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Naomi didn’t see a scary biker sort-of-criminal making that proclamation. She saw a cuddly, tattooed fairy godfather. When she tossed her arms around his neck and gave him a noisy kiss on the cheek, I saw the man actually smile. A feat previously thought to be impossible.
“Get that niece of yours something pretty,” Winona told her. Christ on a cracker, exactly how much of her autobiography had she shared with them?
“Come on. It’s been a rough week,” he whined. “In that case, here’s a tip from me,” Naomi said, handing over a $100 chip. The woman was a sucker. And it looked like Tanner was officially in love.
The front door opened, and I saw two officers in uniform looking grim. My breath hitched. “Knox,” I whispered. “Right here, baby. What happened?” His eyes were bluer in this light, searingly blue and serious as he held on to me.
hair. “Because sometimes people don’t know how to ask for what they really need. You needed a hug.” “No. I didn’t,” he rasped. He was quiet for a long moment, and I listened to his heartbeat. “I needed you.” My own breath tripped in my throat. I tried to pull back to look up at him, but he held me where I was. “Just shut up, Daisy,” he advised. “Okay.”
“Thank you, Naomi,” he whispered just before his lips met mine. Hot, hard, unyielding. His hand slid up to cup my jaw and neck, holding me in place as he kissed every thought out of my head, leaving me nothing but a riot of sensation. He pulled back, eyes fierce. Then he pressed a kiss to my forehead and left the room.
“Of course she was. She thinks I’m hot.” “I don’t care how many bullet holes you’ve got in you. I’m moving on that,” I told him. Nash’s sigh was closer to a wheeze. “About damn time. Quicker you screw it up, the quicker I can swoop in and be the good guy.”
Neither of us wanted to want this. Maybe that’s what made it feel so damn good. One hand slid into my hair while the other pressed my lower back until I was flush against him. “Knox,” I breathed. “This isn’t what you want,” I reminded him. “It’s what I need,” he said before diving back into the kiss. This wasn’t the kiss from the waiting room. This was different, desperate.
“That’s what I need, baby. I need to feel you go soft under me. Need you to let me have you.”
We both moaned when his fingers found me. “Knew it,” he muttered again as his mouth moved to my other breast. “Knew you’d be wet for me.”
“Oh my God. Is this really happening?” Whoops. I hadn’t actually meant to say that out loud. “Do not come to your senses yet,” he ordered. “No sense here. Promise.”
“One-time thing. Make it count.” “Then you better hang the fuck on.”
“You keep milking my dick like that, sweetheart, and this is gonna have to be a two-time thing.” “Mmmph. Good. Yes.”
“That’s my girl,” he groaned.
Oh, God. Knox Morgan was naked. In my bed.
“Daisy, baby, what the fuck are you doing down there?” I watched in horror as bare feet attached to naked, muscular legs appeared on the stairs. Mom and I froze to the spot as boxer briefs—thank God for penis-covering miracles—came into view. Dad, moving quickly for a big guy, put himself between us and the approaching boxer briefs. “State your business,” Dad shouted at Knox’s bare torso. “Wow, wow, wow,” Mom whispered. She wasn’t wrong. The man was freaking spectacular.
My mother gave me an incredibly inappropriate double thumbs-up as Knox turned his back on us and zipped the fly of his jeans.
“Do you see how they can’t keep their hands off each other?” Mom trilled behind us. “Yeah. You got any antacids in there?” Dad asked, looking ill.
I’d woke up that morning knowing that once wasn’t going to be enough when it came to her. Now we could fool around for a few weeks, get each other out of our systems, and once her parents headed home, go back to our regular lives with itches scratched. All in all, it wasn’t a bad gig.
“Of course I am. How am I going to fix any problems if I don’t know they exist?”
“You’re the worst. We’re coming!” she yelled. “We will be later,” I promised under my breath.
“I am really uncomfortable with the idea of an entire town tracking its women’s menstrual cycles.” “Hey, we’re normalizing period shit,” I argued. “Now, get your sexy ass over here.”
Naomi belonged to me. For now at least. And that was enough.
I waited until she gripped the back of my seat. “This is what’s gonna happen, Naomi. I’m gonna start moving, and you’re gonna come as fast and as hard as you can. Then I’m gonna take my time driving you up again, and when you go off that second time, I’ll be right there with you.” “Good plan. Very organized. Measurable goals,” she said, and then she was kissing the air right out of my lungs. I withdrew another inch or two and captured her moan with my mouth.
