I felt the foot of the lounger bump against my calves, so I stopped. “Let’s start right here, right now.” Sliding my fingers under the waistband of my shorts, I pulled them over my hips, down my thighs, and stepped out of them when they fell to my ankles. “Let’s start with this.”
Knox’s chest was rising and falling so hard, it looked like his ribcage was about to burst through his skin with every breath he took. When my fingers landed on the top of his boxers and tugged them down to join mine, his breath stopped. Something that looked like a mix of fear and doubt flashed across his face, so I found his hands and pulled him closer. I pulled him so close that I felt his whole body running down the length of mine. I pulled him closer, until I felt his want hard against me, and I pulled him closer still when I felt my own want about to overwhelm me.
Keeping his hands in mine, I sat on the lounger and scooted back until I could lie down. I wasn’t sure what Knox would have done if I hadn’t kept his hands in mine, pulling him down with me, but when his body landed over mine, pinning me to the chair, I let go of his hands long enough to wrap my arms around him.
The rain was still coming in full force. With my face angled toward the sky, it was almost like I was staring into the eye of the storm. The next flash of lightning came as Knox moved my legs aside, pressing into the space between them, and the clap of thunder came only a moment after I arched my back and lifted my hips into his. The storm was right over us. Lightning and thunder came so close together it was impossible to distinguish one flash from the next, one crack from the next. I felt him against me, a mere flex away from entering me, when his whole body froze.
“What the hell are you doing, Knox?” His words came out muffled as he fought to unclench his jaw. “Fuck.”
His fist pounded the arm of the lounger. When he tried to sit up, I tightened my arms around him and wrapped my legs over him too. If he was getting up and leaving, I was leaving with him. I wasn’t going to let him retreat again without a fight.
“Stop it, Knox,” I ordered. My arms and legs were so tightly wrapped around him they quivered from the strain.
“That’s exactly what I’m doing,” he replied, keeping his head bowed against me as he struggled to stand. “I made a promise . . . I swore I’d never let something like this—”
“Take it off.” I felt the necklace dangling against me, and from the way his strength seemed to have siphoned out of him, I would have thought the crucifix weighed a thousand pounds.
He shook his head against me. “I can’t.”
And that was when I finally got it. It had taken the strain in his voice and body, but I realized that Knox didn’t wear the necklace to remember someone. Maybe it had started like that, but now he wore it to punish himself—to remind him that whatever bad he’d done in the past, he didn’t deserve any measure of good in his future, to convince him that happiness and peace weren’t meant for him.
“Then let me take it off for you.”
My fingers wrapped around the back of his neck before he could reply. Just as I was pulling it over his head, he answered, although all he could manage was a nod. Once I’d slipped it off, I cradled it in my hand before letting it drop to the ground beside us. Even in my hand, it had seemed heavier than it could have been, but to Knox, it was clearly a heavy yoke he’d worn for so long he’d forgotten what it felt like to be free of it.
“There. Now there’s nothing between us keeping us apart.”
“Charlie—” There was still a hint of doubt in his voice, but it was vanishing.
“Are you going to make me beg?” I lifted an eyebrow and shifted my hips higher. “Are you really going to make a sweet and innocent virgin beg for sex?”
When I heard his laugh, soft and rolling, vibrate against me, I knew we’d made it through the storm. At least our own personal one. The storm above us raged on like there’d be no end to it.
“Of those three, I’ll only agree that you’re one of them,” he said.
“And which one is that?” I lifted his chin with my pinkie until he was looking at me. There was a lightness in his eyes I’d never seen, a measure of peace etched along his brow I would have thought impossible to find in Knox Jagger. He wasn’t a different man; he was the same one living without the weight of punishment.
“Well you’re not innocent or sweet, so what does that leave us with?” His body slid farther up mine, no longer trying to break away from me.
My stomach went back into knots. “But if the other two aren’t true, how can you be certain the third is?”
