Page 28 of Knot So Lucky

Why I keep throwing myself at the crash point of us, knowing the impact is going to total me, leave me shivering and useless for hours, maybe days. Maybe I’m addicted to the way we tear each other apart and stitch each other back up—lust and rage, push and pull, the world’s longest game of chicken where neither one of us can stand to be apart, but spending too much time together is a bloodsport.

We can’t stop.

We don’t want to.

It’s pathological, terminal, whatever, but at least it’s honest.

His hand is still hot and slick between my thighs, the ghost of what he just did echoing through my nerves. There’s this ache where his fingers split me open, this throbbing emptiness that wants him back inside. But for now, it’s just lips and tongue, teeth and jaw, fighting for dominance in a way that skips the good parts of chess and goes straight for the checkmate.

I break the kiss first.

Someone has to; otherwise I’ll suffocate on his need, maybe pass out, definitely embarrass myself. I rip free, gasping, and for a moment the only sound is the greedy rasp of our lungs trying to reboot.

We’re staring at each other now, not speaking, not even blinking.

Two apex predators locked in at point blank, neither wanting to blink first.

The way he looks at me—it’s deranged, shameless, a little bit desperate.Is that regret in the corners of his eyes? No, not quite. Shame, maybe, for what he just did while I was half-dead to the world, but it’s tangled up with this raw, sinful hunger that hasn’t let go since before we even made it to the bed.

I lick my lips, every nerve ending in my face still fizzing from the aftermath.

“Is that all you’re going to give me now that I’m awake?” The whisper barely makes it out, but it lands—oh, it lands. I can see it hit him like a bullet.

His face goes red.

Not tomato, not embarrassment overload, but enough to show he’s caught off guard. Cale Hart, king of not giving a fuck, thrown under the bus by one little question. I can see the internal war—half wanting to apologize for fucking me in my sleep, half wanting to go harder, see how much I can take before breaking in two.

I don’t give him time to process.

I hook my fingers in the back of his neck, pull him in, and go straight for his bottom lip. Teeth to flesh, hard enough to make him gasp, then I clamp down and tug. Not enough to maim, but just enough to remind him:he’s not the only one who can leave marks.

He shudders. I feel it all the way through his spine, through the hands braced on either side of my head, the groan twisting out of his chest like an engine redlining.

And then he loses his fucking mind.

He surges forward—mouth crushing mine so hard our teeth clack, tongue slamming into me like he’s starving. His weight hits me in a tidal wave, pinning my shoulders and hips so completely to the mattress that my muscles can only tense andflex in useless resistance. I taste myself on his mouth, slick and salt, and the lavender bath oil he clearly loves on my skin, and somewhere in the chaos, I realize I’m making these fucked-up little noises, half laugh, half moan, all surrender.

He maneuvers, shifting our bodies until I’m flat on my back and caged under him, wrists trapped by the grip of his hands, chest grinding into my breasts through the thin silk slip I never bothered to fix after the last round. The room is spinning, heat clobbering senses, but I refuse to look away. I want him to know I’m awake for this, that I’m *consenting* to every filthy thing he wants to do.

Just when I think he’s going to devour me whole, he tears himself away, gasping like he just surfaced from underwater after a five-minute apnea record. He sits back onto his heels, looming over me, letting the slack in my arms go so I bring my hands up to my chest, fingers clutching the sheets just for something to hold onto.

He yanks off his shirt—rips it, practically, the fabric twisted in his fists until it gives way. Whatever’s left of his self-control snaps with it.

And fuck me, the view.

I’ve seen Cale half-naked a hundred times.

In locker rooms, in garages, on hot Miami afternoons when everyone peels down to the waist to escape the suffocating heat. But nothing compares to seeing him lit from below by city lights, silver-gray eyes dialed to max, skin alive with the sheen of sweat and old bites I left days ago. His torso is built for violence—lean, cut, not an ounce of softness, just hard lines and geometry and the kind of muscle that doesn’t bulk up but strangles you if you get too close.

Tattoos everywhere—up his ribs, across his chest, spearing down both arms in patterns that make me want to chart them like a roadmap. But the star of the show is always the snake.

Black, glossy ink, fangs bared, its body twisting counterclockwise around his ribcage from pec to hip. I know the story; I know how he and Luca Thorne got the match, how theirs runs in opposite directions, a permanent fuck-you to their rivalry.

I know because he told me one drunken night, when I was too strung out to move and he was soft enough to let secrets slip.

Next to the snake, there’s a thin, angry scar—one of mine, thank you very much, from the time I crashed a wrench across his side when he called me “princess” in front of the entire Thorne family. Below that, tally marks from every race he’s ever lost —not many, but each one matters — and tucked closer to his shoulder, a tiny black star.

For me.