“What’s the deal with your bed?” I asked, unable to stare at Knox’s bed without smiling. I’d imagined so many times what it would be like to fall into it with him, and I was seconds away from that actually happening.
Knox shrugged as he threw the covers back. “It’s different. I like sticking to a theme.”
“Yeah, but your landlord’s cool with that? Doesn’t seem like the kind of thing most homeowners would be okay with.”
“Well, this homeowner is.” He stuck his thumb into his chest and looked at me, already knowing he had some explaining to do.
“Are you saying you’re the homeowner?”
He nodded.
“And you didn’t tell me this before why?”
Knox was still kneeling, turning down the blankets like he’d been wishing for this night almost as long as I had. “How many college kids do you know who own their own homes? It’s just easier to let everyone assume I rent it to avoid the stream of questions.”
“Like you’re getting from me now?”
“For you and you only, I don’t mind running through the questions this once.”
I shifted. “How were you able to afford it?”
Knox smiled at the floor, lifting his arm. “What can I say? The arm wrestling-slash-shit-kicking business has been good to me.”
I shook my head. “You are unbelievable, Knox Jagger. Un. Believable.”
Jacking his brows at me, he flashed a cheesy smile. “Why, thank you. I get that a lot.”
Grabbing a pillow from his bed, I tossed it at him. “Unbelievable comes with two frames of reference, you know.”
“Yeah, but I have a feeling the kind you were moaning about out back is the same kind of unbelievable I’m talking about now.” He gave me that smile that made my throat go dry.
I pretended to be immune to it. To wipe it from his face, I grabbed the other pillow and flung it at him.
“Come to bed. Enough arguing and pillow throwing for one night.” Knox patted the mattress. “Come to bed with me.”
I was one step in that direction when I remembered something. “Hold that thought.” I lifted my finger and rushed back out of his bedroom.
“Where are you going now?” Knox shouted, followed by what sounded like a sigh.
I was already opening the slider and stepping back outside. Now that the storm was over, it seemed far more risky to step outside naked, but I’d be quick. Rushing over to the lounger, I scooped up the abandoned necklace, smiled at the lounger, then hurried back inside. The necklace was wet, so after drying it with a dishtowel, I headed back to Knox’s room.
He was lying on his bed with the covers sitting just below his waist, his hands folded behind his head. “What was that about?” He leaned up on his elbows.
Padding across the room, I let the necklace dangle as I held it out for him. “I didn’t think you could sleep without this.”
A flash of pain rolled across Knox’s face before he blew out a slow breath. Like he was saying good-bye to it, he took one last look before turning away. “After the oath I made on it that I just broke to shit tonight, I’d probably burst into flames if I slipped that thing back on.”
“Knox—” I started to argue, although I wasn’t sure what I was going to argue about.
“No.” He shook his head adamantly. “I can’t wear it anymore.”
I stared at the necklace hanging between us, wondering what kind of magic or perceived magic it held to have such power over him. “I’ve never seen you without it. It’s like your security blanket. You don’t have to stop wearing it because I pretty much tricked you into having sex with me.”
Knox lifted his eyes to the ceiling when I said tricked, but he never stopped shaking his head. “I can’t wear it. But you know who can?” He motioned me closer. When I crawled onto the mattress beside him, he took the necklace and placed it over my head. “There. It fits you better than me anyway.” His fingers brushed where the necklace ran along my neck.
I rested my hand over his, twining our fingers together. “Why’s that? Because I’m more religious than you or because I’m more likely to encounter a vampire?”
He tugged on the necklace, drawing me closer to him. When I was close enough, he kissed me. “It fits you better because it’s a woman’s necklace.”
Another piece of Knox’s past fell into my lap. Dozens had been dumped there over the past few months, but they made as much sense on their own as they did when I put them together. It was all disjointed and didn’t shed any light on the whole picture of what Knox’s life had been like before I’d entered it.
