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As if I owned the place, I went through every cabinet. It was less about searching for something and more about my amusement at the sheer sparseness of everything. A sad number of regular glasses, most plastic, paper plates only, and sauce-stained Tupperware. Damn. He knew how to make spaghetti? Or just ordered local Italian with leftovers.
Knox watched my whole exploration silently from behind the counter with mismatched stools, a blush creeping up his neck. “Welcome to my palace, baby?” he tried to flirt.
“Am I supposed to be impressed by a place that looks no better than a frat house?” I snorted, propping my elbows on the opposite side of the counter. “Let me guess. The bed’s not made.”
“Ding ding ding.”
“Well, I’m not fucking you on dirty sheets.”
“Understood, princess. Clean ones in the closet.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Musty?”
Knox dropped his face in his hands. “Damn, woman, breaking a man down. Please tell me you prefer this over the trailer, at least.”
“Mm.” I pretended to think about it, then said, “Yes. I won’t have to be paranoid a bear will look through the window and decide to join in the fun.”
Knox lifted his head, and I almost laughed at the pleading in his eyes. “Can we at least make out on the couch while I wash the sheets?”
I smiled and snorted. “Fine. Just throw them in the dryer on quick dry.”
“Make yourself at home, baby.” He chuckled, disappearing down a hallway. I heard distant sounds of him fumbling with closet doors and banging his head on the dryer door with a curse.
I laughed under my breath, grabbing one of the glasses and rinsing it free of a layer of dust. I wasn’t so entitled that I couldn’t drink tap water, even if it didn’t taste that good at all. When I heard the dryer finally start up, Knox returned—and he was shirtless.
Fuck, his body was nice. He took care of that a hell of a lot better than his home.
Without the pressure of being on the run and the weight of my father’s shadow over us, I realized we had breathing room to actually take our time. Nothing had to be rushed or desperate.
So I could take all the time in the world to admire him head to toe. Ignoring his still-healing face from Jackson and Mason’s beatings, Knox’s dark hair was mussed and damp, as if he’d wet it. His stubble was darkening into thicker scruff.
And holy shit, how had I not noticed it before—that dusting of hair across his pecs, tapering into a line that led straight down between his abs into a happy trail that pointed exactly where I planned to go—along with the deep V of his hipbones exposed by low-slung sweats he’d changed into.
My mouth went dry. My thighs didn’t.
Heat throbbed low in my belly as every rational thought left my body.
He had more tattoos than the ones I’d traced at the hotel. A skeleton hand holding a royal flush below his ribs. A snake coiling around his right forearm. A rose with thorns on his left wrist. Another date in Roman numerals across from the ones representing his mother’s death. The Reno skyline on his inner forearm opposite the Devil’s Luck shamrock.
Each one meant something—or nothing at all. And all I had was a brand on my spine.
But that wasn’t important right then. All that mattered was how much I wanted to lick that happy trail beyond his waistband.
I didn’t know what to do with my arms. My heart was pounding against my ribs. I was holding my breath for no reason.
I’d been with men with tattoos, but they were always vulgar. I never had a thing for them. But on Knox? Well, now I did.
“You like what you see, baby girl?”
I blinked rapidly. “Huh?”
“Eyes up here, Care,” Knox said, deep and smooth, crossing the room toward me.
I took a few stumbling steps back. Fuck, I couldn’t think straight.
He just chuckled. It made shivers skitter down my spine. “I walk toward you, and you forget how to breathe? God, you’re cute when you malfunction. You want me bad, don’t you, baby girl? Still want to wait until the sheets are done?”
“Um.”