“Hold on,” I reminded her, and then I was yanking her back down as I rammed my hips up.
“That’s my girl,” I groaned as she gripped and released me to a rhythm more beautiful than music. “Oh my God. Oh my God,” she chanted until her body finally went limp on top of me.
The girl next door was about to crawl into my bed. I knew it was a mistake. But it was one I wanted to make. Just this once.
“I mean, are we still…you know…pretending?” Something passed over his face that I couldn’t read. “Yeah. We’re still pretending,” he said finally.
So it wasn’t my best advice to impart. But I was feeling rather swoon-like as Knox stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Wraith. My father, then Nash, joined him. Together they created a wall of testosterone, ready to protect and guide their girls. “Just when you think he can’t get any hotter,” my mom said, sidling up next to me.
“What the fuck?” Warner snarled as Lucian hauled him to his feet. “I’m calling my lawyer! Your ass will be in jail by morning!” “Good luck with that. His brother’s the chief of police, and my lawyer is ten times more expensive than yours. Watch the door,” Lucian warned. And then he used Warner’s face to open the kitchen door. A cheer went up in the bar as the two men disappeared.
“You can’t all leave the floor at the same fucking time,” I called through the door. “Fuck off, Knoxy. We got this,” Fi yelled back. “And we got this, Knox,” Wraith said, throwing a bar towel over his shoulder and stepping behind the bar. “You’re all gettin’ beers or shots cause I don’t know how the fuck to pour anything else.”
“I’m gonna touch you now because I need to. And I’m warning you in advance, because if I touch you and you flinch, I’m gonna go out in the parking lot and start kicking ass until he’s too broken to ever touch another woman again.”
I give a shit that I walked into my bar and found a man with his hands on my girl.”
MY GIRL WHGDGDGGEGGDGDHHDHDBFSFGWHSJSGFSGHS
“H-he grabbed me by the hair and yanked my head back. I was so surprised I swerved and almost hit a parked car.” It took everything I had not to jump up from the desk and run into the parking lot to kick this fucking guy’s ass.
“Knox, where are you going?” I flipped the lock and wrenched the door open. “To dig a shallow grave so I have a place to put him after I get tired of throwing punches.”
She looked down. “He never thought I was good enough for him.” “Baby, truth is, on his best day, he was never gonna be good enough for you, and he fucking knew it.”
My last coherent thought was that the only thing that saved Warner Fuckface from the beating of his life was Naomi’s perfect mouth on my cock.
I felt…helpless, useless. What good was I if I couldn’t keep her safe?
That stupid golden glow was back and threatening to burst out of my chest. The man had spent the day giving homeless men and women haircuts. Then he’d brought me coffee and was now on alert, making sure Waylay was safe. He was as protective of her as he was me. I was a goner.
Because Knox didn’t want to be. Because when it came down to it, no one ever really chose me.
I fucking loved it. I fucking loved her.
I was still inside her as I plotted how I was going to end it all.
Except I knew it wasn’t true. She wouldn’t fade away. The hook was set. I’d taken the bait. There wouldn’t be a day in the rest of my life that I didn’t think about her. That I wouldn’t say her name in my head a dozen times just to remind myself that I had her once.
Someone else would get to hear their name from her mouth. Someone else would get to feel like the luckiest man alive. Someone else would bring her mid-afternoon coffees and watch those hazel eyes light up.
“You know what they say about fine. Fucked up. Insecure. Neurotic. And emotional,”
“I mean what we’re doing is…” Scaring the shit out of me. “This thing between us has run its course.” Because I can’t trust myself with you, I thought.
“I understand,” she said. “I’m a lot. Waylay’s a lot. This whole thing is a lot. Even on my best day, I’m too much and yet not enough.” Her laugh was humorless.
“You didn’t have to do it this way. Out in public so I wouldn’t make some kind of scene. I’m a big girl, Knox. And someday, I’m going to find the kind of man who wants an uppity, needy pain in the ass. One who wants to wade into my mess and stay for the duration. Obviously, you’re not him. At least you told me that from the start.”
Too complicated. Too much. Too needy. Not worth it.
A man doesn’t go all in with a woman, it’s for a reason. Maybe he’s looking for something better.
