I’d fucked up in so many ways already, I couldn’t stop myself from making it worse. Even knowing what I had to do next.
“Knox,” Naomi moaned, her voice muffled by a pillow. This time she wasn’t screaming in frustration. She was doing her best to stay quiet while I fucked her in my grandmother’s house. In the bedroom I’d grown up in.
She was on her hands and knees in front of me.
I thought it would be easier if I couldn’t see those eyes. If I didn’t get to watch the way they went glassy under heavy lids when I made her come one last time.
I was fucking wrong.
I tightened my grip on the back of her neck and hit the brakes on my thrusts. It cost me. But holding there, sheathed to the hilt inside her, was worth it.
She shuddered against me, around me, when I pressed an open-mouthed kiss to her shoulder blade. My tongue darted out to taste her skin. I wanted to breathe her in. To commit every second of this feeling to my memory.
I was in too deep. I was drowning. She’d pulled me in over my head, and I was the dumb bastard who’d gone willingly. Forgetting everything I’d learned, every promise I’d ever made, every reason why I couldn’t do this.
The possibility that it was already too late loomed large.
“Knox.” Her sob was broken, and I felt her walls flutter around my throbbing dick. My blood pulsed in response.
I stroked my hand down her back, worshiping the silky warmth under my palm.
Naomi pulled her head out of the pillow and looked over her shoulder at me. Her hair was a mess, her lips swollen, lids heavy. She was seconds from coming. From giving me that miracle. My balls tightened, and I dug my teeth into my lip.
I needed this. I needed to give her this. One last time.
I dragged her up so we were both on our knees. Her back flush to my front.
She lifted her arms overhead, reaching back to grip my neck, my shoulder.
“Please, Knox. Please,” she begged.
I didn’t need any further encouragement. I gripped her breast with one hand and sent the other sliding lower, between her legs where we were still joined.
One testing thrust, and her head fell back against my shoulder.
I pulled out almost all the way before driving back in.
She was coming. Her muscles undulated around me, gripping my cock, as I worked her clit, mindlessly driving her over the edge.
And then I was following her. Diving off the cliff behind her, letting her orgasm milk mine. I came hard, deep. Giving up that first hot spurt to her felt so fucking right.
She bowed back, accepting what I had to give her. Relishing it even.
I fucking loved it.
I fucking loved her.
It wasn’t until I was empty, still moving in her, still chasing that high, that I remembered how fucking wrong it was. How fucked up I was doing this to her when I knew what came next.
But I couldn’t stop myself.
Just like I couldn’t stop myself from pushing us both to the mattress, my arms wrapped tight around her chest, holding her to me.
I was still inside her as I plotted how I was going to end it all.
AN HOUR LATER, Naomi was sound asleep as I slipped out of bed.
I wanted a drink. A double of something strong enough to make me forget, to make me stop caring. And because I craved the numbness, I ignored it and filled a glass of water instead.
“Someone’s dehydrated.”
I was rattled enough to let my own grandmother startle me.
“Jesus, Liza J. What’re you sneakin’ around for?”
She flipped on the light switch, studying me behind her bifocals.
“Been a long time since you snuck a girl into your bed here,” she observed. She was wearing plaid pajama shorts and a matching short-sleeved top. She looked like a lumberjack on summer vacation.
“I never snuck a girl into my bed under your roof,” I lied.
“Bullshit. So Callie Edwards just happened to be checking the porch roof at one o’clock in the morning summer of your senior year?”
I’d forgotten about Callie. And all the other ones. It was like my brain only had room for one woman now. And that was the problem.
“Don’t mind seein’ you with them,” she said, bumping me out of the way so she could get her own glass of water.
“Seein’ me with who?”
Liza shot me a “cut the bullshit” look. “Naomi. Waylay too. You seem happy.”
I wasn’t. I was anything but happy. I was one step away from a downward spiral I’d never recover from. A spiral that would destroy everything I’d built.
“It’s nothing serious,” I said, feeling defensive.
