Page 18 of Knox

I liked hearing her say that too fucking much. “So you’re choosing to trust me?”

She gave one short nod. “Unless you give me a reason not to, sure.”

It wasn’t a ringing endorsement, but it wasn’t nothing either. “Fair.”

She stared at the side of my face for one long minute and then stopped to take more photos. She smiled every time she lined up a shot or crouched low to get the right shot. It was fucking adorable.

“What do you do with the photos?”

She shrugged. “Mostly it’s just for me, but my friend Dani helps me sell them at galleries and online.”

I stopped and stared at her until she realized what I was doing. “Rex kept you locked up pretty good, then?”

“Yeah,” she sighed. “He likes control.”

It was another thing to file away and think about later. “Fuck him,” I said and grinned. “Race ya back to the lookout.”

“Deal,” she shouted and took off at a quick run.

By the time we looped back to the lookout, her skin was flushed, she was breathing hard and grinning wide. Not the careful smiles she gave out to strangers. This one was something wider and unguarded. It was the same one I caught a glimpse of at the dinner table that first night.

“Thanks for this.” She stretched her arms overhead and looked out at the ridge. “It was really fun.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” she said and dropped her arms, looking over at me with a sweet smile. Her grin dimmed a little. “I didn’t get to do a whole lot before. I worked at the print shop and came home. Showed up to club stuff when Rex told me to. Not because I wanted to be there, but because if I didn’t…” she stopped speaking and moved her hand to her ribs without her seeming to notice it. “So. Yeah.” She looked back at the view, another smile played along her lips. “Thanks, Knox.”

I stood there and looked at the side of her smiling face. She was gorgeous and had no fucking clue. She’d been through some shit, gotten battered and bruised for her efforts, and still managed to find her smile when she wasn’t too scared to hide it.

This woman was going to be the absolute fucking death of me.

Chapter Ten

Ivy

Itried tea. I tried editing photos on my laptop until my vision blurred. I went back to the same book I’d been reading for three weeks, hoping I could get sucked in long enough to focus on something else. Anything else.

None of it worked.

I was flat on my back in the dark and stared at the ceiling. Not even the lush comfort of the big bed lulled me into what I wanted, a deep, dreamless sleep.

You’d think after a long run, fresh mountain air, more steps than I’d logged in months, and a kind of bone deep physical exhaustion I hadn’t felt in years, I would’ve been out cold. But nope. My body had cooperated fully. My brain? Not so much.

Knox Coleman was the problem.

I’d built a picture of him before I ever met him. I assumed he was similar to Rex and his men, rough and cold and dangerous. I expected a man who wielded his authority like a weapon, who used his size to intimidate and who would expect me to kneel at the altar of his power over me. That’s what I knew. It was what I understood. If Knox was like that, I could’ve navigated sharing a household with him unscathed.

But Knox was nothing like Rex. He was nothing like the others in the Warlords MC.

That would’ve been easy. Too easy, apparently. But he’d gone and been completely, inconveniently different than my expectations, and now I couldn’t shut my brain off because he was there, invading every inch of space in my mind.

Worse than that, this new side of him—the real him—was giving me ideas.

This morning hadn’t helped. The run on the trail and the way he stayed quiet when I told him about Rex. The way he listened without judgment, just a hint of anger, and didn’t attempt to smooth over it because it was uncomfortable. It wasn’t just the big things, it was the small things too. How he kept a slower pace so I could keep up with him without making me feel bad about it.

Being around Knox was easy, and that was dangerous. Men, in my experience, weren’t easy. They were dangerous and unpredictable. But Knox had shattered that worldview in one morning. I’d felt so relaxed, so unafraid that I took more photos than I had in months. I talked more than I ever had to anyone but Dani.

His presence combined with the silence and the fresh air caused a low buzz thrumming through my veins that hadn’t stopped yet. I was a hormonal mess, and his forearms wouldn’t give me a moment of peace.