“Yes, it is, damn it,” I snap, frustration over his stubbornness and fear for him sharpening my objection even further. “What if one day you crash behind the steering wheel? Or your health is jeopardized? There was a time I didn’t want to go see a therapist, and you made me. Matter of fact, you drove me there and walked me up to the office.” I curl my fingers into my palm, my nails biting into the skin. “Please, Knox. One session. That’s all I’m asking.”
I’m not above emotional blackmail, and I’m ready to haul out the big guns—the “Connor wouldn’t have wanted you to be suffering like this” guns—when he finally nods. He doesn’t look happy about it at all, but that’s okay. Because as long as I’ve known him, Knox hasn’t broken his word. If he says he’ll go, he’ll go.
I swallow a sigh of relief and zip my mouth. As my mom used to say, never miss a good opportunity to shut the hell up. But I surrender to the need to touch him, and cross the floor to the kitchen, pausing before him, close enough that my breasts graze the solid wall of his chest and my thighs press to his. Sliding my hands over his cut hips and up his back, I tilt my head up.
His scrutiny is hot, piercing, and on anyone else, unnerving. It’s as if anatomy is just tissue paper, and he tears past it to the heart, the soul, to places you don’t even like admitting are there.
“Are you sure this is what you want?” he rumbles, thrusting his big but elegant fingers into my hair.
“Yes, I’m sureyou’rewho I want,” I reply.
He doesn’t speak, but that storm of arousal that darkens his gaze. Yeah, it’s answer enough.
As is his hoisting me into the air, his strength slugging the breath from my lungs.
As is his mouth tenderly but hungrily taking mine as he sets me on the counter.
As is my hand dipping into his jeans and freeing him.
As is his slowly lowering me onto his cock, filling me, stretching me.
Yeah, I don’t need words.
Chapter Twelve
Knox
“I’ve been waiting on this tat for months, man,” the guy in my chair chatters.
I know Caleb from the gym. He’s twenty-one, built like a bull, hungry to train, and reminds me of an excited puppy, complete with tail-wagging and face-licking. He gossips like teen girls at a sleepover and is never without a wide grin—unless he’s in the ring. Then he transforms into this focused, fierce beast that can put the fear of God into almost anyone who comes at him. One day, after he gains maturity and much more experience, he’s going to fucking grab the MMA world by the throat and shake it like a pit bull. Which will be a vast improvement over the ass-shaking, face-licking puppy.
He’s bugged me for months about coming in for a tattoo. With the exception of my old friends and fighters from the BFC, I prefer to keep my private life and professional life separate. I don’t mind any of the guys from the gym coming in, but I usually don’t ink them. Caleb, though? His persistence made me cave. Have I mentioned it’s impossible not to like the guy?
“Yeah, well, if you don’t stop moving, you’re going to wish you had kept on waiting.” Because his mother will end up sporting a lopsided eye that makes her seem like she’s eternally squinting in this portrait tattoo.
“Sorry.” For five entire seconds he’s quiet, then, “Who’s that out front? Damn, yo, she’s hot as fuck.”
Irritation punches me in the chest, hard and fast. Dragging in a deep breath, I deliberately release it, concentrating on keeping my hand steady. Then I straighten, turning toward my station on the pretense of refilling my needle with ink. Either that or Mom end ups up looking like Forest Whitaker.
“Eden,” I grit out. “She’s my office manager.”
“So, she single?” He cranes his neck as if he can see out the door, down the hall, and out front where Eden is manning the desk.
Fuck no. “She’s my sister-in-law,” I reply, which basically informs the kid that she’s off-limits.
And he apparently takes it that way, because he nods. “Gotcha. That explains the ‘touch her, and I’ll feed you your balls for lunch’ tone. ’Cause you’re giving me a lot of tone,” he drawls.
I snort, returning to his arm. My tone has shit to do with who Eden was married to, and everything with my leaving her bed and apartment this morning after spending the night.
It’s been a month since our “dirty little secret” talk in her kitchen. A month since we’ve become lovers who have spent every spare minute outside of the shop together. And it’s been the best four weeks of my life.
Mentally, I wince at the emo words. Eden is everything good. And she makes me feel that way. I’m whole when I’m with her, at peace, as happy as that day at Wrigley Stadium. I’m even sleeping more, although I’ve still held out against seeing a therapist. I’ll go; I promised her. But every minute is a gift. Mainly because I can’t hide from the fact that I’m running against a ticking clock, cramming years into however long this arrangement lasts. Because there’s no doubt that it can’t last. Not with my promise and our circumstances hanging over our heads.
I meant what I told Eden that morning; I refuse to make her choose between my family and me. The fact is, she needs them more than me. They give her security, fill that hole created by a shitty childhood, offer her sanctuary.
While me?
I can’t even give her the truth.