“I saw the look on your face when you came here last night. When you saw how close trouble got to your girl.”
“She’s not my girl,” I insisted, deliberately ignoring her point.
“She’s not yours, she’s bound to end up as someone else’s. Pretty girl like that? Thoughtful. Sweet. Funny. Sooner or later, someone with an IQ higher than yours will be along.”
“Good.”
She’d find someone else. She deserved someone else. Someone far from here, where I wouldn’t have to run into her in the produce aisle or see her across the bar or down the street. Naomi Witt would just fade away into a ghost of a memory.
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.
I chugged the water, trying to fight off the tightness in my throat.
“Your brother looks at her like she’s a home-cooked Sunday dinner,”
Liza observed shrewdly. “Maybe he’d be smart enough to know how lucky he was.”
Some of the water missed my throat and hit my lungs. I choked, then coughed.
As I gasped for air, it played out in my head. Naomi and Waylay sitting across the Thanksgiving table. Nash’s hand on the back of her neck. Smiling at her, knowin’ what was in store once everyone else went home for the night.
I could see her moving over him in the dark, those sweet lips parting.
Hair tumbling over her eyes as she breathed out the name. Nash.
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.
Someone else would take her and Waylay back-to-school shopping.
And that someone very well could be my own brother.
“You okay?” Liza asked, dragging me out of my vision.
“I’m fine.” Another lie.
“You know what they say about fine. Fucked up. Insecure. Neurotic. And emotional,” Liza muttered. “Turn the lights off when you’re done. Electricity don’t grow on trees.”
I turned the lights out and stood there in the dark kitchen hating myself.
I HAD shards of glass in the lining of my gut.
That’s how it felt to hold the door to Dino’s open for Naomi. She was wearing another dress, but instead of the long, flowing silhouette of her summer sundresses, this one was fitted with long sleeves. I knew from getting dressed next to her this morning that she was also wearing one of the pairs of underwear I’d bought her.
The fact that it was the last time that I’d have the right to watch her get dressed had nearly brought me to my knees that morning.
So had breakfast with her entire fucking family. One big happy family gathered around the table. Even desk-duty Nash had joined the fun. Hell, Stef had FaceTimed in from Paris just to judge the bacon Naomi made.
Amanda was thrilled to have everyone under the same roof and had whipped up a fancy-ass breakfast. Lou, who’d spent most of their time in town hating my guts, now acted like I was a Stef-level addition to the family.
He’d change his tune soon enough, I guessed.
This one big happy family deal wasn’t real, and the sooner everyone stopped pretending it was, the better.
I’d walked Waylay to the bus stop while Naomi got ready for work. I didn’t feel comfortable letting either one of them out of my sight while there was the possibility that whoever had broken in was still in town. Still looking to do more damage.
Which made what I was about to do even more of a problem.
When Naomi started for a table near the window, I steered her to a booth in the back. Public, but not too public.
“So I made a list for Nash,” she said, pulling a piece of paper out of her purse and smoothing it out on the table. Blissfully unaware of what I was about to do.
My brother’s name caught me off guard. “A list of what?” I demanded.
“Of the dates that I think Tina could have broken into the cottage and of any suspicious people I could remember. There’s not much there, and I don’t know how it’s going to help. But he said it would help if I could at least narrow down the timing of the earlier break-in,” she said, picking up a menu.
“I’ll pass it on to him,” I said, wishing for a stiff drink.
“Is everything okay?” she asked, cocking her head to study me. “You look tired.”
“Daze, we gotta talk.” The words were choking me. My skin felt too tight. Everything felt wrong.
“Since when do you feel like stringing words together?” she teased.
She trusted me. The thought made me feel like dog shit. Here she was, thinking her boyfriend was treating her to lunch in the middle of the day. But I’d warned her, hadn’t I? I’d told her not to let herself get too close to me.
“Things have gotten…complicated,” I said.
