by Kendall Ryan
He grabbed his beer and took another swig, his eyebrows knitted together in deep concentration. “My mom and I were really close. I was a momma’s boy and am not afraid to admit it.” He smiled. I remembered the sketches he’d shown me. I knew he loved and missed her deeply. “When she died, it left this giant hole in me. I began chasing after girls in high school just to feel something. To feel alive. I dated in high school, and slept around a little, but after a while, it just wasn’t enough anymore. I needed something more. I started going out to bars and girls were even easier to pick up outside of school. It was simple. I didn’t really think about it. And when I was with them, I forgot all about my fucked up life. For a short time anyway. It was a coping mechanism.”
“Didn’t that bother you – using them that way? Those were people’s daughters.”
“If you think they weren’t using me too, you’re more naïve than I thought.” He smirked at me, challenging me to disagree.
I’d never thought about it that way, but I supposed he had a valid point. Knox wasn’t the type to promise them the moon and stars. He was a take it or leave it kind of guy. And they freely took what he’d offered.
He’d been getting love the only way he knew how – by sleeping with anything with a vagina. It was sad, but on some strange level, I understood. Knox had spent many years feeling unloved and not capable of returning love. But I knew he was capable of more. I saw firsthand how sweet he was with his brothers. He’d stepped up to raise them and set aside his own goals and dreams. And I suspected he wanted to change. He’d been attending my sex addicts meetings for over a month now and hadn’t pushed me away, despite my constant questions.
“Still, Knox, you had to know that wasn’t right….”
“It's the only thing I know.”
“Then discover something new.” My eyes were pleading with his and I saw the moment my plea registered. His gaze turned hungry as his eyes flicked down to my mouth.
He leaned closer, his eyes soft and probing. “Meeting you has been interesting for me....”
My heart swelled in my chest and I wanted so badly to hear him continue. But he took a swig of his beer and let his eyes wander out onto the dance floor.
“So assuming you were still…that way, you’d be looking for a girl here tonight?”
“Most likely,” he admitted.
The truth stung, but at least he was honest. We watched in silence as a group of girls, one wearing a tiara and a sash that declared her the Bride, shimmied on the dance floor to the beat of hip hop music.
“So if you were here to pick up a girl tonight – who’s your type?” I looked on as a blond with large breasts thrust her hips back and forth, too embarrassed to meet Knox’s eyes. I wondered if he’d go for someone so obvious about her body and looks. Someone so completely opposite of me.
“You really want me to answer that?” he asked. I nodded, still unable to meet his gaze. “Look at me,” he commanded.
I did. And his heated stare lit me up from the inside out. I felt my chest and neck flush. I dropped my gaze, sliding my drink toward me and sucking down a big mouthful. “Yeah, I want to know,” I said, finding my courage. The alcohol flowing through my veins was the likely contributor. When he was like this, so dominant and commanding, my body turned to a pile of mush, ready and waiting for his next command.
Knox’s eyes reluctantly left mine and he scanned the dance floor with a bored expression. Not finding anyone of interest, his gaze turned toward the crowded bar. “I’ll be back in a minute,” he said, his eyes not returning to mine.
Unease churned inside me as I watched him cross the room and head down the back hallway alone. What was he doing? Had he already picked out a girl and given her a special wink? I couldn’t believe he’d really disappeared and left me sitting here all alone. I sucked down more of my drink as tears blurred my vision.
I hated how I couldn’t be what he needed and he chose instead to fulfill his needs without me. I sensed that Knox was developing real feelings, too. So why did he continue on with this charade of hussies? Because even if he did have feelings for you, McKenna, you're a virgin. You can’t satisfy his needs. That realization sparked something inside me. Rebellion. It made me want to try.
A few moments later, Knox strolled back to the table, his expression unreadable. “McKenna?” Spotting the unshed tears shimmering in my eyes, he stood immobile in front of the table. “What happened?”
“You left me.” I pressed my fingertips to my temples, willing the tears away.
