. If you’re not fully–”
“I’m more worried about you changing your mind.”
“I won’t.”
“But I think–” I hesitated, swallowing as I considered my next words. “I think you might care about me too much to treat me this way.”
Knox blinked, and the softness in his expression vanished. It was like watching a light go out as his dark eyes bore into me. I tried to picture sweet, caring Knox, the one who mowed the grass for my family after my dad’s back surgery.
But that version of him was gone now.
He cocked his head. “Oh, sweetheart,” he said, the danger in his tone making goosebumps spread across the surface of my skin.
Before I could even process the moment, his body lurched across the bench toward me.
His hand shot forward, shoving past my own hand between my legs until his fingers pressed hard against the seam of my shorts.
He pushed with just enough force to grind the fabric against my clit, knocking the breath I’d been holding right out of me. It made my stomach drop.
There was no universe in which he couldn’t feel how soaked I was.
Knox brought his mouth close to my cheek. “Sweet Hallie. My affection for you is exactly why I’m doing this,” he said, the words coming out in a growl.
We locked eyes, inches apart, and I let out a quiet, involuntary whimper. Finally, I didn’t doubt him as his fingers pushed even harder against the swollen bundle of nerves between my legs. I was fully his now, and we both knew it.
And then he leaned in even closer, letting the scruff of his beard brush against my jawbone. “God,” he said in a desperate whisper, “I can’t wait to watch you struggle.”
My entire body lit up like he’d struck a match inside me.
He brought his hand up to his face and inhaled slowly, his eyes drifting shut like the scent of my pussy was a drug to him.
My arousal blurred into humiliation until I couldn’t even separate the two.
If anyone around could see us, I was unaware, because the edges of my vision blacked out until only Knox’s face existed.
A second later, he abruptly jerked away, sliding back to his end of the bench. I thought at first he’d sensed someone approaching us, but the park was even quieter than before–there wasn’t a soul around besides us. My ragged breaths nearly drowned out the traffic around us.
As we sat there in silence for a moment, I wondered if he would slip out of character to tell me goodbye–would he tell me to drive safe on my way home? Would he mention catching the train with Adrian? Should I thank him for the coffee again?
But then he inhaled and sat up a little straighter, muttering, “Just remember that you asked for this.”
And with that, he stood up, the bench creaking softly beneath the sudden absence of him. My mouth slowly fell open as Knox walked away without even glancing back. I kept my eyes on him until he disappeared down a side street toward the Metro station.
I couldn’t move.
Sweat pooled behind my knees, and my legs felt like Jell-o. I replayed his warning over and over in my mind: just remember that you asked for this. Oh my God, what if I regretted this?
Maybe I didn’t know Knox Ballard at all.