Chapter Two

Eden

Knox stares at me. Blinks. Stares some more.

I think I’ve sent him into shock.

That blink is a dead giveaway. For Knox The-Sphinx-Ain’t-Got-Shit-On-Me Gordon, that one tiny tell is the equivalent of me knocking him on his ass.

“Well?” I press, fighting not to tangle my fingers together and twist them in front of me like some damsel in distress. Or a teenager being called on the carpet by a parent. Growing up in a house with an alcoholic father, I used to be as nervous as the ex of a rapper with a single about to drop. Finger-twisting is just one of my habits. But over the years, I’ve learned to control them, hating any sign of weakness. Except around Knox. Nothing—or no one—can bring out my nerves like Knox. He can be…intimidating. Yet, there’s no one I trust more. “Say something.”

Another blink. “Something.”

A startled laugh escapes me before I can catch it. Sometimes I think Knox was born centuries too late. With his huge, powerful, warrior’s body, razor-sharp intensity, and laconic manner, he could’ve been a Spartan. Which is why, when he reveals his dry humor, it always catches me off guard and gives me an inexplicable little thrill of delight. While my feelings tend to explode all over the place, splattering everything and everyone like a paintball gun, Knox is a vault, with every emotion locked up tight behind that broad chest. Even when Connor died, that stoicism didn’t crack. I half hated, half envied him that at the time. The only instances I’ve seen him lose that impassivity is in the ring…and the one memorable time I accidentally saw him having sex.

My belly twists, and the ache that pulses there slides lower at the memory, leaving a warm, bright trail. By the time that sweet pain settles between my legs, I’m surprised my flesh isn’t lighting up like a damn glowworm.

So inconvenient and inappropriate, this raging case of lust for my brother-in-law.

“I know this is”—I shrug, searching for a word and coming up with a lame—“surprising.”

He arches a dark eyebrow. “Surprising,” he repeats. “That isn’t the word I would’ve chosen. What the fuck fits, though.”

“Those are three words,” I mumble, and then I sigh because, yes, I’m stalling. Jesus, sometimes I still feel like that scared kid afraid to speak her mind, terrified of disappointing someone. Of making them mad. Bad things happened when you annoyed or irritated a drunk. But Knox isn’t my father. One, I’ve never seen him down more than two beers in a night. And two, I’ve never dreamed and touched myself to visions of my sperm donor. Eww. Mimicking Knox, I cross my arms. But while his stance screams badass, mine probably radiates, “I’m trying to keep my shit together.” “I can’t live in Dan and Katherine’s house for the rest of my life,” I say, hearing the defensiveness in the tone.

“I agree.”

That steals some of the steam building up inside me. Scrubbing my hands down the fronts of my thighs, I cross the small distance to the black, leather tattoo chair and drop down onto it.

“They aren’t going to see it that way,” I murmur, not needing to clarify who “they” are. His mother, stepfather, and I are close—even more so after Connor’s death. I close my eyes and release a slow, deep breath. Used to be a time when I couldn’t even think those words—Connor’s death. Connor died. Connor. The pain would flay me, stripping emotional skin from my bones. I didn’t scream aloud, but the cries would echo in my head like a crazy-ass banshee. Now, two years later, the agony had dulled to a sore ache. Still there but bearable, a reminder of an injury. Even forgotten for small stretches of time.

But for Katherine, the suffering hasn’t diminished. Her sorrow is as sharp as the day she found out her son had died in a stadium locker room from a ruptured brain aneurysm. Connor was—is—her son, and I can’t imagine losing a child, no matter his age. She’s clung to her family to get her through. Well—I glance at Knox and meet his shuttered, dark green gaze—most of her family. She considers me her last living piece of Connor, and my leaving is going to hurt her. Badly.

But I can’t let that keep me frozen in this…half-life anymore. Moving is just the first step. When I met Connor, I dropped out of college, choosing to move in with him, to support him and his career. To just be with him. Now, I’m a twenty-four-year-old widow with no college education, living in her in-laws’ house. Not what I envisioned for myself. I enjoy working at the shop as the manager—really love it. I’m good at it, and I have so many ideas how Knox can grow, expand his brand, maybe open more tattoo shops. To gather the courage to approach him with my thoughts, I need to learn more about marketing, promotion, and business. And to accomplish that, I have to return to school.

That’s step two.

Yeah, I’m trying to become a big girl.