He slid into the booth next to me and pulled me close, pressing a kiss to my temple. “I went to take a piss. You didn’t think…?”
I nodded slowly.
“Christ, McKenna. I wouldn’t do that. I used the restroom, washed my hands, and came right back to the table.” I suddenly felt foolish for freaking out. He hesitated for several long moments, his jaw clenching in the dim light. “What do you want from me? You know who I am.”
“Friendship, Knox. I want your friendship.”
“That’s it? There’s nothing more….” He smiled, crookedly, begging me to disagree.
He was hinting at the burning chemistry between us, brewing just below the surface. My obvious jealous reaction at thinking he’d gone after a girl. He felt this intensity between us and apparently he knew I did, too. I hadn’t been hiding my true feelings well enough. He saw it in my lingering gazes, the way I cared for his brothers, and the ways my eyes always went to his while we were in group. There was no point denying it, since I knew eventually he’d see through my game. The truth was I wanted much more than friendship. I wouldn’t have taken things physical with him if I hadn’t. Something told me he understood that.
I took a deep breath, settling my nerves. “As for more…yes, I know who you are. You’re a man who takes care of his family, who takes on the world for those boys, who works hard and plays harder…but you’re also a man on the cusp of change. If you want anything more than friendship with me, then you’ll have to show me.”
“Show you what? I told you I don’t do love.”
“So change.” I shrugged, flippantly, like it was the simplest thing in the world. Knox said he didn’t do love, but he was wrong. He loved his brothers fiercely. He might not have done romantic relationships, but I believed in him, I believed anything was possible, as long as he wanted it bad enough. And selfishly, I wanted to be the one to change his mind about love. He was helping me and some little voice deep inside told me we could do this. It might have been foolish, but when everything else had been stripped away from me, I needed that hope. I would cling to it like a life raft until I was forced to admit he wasn’t my savior and I wasn’t his.
“What about Brian?” Knox asked, drawing another sip of his beer and signaling the bartender for another.
“What about him?”
“You and him. You ever thought about that? You guys could be good together.”
Was he seriously encouraging my relationship with Brian? After all this? “First Belinda and now you, really?”
He shrugged. “Just pointing out your options.”
Frustrated, I pushed a chunk of hair behind my ear. Brian had always been there for me. Would always be there for me. He was sweet and had cute boy next door looks to match. Would it really be the worst thing in the world to see if real feelings could develop between us? Sometimes I wondered about us, but I just didn’t feel that way about him, despite what Knox or Belinda saw when they looked at us together. And his encouragement about Brian had the opposite effect, it only made me want to rebel. I took a big gulp from my grown-up Shirley Temple, finishing the drink. “I’m going to dance.” I didn’t dance, but being near him was too much of a roller coaster and I needed a minute to clear my head.
Knox moved aside to let me out of the booth and I headed to the center of the dance floor, ready to lose myself in the crowd. Squeezing my way past the writhing bodies, I found a spot for myself and closed my eyes, letting the thumping rhythm w
ash over me. Finding the beat, I swayed back and forth to the music. The alcohol had relaxed me enough that I felt totally unconcerned with how I looked to others. I moved and swayed, feeling loose and relaxed as the music took over.
I felt someone approach me from behind, but before my body had the chance to tense, I smelled his unique scent of warm leather and sandalwood and knew it was Knox. He placed both hands on my waist as his chest brushed against my back. A wave of heat crashed over me. He pressed his hips into my bottom and I forgot how to breathe. I spun to face him, needing to see his dark eyes. Was this part of his seduction efforts? He was used to things easily going his way with girls and that fact alone made me want to challenge him a little. He’d just suggested I be with Brian. Did he even really want me?
Knox’s hands wandered from my waist to my hips, where his fingertips made contact with bare skin fractures of heat crackled across my abdomen. “Don’t question this.” He leaned down to breathe against my ear.
