Chapter Thirty-Four

Knox

It was the longest class I’d ever taught in my entire life.

A sharp ache was banging between my ears as I finally dismissed class and waited for everyone to trickle out.

Naturally, Jessica just had to be one of the last ones. I hadn’t given her any of my attention, any of my time.

“Knox?” The way she said my name had my skin crawling. What the hell had I been thinking kissing her just to shove the girl I really wanted away? I shuddered at the memory of her touch and glanced up.

“What?” I hadn’t meant for it to sound like a bark, but it had come out aggressive and a whole lot of pissed-off.

She took a step back, her face blank before a forced smile appeared. “So, I’m hosting a party this weekend, just a few friends. Do you think you’d like to come and—”

“No,” I cut her short. “I’m good. Thanks for the invite.”

“But—”

I sighed and dropped the papers from my hands. I slammed my palms against the table. “Leo, take care of this.”

I knew he was hanging back with Shawn, so I was killing two birds with one stone.

Leo took the stairs two at a time, but not fast enough to keep Jessica from losing her shit and saying, “Her? Out of all the girls you’ve been with, me included, you choose a girl who probably doesn’t even know who her daddy is? Come on, Knox, you’re better than that!”

“Enough!” I roared. Blood pumped through my veins, making my fists clench and unclench. Never had I wanted to hit a woman so badly in my entire life. I breathed in and out at her wide-eyed expression. “Say one more word, and I’ll cheerfully ruin your reputation. We keep records of everything, and I’d rather take you down with me and end Wingman, Inc.’s presence on this campus than hear one more word from your bitchy mouth.”

She paled.

She had reasons to.

She was one of the clients who’d asked for a little extra, a client who’d often used her time with us to confess all the horrible things she’d done to girls in competition with her. She’d bragged, and we’d recorded everything for safety reasons. Granted, we were never supposed to expose secrets — it was part of our jobs — but I’d rather be tangled in a lawsuit with the bitch than have to deal with one more word from her nasty mouth.

“Fine.” She licked her lips, and her eyes flickered to Leo as he casually wrapped an arm around her and led her to the door.

“I ever tell you that time I was in bed for three days?” He laughed, the door clicking shut behind him.

And then there was Shawn.

Beautiful. Sexy. Shawn.

With her messenger bag over one shoulder, her beanie hung low over her eyes, and her hair spread out across her shoulders like a fluffy velvet blanket. It was hard to look away from her gaze, as if she held some sort of power over me that was inexplicable.

“Listen, Shawn, I’m so—”

“Stop.” She dropped her messenger bag, walked slowly to the door.

I hung my head.

She pulled the blinds and locked the door then turned.

I waited for her to cry, to tell me it was my fault, that she hated the attention, that I wasn’t worth it.

I hadn’t expected her to come back.

But she did.

She walked back to me and grabbed the front of my shirt, jerking me toward her. Our bodies crushed together as her mouth met mine in a soulful kiss that said way more than I could with words.

“Thank you,” she breathed between peppered kisses and sliding tongues, between hurried hands and the rustle of strained clothing between us. “Thank you,” she said again as the line blurred more between right and wrong, secrets and lies.

And I let it blur until all I saw was us as I gripped her by the ass and set her on the desk, as I wrapped her muscled legs around my body and jerked the beanie off her head. I tossed it into the air in an effort to grip her hair without any sort of obstruction.

“I’m not good at this.” I stopped what would have been another kiss in a series of hundreds of kisses that would have led to sex on the desk of the professor she hated. In a class she wasn’t passing. In a world that wasn’t fair. In a time when it should have been.

She beamed, still clinging to the front of my shirt. “I think you’re great at this…”

“You know what I mean,” I whispered. “I’m not good at the after, the part where the guy tells you he’s good, that he won’t walk away. I’m not the hero, Shawn.”

“Yeah? Well, take it from me. Heroes are disappointing and oftentimes weaker than the villains.” She shrugged. “Give me the villain ready to flip off the entire world in an effort to prove a point any day. Give me the guy willing to take down the world for what he believes in. I want that guy.”

“It was wrong. It is wrong. The way you’re treated for being with me.” There. I’d said it. The elephant had appeared, and the room tensed again. But her eyes never once left mine as she brought her mouth closer until I could taste her, until my body pulsed with the need to do it again, until she was all I could taste.

“Knox…” Her voice wavered. “…I know what it’s like to be treated unfairly.” She licked her lips and let the words float into the air, let me absorb them as I took in her brown skin and jet-black hair. “You ignore it the best you can and prove them wrong the only way a fighter knows how.”

I sighed. “That’s the fucking problem, Shawn.”

“What?” Her eyes searched mine.

I wanted to close her off, to keep the truth locked down just a little while longer. “You’re innocent,” I breathed out. “I’m not.”

She sighed.

I expected her to press me further.

Most girls would.

Instead, she just kissed me again, as if it would solve all my problems, all of our problems. And in that second, I forced myself to believe it would. I convinced myself that as long as I had her, I could ignore the demons I hadn’t yet dealt with. I could ignore what was causing my gut to clench every single time I saw the look in her eyes.

The look of trust I didn’t deserve.

With a moan, I deepened the kiss, desperate to forget, to lose myself in her. I was suddenly thankful she’d decided on wearing joggers as I first pulled off her shoes, next her pants, and kissed her backward toward the locked door, the closed blinds, with the sounds of students laughing and talking just a few feet away from us.

I pressed her back against the door. “Shhhh.”

“Are we really doing this. Another door?” Her voice had a bit of thrill in it as she reached for the button of my jeans.

I rubbed myself against her and kissed the crook of her neck then moved her hair aside and nuzzled lower.

“That must be my answer.”

“Or this…” I shrugged my jeans down my hips and teased her entrance. Damn, she was so wet and ready for me.

She sighed into my mouth, “Good answer.”

“The best.” I reached into my pocket to pull out a condom.

“Pill.” She kissed me hard enough that I had to grab her to keep from stumbling backward. She used the angle to slide along my length like I was a fucking ride at the fair. Her inner heat seared me then she clamped down with her muscles down there, driving me wild with need.

I liked it.

I liked it too much.

With a moan, I felt my balls tighten as the world stood still, and I became aware that it suddenly wasn’t about sex to me.

Maybe it never had been.

It was about her.

I thrust forward in anticipation. She opened to me, accepted me, trusted me. It was beautiful.

It was something I’d never had with another soul.

Her eyes closed as I moved.

My heart soared as she mouthed my name.

Fingers toyed with my shirt as our mouths met, our bodies moving in a slow cadence while the world didn’t even know what was happening, or what to listen for. I felt the shift in the universe and knew this was different. She was different.

The ending would not be the same.

A heavy silence descended between us as I pressed feather-light kisses to her jaw, the sweet taste of her skin driving me to the edge as we both spiraled out of control. She writhed against me as I sank deeper into her, my thrusts coming faster and faster. A fury of pleasure hung between us, and my pace quickened. She gripped my shoulders, throwing her head back against the window of the door. The blinds moved a bit.

I glanced at them, but from what I could tell, they still blocked out the rest of the world. I didn’t pay them any further attention.

I was too lost to think clearly.

Too lost to realize…

That someone was there. Someone was seeing enough to destroy both of us.

“Knox, I can’t,” Shawn panted. “I can’t hold on—”

“Not your job.” I found her mouth, got her there, and followed closely behind, my tongue wild, my body completely unleashed.

While. Evil. Watched.