“What gives?”
I watched him grab two glasses from the cupboard and pour three fingers of Jack into each.
So it was going to be one of those conversations. The kind we needed alcohol to get through? Okay. I was down with that.
He offered me one glass before throwing back the amber liquid in the other. Damn. Even watching him swallow was turning me on. What the hell was wrong with me? It was like someone flipped a switch and all of a sudden Knox and I were seeing each other in the light for the first time. And we liked what we saw.
He grabbed the bottle off the counter and poured himself another.
Knox liked to drink, but rarely before a show, so something was making him nervous. And he didn’t get nervous. So this was big. Potentially life-altering. Oh God, he wasn’t going to fire me too, was he?
“You’re making me nervous,” I said, watching him throw back his second shot while I did my first. “What’s goin’ on with you? Why are you acting like this?”
He re-filled his glass again before I took the bottle away from him. He could hold his liquor, but I wasn’t going to watch him get too drunk to take the stage. I gripped his shoulders and forced him to sit back on the leather sofa behind him.
His eyes were glazed, but he wasn’t drunk. I’d seen the difference. He was feeling good, starting to relax. Maybe now I’d finally get the truth out of him.
“Come here,” he said, crooking a finger. “Sit on my lap, beautiful.”
I’d sat on his lap plenty of times, but the last time I straddled him we got carried away. “Uh, I don’t think that’s a good idea. We need to talk—”
“We can do that with you sitting right here.” His eyes fell to his lap and it was obvious he was hard. “Please, Cec. I need to touch you. I need to wrap my arms around you.”
Needy Knox was impossible to resist, so against my better judgement I lifted my long black skirt and planted my butt firmly on his… yeah, right there. Damn.
“Hi.” His smirk was suggestive as he closed his hands around my hips.
“Hi.” What else could I say? I was soaking my panties and he could no doubt tell.
“Good you feel good.” He closed his hands around my face and drew me in, burying his face in my hair. “And you smell incredible. I just wanna eat you up.”
Oh my. That was something we’d never tried, but I couldn’t say I wasn’t game. But first, we needed to talk. Providing I could still form a sentence while my brain was busy imagining all the ways my tongue could tangle with his.
“Why did you tell Auden we’d messed around?”
“Because we have.” His hand was getting tangled in my hair while his lips skimmed my jaw, making me all prickly. “Why lie to him?”
“I didn’t lie to him.” Oh, he’d found that spot again, the one on my neck that made all gooey. Gooey and prickly were a bad combination, especially with Knox’s hard on pressed between my legs. “I told him we haven’t had sex and we haven’t.”
“We could remedy that right now.”
“Knox.” It took an iron will to pull away while he was tracing figure eights on my neck with his tongue, but I managed. “What are we doing? What is this?”
“This is you and me…” He pushed my skirt back, resting his hands on my outer thighs. “Doing what we do.”
I call bullshit.Something had shifted between us but he didn’t have the guts to admit it. “It hasn’t happened in a long time. And we agreed it couldn’t happen again. Yet you came on to me the other morning, and again today. You’re acting all jealous and territorial with Auden. You fired Leo—”
“Kiss me, Cec.”
Oh no. He didn’t get to distract me with that talented mouth of his. The last time I’d kissed him I’d been struck dumb and grinding on him by the time we finally came up for air. “No. I want you to tell me—”
“You don’t want to kiss me?” His hands were inching higher. “Because I really want to kiss you.” He swore softly, dipping his head. “I need to kiss you.”
I closed my hands around his face, tipping his head up. Our eyes locked and my heart started beating double-time. I saw his hunger for me. But that didn’t scare me. It was the uncertainty, like I was un-doing him, just like he was un-doing me.
“Why?” I needed more. I needed to understand what the hell was happening between us and whether I could find the courage to let it happen.
“Because you’re gorgeous.”
