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He slips out of me, and I cringe. There’s blood on both of us, coating his groin and my inner thighs. I drape my arm over my eyes. With the haze of sex fading—except the slight smell of our arousal, which is something I’d heard about but can’t say I was prepared for—the embarrassment settles back in.
My face heats.
“Don’t do that,” Knox says. He pulls at my arm and rolls me toward him. “Don’t hide.”
“Don’t hide?” I laugh. “I just forced you to?—”
“See reason,” he finishes. “The rest was mutual. Trust me.”
I didn’t think I’d be able to do that.
“For so long, it felt like I was waiting for you to come back,” I whisper. The need to explain is bubbling up, and I don’t want to hold back anymore. I don’t want to lie. “But then you didn’t, and you said you never wanted to see me again. Which I could’ve accepted, but you wouldn’t sign the divorce papers.”
“So…”
“It felt like cheating. Even thinking about it.”
He traces my collarbone. “And Joel?”
“You can say his name without getting mad?” I joke.
“Yeah, now that I know he didn’t get his dick anywhere near you.”
“Anywhere near my pussy,” I correct, blushing slightly. “I sucked him off plenty of times.”
Knox groans, dropping his hand. “I did not need to know that.”
“You’re the king of oversharing.” I somehow get up the energy to rise on my hands and knees, crawling over him. To the nightstand that has my phone and a water bottle.
He palms my ass. “We should shower.”
I grab the water and sit back, uncapping it and eyeing him. He’s stretched out, and he props his head under an arm, his biceps flexing. It reminds me of simpler times. Not quite this, uh,sexual, obviously.
But for once, things don’t feel so jaggedly broken between us. He’s not looking at me like I sliced him up on the inside.
“You sore, sunshine?”
My cheeks heat. I guess I should’ve expected theafter, or at least considered it in the broadest of strokes. I write about it. I write about the before, during, after. But living it is different.
Slowly, my guard comes down. I slip out of bed and pick my clothes up from the neat little pile I left them in. Knox watches me. I feel it, I hate it. I already am too exposed—in both the literal and figurative sense—and I can’t be.
“Sunny?”
I don’t answer. He sits up, brow furrowed, as I turn to close the bathroom door. My expression might give away my emotions, I don’t know. But he rises too late. I close it and flip the lock.
I blow out a breath, dropping my clothes and starting the shower.
“Aurora.” Knox’s voice goes straight through me.
“Just let me have this?—”
“This moment to retreat?”
There’s a thump against the wood, although I can’t tell if it’s his hand or his head.
“Yeah,” I whisper.
“No.” The doorknob rattles. “For fuck’s sake, Aurora.”
