Page 105 of What We Bury

I snort. “Great. Thriving. Totally normal. Not at all replaying what you—” I cut myself off.

He looks down at me again. “What I . . .?”

I should keep my mouth shut.

I don’t.

“What you said. About the table. The club.”

He doesn’t slow. Doesn’t look at me. “And?”

“Was that—were you just—” I can’t get the question out clean.

He glances down, one eyebrow lifting. “Playing?”

I nod once.

“No.”

I let that sit half a block. He matches my pace exactly, like he could do this all night.

“You’d really do that,” I say. Not quite a question.

“Yep.”

“With me.”

“Yes.”

“In front of forty people.”

“Forty. Two. Five.” He glances down at me. “Number isn’t the point.”

“What’s the point?”

“You like being seen.” He says it the way he says everything—flat, certain, like he’s reading it off me.

I swallow.

He says it like it’s a fact in a file somewhere.You like being seen. No judgment or weirdness. Just a thing he’s clocked and marked as true.

“And that doesn’t . . . bother you?” I ask.

His gaze cuts to me. “Should it?”

I have no idea how to answer that.

Most men I’ve known would either act threatened by a woman wanting anything out loud or turn it into a joke so they didn’t have to admit they were turned on by it. Knox just accepts it. No—he seems to fucking like it.

We turn down my street. The night is quieter here, the tourist noise thinning into the soft rush of distant traffic and the hiss of tires on damp pavement.

“I don’t know,” I say finally. “It feels like it should.”

“Why?”

I shove my hands deeper into my pockets. “Because decent girls aren’t supposed to get off on the idea of being watched.” I bite my lip and force the second part out too. “Or the idea of being with multiple guys at once.”

Knox is quiet for a beat.