Dear Ava

by Madden-Mills, Ilsa

  He grows quiet. Then, “Can you forgive me for not taking you to the hospital? For not—” He stops, his top teeth biting down hard on his bottom lip.

  “What?”

  His lashes flutter against his cheeks.

  “Just say it. Please.” I don’t know why I’m begging him, but he’s so close, so close to telling me what I sense is just right there.

  “For not staying, okay? I should have stayed, but I left because…”

  “You saw me kissing Chance.”

  He closes his eyes. “If I’d stayed, maybe—”

  That moment plays back in my head, when Chance said he loved me and Knox was standing right there with Tawny. The anguish on his face…

  Was it real?

  I shake myself, pushing that away for now.

  “It wasn’t your fault, and I never want you to feel guilty for something you had no control over.”

  “But…I didn’t even do the right thing when I found you! It drives me crazy!”

  I’ll kill him with my bare hands.

  Moments tick by.

  “I’m starting to think no one really knows you. You hire a private investigator, you fight with Liam over me…” I murmur, shaking my head.

  Tentatively and carefully, he reaches out and touches my hand. “Don’t you know me, Tulip?”

  My body tingles at the use of my middle name combined with his hand, and dang, it’s such a simple thing, but…

  “You’ve told me more than the cops ever did.”

  My frustration ebbs away, leaving bitterness and regret, yet in the end, I can’t blame anything on Knox. I went to that party. I let my guard down. I own that.

  “Thank you for taking me to Piper’s. You might have saved my life. I seriously entertained the idea of a coyote getting me,” I add, trying for levity, but he doesn’t laugh. “Anyway, I could have choked on my own vomit out there in the woods.”

  His jaw tightens.

  I sigh.

  “I’m not mad at you.” I stand up.

  He stands, gray eyes holding mine.

  “But I can tell you can’t make up your mind about something when it comes to me. You’re holding back.”

  He crosses his arms. “Trust me, that’s a good thing.”

  “Is it?” I cock my head. “Tell me, what else have you done for me lately? Someone paid for my housing, and you were the one who came out of Trask’s office before I went in—after I’d just told you I wasn’t in the dorms. Was that you?”

  He drops his eyes and paces around the stage.

  “Knox?”

  He waves me off and plops down on the piano seat. “I blamed myself for not staying at the party and making sure nothing happened to you.”

  “Uh-huh. We’ve established that point. You’re not answering my question.”

  He nods. “At the same time, I got all this information about you from the P.I.—how you grew up, how your mom left you with a baby, how you beat the odds and managed to get a scholarship to Camden. You’re a bright star in this shitty place. You’re not like anyone I’ve ever met.”

  “Was it you?”

  He stands and marches over to me, staring down at me with those hot eyes. “I know underneath that tough-girl exterior, you’d do anything for the people you love. Do you know how rare that is? People may say they care and love, but from what I’ve seen, they only look out for themselves. You, though, you feel so intensely. You love so hard you came back to Camden for your brother—”

  “Is there anything about me you don’t know? When I was spilling my guts to you in class and at Lou’s, did you already know those things?”

  “I knew about your mom. I knew she left you, and I knew you lived on the streets sometimes. I knew Trask had asked you back and you requested to live in the dorms, but—”

  He stops and swallows, his brow furrowed. He turns back to me, meeting my gaze, holding it steady. Still he doesn’t speak. I see that mask slipping back onto his face.

  “Knox? Don’t you pussy out on me. This is the most honest conversation we’ve had, and I want to hear it all.”

  I move closer, and part of me knows it throws him off, makes him uneasy. The smell of him, like summer and ocean waves, surrounds me.

  My eyes trace the hard lines of his jaw, the long, strong nose, the way his dark hair falls around his face.

  When he speaks, the words come reluctantly. “You’ve always fascinated me, okay? Since day one, since the moment you waltzed through those doors with your long blonde hair and eyes full of all that hope. Everyone else comes here and they already have everything, but you had nothing—nothing except your power. You barely looked at any of us, especially me, and I knew then you were untouchable, knew you deserved better than any guy at Camden.” He pauses. “Then Chance…you gave him a shot.”

  He thinks I have power?

  I’m untouchable?

  A small laugh comes from me, some of that confidence I’ve lost along the way reemerging. The king of Camden sees me…he sees me as someone I never have.

  He touches my hair, just barely. “You walked in Monday with all your hair cut off and a different color and, fuck, I was sad.”

  My heart thuds. “Really?”

  “Mmmm. When I sat behind you in class, I used to touch it with my pencil, and you never even noticed. You smell like vanilla, do you know that?”

  I’m afraid to say anything, to stop him.

  “Every day I’d get a little braver and barely touch my pencil to your shoulder, your arm. I was afraid to want you, then hurt you—”

  The auditorium door creaks open and we hear two voices—teacher voices.

