Total pages in book: 135
Estimated words: 139088 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 695(@200wpm)___ 556(@250wpm)___ 464(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 139088 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 695(@200wpm)___ 556(@250wpm)___ 464(@300wpm)
And I knew by the frozen, pained look on his face, Knox not only heard them, like what he’d aimed at me with 10cc, he felt them.
I was carving my own scars in his flesh.
I loved that.
And I hated it.
I wanted it.
And I wanted to take it back.
It was only after the song ended, the last lash having landed, opening up flesh, doing to him what he did to me—making him bleed—that I was able to take in the whole of the AAHS group.
I saw Raye had both hands over her mouth, but that didn’t hide the distress written all over her face. Harlow was flat-out crying. Cap was scowling at Knox. And there were plenty of other, miserable reactions to Knox and I taking our shit out on each other in public, and right in front of them.
This…
This was what I’d wanted to avoid going there with him.
So, goddammit, this was his fault too.
It was so destroying, it made me race off the stage.
Dream caught me, and her hands on me, her attention aimed at AAHS, she said, “Okay, maybe that wasn’t my brightest idea.”
“It was perfect, and it wasn’t,” I whispered, her head ticked with confusion, but I didn’t explain. I asked, “Can you finish your date with Byron without me?”
She didn’t hesitate to say, “Go.”
I moved in to kiss her cheek.
When I moved back, I was too emotional to see what was written stark on her face at my gesture of affection.
I had to get out of there.
I didn’t look at anybody.
I raced to our table, heard Byron ask, “Jesus, Luna, are you okay?” but I didn’t answer him as I grabbed my bag.
And then I guessed the wuss was back.
Because, without that first glance at my friends and a man who was once my lover, but no longer was my friend, I raced out of there.
THIRTEEN
HIT ME
“Kids?” Knox asked softly, as we clung to each other and floated in his pool under the stars.
“Yes.”
“How many?”
“Two, three. You?”
“Two. I was a middle child. It wasn’t fun. I wouldn’t want to put one of my kids through that, and all middle children go through some version of that.”
Even two kids went through some version of something (and didn’t I know it), but from what I’d heard, and from what Knox told me of his own experience, it was way worse for a middle child.
So…
“Agreed,” I declared. “Boys? Girls?”
“Couldn’t give that first shit. Though, if we have girls, they better have your curly hair.”
If we have girls.
We.
I tightened my legs around his hips and tried very hard not to howl at the moon.
I succeeded in this, but just barely.
“You married to living in Phoenix for the rest of your life?” he asked.
Hmm.
This was an interesting question.
I’d never lived anywhere else, but…Mom and Dad, Raye, my friends, my job, even Dream, but definitely Dusk, Feather and whoever she was nurturing in her belly, not to mention, if I wasn’t around, I couldn’t be an Angel, the thought of leaving all of that didn’t fill me with joy.
That said, I had a life philosophy, if you had the chance to expand your horizons, you should always take it.
Though, this brought up a pertinent and perhaps frightening question.
“Why? Are you thinking of moving?”
He gathered me closer as the water lapped around us, the stars shone down, every moment together a new kind of perfect idyll with my man, and he answered, “I’m from Tucson. My family’s there. When I got out of the military and joined the NI&S team, I trained in Denver and LA. I really liked Denver. But I came to Phoenix because Cap was here. That said, I can be at any location I choose. There’s always enough work to go around.”
“And Denver is farther away from your family, and the crap they’re pulling,” I guessed.
“Yeah.”
I thought on this, doing it verbally. “I’ve been to Denver. It was rad. It’s not too far away from Phoenix. And the Rock Chicks would be an instant friend posse, and a good one. So I could do Denver.”
He sounded shocked. “You’d leave the Angels?”
“Honestly, it wouldn’t be my choice to live far away from everyone I love, and everything I know. But”—I stroked his stubbled jaw with a wet hand—“this is serious, right?”
“Us?”
I nodded.
“It’s very serious,” he confirmed in a very serious voice.
I felt that settle, it did in every pore, every molecule, and I rejoiced in it.
“Then,” I began quietly, “if I have to look after my man, and he needs distance from his family, I’d go.”
“You’d go,” he whispered, his eyes aimed at my lips like he couldn’t believe the words that just slipped through them.
“Of course I’d go.”
His gaze came back to mine. “Ever fuck in a pool?”
I smiled. “Not yet.”
He smiled back and ordered, “Lose the suit.”
I allowed myself to experience the delightful tingle his order caused.