“Whatdaya mean? I’m in heaven.” He smirks. “You’re all pressed up against me. How could I not be?”
“Knox…” Talk about being lit up. I’m too young for hot flashes, right? I try to back away.
“Where do you think you’re going, lady?” There’s laughter in his eyes and in his voice, where I love to hear it the most.
Um, I’m going nowhere, I guess, given how he cinches down on my arm prison when I try to wriggle backwards.
“Hey.” He relaxes his hold and falls silent until I look at him fully. “Why do you ask if I’m okay? Becca?”
“It wasn’t so long ago she hurt you.” Held his heart in her hands. And my jealous heart hurt for him when he told me what she did.
His lips press in thought. “You’re right. And up until recently, I was letting the hurt get to me. But then something happened…”
My heart thumps. “What?”
A little devilry toys with his grin, but I lose sight of it as his nose skims my cheek, blazing a humid trail for his lips to touch my ear. “Care to venture a guess?”
“Me?”
“Oh yeah.” There’s that voice-smile again as his nose moves against my ear.
I sigh like a lovesick idiot. I might melt. I could even die of Knox Fever if I don’t do something quick. “Why did they come?”
He seems to sigh his way out of the same haze I’m fumbling and stumbling around in. Hands to my waist, he puts me at a slightly more respectable distance, but his thighs still rest against mine. “Well, partly work stuff, but Rand thought it would be a good idea for he and I to clear the air.”
“And did you?”
He runs his hand over his head and grips the back of his neck. “We’re brothers…and I think he really loves her.”
“And she loves him?” The things Knox has told me make questions reasonable.
“I believe she truly does.”
“Wow, that must have been a fun conversation.”
“You could say that, but Becca went in the other room while Rand and I talked. There really isn’t much for her and me to say to each other.”
“Then why is she here?”
His chuckle is dry. “Aside from the fact that those two are pretty much glued at the hip these days…” He slides his finger under the flap of his breast pocket. Velcro scratches apart. “She came to give me this.”
From the pocket, pinched between his fingers, he produces a stunning engagement ring.
I lay my fingers to my lips. “That is…huge.” Like, is-it-real huge. It would drag my hand to the floor.
“She had to havethisring. Set me back a pretty penny, that’s for sure.”
While he studies the shimmering spectacle, I study him. People do crazy stuff for love. Payment plans and second mortgages were made for this very kind thing.
His forehead puckers with a frown at the arrangement of platinum and diamond. “Too much?”
I bobble my hand in the air. “Borderline.”
He huffs a quick laugh. “That’s what I always thought. A little gaudy for my tastes.”
I gnaw my lip and peer up.
“What?”
