Ride With Me

Chapter Eleven

The out was right there. He handed it to her, and the offer was real—if she said the word, he would roll over, kill the lantern, let her sleep, and never mention any of it again. That was the thing she was learning about him. He didn't push. He waited, and he watched, and he let you walk into the fire yourself.

"Knox." She said his name and couldn't say what she was asking for. Her hand came up and found his chest, the cotton of his shirt warm, the muscle beneath it hard, and his breath changed under her palm.

"That's not an answer."

"I know."

His thumb traced down her throat, following the line of her pulse, and it jumped under his touch—his eyes tracking the movement, the small smile deepening. She was being read, page by page, and she wasn't stopping him.

His hand found the hem of her tank top. He didn't pull. He just held the cotton between his fingers, waiting, watching her face, and the question hung in the lantern light—may I—and she answered by lifting her arms.

Slow.

Deliberate.

Her own surrender.

He drew the tank over her head and let it fall, and the cool air hit her skin, raising goosebumps she couldn't hide, and his eyes went down her body — the black lace of her bra, the pale swell of her b****ts above it, the ink that swept up from beneath each b****t, dark tribal lines climbing her ribs and meeting in the valley between them, a pattern that caught the lantern light like something carved. The crescent moon sat dark against her side. His breath went out of him, slow, like a man who had forgotten he was holding it.

"Christ," he said, quietly, almost to himself. "You're..."

She leaned in and kissed him before he could finish.

The kiss was slow—that was the first surprise. A man who looked like trouble, who wore trouble the way other men wore cologne, kissed like he had all the time in the world and intended to spend every minute of it on her. His mouth was warm and full, the lower lip softer than it had any right to be, and his hands came to her hips—not grabbing, just settling there, like he was claiming ground—and he kissed her until her hands fisted in his shirt.

"Tell me what you want." His mouth moved against hers, barely a breath. "Tell me, and I'll give it to you. Or tell me to stop, and I will."

She wanted to be taken out of her own head. That was the terrible, wonderful thing—she wanted it since the first time she looked up across the fire and found his eyes already on her. She wanted to stop thinking about the man who had broken her, the future she built that had come apart in her hands, the person she had been with him, small and quiet and always apologizing for taking up space. She wanted to be wanted the way Knox was looking at her now, like she was a question he couldn't stop trying to answer.

"I want you to make me forget," she whispered. "That's what I want."

Something moved in his eyes. Not surprise. Recognition, like she said the thing he already knew was coming. His hands tightened on her hips, firm, and he pulled her against him, and the hard length of him pressed through the denim, the heat of him, and her breath went out of her. "Okay," he said, low, against her mouth. "Then that's what I'll do."

His hands found the clasp of her bra, and the lace fell away, and the air touched her n*****s, and she gasped, small and sharp, and bit it off. His mouth came down to her breast, warm and wet, his tongue circling her n*****e before drawing it in, and she pressed her fist to her mouth, her head falling back, her hips shifting against him without her deciding it. He took his time there, patient as a man reading a page, his hand cupping her other b****t, his thumb working in slow circles until she was trembling, until she was pulling at his shirt with both hands.

"Off," she whispered. "Take it off."

He pulled the shirt over his head, and the lantern light found his ink—black vines and birds and script she couldn't read, winding over his shoulders, down his arms, climbing his chest, a knife sheathed in roses, a name she didn't ask about—and the pale lines of scars crossing his back. She wanted to ask. She didn't, because he was already reaching for the button of his jeans.

He undressed her the rest of the way, slow and patient—boy shorts, everything—and when she was bare beneath him, he just looked at her, the lantern painting her gold, and his hands learned her, unhurried: the wide curve of her hips, the soft give of her thighs, the slick heat between them. His fingers found her, testing, and she bit her lip so hard she tasted copper, and he watched her face while he worked her, slow circles, then two fingers sliding into her, and her back arched off the sleeping bag, and a sound came out of her that was half a sob, and he covered her mouth with his palm.

"Quiet," he breathed against her ear. "Twenty feet that way, my friends think we're asleep."

The reminder should have cooled her. It did the opposite—the secrecy, the danger, his voice gone low and dark, his hand warm over her mouth—and she clenched around his fingers, and his eyes went darker still.

"God," he whispered. "You're something else." He pulled his hand away and reached for her backpack. She tracked him, dazed, as he unzipped it and drew out the little square box, and she laughed, a breathless, helpless sound she muffled against her own fist.

"In case," she whispered. "Last minute."

"Lucky me." He tore the foil with his teeth, and the sound of it was loud in the small space, and she bit her lip against a smile.

He settled between her thighs, and the weight of him came down over her, warm and solid, and the thick heat of him pressed against her slick skin, nudging at her entrance, and he held himself there, waiting, his forehead against hers. "Look at me."

She did. His eyes were dark, the pupils swallowing the gold of the lantern, and the intensity of his gaze pinned her more surely than his hands could have. "Is this okay?"

"Yes..."

He pushed inside her slowly. An inch, then another, the stretch of him burning sweet through her, and she gasped against his shoulder, her nails digging into his back, and he stilled when he was fully buried, his breath ragged against her neck. "F**k," he breathed, the word scraped down to nothing. "Piper."

"I know," she whispered back. "I know."

He moved then, slow and deep, the whole length of him dragging against her walls, and the tent stayed silent around them—only the whisper of nylon, the creak of the sleeping bag, his breath at her ear, the sounds she swallowed and swallowed and couldn't quite keep down. He kept one hand over her mouth when she got loud, and the other gripped her hip, and he f****d her slow, deep, patient, until she was trembling beneath him, until the world had narrowed to the dark of the tent and the weight of him and the name he kept saying against her throat, quiet, like a promise he was making to himself.

"That's it. Take it quietly." His voice was wrecked and low. "Take all of me."

She came with his palm pressed to her mouth, her body clenching around him in hard, rhythmic pulses, and he followed her over a heartbeat later, a groan bitten off against her shoulder, his hips stuttering, his whole body shuddering as he spilled inside her.

For a long moment, neither of them moved.

The tent was dark beyond the lantern's small gold circle. Somewhere outside, a voice called something to someone, and a laugh rose and fell, and it sounded like another world. His weight settled over her, warm and heavy, and his mouth found her shoulder, the curve of her neck, the place where her pulse beat against her skin, and his breath slowed, and she felt him come back to himself by degrees.

His hand found her face. His thumb traced her cheekbone, slow, reverent, and the touch was so soft it made her eyes sting.

"Piper," he whispered again, like he was testing the weight of it. Like he was keeping it.

She should have said something. Made a joke. Rolled over. Gone to sleep. Instead, she lay in the circle of his arms, her hand flat on his chest, his heartbeat under her palm, and thought about how she had come out here looking for a distraction—one night to burn so the ashes would cover the wreckage, the cheating, the future she had built that had crumbled in her hands.

But lying in the dark with his heartbeat under her ear, she was beginning to understand that Knox wasn't the kind of man you burned one night on. He was the kind you kept.

And that scared her more than the forgetting ever had.