“Yes,” Knox said, sounding as grim as he must have looked.
Leni pivoted around and hurried out of the garage. “I’m right here, honey. Are you ready to get that movie started?”
Knox didn’t let out his breath until she was back in the house and the door was closed behind her.
CHAPTER 13
When Knox came in from the garage a couple of hours later, he found Leni asleep with Riley in the living room. She sat scrunched into the arm of the sofa, her chin tipped down on her chest at an awkward angle, while the little boy sprawled across the cushions in his pajamas, his pale blond head resting on a pillow on her lap.
Knox exhaled a quiet chuckle as he stepped into the room. On the television across from them, the movie’s closing credits rolled to a triumphant score implying a resounding win for the heroes. He turned it off, catching his hulking reflection on the darkened screen.
The way he had entered the world, the things he’d been forced to do, Knox had never considered himself one of the good guys. He had never particularly cared to be, either.
Selfish. Solitary. Savage. Those were the things that best defined him.
Not softness. Not sympathy.
Not some twisted urge to be a savior to the fierce-hearted beauty and the innocent child sleeping so trustingly under the guard of a man who’d been raised a soulless monster.
Knox told himself he didn’t feel any of those things now, as he stepped over to the sofa and simply watched the pair for a long moment. He couldn’t leave them like that, even though he knew the smartest thing for him to do was head upstairs to wait out the remainder of the night in peace. Especially after that kiss with Leni.
He still burned from it, everything male in him greedy for another taste of her.
He wanted more than just a taste.
He watched her breast rise and fall with her breathing. He could hear her pulse thudding, could see the fluttering tick of it in the side of her bent neck. His fangs responded of their own will, hunger chasing through his own blood, his gums throbbing.
Fuck. This desire he had for her was dangerous.
Looming over her like some maniac with smoldering eyes and elongated fangs wasn’t the kind of picture he wanted to paint for her or the kid tonight.
In the garage, Leni had asked if she was safe with him. After he’d overheard her admit to her friend that she wanted him—after learning no man had given her pleasure in nearly six years—safe was the last thing she should be feeling with him.
Knox mentally jammed a lid on his lust for Leni to deal with the unconscious child in her lap. He carefully lifted Riley off her and carried him up to his bedroom.
Leni didn’t stir as he went back down to collect her too. Her heavy sleep was testament to just how exhausted she truly was. Knox knew how little she’d been able to rest these past few nights. He’d heard her roaming the house at all hours. Saw the fatigue and worry over Travis Parrish’s homecoming tomorrow shadowing her eyes. She felt boneless in his arms, draped against him as helplessly as the child he’d just ferried up to bed a minute ago.
But Leni was no child.
As he tossed aside the coverlet and gently placed her on the mattress, he couldn’t help but pause for a moment to soak in the sight of her. Leni was tall and lean, yet curvy in all the right places. She was no waif, but the thick-knit, oversized sweater and soft black leggings she wore gave her a fragile quality that tugged at him even as he longed to peel her out of her clothes and feel her nakedness against his hard, far-too-aroused body.
She must have finally sensed she wasn’t alone. Just when he had almost convinced himself to get the hell out of her bedroom, her long lashes stirred, then lifted.
“Knox?” A look of surprise swept over her face. It morphed quickly into worry. “What’s going on? Where’s Riley?”
Knox sat down on the edge of the bed as she began to rise up in alarm. “It’s okay. He’s okay. The two of you fell asleep watching the movie. I just carried him to bed a minute before I brought you up here.”
She exhaled her relief, letting herself fall back against her pillows. “You carried us both to bed?”
“It was either that or let you wake up in a few hours unable to move your head.”
“Wouldn’t be the first time. But thank you for that.” Her brows furrowed as she stared at him. Then she groaned and covered her face with her hands. “Oh, God. I was having this awful dream that my friend Carla came over and made me admit some really embarrassing things.” She spread her fingers a bit, eyeing him through the cracks. “Can we please forget everything that happened in the last twelve hours or so?”
He smirked. “No chance of that.”
As much as he might wish it were possible to put the revelations about her sex life—or lack thereof—out of his mind, he’d been unable to think of much else in the time since her overheard her conversation with Carla.
Kissing Leni in the garage hadn’t helped.