A dark smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. “Because I’m about to find out.”
His hand moved between my legs, his fingers slowly opening me. Just as I felt him starting to push inside me, another sharp curse flew from his mouth.
“What?” I panted. “Not again . . .”
“Only a temporary delay this time, I promise.” Bolting up and off the chair, Knox leapt through the slider. Before I had a chance to scratch the back of my head, he was bounding back out, something in place that hadn’t been before.
“It seems neither you or me win the safe sex award.” I leaned up on my elbows as he came toward me. I didn’t breathe or blink as he climbed over me, lowering his body into mine.
“If anyone wins it, it’s me,” he said, pressing his mouth to my neck. “Maybe you really are that innocent virgin thing.”
I fell back against the lounger, running my fingers through his hair as he continued kissing my neck. “And the sweet part?”
The only answer I received was the feel of his smile against my skin.
I tangled one leg around one of his and angled my hips toward him. “No regrets, Knox.” Lifting his face, I waited for his eyes to find mine. “No regrets.”
He adjusted his position over me so he was almost entirely sheltering me from the rain. The only part of the storm able to get to me was what trickled off of him.
“My life is filled with regrets.”
Even in the midst of his admission, I felt him entering me. My back arched, trying to take in more of him, but he was in control. He moved so slowly, pain never registered.
“Not tonight, it’s not,” I whispered, my head falling back when he moved deeper.
His hips stilled as he stared at me with concern creasing his forehead. At the same time, want drowned his eyes. “I’ve never been with a . . .” He swallowed, grimacing either in pleasure or agony.
I lifted my hips, bringing him farther into me. “And I’ve never been with anyone, so this is a first for us both.” My hands came around his waist and rounded his backside. At the same time I pressed him closer, I thrust my hips harder until he was so far inside me I was gasping . . . until his gasps tangled with mine. “Believe me now?” I stayed still as I adjusted to this new sensation. I knew I’d never forget what it felt like having him inside me.
“Shit,” Knox panted, gripping the arm of the lounger so hard it looked like he was going to break it. “You virgins really are everything you’re cracked up to be.”
I would have laughed if I wasn’t just barely able to breathe. “Technically, I’m not a virgin anymore.” I couldn’t tell if it was Knox or me or both of us trembling.
His hand buried deeper into my hair. “Yeah, but . . . this is still your first time . . . It might . . . If I hurt you . . . tell me. I’ll slow. I’ll stop. I’ll hop in a cold shower. Just tell me if I hurt you, okay?” Knox was watching my face with concern, but what he was interpreting as pain was the opposite.
“If it hurts, I’ll probably just tell you to do it harder. I’m not a sweet girl who wants to be fucked all slow and controlled, remember?” Sliding off of him almost as slowly as he’d entered me, he was in the middle of a low groan when I thrust myself back on him. My gasp was drowned out by the next crash of thunder. When I’d recovered enough to form words, I looked at him. He still looked like he was a long ways away from forming words. “I’m the other girl.”
This time, it was Kno
x’s hips that rocked away from mine before pitching back against mine. The motion made my head fall back and my toes curl. His mouth found mine, and our kissing became as frantic as our love-making. Every other moment, our mouths separated and our gasps and moans mixed together, timed to the pace of our hips. Somewhere along the way, Knox did break the arm off of the lounger, but he didn’t miss a beat. His grip moved to my hip and he braced himself there, moving in and out of me like there was no end to his hunger.
“Charlie?” his voice broke.
Mine was gone, so I nodded.
“Are you okay?”
Okay seemed like the worst possible description for how I was, but since words weren’t in a hurry to come and I knew what he was really getting at, I answered with another nod.
“I’m waiting for you. Let me know when you’re there.” His voice was so low and tight, a tremble rolled down my back.
I had to swallow and concentrate before I could speak. “Waiting for what?” I curled around him when his pace slowed just enough to be agonizing—especially with what I felt building inside me.
