All Chained Up (15 page)

He nodded, still staring at her in that devouring way of his. She swallowed and stepped around him, escaping the narrow space of her kitchen. Walking backward, he still followed, looking all at once leisurely and predatory.

She gestured toward her bedroom. “I—­I'm going to take a quick shower before the food gets here.”

She'd backed away as much as she could, finally stopping when she came in contact with the wall and could go no farther. He stopped a few inches in front of her and her hand shot out, flattening against his chest. She resisted the instinct to curl her fingers against the shirt perfectly molded to him. To feel his skin. The thud of his heart.

He glanced down at her hand and back up to her face, one dark eyebrow arched.

“We can't,” she breathed.

“We already have,” he countered, his tone even and reasonable and so deeply tempting it sent a shiver down her spine. “Several times.”

“It doesn't mean we should. Again.” Was that strangled voice her own? It sounded pathetic even to her ears. Hardly convincing.

He angled his head, something glinting in his eyes. He stepped forward until his chest pushed against her breasts and all the air left her in a rush.

“And why shouldn't we? Again?”

His question rattled around in her mind like a marble flying through a pinball machine. Why?
Why?
She was having trouble coming up with a coherent answer. She'd possessed reasons enough earlier, but she just couldn't think of a single one anymore. And that's pretty much how it was around him. Briar ceased to think.

“It just complicates things, blurs l-­lines . . . boundaries.”
Sweet Jesus
. She was rambling.

A dark shutter fell over the blue of his eyes. “Suddenly so concerned with slumming it? No one has to know, Nurse Davis. I promise I'll keep your dirty little secret between us.”

“It's not like that at all,” she hotly denied.

“Isn't it?” He shrugged. “I'm okay with that. It's actually not complicated. It's called fucking. That's what we're doing here.”

She gasped and she didn't know why. She should expect bold language from him by now. She knew he was all rough edges. Nothing soft or malleable to him.

His mouth grazed her ear. “So I say let's get this out of our systems.” The back of his hand trailed down her front, brushing over her aching breast. She whimpered as his hand continued its descent.

His voice continued, too, languid and deep as warm honey rolling through her. “We can keep scratching that itch of yours.” His blunt-­tipped fingers slid under the elastic waistband of her wind shorts, under the thin fabric of her panties and straight between her legs.

Knox palmed her, flexing his hand over her sex like he owned it. And she supposed he did. One touch and she was putty, completely at his mercy.

He bit down on her ear, and her knees threatened to buckle. They would have if not for his grip between her legs. “You know the itch I'm talking about. Back at the Rock, you wanted it from me then, too.” He stroked the wet seam between her legs, back and forth, back and forth, exerting a little more pressure with each sweeping pass of his fingers. “Every time you opened your mouth, every time you looked at me,
this
was between us. It was only a matter of time.”

Embarrassing little sounds escaped her. Noisy pants and choked gasps. She sealed her lips into a tight line and brought her hands up to his shoulders.

“Even though you couldn't admit it, not even to yourself, you wanted me to give you this then.” He brushed her clit with the pad of his thumb and she cried out like someone lit fire to her flesh. “And you want it now.”

He followed the statement by easing his finger deep inside her. He curled inward, hitting that happy spot that she had thought nonexistent before him. She came apart, shaking all around him as a keening hum built in the back of her throat.

She bit her lip until she tasted the copper of blood. The slight pain didn't even bother her. She welcomed it. Just another layer to the sensations overrunning her, waking her up all over again.

Her head fell back against the wall, lolling from side to side. She blinked, trying to clear the cloudy haze from her eyes. A swift breeze slid over her legs and she was vaguely aware that her shorts and underwear were at her ankles. A faint crinkle of a condom wrapper followed and then her feet lifted off the floor, her back sliding against the wall.

She looked down, met his dark-­rimmed blue eyes just as he shoved up inside her, his hardness filling her so completely her lips broke apart on a moan.

He held himself still inside her, hands cupping her ass. Pinned between his big body and the wall, she inhaled deeply, her chest lifting as she tried to catch her breath. An impossibility. She felt swallowed up. Surrounded and invaded by every part of him. There was no separating her from him. Him from her. His gaze fixed on her, holding her hostage.

She swallowed, searching for her voice, desperate for him to move, to sweep her back to that place where she flew out of her body. Left her flesh and skin and bones behind. He pulsed inside her, his cock buried deep. She gulped for air, swallowing hard, fighting against the impulse to pant and make more embarrassing sounds.

She stretched high against him, her hands clutching the taut curve of his shoulders as she tried to move her hips, but it was useless. He had her trapped between him and the wall.

“Still say we can't do this?” he challenged, holding himself agonizingly motionless.

She writhed, desperate to move. To fuck. And the glint in his eyes told her he knew that. He was playing with her, using her desire against her.