“Let me get this straight. You’ve been wearing a woman’s necklace around campus for years, and you’re worried that getting bandaged up by a girl will ruin your reputation?”
“Come here, funny girl. Time for bed.” Knox wrestled me onto the mattress.
Almost as soon as my head hit the pillow, I felt a wave of drowsiness come over me.
“Sex makes me tired and you, apparently, a chatty little thing,” he said.
I rolled onto my side, nestling into him. His arm wove around me and pulled me close.
“Knox?”
“Uh-huh?” The lights were still on and dawn was threatening to crack through the windows, but he sounded like he was one yawn away from falling asleep.
“Thank you for the necklace. I’ll return it to you one day, if . . . well . . . you know.” I wrapped my hand around the necklace, not quite sure what to think of Knox giving me something he so obviously cherished. “Thank you for not just the necklace, but for everything. Tonight was . . .” So many words to choose from, so few words that actually summed it up. “Tonight was immense.”
“You’re welcome.” He nuzzled the back of my neck. “Thank you for your virginity . . . and for everything else too.”
When I nudged him with my elbow, he chuckled.
“Okay, so before we fall asleep, can we just take a moment to acknowledge that I am sleeping in your bed, naked, with you?” Saying it seemed to make it more real.
“You’ve spent plenty of naked nights in bed with me,” he replied, his tone feigning indignation. “At least in my imagination.”
I flipped around, giving him a look that said Go on.
He continued, “In case you haven’t noticed, I’ve been a bit . . .”
“Less promiscuous?”
His brows rose. “I was going for celibate. So celibate I was starting to worry my dick might have forgotten what it’s wired for.”
I patted his chest. “I’d say you can lay that concern to rest.”
He nodded with a silly smile. “So while I suffered in celibate hell for the past three months, at night when I’d crawl into bed in the room right beside where you were in your bed, I’d close my eyes and—”
“Fantasize about me naked, wet, and eager while you waxed your johnson?” I leaned up on my elbow, trying to act offended.
He smiled at my suggestion. “I did what I had to do to get by. Let’s leave it at that.”
“Let’s do leave it at that.” Had I known Knox was “thinking” about me while I was “thinking” of him, those private servicing sessions would have been much better. Closing my eyes, I opened them a few seconds later to find the two dark ones across from me still open. “I thought you were exhausted.”
“I was. I am.” He settled a few loose chunks of my hair behind my ear, staring at me so intently, it seemed as though he were afraid if he closed his eyes, I’d disappear. “But I have to say something first. Or a couple somethings.”
His pillow was so plush and billowy I knew that if I kept my head on it, I wouldn’t be able to hold sleep at bay. I raised my head and rested it into my hand. “I’m listening.”
His brows pinched together as his gaze fell to the necklace dangling on my chest. “Tonight, it was your first time—”
“Yes, I realize you were the conquistador of my virginity. Do we need to rehash this? Because unless you’ve got de-de-virginizing me on you
r mind, maybe we can high-five and bump chests over your mad game tomorrow morning.”
Knox didn’t laugh; his smile didn’t mirror mine. His expression stayed creased with seriousness. “I don’t think you know how much it means to me that I was your first. I don’t think I can even find the right words to tell you how much it means to me.”
As soon as I realized he was being serious, I scooted closer to him and rested my hand on his chest.
“I was your first. I’ve never been anyone’s first,” he said. “Or second. Or tenth probably. I’m not the guy a girl waits for. I’m not the kind women want to be their first.” He looked at me with an apology written on his face. “I’m the guy they want to screw on the rebound. The one they want to fuck during some wild, reckless night. The one they come to when they want to piss off their fathers, or boyfriends, or anyone. I’m the guy women come to when they want to forget their life for a few minutes, and they forget me after that. I’m who they come to when they’re done waiting and want instant gratification. No one would pick me as the one they’d wait for.”
