Page 91 of The Quiet After The Fall

“You look like you in them. Old you. The one I used to like.” Her lips tilt up at that.

“Used to? I’m hurt, Thorne.”

“Keep wearing them and we’ll see,” she says.

“That a challenge?” I lean back on my palms, watching her.

“An incentive.” Her thumb drags along the frame one more time before she pulls her hand back, some of the playfulness fading as whatever’s been sitting on her chest all day resurfaces. She wraps her arms around her knees. “Where does Ella think you are right now?”

It’s like being doused with a bucket of ice water.

“A memorial for Owen. I told her I needed the whole weekend off to process.”

“And she didn’t want to go with you?”

I shrug. “I didn’t really give her the option and she didn’t ask.”

She hugs her knees tight. “So she thinks you’re at some event alone, crying about your brother. But you’re here with me.”

“Yeah.”

It’s condensed but it’s the truth.

“That’s so fucked up, Knox.” She rubs her temple, and I can see the guilt weighing on her the same as on me. “I know none of this is really our fault. I know Ella’s caught up in something she doesn’t understand. But every time I let myself feel good around you, feel safe, I think about her sitting somewhere thinking you’re happily engaged, and it makes me sick. Even with her and Owen. Even with it all. I know I wanted to feel worse before. To punish myself. But now…I don’t know.”

“I get it.” I reach for her hand. “I know it’s fucked up.”

She’s quiet for a few minutes while I rub circles along her knuckles. When she speaks, she looks steadier, more determined. What am I in for?

“I need you to promise me something.”

“Anything.”

“Don’t touch her again.”

“I—”

She stops me with a hand on my chest. “I know you have to keep playing the part. I know you probably have to hold her hand at dinner, kiss her cheek for whatever bullshit you have to keep up. I can live with that, as much as it kills me. But nothing more than that. I can’t do it Knox. I⁠—”

“Sawyer.” I catch her jaw and tilt her face to mine. “I won’t touch her. I have no desire to touch her. She’s never been the one I want.”

“Promise me.”

“I promise you.” I mean it with everything I have in me. “You’re the only person alive that I want anywhere near me. I’m fucking infatuated with you, in case you didn’t already realize.”

Her expression shifts, the worry on her brow easing. “Infatuated,” she repeats the word slowly. “That’s a strong word for a guy who used to pretend not to notice me.”

“I noticed everything.” I pull her hand up and press a kiss to her knuckles. “Just didn’t know what to do with any of it back then.”

“And now you do?”

“I know exactly what I want to do.”

I catch her jaw and pull her close, kissing her slowly, savoring the small moan of surprise she lets out. I want her to feel how much I want her, how much she means to me. How I’d do anything for her. Any fucking thing at all.

Her hand bunches in my shirt and she moans again, giving me the opening to slide my tongue between her lips, stroking it with my own. My goddamn cock is going to explode already. I’m wound so tight, just the thought of fucking Sawyer has me dripping.

She pulls back to catch her breath, staring at me with darkened eyes and parted swollen lips. She’s never looked more beautiful.