She whimpered, hating how easily her body turned on her. Hating herself for being so weak. Her face flushed hot. She nodded drunkenly. “Yes! We can, okay!”

“Can what?” His voice flayed like a whip. The laser focus of his eyes cut deep into her, striking bone. “Say it, Briar.”

“We can . . . we can fuck.”

He cocked his head to the side as if to say
not good enough
. He gave the barest pump of his hips, but that drag of their skin together shot sensation to every nerve in her body. “You sure?”

“Damn it, yes,” she hissed, her nails digging into him as she strained to lift up and ride him.

It was what he had been waiting for. Her unflinching consent. Her total surrender.

“Remember that,” he growled, his fingers flexing on her ass. “Then we won't have to have this conversation again.”

She nodded, even knowing some of her should bristle at the command in his voice, at his total domination of her, but in that moment she didn't care. She wanted to be dominated by him.

He pulled out and thrust back inside her, finally unleashing himself, giving her what she wanted. What she needed. And he didn't stop. Filling her, pushing and pulling, rocking against her. She slid up and down the wall from the force of his thrusts.

“OhGodOhGodOhGod,” she sobbed, wrapping her arms around his shoulders, clutching him tightly and burying her face in his neck.

His breathing grew shallow against her ear. The harsh rasp turned her skin to goose flesh. He slowed and she moaned her frustration, turning her face and biting into the side of his neck. “Don't stop,” she choked against his heated skin.

“Oh, I'm not stopping, baby. Not yet. Remember what I told you.” He increased his pace then like he was determined to get her off. “You'll come for me. Every time.” Her orgasm hit hard as the deep rumble of his words sank into her. Her thighs squeezed tight around him as she rode out her orgasm. He moved inside her several more times, harder, faster against her oversensitized flesh.

He grunted and sighed, reaching his own release. She ducked her head, breathing in his skin, reveling in the sensation of him twitching inside her. She smoothed her hands down his biceps as her heavy breaths evened out.

A knock sounded at her door.

She lifted her head. Her stare collided with his waiting gaze. “Pizza,” she murmured.

“Yeah.” He stepped back, withdrawing from her. “I'll get it.”

She slid down to her feet, her legs wobbly. Knox turned and got rid of the condom in the kitchen before stepping back out, zipping his jeans back up.

Averting her gaze, she snatched up her shorts and underwear. “Let me just get some cash—­”

“I got it,” he said, a slight edge to his voice, which stopped her from reaching for her purse. “A pizza's not going to break me.”

Heat crawled up her face. She'd offended him. His face flushed as he dug out his wallet from his back pocket. Nodding, she dove into her room. Closeted in her bathroom, she stripped off her clothes and stepped into the shower. Standing under the showerhead, she let the water beat down on her.

She filled her palms with shower gel and lathered her body, but it didn't matter. No amount of soap could ever erase the memory of him from her body. She would still feel him. She would always feel him. She didn't want to stop feeling him.

So much for thinking she could resist him. She couldn't deny it anymore. She wouldn't even try.

 

SEVENTEEN

T
HE NEXT FEW
days passed in a blur of mind-­numbing sex. Knox showed up at her place every day. Depending on his work schedule, sometimes he was waiting for her when she got off work. Other times he showed up late. Either way, it didn't matter. She always opened her door to him and they always ended up in bed. Well, if they made it that far. Sometimes they got as far as her living room couch. Once they didn't even make it past her small foyer area. She only managed to close the door before they went at it.

She never had this before. To be sure, she was no experienced lover. Her ex had told her that when it came to sex she was lacking. At least that was Beau's excuse when she caught him with another girl their sophomore year of college. She didn't have what it took to please a guy but apparently Kylie-­Marie three rooms down the hall did. With Knox, though, she forgot all about that. Her insecurities flew out the window. He made her feel skilled. Powerful. Irresistible. It was going to be hard to let this all go.

Even though a voice continued to whisper in the back of her mind that this was a bad idea, she couldn't put a stop to any of it.

“What were you like? Before?” she asked, sprawled on top of Knox after round two of the night, her ear pressed directly over his heart where it beat a strong rhythm in his chest.

His hand stilled on her back, where he had idly been tracing small patterns. “Doesn't matter. That's in the past.”

She bit her lip and darted a glance up at his face. He stared stoically through the gloom to the ceiling as though something of great interest was etched into the plaster.

“I'll tell you something about me,” she coaxed. Only in that second did she realize he probably didn't care to know anything personal about her. Past or present. He might not care about her at all. Not beyond this. Not beyond their physical relationship. Fucking, he said. That's what this was.

“You don't have to do that.” Translation? Don't share.

That only seemed to confirm her suspicion. An awkward silence fell between them. She held still, sprawled stiffly over him, and tried not to feel all kinds of awkward.

His chest lifted with a sigh under her. “I played football in high school. I was pretty good.”