His body came to a standstill as he looked at me with a mixture of amusement and disbelief. “Really?” He grinned, breathing so heavily it was almost panting. “Another indication pointing toward the innocent theory.”
When my body pulled back just enough that my mind could operate properly, what he’d said clicked. “My God, I’m not really that naive, am I?”
Knox’s hand left my neck, his fingers trailing down until they skimmed the slopes of my chest, slowing to circle each nipple. “About most things, no, you’re not . . . but about some things, yes. You’re as naive as they come.”
My neck arched back, my eyes closing. I felt like I should object, but that was when he buried himself deep inside me right as his mouth nipped one of my nipples. The sensation that had been slowly building suddenly thundered toward me, about to rip my body apart.
“But I love being one of the only people in the world to know the naive side of Charlie Chase. The vulnerable side.” The warmth from his breath made my nipples even harder. “I love having a piece of you that most others don’t.”
When his mouth covered me again, his tongue tracing my nipple before he sucked it deep into his mouth, my arms wrapped around his head as my fingers wove through his hair.
“Plus, you’ve got that whole virginity piece of me now that no one else has,” I got out in the span of five labored breaths.
His tongue circled me one last time before his head lifted. “Plus that.” One hand still braced at my hip, his other went behind my head, cradling it carefully. “But there’s one more piece I want to take tonight, one more piece of you I want to have.”
“Greedy,” I said as my eyes opened. “What piece?”
He started moving into me again. “Only all of them.”
I was so close this time I was about to break an arm off the lounger. “I’m there.” I felt myself tighten around him instinctually.
“But right now, I’ll settle for this one,” he whispered, picking up his pace until my sighs turned into cries and his cries joined mine.
As my body came undone around him, my eyes opened. As I felt his climax join mine, I realized the sky was clear, the stars shining through the passing clouds.
At last, the storm had passed.
IT HAD SEEMED like the night would never end, but as the sun was starting to think about making its debut, I wished the night really wouldn’t end. It had been a night of firsts and so many highs and lows it could have put an entire amusement park of roller coasters to shame. It was the greatest night of my life . . . and it wasn’t over. Yet.
“Wait, I get to see your room? Like from the inside and everything?” I teased as Knox rounded the hall into his room.
After collapsing around one another outside in that lounge chair I’d never look at in the same way—the one with two broken arms now—I found that once a certain set of needs had been met, others made themselves obvious. Like the need to get out of the elements and warm up. And let’s not forget the need to get sleep because, even though it may have been the best night of my life, this girl knew it had to come to an end sometime. My body wouldn’t give me much more time before it shut off automatically.
I’d barely had time to shiver before Knox had scooped me up and carried me inside. We were a couple of naked, rain-soaked messes that left more than a few puddles on the kitchen floor, but neither of us seemed too concerned about leaving a mess behind us. The only thing we were concerned with was diving into bed.
“You know full well why I never invited you into my room. Or why I never stepped foot in yours for that matter.” Knox snagged a couple of towels from the hall closet before moving inside his room.
Once he’d set me down, I motioned at my clothing-impaired body and raised a brow. “Because you were afraid we’d have sex?” He stepped behind me and began toweling my soaking wet hair. I added, “And to think it was that bastard lounger you should have been worried about this whole time.”
Knox chuckled as he ran the towel down my body, lingering on certain parts. “That ‘bastard’ lounger is now my favorite piece of furniture in the whole world. When it finally gives out or we manage to break the rest of it . . .”—he cleared his throat—“I’m going to build a shrine to it.”
When he was done drying me, I took the other towel and returned the favor. When I made it down his arms, I stopped. “Your hands. I forgot all about them.” A pang of guilt hit me when I realized I’d been so one-track-minded I’d forgotten he’d cracked open every single knuckle.
