Page 8 of Reese’s Protection

He helped me pop the button on my incredibly tight jeans and shove them down to my ankles. I hadn’t expected to hit it off with someone tonight, not interested in getting fucked—by anyone except Knox, of course—so I was wearing plain black briefs. If I’d known something was going to happen with this wickedly hot dude, I might’ve pulled out my best jock strap. Though, almost everything I wore was black.

I fought back a blush as he crouched and took off my shoes so I could shimmy out of my jeans.

He stood again, eyes glinting a little brighter. “I’ll put these in the washing machine with my clothes.”

I licked my lips and focused on his mouth. Could I kiss him again? I wanted to do it.

“Knox . . . .” I leaned forward, and he met me halfway, kissing me with gentleness I hadn’t expected. He cradled my right cheek against his palm, and I melted into him.

“Tomorrow,” he whispered when he broke away.

All I could do was nod. Definitely tomorrow. My mind wasn’t going to change—I needed Knox Tennant.

4

KNOX

Sighing under my breath, I checked my watch for the millionth time in the last forty-five minutes. I stared up at the ceiling, which was striped strangely by the rough-hewn logs that broke up the white spaces.

Sleep wasn’t happening.

Reese was in my room because there wasn’t a chance in hell I was putting him on the pullout in the living room. No matter which way you turned on the mattress there was a hard lump that dug into your back. I’d tried to lay down a pillow to deal with it, but it wasn’t working.

And after the way he’d been manhandled? No, I couldn’t stand the idea of him dealing with this shit and having his bruised body ache more after he’d already had so much go wrong tonight. Unfortunately, chivalry, no matter how well intended, wouldn’t make a pullout more comfortable. Maybe when Undertaker, the treasurer for the Kings of Men MC, wrote me a check for the coffee table, I would get a new couch.

Snorting, I gave my face a light slap. No, I wouldn’t. Jobs were few and far between. I would sit on that money the way I always did unless I got desperate and picked up a part-time carpentry job somewhere. Groaning, I shifted again, shoving at the pillow tucked against my side. My eyelids were slipping shut from pure exhaustion when my phone began to vibrate and dance along the solid pine coffee table to my left. I snapped on the lamp and grabbed my phone, frowning.

LAYTON TENNANT was as bright as a torch on the black screen. I swiped up on the green Accept button.

“Hello?” I was speaking before the phone was pressed to my ear, but that didn’t matter because I could already hear Layton cursing a blue streak at top volume.

“What’s going on? Did you call to cuss me out over something?” I asked, pushing my long hair out of my eyes. The strands tickled my bare back as I sat up a bit. “Because you could’ve done that in the morning.”

“No, it’s not you,” he snarled. “I just fucking got home. Damn it,” he hissed. “Every goddamned motherfucking one.”

I checked the time and frowned. “What’s wrong? You don’t swear that way.” Wait. I checked the phone again and anger settled in my gut. “Why weren’t you at Sinful when I got there? Where were you at almost three in the morning?”

“None of your business, that’s where,” he snapped back without taking a breath between the words. “I might be your little brother, but I’m a fucking adult, and don’t you forget it. But when I got back from nowhere⁠—”

“You shouldn’t be going home with people you don’t know, even women. Do you have any idea what happened to your friend Reese tonight?” All at once, I was wide awake and my teeth were grinding. Maybe Reese was okay, but what had happened to him was just starting to hit me. Reese was one of my brother’s closest friends. “His asshole ex, the fucker, tried to snatch him out of Sinful. As in, take him somewhere by force. I grabbed Reese and brought him here.”

There was a long silence, and then Layton let out a shaky breath. “Great, well, maybe that explains why he’s missing and this mess is all I can find at my place. He’s not answering his phone, and I was worried that he . . . .” There was a sound that reminded me of the sobs from when Layton was a boy and Dad was yelling at everyone and making our lives miserable. “I was worried he’d been taken from here. Jeremy has a bad reputation. Reese never wanted to hear it, but he does.” There was a long sigh and a thud that might be Layton’s fist hitting something it shouldn’t, based on the renewed round of swearing that followed.

Rolling my eyes, I flung aside the blankets and grabbed my jeans from where I’d tossed them on the floor. I was on my feet and buckling my belt when Reese stuck his head out of my bedroom to glare at me with sleepy brown eyes. My breath stuttered. The confused pout on his lips made me wish I’d kissed them a little more.

“Knox!” Layton sounded pissed off, and I realized he’d been speaking.

“Uh. What mess at your place?”

Reese’s mouth fell open and he bolted out into the living room. He looked really fucking good without a shirt. My sweatpants slipped down his hips, giving me a tantalizing view of his lower abs and a cut vee leading down to more intriguing territory—even though he’d tied them tight. His nipples were pink on his pale skin and stuck out against the tattoo of a bird with spread wings, surrounded by stars and smaller birds that flew up around his neck. Fuck, I wanted to pinch one pink nipple and watch it get hard for me.

I wanted to see those sweatpants jut out and show me the rest of him hard, too. Fuck.

“Are you listening to me?” Layton’s irate shout slapped my ear.

A slow smirk crept across Reese’s face as his attention bounced from where I had not so subtly been staring, then back up to my face. He put his hands over his head and stretched. Okay, maybe him wanting me to pound him into the mattress wasn’t some sort of trauma response.

“Knox!” Layton sounded like he was dangling at the end of his rope.