Page 19

I flung my arm over my eyes to block out the images of those forearms. It was ridiculous. I was a grown woman lying awake fantasizing about a man’s forearms like a horny teenager. I really needed to get a grip, I knew that, but my brain sent back more images anyway.

Knox in his running shorts that morning, hanging dangerously low on his narrow hips. The black ink wrapping around his forearm, up over his biceps and across his chest. The particular way he braced his hands on flat surfaces that made the muscles pop. The lopsided smile he gave me on the trail, the one that reached all the way up to his gray eyes. The way amusement danced in his eyes when I said something silly. He didn’t make me feel like a problem, which was almost as dangerous as this life.

This arrangement.

If he was an average man, I could’ve handled it. Probably. At least I could’ve managed it. Filed it under not my problem and kept a reasonable amount of emotional distance. If he was a jerk. A cocky bastard. Any of that and I could’ve resisted his allure. That stupid pull he had.

But with that body that was built for sin staring back at me day in and day out? Sculpted muscles on display. Shirtless. In boxers. In boxer briefs? It was irresistible. And that face was so damn gorgeous I was sure Lucifer himself had carved every sharp angle. All of that topped with a healthy helping of kindness?

My willpower was not built for that combination. It never needed to be because no man had ever been this appealing. No man had ever tempted me or rewired my brain like this.

My heart was too weak. My body was too neglected to find him anything other than utter perfection.

I had been surviving on fumes for years, running on tension and hypervigilance, and now that things were quiet and relatively safe my nervous system apparently wanted to spend all that stored energy on one specific person.

Knox Coleman.

He was a persistent presence in my mind all day and I was too tired, and too weak to keep fighting it. I needed this and there was nobody else here to know that dirty little secret. And on top of all that I was tired of fighting it.

So I stopped fighting.

I leaned into it.

I thought about his hands first, big and rough and careful all at once. The way they’d always looked so strong and capable whether he was holding a bottle of beer or gripping the handlebars on his bike. I let myself imagine them on me, slow and sure, the kind of hands that knew what they were doing, and weren’t in any hurry to prove it. To anybody.

I trembled just thinking about the way those slightly calloused palms would skate across my body until I was begging for what came next.

His mouth, that was what came next. I thought about the scruff of his jaw and wondered how it would feel scraping against the most sensitive skin of my inner thighs while his tongue licked my slit before finding my clit, hard and swollen. “Oh!” The cry slipped out, the image so viscerally real that I pulsed. Hard.

I never felt that sensation before, not in real life. No man had ever tempted me enough to trust him with my body. I’d heard Dani and other girls talking about that unquenchable lust that made you crazy, that made you throw caution to the wind and do something you knew was a bad idea from the start. I heard the stories and though I never said so to them, I didn’t believe it. I thought it was just an excuse people made to explain why they did something knowing it was a bad fucking idea.

Now I understood.

I had spent exactly zero time thinking about what I was missing until about this moment. Now I couldn’t stop. I imagined it all and heat moved through me so fast it stole my breath.

I imagined him taking his time. Looking up at me from between my thighs with that penetrating gray gaze while I came apart at the seams. I thought about what it would be like if he made me beg to come with a smile on his face. Say it, Ivy, he demanded in a low growl.

I wasn’t sure if that was something he’d actually do, or if I would even like it, but fantasy Knox had strong opinions and I had zero objections.

My hand moved furiously between my legs as fantasy Knox encouraged me. “Do you want to come, Ivy? Tell me how bad you need to come all over my tongue.”

I shivered and my nipples were embarrassingly hard. I plucked one imagining it was Knox’s hand and my hips bucked off the bed.

It’s not enough, I thought as my fingers proved useless once again. Then I remembered my humiliating confession to my best friend about my inability to get myself there with just my hands. Her response had been a wildly expensive toy with ten different settings.

It was exactly where I left it, resting in the nightstand drawer inside a velvet bag. It was hot pink and heavier than I expected. I’d never used anything like it before. I felt absurd for a brief moment, and then I turned it on and felt a lot of other things other than absurd.

I went back to Knox with his slow smile and his patient attention. He explored every inch of my body, paying special attention to my pussy with his lips and tongue, and then his fingers. He took me apart slowly, piece by piece, and then figured out a million different ways to put me back together.

My jaw clenched hard as my teeth pressed together with tension coiled so tightly I could hardly breathe. My body jerked once. Twice.

The orgasm was exquisite, it hit me like a tidal wave, hard and overwhelming as it spread from my core out until my thighs clamped, trapping Knox between them as my back arched off the bed. He pounded into me while I came apart, whispering how beautiful and perfect he thought I was.

My mouth opened and a loud, uncontrollable growl escaped into the empty room. I stayed like that, limbs tense until the last drops of orgasm flowed from my body and bled into the mattress.

When I came down, my mind was blissfully blank. My body was deliciously satisfied. My pulse pounded in the dark as goosebumps danced all over my skin. I didn’t move for a long time, just lay there with the toy still pressed against my clit while I sucked down oxygen like it was going out of style.

I smiled to myself because I had an orgasm. A real orgasm.