Page 56

I grabbed my keys off the counter, the metal cold and biting in my palm. My blood was already boiling, a wildfire tearing through my veins, consuming every rational thought left in me.

“Stay here,” I ordered, voice sharp, final.

“Knox, don’t—” she started, stepping closer, but it was useless. She could beg, she could scream—it wouldn’t matter.

I was already out the door.

The engine roared to life as I slammed the car into reverse, tires screeching against the pavement. My grip on the steering wheel was vice-tight, my pulse a violent rhythm in my ears. All I could see was him—his hands on her, his smug fucking face thinking he had the right to touch what wasn’t his.

What was mine.

The rain had stopped now; the lake came into view, the bonfire still flickering, throwing orange light against the shadows of the people gathered around it. They were drinking, laughing, oblivious. As if nothing had happened. As if everything was fine.

It wasn’t fine.

I killed the engine and climbed out, each step forward fueled by a dark, singular focus. The world around me blurred, my vision narrowing until the only thing I saw was him.

Chris.

The laughter dulled, conversations dying the second I stepped into the firelight. They felt it—the shift in the air, the unspoken tension thickening with each breath I took.

They knew me. They knew exactly what I was capable of.

Chris laughed.

Laughed.

Like he hadn’t put his fucking hands on her. Like he hadn’t left her shaking, standing on my doorstep with ripped fabric and fear in her eyes.

The firelight flickered, casting shadows over his smug, oblivious face, and something inside me snapped.

I didn’t think. Didn’t hesitate.

I moved.

One second, I was across the bonfire, rage scorching through me like gasoline in my veins. The next, my fist was colliding with his jaw, the sharp crack of bone-on-bone cutting through the night.

Chris’s head snapped back. His grin disappeared as his body went down, hitting the dirt with a satisfying thud.

I didn’t stop.

Didn’t let him breathe.

Didn’t let him understand what the fuck was happening before I was on him, my knuckles colliding with his ribs, his cheek, his mouth—anywhere I could land a hit.

He tried to roll away, to scramble back like the coward he was, but I shoved him down, pinning him under my weight, making sure he felt every ounce of fury pouring off me.

“You touch her again—” My fist slammed into his stomach, knocking the air from his lungs.

He wheezed, hands flailing, grasping at nothing.

“You so much as think about her—” Another hit. His head snapped sideways, blood spraying onto the dirt.

Someone shouted my name. I didn’t care.

My hand curled into his hoodie, yanking him upright so he could see me—see the fucking monster he’d woken up.

“I’ll kill you,” I snarled, voice guttural, ripped straight from the depths of my chest.

Chris coughed, spitting red, his breath ragged. His eyes darted around, pleading—for help, for someone to step in. But no one did. They just watched.

Good.

I wanted them to see.

I wanted them to know what happened when someone thought they could take what was mine.

I shoved him back down, his body crumpling like a discarded puppet. My pulse thundered in my skull, my breath ragged as I sat back on my heels, fingers still twitching with the need to keep going.

I headed back to my car and drove like a man with nothing left to lose.

The road blurred under the streetlights, my grip on the wheel tightening every time my knuckles throbbed—sharp, raw pain shooting up my arms with every pulse of my heart. My shirt hung in shredded tatters, sticky with sweat and blood, but I barely felt it. I barely felt anything.

I pulled into the driveway, the engine growling low as I killed the ignition. My chest still heaved, adrenaline still humming beneath my skin like an exposed wire, but the second I stepped inside?—

She was there.

Curled up on my couch.

Wearing my hoodie.

Looking so damn right sitting there, wrapped up in the scent of me like she belonged in this space, in this life—with me.

Our eyes locked, and that wild, chaotic storm in my head suddenly stilled.

She didn’t ask what happened. She didn’t need to.

Iris already knew.

I crossed the room without thinking, drawn to her like gravity had shifted, like she was the only solid thing left in a world that refused to stop spinning. She sat up slowly, the fabric of my hoodie swallowing her frame, her lips parting just slightly as I stopped in front of her.

“You didn’t have to do that,” she murmured.

Didn’t I?

I exhaled sharply, shaking my head. “I had to.”

The words came out low, rough, honest.

She didn’t move. Neither did I. The air between us crackled with something hot and unspoken—something that had been building for weeks, months, maybe even longer.

Her fingers brushed against mine—just barely—but it sent a shockwave through my body, setting my blood on fire.

That touch, so simple and small, unraveled me completely.

Iris Evans had buried herself under my skin, and there was no ripping her out.

Not now.

Not ever.

Iris moved toward the kitchen, the soft glow from the overhead lamp casting long shadows as she disappeared into my space—our space.

I watched her every step, every shift of her body, unable to tear my eyes away as she pulled open a drawer, rummaging through its contents like she had always belonged here.

When she returned, she knelt in front of me, a damp cloth in her hands, her focus locked on my bruised knuckles. The way she looked at them—like they were something fragile, something worth caring for—sent a sharp, unexpected rush through me.

Her touch was light but deliberate, the cool pressure of the cloth against my raw skin making me hiss through my teeth. But I didn’t pull away. I couldn’t.

“You shouldn’t have to do that,” she murmured again, voice steady despite the weight between us.

I exhaled hard, fighting against the storm inside me, the one that had been raging ever since I saw her standing on my doorstep, wrecked in the rain. She still didn’t get it.

“I did.” The words came rough, stripped bare.

Her eyes flickered toward the old USA jersey slung over the chair. I hated that thing. It was a relic of a past I’d rather forget, a symbol of what I’d lost, what I’d ruined. But right now? Right now, with her kneeling here, her hands on me, it almost felt like something worth wanting again.

She kept working—slow, methodical, her breath warm against my skin. The intimacy of it hit me in a way I wasn’t prepared for. Not just the softness of her touch, but the fact that she was here, taking care of me when all I knew how to do was destroy.

“Knox…” Her voice trailed off, hesitant, like she wasn’t sure if she should say my name at all.

I leaned forward. Just enough. Enough to feel her breath hitch, enough to make the tension coil tighter, pulling us toward something inevitable.

She lifted her gaze, and in that moment, I saw it. The fire. The fight. The same wild pull that had been threatening to consume us since the beginning.

And right then?

Nothing else mattered.

Just her. Just us.