I was done.
So done.
I glanced across the street to see Jessica sitting in a cop car, tears streaming down her face as if she was just now realizing what she had done and what she had been about to do.
I would be one less human full of hate.
Tonight, I would be one less.
I let go of Knox’s hand and jumped off the back of the ambulance, a bit unsteady on my feet. Slater tried to hold on, but I let go. I walked by Leo and Finn, felt them all follow me as I made my way to the cop car with the flashing lights and the hateful person inside.
The window was down.
“What!” she yelled through her tears. “You know my lawyer is going to—”
“I’m sorry.” I put my hand on the windowsill. “I’m sorry you’re hurting. I’m sorry that you felt you had to hurt others in order to feel better. And I just want you to know… I forgive you.”
She looked away. “I don’t need your forgiveness.”
“I know. But you get it anyway.”
“Ma’am…” The police officer I’d talked to, the one with the easy smile and bushy eyebrows approached. “…would you like to press charges?”
I wanted to.
I wanted to strangle her.
I felt so many things for the girl who’d tried to take my life away from me.
Who had succeeded in taking it away from Slater’s sister, Sophie.
But hate plus hate did not equal love.
“No,” I finally said. “I don’t want to press charges. I want her to get help.”
“A restraining order,” Knox piped up. “Is that up for discussion?”
“Doesn’t matter,” the officer sighed. “We found evidence of drug possession in her room, along with multiple accounts of usage and selling for personal gain, not to mention the damning evidence in Sophie Jackson’s case. I don’t imagine she’s going to be getting community service. She’s going to be tried for first-degree murder.”
I wasn’t sure if Jessica had heard all of that.
But I knew the laws.
If you sell someone something, and they overdose on it…
You get tried for first-degree murder.
And I wasn’t sorry that she was dealing with the consequences. I just knew it wasn’t my job to add more sentences on top of what she was already dealing with.
Besides, if I didn’t put a stop to the hate, who would?
It was each of us…
Individually making a choice to forgive, rather than condemn.
So, I held my head high the entire way home in Knox’s car, and when I felt like puking out of fear, I gripped his hand tighter and remembered that I wasn’t alone.
And would never be again.
Chapter Forty
Knox
She’d wanted to shower.
And I’d refused to let her go.
The guys must have felt the same because when she announced what she was doing, we all waited for her to grab her shower caddy. Leo took it from her, Finn grabbed a towel, Slater started making her food, and I carried her to the first shower stall and started the hot water.
“Hey!” Leo complained, “That’s my job. Make the water hot…”
Shawn gave him a shaky smile then burst into a mess of tears and hiccups as I set her on her feet and pulled her close.
And when Leo and Finn joined us in a group hug…
It wasn’t weird.
None of it was weird.
It was right.
As if we needed that moment to know that we’d done it — that she was alive and okay in our arms.
Leo first kissed the top of her head, followed by Finn. They walked out, leaving me with the girl I’d almost lost. “What would I have done?” my voice cracked. “Your warm skin? Your smile… your hair…” I felt my eyes well with tears. “I don’t want to be in a world where you don’t exist, where your smile isn’t lighting up every room we’re in. That’s not a happy world, Shawn.”
“I’m so sorry,” she cried against my chest.
“This isn’t your fault!” I gripped her chin and lifted so I could gaze into her eyes. “Look at me. This isn’t your fault! It’s ours! Had we known—”
“Hard to know a psychopath is coming after you when she smiles while holding a drink in one hand and a needle in the other.”
“I’m sorry.” I kissed her eyes. “So fucking sorry. What can I do? I’ll do anything to make you feel safe again — anything.”
“Anything?” She pulled away.
“Yeah.”
“Just help me get the smell of the party off of me, get me out of these clothes. I just… I just want to feel safe.”
“I swear I’ll always keep you safe.” I meant it.
“I know.” Her smile was small, hopeful, as I slowly unzipped her skirt until it fell to the tile floor. I unbuttoned the blouse and tossed it. They were going in the trash, along with every other thing she was wearing. Her panties and her bra followed, though the pretty pale pink against her skin was just another reminder of what she had been wearing the day she could have died.
I gathered them all in a pile and shoved them in the trash then came back and started peeling off my clothes.
Her eyes widened. “You’re joining me?”
“Yup.” I shoved down my jeans. “The way I see it, I’m now your personal bodyguard. Hope you don’t mind, but I’m probably not going to let you pee without asking if you’re okay.”
This time she laughed. It wasn’t the same as her normal laugh, but it was something. “You know she’s in jail right now, right? She can’t hurt me.”
“Then let me protect you from everyone else who’s stupid enough to try.”
She smiled. “I can’t really argue that logic, can I?”
“Nope.” I tested the water then helped her into the shower and followed. Once the hot stream flowed over our bodies, she got busy scrubbing her skin clean, and I tried… I tried like hell not to watch the soap glide across her mocha flesh, just like I tried not to focus on the way her breasts bounced with each movement of her arms.
At one point, I even turned around and scolded my own body for not getting the point that she’d just been scared for her life, while there I was, ready to take her against the shower wall.