“Look, I know you’re worried about the break-in,” Naomi said. “But I think when the new security system goes in, it will be a load off our minds. Warner is back home, so if it was him throwing some destructive temper tantrum, he’s too far away to do it again. And if it was Tina, the odds are she either found what she was looking for or realized I don’t have it. You don’t need to worry about me and Way.”
I didn’t respond. I couldn’t. I just needed to get the words out.
She reached across the table and squeezed my wrist. “By the way, I just want you to know how grateful I am that you’re here. And you’re helping. It makes me feel like I’m not alone. Like maybe for the first time ever, I don’t have to be completely responsible for every single thing. Thank you for that, Knox.”
I closed my eyes and tried not to throw up.
“Look. Like I said.” I had to grit my teeth to get through it. “Things are complicated, and part of that’s on me.”
She looked up and frowned. “Are you okay? You look tired.”
I was fucking exhausted. And full of self-loathing.
“I’m fine,” I insisted. “But I think it’s time to move on.”
Got yourself a girl? The words echoed in my mind.
Her hand stilled on my arm. “Move on?”
“I’ve had a good time. I hope you have too. But we need to stop this thing before one of us gets too attached.”
She stared at me, those hazel eyes stunned and unblinking.
Fuck.
“You mean me,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper.
“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.
“You brought me here to a public place to break up with me? Unbelievable.”
Her hand was gone now, and I knew I’d never feel it again. I didn’t know what had the power to break me faster, knowing that or knowing what would happen if I didn’t end this now.
“Look, Naomi, we both knew the score when we started this. I just think before one of us gets in over their head, we need to pull back.”
“I’m such an idiot,” she whispered, bringing her fingertips to her temples.
“I know you’ve got the custody hearing coming up next month, and I’m willing to still keep up the appearance that we’re together, if you think it’ll help you in court. And I’m still gonna be keeping an eye on you and Way until we know for sure who busted into your place.”
“How magnanimous of you,” she said, her tone icy.
I could handle angry. Hell, I could eat angry for breakfast every day. It was the tears, the hurt, the pain I couldn’t deal with.
“I said from the beginning I don’t do strings.” I’d warned her. I’d tried to do the right thing. Yet here she was looking at me like I’d deliberately wounded her.
And then suddenly the look was gone. The softness vanished from her face, the fire from her eyes.
“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.
“Don’t, Daisy,” I ordered before I could help myself.
She took a slow, deep breath then gave me a perfunctory smile that felt like a fucking cleaver to the heart. “I believe that’s the last time you get to tell me what to do and call me Daisy.”
I felt something rising inside me that had nothing to do with the relief I’d expected. No. This thing growing inside me felt like the white-hot edges of panic. “Don’t be like that.”
She slid out of the booth and stood up. “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.”
I stood too, feeling like I’d somehow lost control of the situation. “I didn’t say that.”
“Those are your words, and you’re right. I should have listened the first time you said them.”
She grabbed her purse and snatched the paper off the table in front of me.
“Thank you for your offer of pretending to be interested in me, but I think I’ll pass.” She wouldn’t look me in the eye.
“Nothing needs to change, Naomi. You can still work at the bar. You and Liza still have an arrangement. Everything else can stay the same.”
“I have to go,” she said, starting for the door.
I grabbed her arm and pulled her into me. It had felt so natural, and it had the other benefit of forcing her to look at me. The knot in my gut loosened temporarily when her gaze met mine.
“Here,” I said, yanking the envelope out of my back pocket and handing it over.
“What’s this? A list of reasons I wasn’t good enough?”
“It’s cash,” I said.
She recoiled like I’d told her it was an envelope of spiders.
“Take it. It’ll help you and Way out.”
She slapped the envelope against my chest. “I don’t want your money. I don’t want anything from you now. But especially not your money.”
With that, she tried to yank free. It was a reflex that had me tightening my grip.
“Take. Your. Hands. Off. Me, Knox,” Naomi said softly.
It wasn’t fire in her eyes now. It was ice.
“Naomi, it doesn’t have to be this way.”
“Good-bye, Knox.”
She slipped out of my grip, leaving me staring after her like an idiot.