She absorbed that for a moment, a smile creasing her face at the small admission.
Pretty good.
She bet he was better than good. He was amazingly fit at twenty-­eight years old. What had he been like in high school?

“I played in college—­”

“You went to college?” she asked abruptly.

“Is that such a surprise? I had a full ride at A&M. Went for my first year. I was home for the summer when I got arrested.”

“I guess I never saw you as someone . . .” Her voice faded and she felt him tense under her.

“Someone with a brain?” he finished. “Someone with ambition?” Briar cringed. God, she had sounded like that. She opened her mouth to apologize, but he continued. “It's a shock, I know. I didn't grow up with dreams of going to prison. I actually wanted to be someone once.” He moved then, sliding out from under her and leaving the bed.

“Knox, I'm sorry—­”

“No need,” he said, but his tone was hard, biting. He was gone from her already. “I gotta go.”

“You could still finish. Get your degree,” she hurriedly suggested, clutching the sheet to her chest and watching as he dressed in the near dark of her room.

He stopped and stared at her with his hands frozen on his fly. “Would that make you feel better?” He motioned to the bed. “About this?”

“No!” She shook her head. “I'm just thinking of you.”

“Well, don't. Things can't be undone. And I can't go back.” He pulled his shirt over his head and nodded at her on the bed. “And don't feel bad about this. It's just sex. Nothing to feel ashamed about.”

“I'm not ashamed—­” she denied, but he was already walking out of her room.

She heard the door click behind him. With a strangled cry, she fell back on the bed, staring helplessly into the dark. Could she have done a better job of inserting her foot in her mouth?

She tried to go back to sleep, but it was useless. After a few hours of tossing and turning, she got up to take a shower and get ready for work. Reaching inside her shower, she turned on the water, waiting for it to reach the desired warmth. While waiting, she used the restroom . . . where she faced the irrefutable fact that there was no possible way she was pregnant with Knox's baby.

SHE WASN'T PREGNANT.

Elation should have been her reaction—­the
proper
reaction. She wanted children one day, but in the natural order. With a man who wanted children with
her
. Preferably after love and wedding vows and a mortgage.

Yes, elation would have been natural, welcomed even. Except that she hadn't heard from or seen Knox in two days. Not since she stuck her foot in her mouth and he stormed from her apartment. Maybe he didn't care.

Every time she thought about that possibility, she felt a pang in her chest followed by a swift wash of nausea. She had started to count on seeing him again.
Being
with him. As though crazy-­hot sex with Knox would now be a thing—­a regular occurrence in her life. He'd lit something deep inside her when he looked at her in that stark way of his and said that he needed her. Even if he was just talking about sex, it had started to mean more to her.

No man, no past boyfriend, had ever claimed that he needed her before. He was in her blood now. She didn't think she could ever go back to being that girl who viewed sex as an obligatory thing you had to do when you were in a relationship . . . a thing that she was
bad
at, according to Beau.

Then she felt awful, ashamed of herself for even thinking that she needed a baby to keep Knox around. As though that was the only way she could keep him.

She had to tell him. Rip off the Band-­Aid and get it over with. She had waited two days already, hoping he would show up at her place again. She'd debated exactly how to do it. Call him? Text him?

And what was the protocol on that text message exactly?
No worries! You're free!
Or maybe something along the lines of:
Hey there! Turns out I'm not going to be your Baby Mama.

By the time she got around to doing it, she simply went with:
I'm not pregnant.

And then she waited. Although not very long. Instead of a text, he actually called her.

She stared at her ringing phone for a moment in astonishment before answering it.

“Hi,” she greeted, hating that she sounded out of breath even though she wasn't doing anything more strenuous than folding towels.

“Hi,” he returned, and then a pause fell. She heard muffled music in the background and guessed he was at work. She felt a little better knowing he had made the effort to go to a back room to call her. “You all right?”

She hesitated, not sure how to answer that. Did he expect her to be upset because she wasn't pregnant? It's not like they were hoping for a child. “Of course. I told you there wasn't anything to worry about.”

“Yeah. You said that.”

Another awkward silence fell. “So how've you been?” She winced. God, she sounded lame. She might as well announce that she missed him. That she hated the way he'd stormed from her apartment like he couldn't stand the sight of her. Her voice rang with neediness even to her ears.

“I've been busy. Working at night and patching things up around my uncle's place. Been gone a long time. Lots of things need fixing.”

“Oh. Busy is good.” Lame response, take two. “I've been busy, too,” she flung out almost desperately. “Flu season is kicking into gear.” She'd made more kids cry today than she could count.

He hardly let her finish her last comment before cutting in. “Look, Briar, I better go. ­People are getting off work and the place is starting to get busy.”

She flexed her fingers around her phone. “Yeah. Sure.” Other words hovered on her lips, but she bit them back. She didn't want to come across as clingy.