Knox examined them with me. “Don’t worry. I forgot all about them too. And they’re fine. I’ve split them open so many times they’re pretty well used to sealing shut again.”
Once I finished drying him off, I headed for the bathroom to grab the first-aid kit. I considered grabbing my robe and throwing it on as I hadn’t been raised nudist. I wasn’t used to doing everyday things like putting on bandages or having conversations while naked. I barely gave it a second thought before leaving it behind and traipsing back down the hall. Those nudists knew what was going on.
Knox smiled at the kit in my hand. “If you start babying me, I’m going to go all soft and my reputation will go to shit. There may come a day when students hear the name Knox Jagger and, instead of trembling, they’ll giggle like little girls. Is that the kind of life you want for me?”
I rolled my eyes, relieved that having sex hadn’t seemed to change anything about our relationship. I’d been worried that when and if we ever did do it, awkward and unsure would be the tone of our relationship afterward. His giving me a hard time while I did my best to do the same had to mean we would be okay. It had to mean we’d figured out a formula to beat the morning-after awkwardness. Maybe our months-long friendship had been the key. Or maybe it was something else, but whatever it was, I was thankful.
Ringing my fingers around his wrist, I led him to his desk and pushed him into the chair. “No, that’s not the life I want for you, but I would like you to have one that is free of infection and excessive blood loss. Is that too much to ask?”
With a sharp huff, he did as instructed, but he made sure his expression let me know he wasn’t excited about any of the “babying.” “Nurse Ratched has nothing on you.”
Setting the kit on his desk, I opened it, grabbed the tube of ointment, and straddled his lap to tend to his wounds. I might have straddled him a little closer than ointment application required, but that was part of the fun of playing doctor naked with the man I’d just lost my virginity to.
His head fell over the back of the chair, his forehead creasing in a familiar way. “Nothing on you.” His voice was rougher this time.
I smiled as I piled some gauze across his knuckles.
“By the way,” he said a few moments later—his face and voice mostly recovered, “how are you feeling . . . you know . . . down there?”
If I wasn’t sure about the no-awkwardnes
s thing, Knox inquiring about the wellbeing of my lady business had just secured it. “I’m feeling quite well down there, thank you very much.”
He squinted as he worked up his next question. “It doesn’t like . . . hurt or anything?”
I bit my lower lip to keep from smiling as I wound a cloth bandage around one of his fists. It wasn’t that I didn’t think he was thoughtful for being so concerned, but if word got around that Knox Jagger ran through a list of twenty questions pertaining to his conquest’s vagina’s wellbeing, that would devastate his reputation as well.
“It’s a little sore, I guess,” I started, thinking about it for the first time. “But the good kind of sore. Other than that, it’s fully functional and ready for an encore whenever you are.”
When my hips flexed against him, he almost instantly hardened, but he gently moved my hips away with a firm shake of his head. “Let’s not get to that encore thing too soon and risk making a good sore a bad one, okay?” He tried to hide his smile when I glared at him as I finished bandaging his other hand. “I’m as eager for an encore as you are, but let’s take our insane sexual compatibility slowly. You know what they say about too much of a good thing.”
“I know what I say about too much of a good thing,” I said, making a Tada! motion toward Knox’s cut hands.
“What do you say?” he asked as he inspected his bandaged hands with an impressed expression.
I arched an eyebrow at him. “More please.”
That made him laugh so hard I was practically bouncing on his lap, which did nothing to make me stop thinking about, wanting, and scheming ways to get sex. So I stood and backed away a few steps. Sleep first. Sex second. That was Charlie Chase’s new-and-improved hierarchy of needs.
“Tired?” he guessed, popping out of his chair and leading me to his bed.
I hadn’t noticed at first, but Knox’s bed wasn’t like any other I’d seen. Instead of being raised off the ground or even sitting right on it, it was level with the ground. It looked like he’d built the bedframe into the floor. I could have walked right across it.
Hard Knox Page 27
