Page 59 of Fighting For You

I reached for his belt.

He knelt over me on the bed, his mouth finding my throat, my collarbone, the space between my breasts. His hands followed, unhooking, sliding, peeling away everything between us until there was nothing left. Every place he touched burned slow, and he took his time. He learned me with his hands and his mouth, patient and deliberate, and I let him. I let him see every part of me I'd never shown anyone.

When his mouth traveled lower, my fingers tightened in his hair and my back arched off the bed. My breathing came apart. He stayed there until I couldn't think, until the only word I had left was his name.

"Knox." It came out ragged. "Please."

He came back up to me. His face was close to mine in the dark. I could feel his breath, unsteady, mixing with mine.

"Are you sure?"

I pulled him down to me and kissed him. "I'm sure."

When we came together, the sound I made was quiet and involuntary, and his forehead dropped against mine. He held still, letting me adjust, his arms trembling on either side of me. Then he moved, slow at first, his hips finding a pace that made everything in my body tighten and build.

I held onto his shoulders. His mouth found mine in the dark and we breathed into each other, and I could feel every place our bodies met, every shift, every sound he made against my neck when I moved with him. The pleasure built in waves, each one pulling tighter than the last, until I couldn't hold it anymore.

He felt me let go. He shuddered and followed me, his face pressed into my neck, my name on his mouth.

We lay there afterward. His arm was around me, my head on his chest, our breathing slowing together in the quiet of his apartment. His fingers traced a line up and down my spine. I could hear his heartbeat under my ear, settling back to something steady.

"Knox?"

"Yes?"

"The tenders were really good."

He laughed. It moved through his chest and into mine.

I closed my eyes and let myself be held. For the first time in as long as I could remember, I wasn't carrying anything. Not Ian, not work, not the weight of every decision I'd made since I was twenty years old. I was just here, in the dark, with someone who'd taken the worst night of my week and turned it into the best one.

CHAPTER 15

The Bet

KNOX

Wyatt was sitting on the bumper of the engine with his phone, laughing to himself.

"What?" I said.

He turned the screen toward me. Andy had sent a video of Birdie on the living room floor with their cat. The cat was batting at a piece of string Birdie dragged across the carpet. Every time it pounced, Birdie shrieked and pulled the string away. The cat skidded on the hardwood, tumbled sideways, righted itself. Birdie put the string back. The cat fell for it every time.

"That's adorable," I said.

Wyatt looked up from his phone.

"What?"

"Nothing. Just never heard you call anything adorable before." He pocketed his phone. "Nora's rubbing off on you."

I shrugged.

Wyatt smiled but let it go. He pulled his clipboard off the bumper and made a note on the pump check sheet.

Thompson leaned out of his office. "Sullivan. Got a minute."

I crossed the bay and stepped inside. He was behind his desk with a folder open, and he closed it when I sat down.