“No, they’re not,” he agrees once more. There’s no softness or gentleness to his voice, but I don’t need either at the moment. If he did soften, I might cave and decide to put this move off like I’ve done for a couple of months now. “Are you ready to face it?”

Again, we’re on that same wavelength, and I don’t need to ask what he’s referring to. “Face their sadness? Hurt? The sense of betrayal?” I shake my head and spread my hands out, palms up. My heart pounds, lodging in the base of my throat as if I’m telling them at this moment. “How the hell do I prepare myself for that?”

Knox snags his chair and lowers his big frame into it, never removing his steady, piercing gaze from my face. Jesus, he’s… Handsome isn’t the right word. That’s too anemic, too…tame. Even though I can tell from the strain around his eyes and the tautness of his skin over his slanting cheekbones that he had a rough night, there’s still a wildness, a harsh rawness in his fierce, angular features that isn’t softened a bit by the lush fullness of his mouth or the dark brown scruff that’s a little thicker than a five o’clock shadow but nowhere near verging into Duck Dynasty territory. Thank God. He’s beautiful in the way of a black leopard—powerful and dangerous, muscles covered in sleekness. And all that focus and intensity. When he fixes that on a woman while he’s fucking her, it must be exhilarating and terrifying at the same time. An image flashes across my mind before I can strike it down.

His hard, relentlessly male features are dark and stamped with a carnality that is both cruel and sexual. Green eyes hooded; skin pulled tight over sharp cheekbones; full, sensual mouth even fuller, more sensual, the corner curled into a small snarl.

Fuck.

I struggle not to fidget but fail. A small, subtle shift of my hips, and heat licks at my sex, flicking my clit. Please God, let him take the betraying movement as nerves rather than arousal. Catastrophic doesn’t even begin to cover the mortification that would consume me if he discovered my inappropriate, damn abnormal fascination and…preoccupation with him. Yes, preoccupation sounds so much better than obsession. Still, doesn’t matter what you call it. Fascination, preoccupation, obsession—they’re all so wrong when I possess them for my dead husband’s brother.

In some people’s books, it would make me a slut, at best. A deviant, at worst. Or a deviant slut.

One of those books would belong to Katherine and Dan. And the thought of hurting them, of piling more despair on top of Katherine’s already fragile shoulders… I’d die rather than do that to the woman who’s been more of a mother to me than the one who birthed me.

“You can’t,” he answers my question. “You just do it and brace yourself for the fallout.” His eyes narrow on me. “Are you ready for this, Eden? To move out and live on your own?”

If it’d been anyone else asking, I might take offense. Might, hell. I would definitely take offense. Just the suggestion that I’m weak, that I can’t fend for myself, support myself, sets my teeth on edge. I’ve survived what most people have only seen on Lifetime movies—a drunk father and not-all-the-way-there mother, homelessness at eighteen, the death of my husband. I might appear like a good Chicago wind could blow me over, but I’m stronger than anything life has thrown at me.

But that’s not what he meant. For five years, I haven’t been on my own. Three months after meeting Connor, I moved into his cramped, one-bedroom apartment. Then when he died, I lived with his parents. Am I ready for the loneliness that might eat me alive? For the silence that might press in on me?

The truth?

I don’t know.

But I’m ready to find out.

And moving out is just the first step. But it’s the most important one.

“If I don’t do it now, I might never do it,” I reply, shifting my attention to the muscular forearms resting on his thick thighs and the large hands clasped together between them. “It would be easier to stay with Katherine and Dan. But I need to…” Get on with my life trembles on my tongue. God, that sounds so cold, so dismissive. As if I’m really saying, get over Connor. And maybe…maybe both are right. I’ll never forget Connor—how could I forget my first love, my husband?—but I can’t remain in this limbo, either. My fingers tangle together of their own will. Though I despise the gesture and what it reveals, I can’t stop the restless, anxious twisting. “The house. It’s…” The words stick in my throat, and I swallow to force the explanation out. “I love your parents, but I feel like I’m not progressing there. At first, I needed to be there, for them as well as myself. But sometimes I feel like I’m…like I’m suffocating.” Horrified at what I just said about his parents, I jerk my head up and stare into his eyes. “I’m sorry,” I whisper. “I didn’t mean…”

The guilt gnaws at me, because I did mean it. It makes me a selfish, ungrateful bitch, but I did.

