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“Knox?”
“Yeah?”
“You’re welcome,” she said quietly, with more sincerity than he’d ever heard from her.
Well, hell. There went his heart.
CHAPTER 13
Sleep wasn’t usually a problem for Tenley.
She never slept for long, but she could fall asleep anywhere, anytime. As soon as her head hit the pillow, she could drop into a coma without any trouble.
Usually. But not tonight.
She flopped over and punched her pillow for good measure. Not that it’d help. The pillow, just like the ginormous King-sized bed in the pool house, was the most comfortable she’d ever slept on. Or attempted to sleep on, as the case may be.
So why—in the name of all that was holy—was she still awake?
It wasn’t Layla’s fault. She was curled up in a tight little ball at the foot of the bed like the sweet baby angel she was, delicately snoring, probably dreaming of frolicking in the sun and eating lots of table scraps.
It wasn’t Knox’s fault, either. He was just lying there quietly, flat on his back, hands under his head. He wasn’t even snoring.
Sure, he was a little distracting, all warm and muscly and shirtless with that one beam of moonlight illuminating him like a Greek god. But she was fairly certain he wasn’t keeping her awake.
Maybe she just had a guilty conscience. She almost laughed out loud at that. She wasn’t even 100% sure she had a conscience.
“Can I ask you something?”
Tenley startled at Knox’s quiet question. No wonder he wasn’t snoring. Bastard had been awake this whole time, listening to her toss and turn and mutter grumpily under her breath like Yosemite Sam. “If you want to know why I’m still awake, I have no fucking idea.”
He rolled over on his side to face her. “You know all about my past, but haven’t said anything about yours.”
She was way too sleep deprived to have this discussion. “It’s not something I usually talk about.”
One corner of his mouth quirked up. “I don’t either. But you know more about me than anyone other than Natty.”
She swallowed hard. His lopsided smile was starting to have an unreasonable amount of power over her. “I’ve never had a Natty,” she admitted. “My only friend is Ren, and he’d rather chew off his own arm than talk to me about my feelings, you know?”
He reached out, tucked a lock of hair behind her ear, and let his fingertips linger on her cheek long enough to make her heart clench. “I’ll be your Natty,” he said, barely above a whisper.
Oh, God. Her heart! It was going to explode. She just wasn’t equipped for this kind of…feeling. She had a real problem here.
Knox wasn’t just a con to her anymore.
Somewhere along the line, Knox had become real to her. He was a real man she actually cared about.
She cleared her throat. “My mom had me when she was just a teenager. She never told anyone who my father was. But apparently her home situation wasn’t good, and she gave me up for adoption two days after I was born.”
Tenley tried—and failed—to ignore the warmth of Knox’s calloused fingertips as he trailed them lazily up her arm. “Anyway, I was adopted quickly because everyone loves an adorable baby, right? And rumor has it I was more adorable than most.”
His smile was a full one this time, and no less detrimental to her heart. “No way,” he scoffed. “Not you.”
“I know, right? I’m sure it’s hard for you to believe I wasn’t always the hideous bog witch you see before you.”
“I’ve seen worse.”
She was definitely going to ignore the touch of fondness in his rough, sleepy voice. “Sadly, my adorableness wasn’t enough for my adoptive parents, because once they got pregnant with a kid of their own, they abandoned me, too. Relinquished their parental rights and turned me over to social services.”