“ 'Bye, Briar.” His words rang with a finality that she heard clearly over the line. What she heard was
good-­bye forever
. “You have a good life. You deserve that.”

She sucked in a breath. No mistake about it. This was it. He was dumping her. “Yeah,” she said tightly. “You, too.”

The phone went dead in her ear. She lowered it in her hand and stared at it for a long moment, wondering at the sudden sting in her eyes.

It wasn't like a real breakup. They'd never declared themselves a
thing
. Besides, maybe she was wrong. Maybe she would see him again. Maybe he would show up again at her door for another midnight booty call. Yeah, and how long would that satisfy her? Better it ended now. Before she really got hurt. She already felt pretty terrible. She didn't need to feel any worse.

A text beeped on her phone. Her heart jumped, thinking it might be Knox. She flipped her phone over. Nope. Her sister.
BBQ for Caleb this Sunday. You in?

She typed back.
Yes.

Good. Boss's son will be here.

Briar blew out a breath, remembering that her sister wanted to set her up with Caleb's boss's son. An accountant, if she remembered correctly. Great. The BBQ was going to be a blind date.

Her fingers flew over the keys.
Please no
. Don't make it weird
.

She waited as Laurel texted back.
Can't promise that. That's what big sisters do.

She snorted. At least she was honest.
Luv you. Night.

Her sister texted back.
Luv you too.

Sighing, she carried the towels to her linen closet and put them away, cringing when she thought about her sister's reaction if she knew the main reason she wasn't interested in meeting anyone right now was because she was getting over an infatuation with a hardened felon.

Laurel wouldn't just get weird then. She'd lose her shit.

Fortunately, she would never have to find out. Briar would never tell her about Knox. Because there was no longer anything to tell.

KNOX SLIPPED HIS
phone in his back pocket and leaned his head against the outside wall of Roscoe's. He needed to get back inside, but he couldn't imagine facing a room full of carousing drunks just yet. Not after ending that call with Briar.

The phone call had been a shit move on his part. When her text came through, he'd debated whether he should see her in person and explain why they shouldn't continue doing whatever it was they were doing, but then he doubted he would have kept his hands to himself. And he wasn't dick enough to fuck her and then end it with her in the same breath. So he'd called. And he'd ended it.
Them
. Whatever they were, they were done.

He should have fucked her out of his system by now—­God knew that's what he had been trying to do—­but he wasn't tired of her, and a stab of alarm told him he might never be.

A ­couple of guys walked up from the parking lot. One locked eyes on Knox and stopped hard before catching back up with his friend. He elbowed him and nodded toward Knox, whispering something indiscreetly. They paused again, eyeing him like he might be something contagious.

Knox tensed, watching from hooded eyes as they resumed walking again, approaching the long stretch of porch where he lurked. He'd gotten enough stares and whispers since he was paroled to know they recognized him. Knew him.
Killer Callaghan
. He'd heard it whispered around Roscoe's ever since he got out. Luckily, most of their clientele wasn't too discerning.

Up on the porch, the two guys shot him several more glances. “Hey,” the first guy said, stopping in front of him before going inside. “You, uh . . . are you Knox Callaghan?”

“Who wants to know?” He braced himself, wondering if they were going to give him shit. There were plenty of ­people in this town that definitely wanted to see him with his face in the dirt. In his current mood, he would gladly take them on.

“Went to school with your brother North. I'm Wayne. Played second string when you were a senior.”

Knox considered him for a moment. He vaguely remembered him. The guy had been a sophomore and warmed the bench. Unlike North and Knox, who were starting linemen.

“Yeah. I remember you.”

Wayne's chest seemed to deflate a little, as though he wasn't so nervous anymore. As though that admission meant they were suddenly friends. “How's North?”

Knox narrowed his eyes on him. “He's in fucking prison. How do you think he is?”

The guy flinched. Even in the dim light, Knox detected the rush of color in his cheeks. “S-­Sorry,” he stammered, taking a step back.

“C'mon, Wayne.” His friend pulled on his arm, looking at Knox warily, as though he was an animal that might pounce. They hurried back inside and left Knox alone, sulking in the shadows.

Not a minute passed before engines roared on the air. A few bikes pulled into the parking lot, spitting gravel up into the night. He stayed in the shadows as the group of bikers headed for the doors. A big bearded man marched at the center of the group, and Knox felt a jolt of recognition. He knew the man. The biker must have had a similar thought, for his eyes widened beneath the bandanna covering his forehead as his heavy boots stepped up on the wood porch.

“Callaghan, you bastard! That you? When did you get out?”

Knox couldn't help but grin and push off the building. He hadn't seen Blue McClintock in two years. He was part of Reid's crew. He'd been there when he and North arrived at Devil's Rock.

“Got out a few months ago,” he said as the two embraced in a quick hug.