“Knox. Yes. Please,” she whimpered.
I took her nipple on a long, deep pull. It was too much for both of us. As the first wave of her orgasm took her, I lost control, pumping into her hot, tight channel as if my life depended on it.
Maybe it did.
Because when that first hot spurt wrenched its way free. When she screamed my name for the world to hear. When she closed around me and milked a second and a third burst from me, I felt born again. Alive. Hollowed out and refilled to overflowing with something I didn’t recognize. Something that scared the ever-living hell out of me.
But I just kept on coming, and so did she, our releases endless.
This. This was why once wasn’t enough. This was why now I wasn’t sure what was enough.
TWENTY-NINE
KNOX’S HOUSE
Knox
“Nice place,” Naomi observed as I locked my front door behind us and flipped on the lights.
“Thanks. My grandfather built it,” I said on a yawn. It had been a long day followed by a long night at Honky Tonk and I needed sleep.
“Really?” she asked, her gaze lifting to the loft above the living room, the timber ceiling and the antler chandelier that hung there.
The cabin was small and leaned toward rustic. Two bedrooms, one bath. The floors were pine. The stone fireplace needed a good scrubbing but still did the job. The leather couch was finally broken in just the way I wanted it.
It was home.
“Are these your parents?” she asked, picking up a framed photo on one of the end tables. I didn’t know why I bothered keeping it. My parents were line dancing at a picnic in Liza J and Pop’s yard. Smiles on their faces, feet in sync. Happier times that, in the moment, seemed like they’d go on forever.
It was, of course, a lie.
Happier times always came to an end.
“Listen, Daze. I’m beat.”
Between my brother getting shot, the sudden onslaught of orgasms, and work, I needed a solid eight hours of sleep before I’d be worth anything.
“Oh. Yeah. Sure,” she said, carefully putting the photo back on the table. Though I noticed she’d angled it toward the couch, not away from it like I’d done. “I’ll head home. Thanks for the backup today with Way’s teacher…and my parents. And then all the orgasms and stuff.”
“Baby, you’re not going home. I’m just telling you why I’m not makin’ any moves when we go upstairs.”
“I should just go home, Knox. I have to be up early to get Way at Liza’s.” She looked as exhausted as I felt.
I hadn’t given it more than a passing thought in the past, but my girls at Honky Tonk dragged their asses home at two or three a.m. and on weekdays had to be up again by six or seven depending on the usefulness of their significant others.
I remembered a solid year stretch when Fi would fall asleep sitting up every day at her desk because her kids were shit sleepers. It got to the point where I had to do the thing I hated. I got involved.
I’d unleashed Liza J on her and, in less than a week, my grandmother had both kids on a schedule sleeping ten hours a night.
“You have off tomorrow, right?” I asked.
She nodded, then yawned.
“So we’ll get up in,” I glanced down at my watch, then swore, “three hours and go have breakfast at Liza J’s.”
It was the gentlemanly thing to do. Which usually wasn’t a huge concern to me. But I felt the tiniest splinter of guilt thinking about staying in bed while Naomi dragged herself off to family fucking breakfast and then tried to keep Waylay from breaking the law for the rest of the day.
Besides, I could just come home after breakfast and sleep until whenever the fuck I wanted.
I liked the way her eyes went soft and dreamy for a second. Then practical, people-pleasing Naomi was back. “You don’t have to get up with me. You need sleep. I’ll go home tonight, and maybe we can…” Her gaze slid down my body, and her cheeks turned a delicate shade of pink. “Catch up some other time,” she finished.
“Yeah. Nice try. Want some water?” I asked, towing her toward the kitchen.
It was bigger than the cottage’s. But not by much. I could imagine some visitors would find it “charming” with its hickory cabinets, counter tops in a deep forest green, and a tiny island on wheels that I used to pile unopened mail on.
“Water?” she repeated.
“Yeah, baby. Do you want a drink of water before we go to bed?”
“Knox, I’m confused. This is just sex. We both agreed. Unless my parents are around, and then it’s a relationship. But my parents aren’t here, and I’m so tired I don’t think even an orgasm could keep me awake. So what the hell are we doing?”