All Chained Up (21 page)

Laughing, Martin tossed some chips back into his mouth. “Hey, just kidding. You need to lighten up . . . You're not offended, right?” He clapped Knox on the shoulder and jabbed a thumb at Briar. “A real firecracker, this one, huh? But you know what they say about girls with potty mouths . . .”

Briar looked around, wondering if other ­people were aware of the total assholery this guy was radi­ating.

“And what's that?” Knox asked, his hand exerting more pressure at her waist.

“You know.” Martin brought his fist to the side of his mouth and made the motion for a blow job.

Briar gaped. Her sister actually thought she should go out with this guy? She started to leave, and she didn't care if he insisted he was “kidding” again. She was out of here. Martin clucked his tongue. “Didn't expect you to be so sensitive, Brianna. You're hooking up with a guy that works at Roscoe's. You'd have to be a little adventurous for that.”

If he was going to say anything else, the words were cut off. Knox grabbed him by the back of the neck and brought his face crashing down into the table with such savagery that chips flew up in the air and scattered out of their bowls.

“Knox!” she cried out, horrified, her hands flying to her face.

Knox ignored her and bowed close to Martin's ear, whispering as he mashed his face into the table, “Now in what life do you think it's okay to talk like that?” Knox turned him slightly, still gripping his neck and forcing him to glance up at her. “You don't get to say things like that to her. Understand?”

Martin's eyes were dazed. Faint blood dribbled from his nostril. He didn't look coherent enough to even process what Knox was saying. Briar doubted anyone in his entire privileged life had ever laid hands to him in such a brutal manner.

A quick look around her sister's patio revealed everyone was as horrified as she was. Even the kids had stopped running and were watching in wonder.

“Knox,” she breathed, reaching out to grip his tightly coiled arm. He was in the prison again. Barely checked violence, ready to snap. “No, Knox, no!”

Everyone had gone silent and her words sounded almost obscenely loud. A little girl sitting at the picnic table closest to them started crying. Her mother snatched her up and hurried inside the house.

Briar tightened her grip on Knox's arm. “C'mon. Let's go.”

Knox released him and Martin staggered back, trying to gain his feet and failing. He fell against the table before dropping to the ground.

No one else moved. Everyone stared, looking at Knox like he might suddenly turn his fists on them.

In the sudden silence, the only thing she could hear was the hiss of the grill and the rasp of her breath. She glanced at Knox to see that he was looking, too. Watching everyone watch him with a blank expression.

With a curse so soft she barely heard it, he shoved past her and wove through everyone until he disappeared inside the house.

Briar hurried after him, her heart still hammering.

Her sister called her name right before she was about to enter the house. She sent Laurel a sharp look followed by a swift shake of her head. Laurel was the last person she wanted to talk to right now.

She caught up with Knox outside. He was waiting beside her car. One look at his face and she decided to let him cool off before they talked. And maybe she needed time to digest what just happened, too. She couldn't get his enraged face when he'd unleashed on Martin out of her head. There was murder in his eyes.

He held out his hand and she dropped her keys into his palm.

They drove back to her place in silence. Tapping her fingers along the edge of the door, she stole several glances at him. His jaw was locked in tension, his hard eyes focused straight ahead on the road. She opened her mouth at one point to tell him it was okay, but it didn't feel right. Nothing felt okay in this moment.

As angry as she was with him for exploding like that, she felt him slipping away from her, becoming his old self. The inmate that hardly spared her a word, and when he did it was fierce and brutal.

By the time they reached her condo, she was ready to talk. He unlocked her door for her and handed her back her keys.

“Thanks,” she murmured.

She stepped inside and he followed her, closing the door behind them.

She dropped her keys on the counter and spun to face him. “What the hell was that back there? I mean I know he was an asshole but was it really necessary to—­”

He kissed her. Circled her neck with his hand and hauled her against him. There was nothing soft or tender about it. He claimed her, his teeth tugging hard on her bottom lip, and she opened for him with a moan. He picked her up, his hands guiding her legs around his waist as if she weighed nothing at all.

A few short strides and they were in her bedroom. On her bed. He fell over her and yanked her dress up to her hips with a single rough move. Everything was happening so fast. Her heart was pounding. Her blood roaring.

His mouth fused hotly to hers, not even coming up for air as she felt his hand between them, working his zipper down. He grabbed her hand and shoved it inside his jeans to close around him. “Touch me,” he ordered.

Her fingers circled his hardness, her thumb dragging over the swollen tip of him.

“Christ,” he muttered.

He fumbled in a pocket. She heard the crinkle and tear of a foil condom wrapper. He broke away long enough to shove his jeans all the way down his hips.

Propping up on her elbows, she watched him slide latex over his erection, so turned on at the sight that she couldn't breathe. He spread her thighs wide and reached down to jerk her panties to the side with an impatient twist.

And then he was in her, pushing deep. She surged against the fullness of him, her head dropping back as he yanked her hips closer. He sank all the way in and didn't wait for her to catch her breath at the sudden invasion.

He pumped inside her, his expression savage as he worked to his own release. She clutched his biceps, needing something to hang onto as he pounded out his need.

Abruptly, he paused and flipped her over on all fours. He ripped her underwear fully off and splayed a hand under her stomach, lifting her higher, positioning her how he wanted her on her hands and knees.

He slid into her from behind, his hands gripping her ass. She moaned, a rush of wetness meeting the thrust of his cock. He'd never been like this before. This was an unfiltered Knox. He took her fast and rough. For himself. And that only made it hotter. Made her sex clench and burn around the slide of him. She backed up into him, meeting his thrusts in her own frenzied need. Their bodies crashed together with loud slaps.