I danced with him, moving against him, working my hips in what I hoped was an enticing way. Knox’s eyes followed my movements and his hands remained planted at my hips.
I’d just told him I wanted his friendship and now I was grinding against him on the dance floor. I knew I was sending mixed signals, but so was he. He’d suggested I be with Brian when all along he’d been possessive about the idea of my male roommate. I should have walked away, gotten some air, but air was the last thing I wanted.
The few disappointing experiences I’d had with a man made me pause. Knox’s dominant side gave me hope that he could take control like I craved, allow me to feel like a woman and completely at ease in the bedroom. Was I really ready to walk away from that? I’d spent twenty-one years single, all while fielding questions from nosy friends and relatives about Brian and why I never had a boyfriend. God, I was delusional. Knox wasn’t boyfriend material. He wasn’t the type of man you gave your heart to. Still, I felt I owed it to myself to find out if he could make me feel this alive on the dance floor, what would it be like in the bedroom? Something in his nature called to mine, and I couldn’t turn away.
Chapter Five
Knox
I watched McKenna sway and twist her hips to the beat of the music. She looked beautiful. Pink cheeks, soft curves, and waves of shiny hair flowing around her face. Her eyes were focused on me, and despite asking for my friendship, I knew she wanted more. And somehow I knew it wouldn’t be hard to talk her into it. She felt this intensity between us just like I did.
The desire to explore her body, to fuck her until she cried out my name, was getting stronger. And the alcohol clouding my system wasn’t helping. The more time I spent with her, the more difficult it became to resist her. And what scared me even more was that the more time I spent with her, the urge to fuck other girls evaporated. There was only McKenna. Her sweet scent, her gentle nature, and her quiet strength to make the world a better place were like a drug to me. I had to have her.
So why was I trying to push her into the arms of another guy? Because I knew it wasn’t what she really wanted. She was here in my arms, grinding against me. She might have convinced herself that we wouldn’t work, so why not let her see that neither would her and Mr. Perfect with his nice car and good job. She needed someone like me – someone fucked up and broken. She just wouldn’t let herself believe that yet, so I was giving her a little shove, hoping to expedite the process. And shit, after she said tonight all she wanted from me was friendship – I might have been a little hurt and pissed off and this was my way of rebelling. None of that changed the fact that I had her in my arms and it was my thigh she was currently grinding on. I was taken straight back to that night in my bedroom when McKenna had done this same thing and I’d rubbed her clit until she came. I went instantly hard.
I curled my hands around her waist, pulling her body close to mine. “You’re so fucking sexy.” Her chin dropped down to her chest, and she fiddled with the little silver bracelet on her wrist. She didn’t believe that she was sexy. But everything about her was turning me on. The fast inhalations causing her breasts to rise and fall, her flushed skin, the way she completely turned her body over to me… Fuck.
It wasn’t lost on me that McKenna’s interest in me – in my family – was likely because of her need to serve and take care of others. I still didn’t know where that need came from. Right now, I didn’t care. I needed this girl like I’d never needed anything. “Let’s go,” I growled. She took my hand and let me pull her from the dance floor.
I proceeded to have an internal argument with myself the entire walk home. The right thing to do was to keep my dick in my pants. But when had I ever done the right thing? It wasn’t exactly my specialty and ignoring my instincts put me on edge. I wanted her. Badly.
When we reached the house, McKenna quietly toed off her shoes and followed me up the stairs. Once inside my dark bedroom, McKenna paused just inside the doorway, uncertainty written all over her in the pale glow of moonlight. Indecision coursed through me. My own needs would have to take a backseat. I just wanted to make her comfortable.
Wrapping her in my arms from behind, I pressed the brush of a kiss against the bare skin at the back of her neck. “You okay?” I whispered, letting my chin rest on her shoulder.
“Fine,” she whispered. “Just…thinking….”
“Overthinking,” I whispered back. “You tired?”
She nodded, her cheek resting against mine. “Am I sleeping over?”