His hand covered mine on his chest. For the second time, my skin felt warmer than his. I swallowed, pretending there wasn’t a ball stuck in my throat. “Well I did.” I curled my fingers around his. “A whole twenty years I waited for you, and even though I didn’t know it was you specifically I was waiting for, that doesn’t change that it was you, Knox Jagger, who I was waiting for.” I pressed what was quite possibly the sweetest kiss in the history of sweet kisses into his mouth. “I wouldn’t want anyone else to have been my first.”
His eyes were closed when I pulled back, a moment of peace ironing out his expression. “Rewind about nine years and a whole slew of bad choices . . . If I’d have known you were in my future, I would have waited for you too.”
That earned him another kiss that, had I been witnessing it instead of experiencing it, I would have stuck my finger in my mouth and cringed. “This coming from the man who’s been with so many women that even I’m not brave enough to ask if that number’s in the dozens or hundreds?”
“From the very one.”
“You’re telling me if twelve-year-old Knox could have seen me in a glass ball, he would have been happy to turn away the droves of panty-dropping Jagger groupies for close to a decade?”
His hand moved to the bend of my neck and cradled it so gently it seemed impossible that hand had been split open earlier from trying to decimate semi-truck tires. “Positively.”
I didn’t smile. I grinned. Charlie Chase didn’t grin—at least not more than once or twice a year. “That is the most romantic thing anyone’s ever told me.”
“Good, because I’m going to need those extra credit points moving into my next ‘something.’”
His heavy sigh made me sigh. I’d both realized and accepted that a relationship with Knox wouldn’t be paved with gold and lined with daisies, but as he prepared to dip into whatever heavy topic he was about to, I found my bravery floundering. I found myself doubting if I had enough courage to hear what he had to say, accept it, and move on. All I could do was hope I did.
“You know I’ve got a past, Charlie,” he began slowly.
“We all do.”
“True, but some people have pasts, and others have pasts. I have the second kind.” His words were slow, deliberate, but the pace of my heart was fast, erratic. He continued, “I come with a lot of baggage—a whole luggage carousel of it. We won’t be able to make a trip to the grocery store without running into someone who’s heard a rumor about me or thinks they know me—”
“Or someone who knows you.” I forced myself down this rabbit hole of honesty with him.
He nodded. “That too.”
The thought of running into one of Knox’s one-night stands while we were shopping for bread and milk made my blood curdle, but he was right. In this town, at this university, we could never hope to live anonymous lives. “I know that, Knox. Believe me, I know that. However, lucky for you, I like my men with a moderate-to-heavy amount of baggage.” I squeezed his hand, trying to lighten the heaviness shadowing his face.
“Yeah, but this man’s in the astronomical-to-catastrophic baggage range.”
I worked a smile into position. “Even better.”
A few moments of silence passed, Knox watching me carefully. “Are you sure?” His hand tightened around mine before he’d finished his question.
“Little late for ‘Are you sure?’ don’t you think?” My eyes skimmed down his naked body before looking at mine.
He couldn’t be distracted. “Are you?”
I didn’t blink. “I’m sure.”
He blew out a long breath, looking equal parts relieved and terrified. “Then I need to know that when you hear things about me—as outlandish and far-fetched as they might seem—instead of holding it inside, you’ll come to me. Don’t let it fester. Come to me the minute you hear whatever it might be. Don’t wait. Voice honest concerns, and I’ll give you honest answers. I swear.”
I peaked a brow. “We saw what happened the last time you made a solemn vow.”
This time, my attempt to lighten the mood worked. The corners of his mouth twitched. “That wasn’t my fault. You beguiled me. You stripped me of my strength. You cast a spell on me that whisked away my willpower so you could have your way with me.”
“You’re on to me,” I said around a laugh.
When our mingled laughter came to an end, that patch of skin between Knox’s eyes creased again. “You promise me you’ll do that? Bring up whatever concerns you have whenever, wherever, however? It’s the only way we’ll have a fighting chance at this thing.”
I knew that as much as he did. “I promise. Any concern. Any question. I’m coming to you with them all.”