With sheer willpower, I helped her rinse then wrapped a towel around her shivering body before grabbing one for me. I dried off, put on my clothes then carried her into the joint suite, still in her towel since I’d dumped her clothes.
“Look, Finn. Knox brought us a Christmas goose.” Leo winked. “All pink and ready to eat.”
Slater groaned. “I’m fixing food, try not to make everything sexual.”
Leo smirked while Finn just shook his head.
I carried Shawn into her bedroom, shut the door, and started rummaging through her drawers.
“Hey, I can do it.” Her hand met mine as soon as I collided with a lacy black thong. “Especially if that’s what you’re picking for comfort right now.”
I dropped it as if it was burning my skin while she chose a pair of boy shorts, which actually made me harder than when I was touching the thong, then grabbed a tank top and pulled it right over her wet head.
I cleared my throat. “We should get you a bra.”
“Should we?” She looked down.
I let out a groan. “Yeah, we really should.”
She went to the door.
“Shawn—”
She turned the lock then faced me. “I want you.”
“Everyone’s waiting outside. They’re all concerned—”
She only took one step before I pulled her in my arms then shrugged out of my own shirt while trying to peel hers over her head.
She was in her white boy shorts; me in my jeans again.
I could taste her fear, her desire to force it away.
So, I promised I would take it. Promised that if she didn’t feel safe in this world anymore, she’d at least always feel safe in my arms.
“Knox…” She breathed my name against my lips.
I could taste her. I could feel her pulse.
“…let me need you.”
What more could a broken man ask for?
Than to be needed.
By someone like her.
I kissed her hard and dove my hands into her hair while she swirled her tongue around mine like she was trying to taste every angle. The sweet smell of her soap filled the room as I tugged her underwear down with my fingers over her clean skin, past her thighs, past her knees. She kicked them away as we stumbled to her small twin bed.
I drew out the kisses longer and deeper until I noticed the red skin around her mouth from my scruff. I didn’t care. I wanted to mark her. Wanted the guys to see that she was mine. She would always and forever be mine.
My body flexed over her as I pulled my jeans off and discarded them on the floor. I crawled onto the bed and felt too protective of this girl.
“You’re so brave.” I tucked her hair behind her ears and nuzzled her neck. “So fucking brave.”
“I’m not,” she said through tears. “I was so scared, and I felt so stupid that in those last few seconds when she was holding the needle close to my skin, I just… I thought of what could have been.”
“We don’t have to talk about it.”
“But we do…” Shawn gripped my neck and pulled me closer. “…because all I saw was you. All I see is you. Us. And for a few seconds, I felt fine, because I saw you.”
Tears filled my eyes. “I don’t deserve your final seconds.”
“And what about the next few minutes? Hours? Days? Months? What about now, Knox?”
Her breath hitched as I ran my hands up her ribs, touching her skin, causing goose bumps to erupt all over the most gorgeous brown I’d ever seen. “Now, we can stop counting.”
“Because you can’t count that high?” she teased.
I laughed because her comment was so unexpected.
And when she joined in, I breathed a sigh of relief.
A shiver ran down her body as I kissed her again. I rubbed the slim dip above her hip and kissed her there too. And when I saw the mark from the tourniquet on her arm, I kissed that.
Her eyes glimmered as our mouths met again, slow and fast, fast and slow. No more words were really needed as I urged her forward, first with my fingertips then with my tongue, as I tasted her on my lips and made sure she knew that this was more.
It would always be more.
Her eyes fluttered open when I pulled her to a sitting position, laid down on my back then tugged her on top of me.
I held her breasts, squeezed as she eased onto me and took control. I gave it to her the way she needed it on a day when all control had been lost.
With each thrust into her body, I knew I wouldn’t last long. I’d almost lost her. I just wanted to claim her again. Every dormant part of my body that had been shut off to this emotion awakened.
She was mine.
Her lips quivered with passion as she gripped my hand and pressed it against the pillow, her body moving faster. I held on to her until I felt her muscles tense. Until the searing heat between us exploded. Her spasms hit me so hard and fast that I went over the edge with her.
She fell against my chest, and wet tears slid down my skin. “Thank you for saving me.”
“I didn’t save you. You… saved me. Actually, you saved us.” Her body felt heavy against mine.
An hour later, I snuck out and told the guys she’d crashed. The food had grown cold. Slater returned to the room, but the scowl on his face was replaced with relief as he watched her slow, even breathing.
“I just can’t b-believe it,” his voice cracked. “I blamed you so much. I—”
“I blamed myself too. I still do. We still went wrong in so many ways, man. I think I need to contact Wingman and let them know that freshmen are too immature to take on clients. We’ll train them and wait until they’re juniors. It was like a God-complex, knowing people would pay just to be with us, and while we made a shit-ton of money, the lines were too blurred for eighteen-year-old horny guys… and I don’t think Wingman ever took into consideration the jealousy of other clients.”
“Yeah,” he croaked.
A chill hit the room.
I pointed. “Did you leave the window open?”