The sensation of his hands gripping her bottom, and the delicious friction of him sliding in and out of her, exhilarated her. She glanced over her shoulder at him, and the sight of that brutally handsome face, like something carved from stone, so feral and stripped bare with wild hunger for her, made her knees shake and threaten to buckle.

He leaned over her, his hard chest curving over her back. One of his hands slid around her hip and arrowed straight to the core of her, finding her clit and rolling it deftly. She came apart, her world splintering into shards of light and then descending to darkness, where, for a moment, she couldn't see anything at all. But she felt. She felt him still going, hammering into her almost desperately, her breath coming in rapid gasps as he barreled toward his own release.

She felt the scrape of his jaw against the side of her face and then the sink of his teeth into her earlobe. And just like that she shuddered all over again, her body vibrating and humming as her sex squeezed around him.

“Oh,” he groaned. “That's it. Milk my dick.” She felt him come inside her as he held himself deep, spasm­ing almost in rhythm to her own contracting body.

His voice breathed into her ear, “Mine.”

She felt the word echo through her, felt it sink deep and root inside her in the most hidden crevices of her heart. Her chest expanded on a silent
yes
. She was his. And he was hers. She felt that, too, even if she couldn't say it out loud.

She collapsed on the bed, not even minding his weight over her, pressing her into the mattress.

She turned her face to the side, still gasping. He braced his arms on either side of her, keeping his weight from fully squashing her. His harsh breath fluttered the hairs at her neck. She rubbed the tickle away with her fingers.

He lifted himself off her, and she felt an ache at the sudden loss. As he went into the bathroom to dispose of the condom, she sat up, smoothing her wrinkled sundress down her thighs. She was standing by the time he returned, ready to have the conversation she had tried to start with him before he kissed her.

He stepped out of the bathroom wearing a familiarly distant expression on his face. The sight of it stabbed her in the chest, and suddenly he felt out of her reach. Already gone. She ignored the feeling and told herself she was overreacting.

She took a breath and started. “Knox, about what hap—­”

“I'm going to head out.”

She blinked and shook her head, sure he did not just cut her off to announce he was leaving. “We need to talk,” she said, nodding at him as though en­couraging those words to sink in. For him to understand.

He rubbed his fingers over the center of his forehead like he suddenly had a headache. Like
she
was his headache. Which stung. “I don't think we should do this, Briar.”

She flinched. “What is ‘this' exactly? Let's be clear on that point since you don't want to do it again. Fucking?” She managed to not even shock herself at uttering the profane word. “Is that what you mean? You don't want to fuck anymore?” She motioned savagely to the bed. “You could have fooled me.”

He looked almost bored as he gazed at her, tilting his head to one side. “Let's not do this, Briar.”

“Oh, let's do it. I want to. Really.” She crossed her arms. “I thought you coming here last night established you were interested in me.”

“There's fucking and there's having a relationship. I'm not the relationship type. You are.”

“And you're just now deciding this? You seemed to have a different attitude last night . . . and this morning.”

“There's never been a chance for us. Don't you see that?” He waved his arms, some of his austere facade cracking as his frustration bled out. “We were just fooling ourselves, Briar.”

She shook her head. “I—­I was willing to try—­”

“Consider it tried,” he said, taking another step away from where she stood in front of the bed, like he couldn't wait to escape. “You're not the kind of girl who gets involved with a man like me.”

Her chin went up. She fought against the wave of pain rolling through her. “Maybe you're right.”

He hesitated, looking at her oddly, and she gave herself a pat on the back for catching him off guard. Did he want her to plead and beg? No. She would reach him a different way. With the truth.

“Today my sister told me I was just like my mother.” At his silent stare, she continued, “She said that because my mother married my father. And she never left him even though he beat her and humiliated her and made her every day a misery. Even though she lived in fear of his voice, she stayed. She stayed and made us stay, too. She still stays with him even though we've offered her a place to live. A home with either one of us. She stays with him. This dangerous, abusive man.” Emotion bubbled up in her chest, threatening to overtake her, but she held on.

He finally spoke, “You never told me—­”

“About my father? Why would I? He's not part of my life anymore. He doesn't deserve to be remembered but I'm telling you now. Maybe I didn't go to prison, but I know what it's like to live every day waiting to be free, waiting to escape a shitty existence. I know about abusive men.”

He closed the space separating them and cupped her cheek. “Your sister is wrong. I would never hurt you, Briar.”

“You're right. I'm not my mother. But you're leaving me now because you think you're the same as him . . . this
thing
I've been careful to stay away from.”

“Briar . . . you're smart enough to see—­”

“Smart enough to know you,” she quickly cut in, triumph flashing through her at making her point. “I'm not my mother and you're not my father.”

His hand dropped from her face. “I never worried that I would hurt you. It's the rest of the world I worry about. I never planned to kill that boy all those years ago. I just wanted the truth out of him. Justice for Katie. It could happen again. I could lose control. Around you, I feel that way. If anyone ever hurt you—­” He stopped and shook his head. “That's why this ends here.”

“Nothing is going to happen to me,” she insisted, even though she knew as she uttered the words that they would have little impact. His mind was made up.

“You're not hearing me,” he growled, his eyes growing more distant. Cold, shuttered blue. He was already gone from her. She was talking to air. “I've got to be in control now . . . I can't be that kid I was all those years ago. With you, I feel like him again.” He motioned between the two of them. “This . . . us . . . is me out of control.”

She sucked in a deep breath and angled her head, truly hearing what he was saying even if he did not. “So what you're saying is that
I
am no good for
you
.”

Her words hung between them, a truth that felt as awful as teeth sinking in, latching onto muscle and sinew, striking bone and sending pain vibrating through her. This wasn't about him being so fucking noble and letting her go because he wasn't good enough for her.

He thought
she
was bad for him.

He looked angry and a little bewildered. “I didn't say that—­”