“Don’t apologize for being honest.” His fingers curl, and for a breath-stalling moment, I think he might hold my hands, hug me. Except for the odd, rare embrace and the one time I cried in his arms, Knox doesn’t touch me. And he doesn’t now, either. He straightens, his back pressed to the chair. “I know they lean on you more than the rest of us. Especially Mom. To her, you’re all she has left of Connor, and she clings tight to you. She’s”—he pauses, his mouth hardening a little—“fragile right now, and to keep the peace and keep her steady, we’ve all allowed it. And that’s not fair to you. So, no, don’t apologize. This just means we have to step up.”

I stare, barely managing to keep my jaw hinged shut. That might be the most I’ve heard him speak at one time.

“So, umm…” I clear my throat. “Can I ask a favor?”

He arches a dark eyebrow.

“I plan to tell them Sunday.” Sundays were family dinner nights. It’d been a tradition I’d been folded into when I started dating Connor. Since his death, they hadn’t been the boisterous, laughter-filled affairs they’d once been. And Knox has only showed up a handful of times. “Will you come to dinner? I know it’s a lot to ask,” I rush on, because I did recognize the toll these dinners exacted on him. But this past year, especially, Knox has become my rock. Not that I’d ever told him that. He wouldn’t appreciate it. No…correction. He wouldn’t want the burden of it. “But I could really use your support.”

For several moments, he doesn’t reply, just stares at me with that unwavering, piercing emerald gaze that could burn a hole through you. Finally, he nods.

“I’ll be there.”

A sigh of relief erupts from me. I’d been ready for his refusal. And wouldn’t have blamed him for it.

“Thanks.” I lean forward and rest my hand on his leg. The muscles underneath the denim tighten, and my breath snags. Before I can prevent it, my fingers curl into his huge thigh, squeezing. I swallow back a groan, captivated by the strength and…power that seems to emanate from him, to vibrate under my palm. It’s like grasping a lion by the tail and waiting breathlessly for him to let you pet and stroke him. Or for him to pounce and snap his mighty jaws around your neck. Did it make me a little disturbed that I didn’t know which I craved more?

Yeah. Disturbed.

And more than a little horny.

It’d been two years since I’d been with a man. Screw that. “Been with a man,” is just too damn euphemistic. Two years since I’ve had sex.

Since I’ve fucked.

It’s like my body shut off, went into a cryogenic state after Connor died. For six months, I remained in that frozen condition, no emotions, no needs, nothing. It’d been Knox who forced my return to the land of the living. One afternoon, in his no-nonsense, I-don’t-give-a-fuck way, he’d barged into my room at his parents’ home, literally carried me out of the bed and into the bathroom, where he’d dumped me into the shower and turned on the water. After much yelling and cursing on my part, he calmly explained that I would be his new receptionist at the tattoo shop. If I didn’t show up the next morning, he’d come back for me. I showed up. And when I broke down at the end of that first day, sobbing as the grief and rage poured out of me, he held me, silently letting me cry and scream until I was hoarse and my head hurt. That had been the true beginning of my healing. I have him to thank for that.

I also have him to thank for the reappearance of my sex drive.

Though I’d started to smile and laugh again, that part of me—the need, the arousal—had remained dormant. Then, a year after starting at the shop, we’d all gone out to one of the local bars to celebrate my promotion to manager. A couple of hours in, I’d gone to the bathroom, and on my way back to the bar, I passed a partially closed door. To this day, I don’t know what made me pause and glance inside the room. Maybe a sound that caught my attention underneath the throbbing music and shouts and conversations? Maybe some intuition? Either way, one peek into that dark, cluttered storeroom, and the ice that encased my body for so long melted under a fiery meteorite of lust.

Knox.

His back propped against a tall rack, his huge body taut. His hand burrowed in the dark red strands of the woman kneeling in front of him with his dick buried in her mouth. Even now, the heavy, aching pulse that had throbbed low in my belly, between my legs, as I stood frozen in that doorway, resurges. That memory is so damn entrenched in my brain that it torments me when I sleep, when I’m awake. When I’m eating damn breakfast. The wet suction of him driving into her. The woman’s ravenous moans. His almost guttural, low growls.