  “We’re not supposed to be in here,” I hiss.

  He grabs my hand and pulls me behind the black curtain. Somehow I end up in front of him, his chest to my back with the heavy curtains inches from my face. I feel the hard muscles of his body, the brush of his hips at the small of my back. His hands land on my shoulders then fall. I inhale.

  The air around us crackles. He’s right there. Against me.

  I can’t breathe, and it isn’t a bad thing. It’s intoxicating.

  “Is there a back exit?” I whisper.

  There’s a small slit in the fabric and he reaches around me, his bicep teasing my cheek as he peeks through. “Don’t worry. It’s Maxine and the janitor, Carl.” His voice is ragged and gravelly.

  He played with my hair—

  “How are you on a first-name basis with the staff here?” Am I really trying to have a conversation with him when all I want is…

  We hear smacking sounds.

  My eyes flare. “What are they doing out there?”

  His hand lands on my shoulder after parting the curtain again. His fingers toy with my hair, and my body clenches, sparks igniting and giving me goose bumps.

  “Making out.” He growls as if speaking the words is torture. His hand slides to my nape, barely a touch.

  “No way,” I whisper, trying to gain control and pretend his body isn’t plastered to mine, every single inch of delicious muscle.

  “Look for yourself,” he says, his lips brushing against the skin of my ear. He moves the curtain so I can see, leaving a small sliver of a gap so he doesn’t have to hold it.

  Sure enough, Maxine and Carl are in an embrace near one of the seats on the far right toward the front of the stage. He’s a small man, a bit rotund, but he knows his stuff, his hands on her boobs. Go Carl.

  I can’t even think straight, but somehow I say, “Her bun is down and he’s got some amazing mutton chops. Dang, now he’s unbuttoning her shirt.”

  “Hmmm, they look like they’re enjoying it,” Knox says, his right hand moving to my hip like it’s a homing beacon.

  I watch Carl and Maxine with envy, hearing her breathy little gasps when he cups her breast. He moves his lips down, takes a nipple in his mouth, and sucks.

  My mind is dirty, so dirty, because I’m picturing Knox doing that to me.

  “Do you like watching th
em?” he murmurs.

  “Maybe.” I melt into him, feeling more of him, his cock that’s most certainly hard. My head eases back and rests on his shoulder.

  “Tulip, fuck, what are you doing to me?” he mutters, his hand tightening, his other one grasping my other hip.

  “I’m not doing anything,” I gasp out.

  “You’re killing me,” he rumbles in my ear. His tongue licks at the top and bites down, and I moan.

  We still when Maxine’s head comes up and she looks around the auditorium, squinting in the darkness as if she knows we’re watching.

  “Now you’ve done it. We’re gonna get caught,” he whispers.

  “You’re the one who bit my ear,” I murmur breathlessly, excited and scared, and…

  “Did you like it, Tulip?”

  “Yes.” I close my eyes. I can’t see his face, and I wish I could.

  The bell rings, and neither of us moves. Carl and Maxine do though, straightening their clothes and murmuring to each other.

  “We have to get out of here,” I say after a while when neither of us has spoken. “I have a class.”

  “I can skip. It’s just gym.”

  “You can’t miss football.”

  “I will.” His nose presses into my hair, and my breath hitches. He’s being so careful with his little touches, but I sense the coil of tension buzzing inside him.

  I just…

  I’m afraid if I turn around, this spell will be broken.

  “Truth or dare, Knox?” I whisper after Maxine and Carl exit the auditorium.

  His hands slide up my arms and land on my shoulders, kneading the muscles there. “You want to play games, Tulip?”

  “Yes.”

  He tilts my head to the side and kisses my neck with the softest touch, and I’m languid in his arms. “Dare.”

  It’s quiet in here, so quiet.

  “You were supposed to say truth,” I mutter.

  He laughs quietly against my skin.

  “Fine. Let me turn around then. That’s your dare.”

  He grows still, his hands tightening. “Why?”

  “Rules of the game. Let go and let me face you.”

  “I changed my mind. Truth it is.”

  “Did you pay for my housing?” I ask huskily.

  A long pause, then, “Yes.”

  God, he’s so… Why have I never seen his…kind nature? How could I have been so blind?

  I yank myself out of his grip and flip around to stare at him.

  “Tulip…shit…you ask for too much from me.” He shifts us so we aren’t pressed so tightly together, yet he leans his forehead against mine.

  I count his lashes, the dark curls thick and lush like a girl’s. I trace the line of his granite jaw. My eyes linger on the scar on his face.

  “Truth or dare, Knox.”

  “Isn’t it my turn?” he pushes out, his gaze wary.

  My chest is tight, an ache there. “No. This is my game.”