“Do you want to?”
She hesitated and I spun her in my arms. As turned on as I’d been on the dance floor, I wanted her to see that she could trust me to go slow. She’d once requested that I be a gentleman with her and I wouldn’t betray that trust. She’d done too much for me, taken a leap of faith on even being here and I couldn’t fuck this up. Not for me and McKenna and not for my brothers either.
Brilliant sapphire eyes looked up into mine, so trusting and full of hope. She gave a tight nod. Even if she knew she shouldn’t want this with someone like me – she did. That was all the reassurance I needed. I wouldn’t lure her into my world or force anything on her. The fact that she was choosing to be here meant everything. She knew my fucked up past, and still she was here.
I placed a soft kiss on her forehead and gathered up some pajamas for her. A pair of a sweatpants and an oversized T-shirt I knew would be huge on her. “For you.” I left the clothes in her hands and headed into the bathroom to give her some privacy. After brushing my teeth and waiting for McKenna to do the same, we crawled into bed together.
In the dim light from the moon and street lamps outside, only the faint outline of McKenna’s curves were visible under the sheets. “Are you warm enough?” It didn’t escape my notice that she’d forgone the sweatpants, dressing only in the T-shirt I’d left for her.
She nodded. “I’m perfect.”
“I agree.”
She chuckled in the darkness. “That’s not what I meant.”
“I know. But it’s the truth. Sometimes I don’t even know why you’re here with me. Why you’ve never judged me the way others do.”
“I’m no one to pass judgment,” she said sadly.
She was the best, the most pure and selfless person I knew. How could she possibly think that about herself? Maybe it was time to learn about the inner demons that plagued her. “Will you tell me about your parents? How you lost them?” She stayed quiet. “You know so much about me and my past, and I want you to know that you can open up to me too, but only when you’re ready. I won’t force you.”
She nodded. “No, it’s okay. It’s time you knew.” She watched my eyes in the dim light as if deciding if she could trust me with the secret that burdened her. “When I was seventeen my parents died in a car accident. A drunk driver broadsided them on their way to church.”
I found her hands under the blanket and laced my fingers with hers. “I’m sorry.”
The shimmering hint of tears in her eyes made my heart clench.
<
br /> “The worst part about it was knowing that it never should have happened. I fought with my mom that morning – I refused to go with them and I was the reason they got on the road late. It was my fault. And the last words I spoke to them were cruel and hurtful. I can never take that back, you know?”
I nodded. I knew about the finality of death and how it caused regrets and what-ifs to creep inside your brain and refuse to leave. “McKenna.” I squeezed her tiny hands in mine. “That accident wasn’t your fault.” She blinked several times, trying to fight off the tears. It was the damn drunk driver, she had to know that. Seeing McKenna’s pain made me feel guiltier than ever about my own drunk driving arrest. But without that wake up call, I doubted I would have ever met her.
“If I’d just been a good daughter that morning, put my own wants aside and gone with them….” A broken cry escaped her throat. “They’d still be here.”
“Have you heard of survivor’s guilt, McKenna?”
“Knox, don’t,” she warned.
“It wasn’t your fault.” I wish I had better words to say to soothe her pain, but I knew nothing ever would. It wasn’t fair how she’d lost her parents. They hadn’t deserved what happened to them, any more than my mom had deserved the cancer that took her. Instead, I pulled her closer, into the warmth of my body, and held her next to me and let her cry. Her body shook with silent sobs while I held her, wishing there was something I could do. I rubbed her back and let her soak my shirt with tears and whispered to her that it would be okay. Even if whispered softly and meant to soothe, my words were hollow. I knew from experience that a loss that great wasn’t something that ever fully healed. The best I could do was hold her and be there for her. Death and loss made no sense. There wasn’t any explaining it or rationalizing it. An accident like that wasn’t logical, and neither was McKenna’s view on her role. She did nothing to cause their deaths. And I hoped in time I could help her to see that.