But in the vision, it’s me with my fingernails denting his jean-covered thighs. Me, with my lips stretched wide, taking him down my throat. Me, tearing those sounds of pleasure from him, shredding his unshakeable control. Me, staring up at the razor-sharp edges and planes of his face that appeared even more chiseled from stone with lust branded on his face. And those eyes. They’d always been gorgeous to me. While Connor’s eyes had been a lovely, pale green that reminded me of spring, Knox’s are a dark, deep emerald. Fathomless. And that night…

I shiver. That night from my vantage point, I’d glimpsed that gaze just before he tilted his head back. It haunts me, chases me into my dreams and darkest, dirtiest fantasies. His normally impassive, shuttered gaze had blazed like emerald fire. Like the stalking, predatory animal he’d unleashed in the MMA ring had reappeared with this woman.

In that moment, I’d wanted to be that woman. Craved it.

I’d longed to switch places with her, be full of him, have his taste and power inside me…bring him back to fierce, almost feral life.

Exhaling, I remove my hand from his leg. Dangerous. Touching him is too dangerous when I dance this close to the edge of begging him to take me, to fuck me until every part of me—my sex, my thighs, my belly, my chest, the goddamn soles of my feet—echoes with the knowledge that he’s been inside me.

But I have zero doubt Knox doesn’t want me like that. Entwined in his life as his brother’s widow? As his adopted sister? As his shop manager? Yes. But as a woman he’d press to her knees so he could defile her mouth? No.

I know because he told me as much, a few days after I’d seen him and the woman in the club storeroom. God, I hadn’t been able to look him in the eyes, not with the memory of him so entrenched in my mind. I could still hear his grunts, his growled orders… Maybe he’d picked up on my discomfort, or maybe he’d believed I was having one of my “spells” when the grief over Connor just snuck up on me.

Either way, as I cleared off the front desk and shut down the computer, he’d touched me. Which he almost never did. But that night, he broke his norm. Just my hands. He clasped them, his larger ones practically swallowing mine. Such a simple, innocent touch, one meant to comfort, but when I could no longer look at his fingers without envisioning them twisted in my hair… There was nothing innocent about it for me, or about the tight, aching pull of desire between my sex.

I can only imagine what my gaze contained when I tilted my head back. Need? A plea to put those big hands on me? Questions about whether he wanted me, too?

Maybe all of those. Because something entered that hooded, emerald stare. Something dark, cold…forbidding. He’d never looked at me like that before, and icy, skeletal fingers of…not fear, but almost of despair had scraped down my back, infiltrated my veins.

He didn’t want me. And the hardness in his eyes had assured me I’d violated the bounds of our friendship by even hoping he would. He hadn’t needed words to shut me down. He’d done it with a stare and by walking away without a backward glance.

Then, and even now, I don’t resent him for that unspoken but implicit rejection. He’s my dead husband’s brother, for God’s sake. Still… Buried deep beneath reason is that fragile kernel of my sexual confidence, curled into a protective fetal position, shielding itself from any more rejection from the one man it’d shyly awakened for.

“Anyway,” I say, lifting my head, forcing a false cheer into my voice and shoving that pathetic memory far, far away. “About this tattoo…”

My voice trails off as I meet his stare, the rapid, heavy thump of my heart replacing my voice. I try to swallow, but I got nothing. All the moisture in my mouth has evaporated under the force of his hooded, glittering scrutiny. It’s as if we’ve traveled back in time in a souped-up DeLorean, and he’s in that dim storeroom once again, a single bulb illuminating us. And I’m clutching him, starved for him.

“What do you want?” he growls.

I blink, my voice trapped inside my throat. So much. Your mouth. Your hands. Your body. Your fire. Your rawness.

You.

“For your tattoo,” he clarifies.

The tattoo. Of course. Shaking my head as if that could dislodge those fruitless thoughts that reek of everything taboo and forbidden, I stand on trembling legs. And when I look down at him, his gaze is as impenetrable as always. God, am I so desperate that I superimposed my own lust on him and misjudged what I saw in his eyes? Disgust rolls through me, and I welcome it. He’s just not into you, my inner know-it-all whispers smugly. Yeah, I remind myself, crossing the room and picking up one of the black plastic portfolios on the glass table in front of his small couch. To Knox, I’m his younger brother’s widow. That’s it. That’s all I’ll ever be. Which meant I’d better find another outlet for this desire. Quick. Five minutes ago.

Flipping through the laminated pages, I find what I want in seconds. “Here.” I return to him, holding the opened book out to him. “This one.”