“Dude, you know these windows don’t open.” Slater frowned just as something crunched under his foot. With shaking hands, he picked it up from the floor. It was a picture of him and Sophie, one that hadn’t been there before.
I grinned. “She looks so happy with you here.”
“Yeah, and I look like I’m sexually confused standing with that stupid unicorn I won her at the fair.”
“She didn’t choose to leave this life, man.” I put my hand on his back. “Maybe it’s time we all moved past it and remembered her for the good, not the bad.”
“Yeah. Thanks for…” He swallowed hard. “…just thanks.”
I moved to grab the door when Shawn moaned in her sleep, “Stay.”
Slater rolled his eyes. “Just make sure I’m out of the room when you start doing all the touching.”
I laughed. “I promise.”
Chapter Forty-One
Shawn
I woke up to moaning.
Not the kind I was trying to get used to, more the irritated kind. It was enough to make me curious. Besides, Slater wasn’t in bed, Knox had left at some point, and the unicorn was creepily staring at me from the foot of my bed like some weird guard dog with pink hair.
I yawned, put on some sweats, and opened the door.
The sound of moaning suddenly made sense.
I almost wished it had been the sexual kind.
“Put your back into it!” Leo moaned again. “Yeah, just like that. That’s the spot.”
“You tell anyone I touched you, I’m killing you.” Slater massaged his foot harder. “And this is bullshit. You know it is.”
“Ah, the rules clearly state if you want back in, you gotta prove that you haven’t lost all your talent.” He sighed. “My other foot has a fungus. Try to be gentle.”
Slater jerked away.
“I’m kidding!” Leo laughed. “But seriously, if I did have a fungus, you’d have to just go with the flow and pretend it was a flower growing on my big toe.”
Finn frowned. “Did you just rhyme about fungus?”
“Flowers,” Knox corrected, flipping a pancake then stirring some sausage.
I cleared my throat.
And suddenly, four guys were stumbling toward me. Finn pulled me in for a hug then told me my hair looked pretty. Liar.
Leo started rubbing my shoulders while Slater grabbed a blanket and sat me on the couch. He handed me a fresh cup of coffee. And then there was Knox.
Shirtless Knox.
With. Short. Hair.
I covered my mouth with my hands and spoke through my fingers, “You cut your hair!”
He shrugged. “I’m a taken man. Don’t need that Samson hair hanging around when I have you.”
“But the good version of you, not the Bible’s version of a man-hater,” Finn said with a grin.
I ran my fingers through the strands; it still hung to his ears, and it made him look even more attractive, which just irritated me more.
He smiled and leaned in, kissing my neck. “I made you food.”
“We all made you food,” Leo corrected.
“And Slater? Why’s he training?”
“Oh, he swallowed his pride, shotgunned two beers, and is re-training so he can be part of the… What did you call it, bro?” Finn crossed his arms.
Slater gritted his teeth. “Pleasure Ponies.”
I burst out laughing, feeling a bit more like myself. “Catchy, right?” I took a bite out of the pancakes. “And
why is Slater joining the, uh, force?”
“I resigned,” Knox said with a shrug of his shoulders. “Something about cutting my hair and claiming the most beautiful woman in the world kind of makes doing favors sound like the worst possible choice I could make.”
“I wouldn’t have made you quit,” I said softly.
“Well, I talked with Wingman, Inc. today. Ian wasn’t super happy that we were down to two — especially since this year was the highest grossing year of usage they’d seen with the new app — so Slater, eavesdropping bastard, said he’d take my place. And here we are.” He smiled.
“Bitch…” Leo pointed to his foot. “…you think you’re done here?”
“Shit, I’m regretting that decision.” Slater sat and grabbed Leo’s foot. “For the record, I know how to do your jobs just as good as you do.”
“Prove it,” Leo challenged.
Slater moved a hand to the back of my neck, hit a spot that gave me chills, and all eyes fell to my chest.
I crossed my arms and glared.
Knox smacked Slater on the back of the head. “Do that again, and I’m throwing you out the window.”
“And the gang’s all back together,” Finn chuckled darkly. “Oh, and that’s the spot for arousal, not chills, but she has Knox so…”
I gulped and tried to act normal when my body suddenly felt heavy, my thighs tingly.
Knox dropped the pancakes onto the table and winked at Slater. “Thanks, man.”
I barely had a chance to say anything when his lips were plastered to mine, and we were back inside my room.
“Is that real?” I asked between kisses and breaths. “The whole arousal thing?”
“Who the fuck cares?” He pulled my shirt off and kissed me harder.
I laughed against his kiss as we stumbled toward the bed, clothes flying. It wasn’t until he was naked, pressed against me, holding me in the middle of the room that I saw the picture of Slater, his arm wrapped around a beautiful girl with big eyes and an even bigger smile.
“Who’s that in the picture with Slater?”
“His sister, Sophie.” He kissed my head. “Why?”
“She was at the party. She — she stumbled into me. I spilled almost my entire drink, the one Jessica had drugged—” I shook my head. “You know what? Never mind…” I kept the thoughts to myself.
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