And then, so gently that it made my chest ache, he brushed the tear from my cheek with the pad of his thumb.
His touch sent a jolt of heat through my system. It felt like my entire body was a battery, drained by life. By my parents. By Silas. By years of trying so hard just to stay afloat.
And his one touch jolted a charge through me.
His hand stilled against my face. His breath caught. He felt it too. I could see it in the way his pupils dilated, the way his chest stopped moving.
“Something tells me you rarely cry,” he murmured.
The air left my lungs in a slow, unsteady pull. Because he was right. He was so impossibly right, and he barely knew me. Yet, somehow, in some ways, it felt like in this moment, he knew me better than anyone.
“I don’t,” I whispered. “Because I’m afraid if I let myself cry, I won’t stop.”
His thumb traced the edge of my cheekbone. Gentle. So impossibly gentle for hands that had done the things his had done.
“Maybe,” he said quietly, “you just haven’t had anyone worth crying in front of.”
The words hit me somewhere deep. Somewhere I’d boarded up a long time ago.
Because he was right. I’d spent my whole life being strong for people who didn’t notice. Being brave for people who didn’t care. And here was this man, a convicted murderer, a man I should be terrified of, looking at me like my tears were something sacred.
Like I was something sacred.
His gaze dropped to my lips.
I could feel the shift in energy between us, electric and dangerous. I could hear the quickening of his breath. The air turned thick, charged, like the moment before lightning strikes.
He leaned closer, his sapphire eyes searching mine, flicking between my gaze and my mouth.
Asking.
I didn’t move. I didn’t pull away.
Instead, my lips parted, and as he slowly—agonizingly slowly—drew his mouth closer to mine, inch by glorious inch, my heart slammed against my ribs.
And then Knox Blackwood pressed his lips to mine.
His mouth found mine, soft at first. Tentative. Like he was giving me one last chance to push him away.
I didn’t.
Instead, I rose up on my tiptoes and kissed him back.
Something broke open between us. The kiss deepened, turned hungry. His hand slid from my cheek to the back of my neck, fingers threading into my hair. My hands found his chest, and, God, he was solid. All hard muscle and heat beneath the thin fabric of his prison shirt.
He made a sound low in his throat. Something between a groan and a prayer.
My fingers curled into the cotton of his shirt, pulling him closer. He responded by wrapping his other arm around my waist, lifting me just slightly, and I gasped against his mouth.
He was so big. So impossibly big. He had to bend down while I stretched up, and even then, it wasn’t enough. I wanted toclimb him. I wanted to disappear into him. I wanted things I had no business wanting from a man in orange.
Anyone could walk in.
I’d lose my job.
He’d get thrown in solitary.
I didn’t care.