We both study the watercolor of three flowers on a vine. I know exactly zip about flowers, but they could be roses or peonies painted in soft, varying shades of pink, lavender, green, and brown. It truly resembles something Van Gogh would’ve created rather than a tattoo. From the first time I spotted the piece a year ago, I’ve wanted it. Only now, on the cusp of making changes in my life, have I dragged on my big mama drawers to get it.

“It’s yours, right?” I ask. When he nods, I trace the first, tightly furled bud. The second one is shyly halfway open, and the third is in full bloom. Spring. Life again. “It’s beautiful.”

“You should have Shana do this for you,” he states in the deep rumble that reverberates inside me like a low drum of thunder. “Watercolor is what she does.”

I know this. The other female artist is a genius when it comes to this particular style. But… “I want you.”

The three words echo between us, seeming to gain velocity and volume with each beat of silence in the room. Mortification slams into me. Jesus. His shoulders stiffen, and his big fist clenches around the edge of the portfolio, the plastic cracking in his grip. Glancing at his face, I see the harsh, sculpted lines are even more stern, more severe.

“If you’ve changed your mind—”

“No,” he cuts me off, closing the portfolio with a slap of his palm. “I said I’ll do it. I’ll do it.”

“Look, forget it. When Shana arrives, I’ll ask her to fit me in.” I head toward the door, a little hurt and a lot ready to escape this room that has suddenly become too tiny, too stifling, too hot. Feeling like a nuisance—an undesired nuisance—sucks shit. This was probably all a bad idea anyway…

Two long fingers hook into the waistband of my jeans, halting my march of humiliation.

I gasp. This is the closest I’ll ever come to having Knox’s hand in my pants, and I’m relishing the kiss of flesh to flesh, which feels more like a brand than a simple touch. Glancing down, I nearly groan. The purple, lace band of my thong rides above my jeans, and when I slide a peek at Knox, his gaze is lasered to it.

I stop breathing, watching the nostrils of his twice-broken but somehow still-elegant nose flare as he sharply inhales. Bracing myself, I expect him to snatch his hand away, but instead, he slowly slides his fingers free, stroking my skin. As if he’s savoring the caress.

Only when he turns around, giving me his broad shoulders and back, do I close my eyes and silently, deliberately exhale. Feeling like a newborn colt on shaking, gangly legs, I cross the short distance to the tattoo chair and sink onto it.

Silence permeates the room. The only sounds are the rip of the new needle package, and the open and closing of drawers as Knox grabs ink, caps, and his tattoo equipment. His hands are steady. More evidence that I’m the only one affected by this troublesome, objectionable lust.

Maybe I just need to go find someone to fuck. I spend most of my time with Knox in this shop. That could explain why this…hunger seems to be fixated on him. Shana and V have been attempting to hook me up with guys for months, but I’ve always claimed I’m not ready. But maybe I should give it a try. I mean, not only would I satisfy this need clawing at me, but it would also be with someone I’ve never called “brother.”

Win-win.

“You ready?” Knox spins to face me on his stool, his expression cool, professional. Like I’m any other client.

Fine. I can be polite, too.

I nod. “Yeah.”

“Where do you want it?”

Instead of answering, I scoot farther back on the chair, which wouldn’t be out of place in a dentist’s office, recline, and lift up my shirt. “Here.” I trace the right side of my torso, several inches below my breast. “What do you think?”

Knox doesn’t answer. He hasn’t moved. He studies my bared stomach with the same, narrowed, fevered gaze I convinced myself I’d imagined moments earlier. Jesus, it’s like he’s…like he’s touching me, licking me, devouring me with that stare. Sweat pops out on my palms. My heart slams against my chest wall, bruising it. Liquid heat pours into my sex, and I’m on fire, even as I’m drowning. My thighs quiver, and I squeeze them together to alleviate the ache.

His scrutiny drops, and damn, he didn’t miss that telltale movement. I know he didn’t. Not when the sensual curves of his mouth harden, and the skin over his cheekbones seems to tauten. Embarrassment races through me. But right next to it, keeping pace, is excitement. A shameful excitement. His hooded contemplation slowly travels up my body and settles on the jeweled ring piercing my belly button.

“When did you get this?” he asks, flicking it.

“Last month,” I whisper. “Jude did it for me.”

“Is it still tender?” he murmurs, flipping the metal again.

Pain in the palest shade of red tinges the pleasure zinging through me and arrowing straight to the wet flesh between my thighs. My teeth sink into my bottom lip, and I can’t prevent the slight squirm of my hips.

