And yet, I keep my ass on the cushion, pinned there by her admission. Why the fuck would she bother counting my smiles? Why would she care? My hungry curiosity trumps my sense of self-preservation.
“Three times.” She holds up two fingers. “When Connor graduated college and when Simon graduated high school.” Another finger pops up. “And when you won your last championship match.”
Shock snaps inside me like a plucked rubber band. Three times in the five years I’ve known her? I’ve never been gregarious like Simon, a flirt like Connor, or a charmer like Jude; I’ve always been intense, even before Dad died. And I know I can be a bit…stoic, but damn, that can’t be right.
“I’m not talking about casual grins or laughter like in the shop,” she explains, her gaze steady and unwavering on my face. “I’ve seen you do both more often, but even those aren’t a daily thing. I’m referring to the genuine, joy-filled, light-up-your-eyes smiles that remind me of the boy in that picture of you and your father hanging in your mother’s hallway.”
“Why remember at all?” I ask, resenting the gravel-rough quality to my voice. Resenting that inside my head I’m perched on this couch, arms propped on my thighs, leaning toward her and craving her answer.
She chuckles, the sound wry with the faintest trace of humor. “It’s hard to forget when you feel like you’ve been whacked on the back of your head with a two-by-four.” She gives another of those puffs of laughter. “I can usually recall why I was initially intimidated by you, but then there are moments like those and…” She shrugs. “Well, I clearly see that charisma is a Gordon family trait.”
I don’t know which revelation hits me hardest—that I intimidated her or that she finds me charismatic. And I do meanhit me. If I wasn’t already sitting, she would’ve knocked me on my ass.
“I’ve scared you?” So I guess I’m tackling the first. Maybe because the thought of her being frightened by me disgusts me. “When?”And why? What did I do?Swallowing down the need to pepper her with questions like an automatic weapon, I wait, tension damn near vibrating over my skin.
“The first time I saw you. You probably don’t remember,” she says, propping an elbow on the arm of the chair and cupping her chin. Like fuck. Every second of that night is etched into my memory. “My college roommate invited me along with her to the BFC event. Her boyfriend at the time was one of the fighters. We went to the afterparty at some club and were allowed in the VIP section. As soon as we entered, I noticed you. I mean, it would’ve been next to impossible not to. Everyone surrounded you or was trying to get closer. And you were…”
She shakes her head, the corner of her mouth quirking. “You. Huge, towering over almost everyone there. Hard. Impassive. But so damn intense. I remember thinking, please, God, don’t let him notice me. Because if you did, I would’ve hated to humiliate myself in front of all those people by fainting.” This time her chuckle possesses amusement. “You can be”—she pauses, slightly squints—“a lot to take in. To handle. It’s like you shrink the size of any room you enter, suck the air right out of it. That kind of intensity can be, uh, daunting.”
Hearing her initial impression of me stuns me into absolute stillness. It couldn’t be more different from mine of her if we’d planned it in advance. Shock filtered with veins of anger sits inside me like a block of ice. Is that really how she saw me? Sees me still?
Well, fuck, no wonder she fell for Connor. I’m the icy planet Neptune to his burning Venus. The moon to his sun.
“I’d have never hurt you,” I reply, forcing a calm into my voice that in no way reflects the tightness squeezing the hell out of my chest. “Then or now.”
“Of course not.” She frowns. “I knew that about five seconds after meeting you. Maybe I’ve been saying this wrong. You’re intense, and that’s not a bad thing. I’ve always felt safe with you. Protected,” she murmurs. “I just doubted my ability to not lose my mind if you actually turned that intensity on me.”
A serrated crack of laughter scrapes my throat, but at the last minute, I lock it down. Truth, I’d annihilate any motherfucker who dared to hurt her. But the joke’s on her, because I’m the biggest threat to her; I’m the wolf wrapped in a slightly less dangerous wolf’s pelt. I’d never physically harm her. Hell no. But I could tear her safe, familiar world apart. I could cost her the ones she loves, who love her. I could rip her from that existence of light and extinguish it with the darkness that coats me like thick, dirty oil. That’s what my lust would do if anyone ever found out how much I want her. Or, God forbid, believed she ever returned it.
