“He slapped me right across the face. Hard. Not hard enough to knock me down, but just enough to humiliate me. I just stood there in shock, holding my cheek. I couldn’t believe he’d do something like that.”
I doubted that Naomi was aware she’d lifted a hand to her cheek as if she could still feel the hit.
I couldn’t hold it in anymore. I turned for the door and was ready to rip the knob off when I felt her hands on my back.
“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.”
Her fingernails dug into my skin under my shirt, giving me something else to feel besides fury.
“Don’t leave me alone,” she said, then pressed herself against my back.
Fuck.
“He started pacing and yelling. It was my fault, he told me. He wasn’t ready to get married. He had goals he wanted to accomplish before focusing on his personal life. It was my fault for pushing him. All he was trying to do was give me everything I wanted, and there I was complaining to him the night before the wedding he didn’t want to have.”
“That’s fucking bullshit, Naomi, and you know it.”
“Yeah,” she squeaked, resting her forehead between my shoulder blades. I felt something damp leak through the shirt.
Damn it.
I turned and took her in my arms, holding her face against my chest. Her breath hitched. “Baby, you’re killin’ me.”
“I’m so embarrassed,” she whispered. “It was a slap. He didn’t put me in the hospital. Didn’t threaten my life.”
“Doesn’t make it anywhere near right. A man doesn’t put hands on a woman like that. Ever.”
“But I wasn’t exactly innocent. I tried to force a man to marry me. I almost said ‘I do’ even after he hit me. How pathetic is that? I was in that church basement in my dress, worrying about what other people would think if I didn’t go through with it. Worried about letting them down.”
I thumbed away the tears that tracked down her cheeks. Each one felt like a knife to my heart.
“I still don’t know if I would have made the right choice if Tina hadn’t called me and said she was in trouble. That’s when I knew I wasn’t going to go through with it.”
After everything Tina had done, at least she’d provided the excuse Naomi needed when she needed it.
“Daisy, you gave him a choice. It doesn’t matter how shitty the options are. It’s still his choice to make. He could spend the rest of his life with you or without you. He didn’t give you a choice when he hurt you.”
“But I should have listened to what he was trying to tell me. He didn’t want to commit, and I forced him to.”
“He had a choice,” I repeated. “Look. A man doesn’t go all in with a woman, it’s for a reason. Maybe he’s looking for something better. Maybe he’s just comfortable with his place in your world and doesn’t want to make a place for you in his. Either way, he makes no forward progress unless he’s forced into it.
“After that, even if he pops the question, even if he shows up at the altar, he’ll hold on to the fact that it wasn’t his idea. He washes his hands of responsibility for the entire relationship. But the bottom fucking line is, he had a choice every step of the way. You didn’t force him into anything.”
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.”
So he’d manipulated her and he’d tried to prove he was better by showing he was stronger, more powerful. By using force. And it only would have gotten worse.
“Damn it, Knox. You cannot be sweet to me right now!”
“Do not cry. Do not shed one more tear over some asshole who never deserved you in the first place. Or I’m going to go break both his arms and legs.”
She cast her eyes down then looked back up at me. “Thank you.”
“For what?”
“For being here. For…taking care of me and cleaning up my mess. It really means a lot.”
I thumbed away another stray tear. “What did I say about crying?”
“That one was for you, not him.”
Instead of hunting Warner down and kicking him in the gut until my boot wore through, I did something more important. I lowered my mouth to take hers.
She instantly went soft and pliable against me. Surrendering. I spun us around so she had her back to the door.
“Knox?” she whispered.
Then I pressed my knee between her thighs and pinned her against the door with my hips as I plundered her mouth. She melted against me, eager and needy.
I was instantly hard.
The sexy little moan she made in the back of her throat when I ground my erection against her made me lose my fucking mind. I licked and kissed and tasted her until the air around us was electrified, until the pulse in my blood matched the beat of her heart.
I pumped my cock against her once, twice, three times, before shoving my hand between our bodies and under that skirt that I loved to hate.
When I found the silk edge of her underwear, I growled. I knew just by the touch it was one of the pairs I’d bought her. And I loved knowing she wore something I gave her close to her skin in a place I’d be the only one to see.
“He doesn’t deserve one second of your energy. Never did,” I said, yanking the underwear to the side with more haste than finesse.
“What are you doing?” she asked, her eyes glazed with desire.
“Reminding you what you deserve.”