“A little,” I breathe. Then, because I can’t hold it in… “Do it again.” It’s clearly a plea, and I know how it sounds. Greedy. Desperate. Screw it. I don’t care. “Please.”

That piercing, emerald gaze—with its dark depths and hard edges—bores into mine. Instinct warns me to avoid it, but I don’t. Can’t. Even if it means he glimpses the arousal that’s lighting me up like the Olympic torch.

As if in slow motion, he grasps the tiny jewel in the middle of the ring.

And tugs.

My breath explodes from my lungs, echoing in the room like a cannon shot. It shouldn’t feel this good. But God, it does. Maybe because it’s him. No, definitely because it’s him.

“Again,” I rasp, my fingernails digging into the leather cushion.

Something spasms across his face, some emotion I can’t decipher. But it’s dark, a little forbidding, like that night months earlier. A little scary, a little be-careful-what-you’re-asking-for. A lot I’ll-fuck-you-into-this-chair. Part of me almost rescinds the request, not ready for what that expression promises. But the starving, hasn’t-been-touched-in-two-years part drowns out that other half. Yeah, I might not be ready. Doesn’t mean I don’t want it more than my next lust-infused breath. Especially from him. Especially when I’d convinced myself I’d never have this.

Without releasing me from the visual snare of his eyes, he rolls closer on the stool, lowers his head, and—

Ohhh fuck.

His tongue sweeps over me, curling around the jewelry, gently sucking, pulling. The springy but soft hair of his scruff brushes my skin, adding another sensation to enjoy and covet more of. Pleasure radiates from where his mouth covers me, and my clit pulses like a beacon. My nipples throb, drawing into tight points, and I cover them with my hands, palms pressing into them. But it doesn’t ease the ache, just worsens it—or heightens it. Both.

Unable to remain still, I whimper, arching into his wicked caress, my hips rolling, begging for another, harder, deeper touch. Releasing the belly ring, he traces the rim of my navel, dipping inside. Blowing gently on the damp skin.

He straightens, and I almost cry with the loss of that beautiful mouth on me. Releasing one breast, I trail my hand down my torso and stroke the damp flesh he left behind. As if I can seal the impression of his tongue into my skin.

“Lift your shirt higher,” he growls. Shock slaps me, and I freeze, my hands—one on my stomach, the other over my breast—going still. Standing from the stool, he leans over me, his big palms resting on the chair arms. A fine tension damn near vibrates from him, his muscles straining against his shirt. The tendons in his neck stand out in sharp relief. He appears one second—or one disobedient act—away from snapping and losing control. “Show me where it hurts.”

Is this the same voice he used on the girl at the bar to convince her to enter that storeroom and get down on her knees for him? Because, like her, I’m ready to please him. And all because he asked in that rough, sex-on-churned-up-earth voice. I’m raising my shirt, baring my chest when there’s a shop full of people just on the other side of the door. I don’t even think it’s locked. But at this moment, I wouldn’t care if Jude, his client, and the client’s mama stride into the room. I just want to give Knox what he wants.

What I need.

And I need to see the desire deepening his eyes to a green so dark, they appear black. I need him to cool the burn, satisfy the hunger. I need to be wanted. By him.

“Here,” I whisper. Then, another woman—a less inhibited, more sexually confident, don’t-give-a-good-fuck woman—possesses my body because I tug down the lace bra, freeing my breasts. Cool air brushes over my flesh, and the nipples bead tighter. But I don’t fool myself. It’s his gaze on me that has me in this state, not the kiss of air. “It hurts here.”

I cup myself, offering…pleading.

And he takes.

A loud, slightly ominous rumble is my only warning before he swoops down and sucks my nipple into his mouth, drawing hard.

A scream shoots up my chest, crawls up my throat, but I slap a hand over my lips before it escapes. I burrow the other hand into his hair, dislodging the bun he binds the thick strands into when he’s tattooing. I can’t… I can’t think. Can’t… My muffled cry is muted in the room, but in my head, it’s splintering glass. Perking up the ears of dogs. His tongue torments me, each pull and stroke tugging on a phantom cord connected to my sex. There’s no hesitation in him. No gentleness.

No mercy.

And I don’t want his mercy or his tenderness. For the first time in years, someone is treating me like I’m not this fragile figurine that needs to be delicately handled so I won’t shatter. Treating me like a woman.