“I’ve never been frightened of you,” she stresses in that same soft voice. It carries a hint of reluctance, of hesitancy as she adds, “At least, not in that way.”
The air in my lungs evaporates in the blast of heat that surges through me on a soundless, powerful roar. Every muscle tightens, except for my dick, which swells, thickens, blood pounding in it like the bass in a big-ass speaker. I don’t need her to explain that last cryptic remark. I decipher it clearly; if I harbored any doubts, the flush suddenly staining her cheekbones, and how she glances away from me, unable to meet my eyes when she hasn’t had any trouble until this moment, verifies my guess.
Yet, I still ask. Because masochistic, dirty bastard that I am, I need to hear it from her own mouth.
“How, then?” That’s all I get out, but it’s enough.
Her gaze flicks back to mine even as her elegant, long fingers toy with the label on the beer bottle. With how she’s tearing up the damp paper, I almost take pity on her and rescind the question. Almost. Add selfish to masochistic and dirty.
“The other night…” She falters, swallows. Begins again. “The other night at your apartment, was—”
“Forget it,” I grind out, interrupting her. “You don’t have to explain it to me.” I was wrong. I don’t want to hear her explain how my pushing her into that orgasm, manipulating her body so she didn’t think about my brother, scared her. I’ve beat myself bloody for it.
“Yes, I do.” Straightening, she bows her head, and her hair falls forward, partially concealing her face from me. My fingers tighten around my beer bottle, holding on. Either that or I’ll push them through those brown-almost-black strands, fist them, and drag her head back so she can’t hide from me. Which is completely hypocritical since all I’ve done from the moment we met is hide. “I should’ve said something that night, or at least the next day, but…”
She inhales, tilts her chin up, and meets my gaze. It’s steady, but I can read regret in the small crease between her eyebrows, the gathering shadows in her eyes.
“I’m sorry,” she breathes.
Deliberately, I set the beer on the coffee table and settle my arms on my thighs. No way I heard her right. “What are you apologizing for?” I demand, my voice sharper than I intend.
“That I left, let you walk away from me believing that you were responsible for my reaction. That you’d done something wrong to cause it. When that’s the furthest thing from the truth.”
I’m shaking my head before she finishes talking. “Eden, you don’t have to say anything else. I didn’t—”
“Do anything I didn’t ask—no, beg for.” She cuts me short this time. Her teeth sink into her bottom lip, and the need to stroke my thumb over the tender flesh, trace and smooth it with my tongue, has me scrubbing my hands down my thighs. “I started that, Knox, not you. And I wanted it. You didn’t force me into anything, didn’t take advantage, and I’m so sorry that I made you carry that burden. It’s just… It’s been two years since I’ve had sex. You might not know this, but Connor was my first—and my last. I wasn’t prepared for that to change. I had started to think I was. Especially since, in the past few months, I’ve stopped feeling so dead inside. Physically, I might’ve been ready, but mentally, emotionally? It caught me by surprise, and I had no defense. The grief, the anger of losing him, the guilt over another man touching me just crashed down, and I…” She trails off, lifting her hands, palms up. “I’m sorry.”
“For what? Loving Connor? Missing him?” Her apology is absurd and unwarranted. Still… Jealousy stirs in my chest, a green-tinged spark I hate to admit is there, even while I love and miss my brother, too. “Eden, it’s not strange you would regret being with someone else.” If I hadn’t been so blinded my own lust and satisfaction at having my hands on her, in her, I might’ve predicted her reaction and avoided it by sending her home the moment she showed up on my doorstep. Vulnerable is not a word in my vocabulary—except when it comes to her.