I thrust two fingers into her wet heat and swallowed her cry with my mouth. She was already rippling around me, begging to come. “Do you want me to stop?” My voice was harsher than I intended, but I couldn’t be soft, gentle, when she was making me harder than concrete.
“If you stop, I’ll murder you,” she groaned.
“That’s my girl,” I said, nipping at the sensitive skin of her neck.
I fucked her with my fingers, starting slow and building speed. I held her gaze with an obsessive desire to watch the orgasm I gave her ruin her. But I needed something more. I needed to taste her.
She whimpered when I dropped to my knees. The whimper became a low moan when I pressed my mouth between her legs.
“Ride my hand, Naomi. Ride it while I make you come. Remember who you are. What you deserve.”
It was the last order I gave, because my tongue was busy teasing circles over her sensitive clit. She tasted like heaven as she bucked against my face.
My dick throbbed behind my zipper with a need so intense I didn’t recognize it. Mine. I wanted to claim her, to make her mine so assholes knew they didn’t have a chance.
“Knox,” she whimpered, and I felt the clutch and pull of her around my fingers. It was fucking beautiful.
“That’s right, baby,” I murmured. “Feel me in you.”
I sucked gently while working the swollen bud with my tongue.
She let out a wrenching moan, and I felt her come apart around my fingers. She was a miracle. A work of art. And no one deserved her. Not Warner. Not even me.
But not deserving something wasn’t going to stop me from taking.
The waves broke. The clenching became a languid flutter, and still my cock ached. I wanted to thrust into her and feel the echoes of her orgasm on my shaft.
Then she was pulling me to my feet, and her fingers were at my belt. My palms went to the door as she reverently released my erection, and she sank to her knees.
“You don’t have to do this, Naomi.” My whisper was harsh with need.
“I want to.”
Her lips were parted. I felt her hot breath on my thigh, and my cock jerked. She made an approving noise, and before I could say or do anything, those perfect pink lips were parting, and my tip disappeared between them.
It was like a lightning strike.
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.
THE BREAK-IN
Knox
Nash yawned and scraped a hand over his face. He was sitting at his dining table in sweat pants. His usually clean-shaven mug had the beginnings of a beard.
“Look, I told you. I don’t remember jack shit from the shooting. I don’t even remember pulling the car over.”
It was after two a.m., and Lucian had insisted we put our heads together on the situations.
I flipped my phone over to see if Naomi had texted me yet. She was supposed to text as soon as she got home. After the night she’d had, I felt unsettled letting her drive home by herself. But Lucian was insistent that we needed to talk to Nash.
“Is that normal? Not remembering?” I asked.
Nash shrugged with his good shoulder. “How the fuck should I know? This is the first time I got shot.”
He was being flippant, but there were shadows under his eyes that had nothing to do with the time of night.
Lucian, on the other hand, looked as if he was just hitting his stride. He was in what was left of another expensive suit. His tie and jacket hung over the back of Nash’s couch. Even as a kid, he’d slept short and light. Every sleepover we’d ever had, he’d been the last to fall asleep and the first to wake. We never talked about what demons kept him up at night. We didn’t have to.
“We need the dashcam footage,” Lucian said. He leaned forward, elbows on knees, a glass of bourbon in his hand.
My brother was already shaking his head. “Fuck you, Luce. You know I can’t do that. It’s evidence in an ongoing investigation. I know law and order don’t mean much to you two—”
“We’ve got the same goal. Finding out who the fuck decided to put two bullets in you and leave you for dead,” I interjected. “If I were you, I wouldn’t be pissed off about the extra eyes and ears.” I flipped my phone over again.
No messages.
“What’s your problem?” Nash asked, nodding at my phone. “Liza J kicking your ass in Words with Friends again?”
“Naomi isn’t home yet.”
“It’s a five-minute drive,” Nash pointed out.
Lucian looked at me. “You didn’t tell him?”
“Tell me what?”
“Naomi’s ex showed up at Honky Tonk tonight. Put his hands on her. Scared her.”
“Jesus. Where did you put the body?”
Lucian smiled slyly. “You don’t want to know.”
Nash pinched the bridge of his nose. “I really don’t want this paperwork.”
“Relax,” I said. “He’s not dead. But if he ever shows his goddamn face in this town again, I make no promises.”
“Knox gave him the first shot in front of witnesses,” Lucian explained.
“What else did he do in front of witnesses? Break his fucking neck?”