Lowering my hand, I am riveted by the sight of his mouth surrounding me. Watching him only sharpens the pleasure shrieking through me like the fiercest Chicago wind. With a soft pop, he releases me, and I trace his reddened, swollen lips. Soft, but firm. Generous but a little bit cruel. I’ve been obsessed with this mouth. What it could do to me. And now part of that fantasy is coming true.

I shiver.

“Kiss me,” I murmur, pressing my fingertip to the middle of his bottom lip, groaning as the edge of his teeth grazes my skin. It’s a demand. A plea. A wish. I want to finally taste him. Find out if he’s a dark, heady flavor that will go straight to my head and leave me drunk for hours. Discover for myself what that other woman knows. Determine if he’s as addictive as I think he will be.

I already know the answer to that.

The two words reverberate in the room, and his impossibly long, dense lashes lower. A harsh, serrated breath shudders from between his parted lips. Even before his big body goes rigid, a sickening tightness in the pit of my stomach alerts me that something is wrong. Has changed. Like a ghost suddenly appeared in the room, the temperature seems to drop. But that cold isn’t emanating from an apparition; it’s from Knox.

His lashes lift, and this time when I shiver, it’s not the reaction to lust, but to the ice coating his gaze, chilling the flames there until they’re extinguished. Not even embers remain. This look is all too familiar. And I shrink from it now, just as much as I did then.

“Fuck.” Knox shoves away from me as if I’m the pox gift-wrapped in the clap. I flinch, even though the vicious lash of anger is clearly self-directed. He stalks across the room, thrusting his hands through his hair, completely dislodging the bun I’d loosened. The dark brown and gold strands tumble down, covering his closely shaven sides and falling just below his jaw.

He tips his head back, and if I didn’t know he’d cursed God years ago—two, to be exact—I’d assume he’s praying. But no. From the tortured frown that creases his forehead, the rapid rise and fall of his chest, and the clenched fists next to his thighs, he’s most likely condemning himself to a place the far opposite of heaven.

His obvious shame sends the grit of guilt scraping my skin, leaving nasty scratches behind.

Swallowing back the acidic burn of humiliation scorching my throat, I quickly fix my bra and jerk down my shirt, covering myself. But I still feel naked, exposed. Vulnerable.

This is my fault. I’m so fucking stupid. What was I thinking? Mimicking his gesture, I bury my hands in my hair, tugging on the strands and enjoying the bite of pain. It gives me something to focus on other than how I damn near begged Knox to touch me. Yeah, he might’ve been a complete guy and responded in that moment, but just looking at him now…

I duck my head, unable to continue staring at him. It hurts too much. The ache and mortification of rejection. The horror that he would now see me as a pathetic, needy woman who he almost pity-fucked in his tattoo chair. The sadness that our friendship might be scarred by this. Because he couldn’t have made his regret at putting his mouth on me plainer if he’d branded it on his forehead.

And worse? Worse is my body still hums with unfulfilled need. My nipples are so tight, one touch would buckle my knees. I’m so wet, my panties are probably beyond saving.

I ache.

And I need to get out of here before I do something even crazier. Such as climb him like a jungle gym and plead with him to get me off. To finish what he started the night I watched him come in another woman’s mouth.

Oh, hell yeah, I need to escape this room.

My feet are moving before the message hits my brain. Survival instincts at their finest.

“Eden.”

That gravel-and-sin voice only adds wings to my feet. Please, don’t try to talk to me. Not when I can still feel your tongue curling around my nipple. Please save your apology and “This was a mistake” speech for later. As in, Junevember 56th later.

“Don’t worry, Knox,” I say, forcing a nonchalance that is as false as the wig collection on RuPaul’s Drag Race. I even manage a glance over my shoulder, though it nearly guts me. He hasn’t moved. But the anger and shame are entrenched in every line in his forehead. In the grim set of his mouth. In the darkness of his eyes.

Whipping around, I concentrate on the closed door. On grabbing the knob. Twisting it.

“Don’t worry,” I repeat, unable to block the hurt from leaking into my tone. Even though my mind acknowledges he did us both a favor by pulling away—that going any further with him would’ve been a monumental mistake—my confidence is kicked to hell and back. “This was a mistake, and it’ll never happen again,” I utter the words before he can, trying to salvage some of my pride.

Wrenching the door open, I slip through and close it behind me.

Too bad I can’t shut it on the last half hour.

Fuck.

Where’s that DeLorean when you need it?