Knox goes down on his knees in front of me, grasping my waist. “I swear to you, nothing happened with her. I was hurt and angry. All I could think about was losing you. How JD is back and I’m going to lose you. I got drunk. She approached me at the bar. And for one second, I thought about it. I thought about using her to fuck you out of my system like you tried to use me to rid yourself of JD. But I couldn’t do it. The thought of touching another woman literally made me sick. I actually jumped out of the car when it stopped at a stoplight and puked my guts out all over the side of the road. Then I walked back to the bar and called Devon to come pick me up. Call him if you need proof. Check my texts and call log.”
“We were standing on the corner for at least five minutes after you left. I never saw you come back to the bar.”
Knox wraps his arms around my waist as he continues to kneel at my feet. He presses his cheek against my stomach. “Call Devon. I’m telling the truth. Please believe me, Aurora. Please don’t leave me. I’m so sorry, baby.”
My heart is conflicted. I want to believe so badly that he’s telling me the truth. Knox is right. JD being back has messed me up and has me wanting things I know I shouldn’t. Staying in a relationship with Knox wouldn’t be fair to either one of us. I care about him, but my heart has always belonged to Jackson.
I reach down and thread my fingers through his wavy, black hair. “I think we should take a step back, Knox. I don’t want things between us to get so bad that it destroys our friendship.”
“Please give me one more chance to prove how much you mean to me,” he pleads. “I love you,” he says solemnly.
Why am I so torn? I came home tonight thinking that it was the end for me and Knox, especially after spending the day with JD and his son. Every time I’m with JD, I feel so much, it’s overwhelming after years of feeling nothing. That’s not entirely true, I admit to myself. I was starting to feel something for Knox, something more than just friendship, and JD coming back has muddled that up. The spark with Knox is small, but it’s there. Shouldn’t I see if that spark can turn into a wildfire? Knox has stood by me for years. Don’t I owe him that much to try?
I believe Knox when he tells me that he didn’t cheat on me. I believe him when he tells me he loves me. But what if I’m never able to say it back? And then there’s JD. I know he wants me back even though he’s offering friendship. He had a son with another woman. He chose to leave and have a life without me. Knox stayed. Knox has been here for me. I don’t know what to do or what decision is the right one. I curse at my own indecisiveness.
“Please,” Knox pleads again at my silence as tears leak from my eyes.
“I do have feelings for you, Knox. But I don’t think they will ever be enough to build a future together.”
Knox’s thumbs slide across the waistband of my yoga pants, his warm breath feathering over the sensitive skin below my belly button. My stomach muscles seize at his light touches.
“We have something special, Aurora. We can make it something wonderful if you give us a chance.”
He drags at the elastic of my pants, nipping a trail of kisses that follow the exposed skin he uncovers as he pushes them down. For the first time in years, I feel desire at another man’s touch.
Liquid heat pools at my center and a throbbing begins to pulse between my thighs. I’m ashamed of myself and how my body is reacting to Knox because deep down I know it’s JD’s reappearance that has brought me back to life after all this time. But I want this to happen. Ineedthis to happen. I need to prove to myself that I’m capable of moving on with someone else. That I’m capable of being intimate with somebody else.
My breathing accelerates, which turns into a long moan when Knox kisses my slit through the lace of my underwear. It’s at that moment I decide to give myself over to him; to get some relief from the ache inside of me. If I’m going to truly try and be with Knox, I need to be more open with him. I can’t be a girlfriend who is always pulling away, always stopping any intimacy between us. I’m tired of living only half a life for the past five years. I’m tired of feeling dead inside. I want to feelsomething,anything.
“I love you,” he declares, burying his head between my legs, and I accept the pleasure he gives me. I don’t fight it this time. I can’t say the three words back to him, but I can give him this part of me. Within minutes, I’m climaxing on his tongue, and it feels so good to finally let go.
Once my tremors die down, Knox rises from his kneeling position, taking me with him. He places me gently on the bed, his light emerald eyes scanning over every inch of my body like he’s mapping out a plan of everything he wants to do to me. He reaches behind his neck and pulls off his shirt. Knox has such a lovely body. All lean, corded muscle and light coffee-colored skin. He inherited his green eyes from his mom who is Irish. Mrs. Knox has the most gorgeous strawberry-red hair with not one strand of gray to show her age. He doesn’t talk about his father much because the memories of his and his mom’s abuse at his father’s hands are too painful. I’ve always admired Mrs. Knox and the courage it took for her to leave her husband. That’s how she and Knox wound up living in the women’s shelter in New York City.
“You with me?” Knox whispers down at me.
I sit up and remove my tank top, my bare breasts bouncing slightly when I fall back down on the bed. I look up at him and raise my arms up and over my head. “I’m with you, Knox.”
The double meaning of my words doesn’t escape either one of us. In a move quicker than I can track, Knox is completely naked and on top of me before I can blink. He releases my wet hair from its band and fans it out, kissing up my chest from my sternum to where my neck meets my shoulder. It all feels so good. His skin intimately touching mine feels so deliciously good.
“Thank you for trusting me. Thank you for giving us a second chance.”
His teeth graze the dip at my neck, and I shudder at the intensity of desire that rushes through me. Knox wraps around me, his warmth both comforting and erotic.
“I’m not going to fuck you tonight, Aurora. What I am going to do is make love to your body with my mouth, and after I’m done, there will be no part of you that my kisses and my tongue haven’t claimed. I’m going to make you come over and over again until all you feel, all your sweet body remembers, is me and the pleasure only I can give you. And then I’m going to hold you as we sleep, knowing that your beautiful blue eyes will be the first thing I see when I wake up.”
And that’s exactly what Knox does.
The piano alarm on my phone starts playing and I try to roll over and turn it off, but I’m stopped by a warm arm over my hip. Knox reaches over me and presses the side button on my phone to cease the music. When he moves back, he grabs my sides and rolls me with him so that he’s now on his back and I’m straddling his waist. My body is still loose and relaxed from the numerous orgasms he gave me last night with his lips, tongue, and fingers, and I melt on top of him like warm fudge over an ice cream sundae. That actually sounds really good. I may have to make me one for breakfast.
“Good morning,” he murmurs low in a sleepy voice, and I snuggle down into his body, sighing contentedly.
In between all the orgasms, Knox and I talked last night. We agreed that the only way we could proceed with any type of relationship with one another was to be open and honest. He told me more about his father and his childhood, about how bad the abuse really was, and why he felt threatened by JD being back. In return, I opened up to him about what happened when JD left and the night at the party where Blaise, Will, and Luke assaulted me. I also was truthful about still having feelings for JD after all these years and my confusion over them. I don’t know what’s going to happen between me and JD, but I’d like for us to be friends again. Knox said he understood and wouldn’t get in the way of that as long we kept talking and discussing how we felt. No more running away or hiding.
I think Knox and I get each other because we have lived through similar situations. It’s why he and I became such fast friends when we first met. We also promised each other that no matter how things ended up, we would remain friends. Most importantly, we would trust one another. Knox will soon be touring a lot and I have to trust that he’ll stay faithful, and he has to trust me knowing that JD and I will be working together at the youth center and seeing each other around town. It was the most adult conversation I have ever had, and I feel lighter and less burdened because of it.
“I need to get up for work, but I don’t want to,” I whine.
“We only did get about three hours sleep. Call in sick and let’s stay in bed for the rest of the day.”