“Well?” he asked, staring into my eyes. “Do you have any now? Anything I can put to rest before we both pass out and don’t wake up until Monday morning?”
With the mention of sleep, my eyes started to close on their own. I was just about to reply with a no and a goodnight when a couple very real and big concerns cut through me. “All I need to know right now is this, and I know these questions might fall on the outlandish, far-fetched end of the spectrum . . .”
“They usually do when they revolve around me,” he said, encouraging me with a nod.
I inhaled and worked up some courage. There was no way to beat around the bush with these questions, so I just focused on getting them out as succinctly as I could. “Have you ever drugged a girl at Sinclair?”
The words sounded harsher than I’d intended them to sound, but Knox barely flinched. Either he’d been expecting me to ask something along that line, or he’d heard even more out-there accusations. When his head shook, I exhaled.
“No.”
I nodded, chewing the inside of my cheek. “Do you sell Rohypnol, or any drug for that matter, at Sinclair?”
When Knox’s expression barely broke, I wanted to curse Neve’s name for the rest of my life for putting that kernel of doubt in my mind. For planting the seed that Knox could, in any way, be associated with the atrocities taking place on campus. For getting me to wonder just enough to ask him two questions I almost wished I hadn’t.
Again, he shook his head and answered with a solemn, “No.”
I hadn’t realized I’d been holding my breath until it came rushing out. “I’m sorry. Those were shitty questions, and I’m sorry I asked them.”
He tilted my face toward his again. “Don’t be sorry for asking questions. Don’t be sorry for doing the very thing I just begged you to do. Don’t be sorry.”
“Too late,” I muttered, mentally cursing Neve’s name and her file one more time. “Why are you so calm? Why aren’t you outraged I’d ask you those questions? If I were in your shoes, this is where I’d be kicking me out of bed and probably out of my house.”
“Because of all the accusations I’ve had thrown at me, those ones aren’t so out there, and because it’s you asking. I want you to
ask. I want to be able to answer.” Checking over his shoulder, Knox saw what I did—the first signs of a new day. “And since it’s morning, maybe instead of sleep, we should get up. I can make breakfast and give you the backstory—the whole backstory—just so you have it. After that, you can decide if you want to run away screaming or wake up beside this disaster of a man.”
He was still looking out the window, so I couldn’t see much of his face, but from his voice, I could tell he was dreading the thought of that as much as I was.
“No offense to your whole backstory, but I don’t think I can manage another blink before falling into a coma, and really, the idea of all of it being dumped on me at once instead of bits at a time makes me think I might go into shock. If you’re okay with it, let’s do backstory on a case-by-case basis.”
Knox stared at the morning light for another moment before tilting his head back. “I’m okay with that.”
“Thank God.” I sighed. The mere thought of everything Knox could unload on me about his past made me feel slightly nauseated. “Now, disaster of a man, this disaster of a woman wants to fall asleep beside you.”
Turning around, I tucked myself back into him, molding and bending my body to his. It only took him a couple of moments to catch up, rewrapping his arm over me and swinging a leg over me as well. The lights were still on and morning was breaking through the window, but the moment my eyes closed, I felt sleep closing in.
“Charlie?”
I smiled against my pillow. “I know, Knox. I know.”
His face buried deeper into the back of my head as his arm tightened around me. “Good.”
The last thing I thought before falling asleep in Knox’s arms was if that would be the only time.
TWO MONTHS LATER, I was still falling asleep in Knox’s arms. I was waking up in them too. Most of the time we shared his bed, sometimes my bed, and sometimes whatever piece of furniture we’d gotten tangled up in the night before. Most mornings, I woke up naked, sometimes partially naked when we’d been so rushed that even the complete removal of clothes took too much time. Most mornings we woke up a little late and had to rush to make it to our classes. Most mornings I woke up knowing something about Knox I hadn’t known the morning before.
Hard Knox Page 28