  “Truth, then.”

  “What’s between us?” My voice shakes. “Since last year, there’s been this connection and I can’t explain it.”

  His eyes close briefly. “I know how it feels to walk into a room and feel as if no one really knows you. So do you.”

  I stare up at him, running my eyes over his broad shoulders, that powerful chest that’s so still right now.

  “Truth or dare, again, and you can’t say truth this time. My rules,” I say.

  “This isn’t a very fair game.”

  “Just do it my way this one time, and I’ll owe you one.”

  He inhales sharply as if he knows what’s coming. His hands cup my face. “You are pushing all my buttons right now, do you know that? I’m barely keeping my hands off you, Tulip, and once I let go—”

  “Truth or dare, Cold and Evil. You pick, and you better choose the right one, damn you.”

  “Dare.”

  “Kiss me.” I run my finger over that slice through his upper lip.

  He shudders, his eyes lowering, pupils dilating. “I don’t kiss on the mouth, but you’re looking at me like…like…” His voice grows huskier as he takes a step closer until finally my chest is against his. I sigh into the hardness of the power I feel underneath me, the friction of his jersey against my button-down.

  “Do you want this fucked-up mouth on you, Tulip?”

  “Yes,” I whisper, heat firing through my body at the frankness of him. At this moment, I want his fucked-up mouth all over me. “I’d like to know if…if it’s still good for me.”

  He stares down at me, the air thickening between us. “You’re treading on thin ice…” But his actions don’t align with his words. He’s sliding his hand into my hair and palming my scalp. His breathing intensifies when his lips hover over mine. “Tulip—”

  Before I chicken out—or he does—I arch my neck and press my mouth to his, giving his scar my attention first, pressing small, lingering kisses to that indentation before parting my lips and sliding them across his in delicate strokes.

  Seconds pass as I kiss him and he just stands there, until finally, he groans and wraps his hands around my nape, angling my head to get deeper. He murmurs my name, his lips hesitant then changing as I nip at him, tugging on the bottom one. His strong arms tighten around me, taking control of us, his tongue tangling with mine, caressing, our breaths mingling. His fingers scrape across my scalp as if he wants to get closer, to inhale me.

  The heat of his mouth, the urgency of it sends waves of fire to my lower body, and I kiss him harder. Desire thrums through me, and it feels like I’m discovering a secret within him, kicking at his hidden layers, searching for the real Knox.

  “Tulip,” he groans when we stop to breathe.

  “Don’t stop, please.” It feels too good. Kissing him is like I’ve spent a day in the sunshine, and when night comes, the stars will only shine for me.

  “I want to kiss you, I want to…” His mouth takes mine again, hungrily, with a ferocity that makes me want to crawl inside him for more, so much more.

  “Am I doing it right?” He presses his open mouth to my neck and sucks on the tender skin, his teeth dragging.

  “God, yes.” My hands slide up to rub his shoulders, tugging at his shirt, wishing it would magically disappear. I ease under his jersey and explore him, his six-pack, the rippling muscles of his chest.

  “You’re shaking,” I say, recalling how he trembled outside Vandy.

  “I’m scared.”

  “Am I the first girl you’ve kissed in a long time, like really kissed?”

  He nods. “But that isn’t why I’m scared. I’ve always wanted to kiss you, Tulip.”

  He comes back to my lips and takes them again, his tongue declaring dominance and ownership. Kissing him is like freefalling into a hot fire, and maybe I should be afraid of this, but I crave the way his chest burns against mine, the way it ignites every atom inside me. He tastes like spearmint and sex and everything I want—

  He breaks us apart, his eyes gunmetal hot, his sensuous, wicked mouth swollen.

  “Fuck.” His chest heaves. “You’re too much. You taste so good—” He takes my mouth again, his hands everywhere, in my hair, on my neck, grazing over my pebbled nipples before landing on my hips. “Tell me to stop, please, Tulip, tell me, tell me…”

  My skin throbs and I kiss him back with intensity. “Can’t.”

  “Tulip,” he whispers, moving us until I’m against the wall and he’s hovering in front of me, his lips back on mine. “You…drive…me…insane,” he gasps out in between kisses. My hands cup his ass, and my pelvis swivels against his, aching for that tent in his pants. He mutters a curse and lifts me up so my legs can curl around him. I lock them around his waist as he dips his head and places his lips on the rise of my breasts. His teeth tug at the erect nipple underneath, sucking and biting through my thin shirt and bra.

  “You’re so hard to stay away from,” he murmurs, coming back to my lips and taking them again.

>   Sighing in his mouth, I rub against him while sweet friction eats at me, pulsing through my body. I’ve been scared before this, worried part of me would never want a guy again. The nuns made me attend a few therapy sessions after that night, and I recall the doctor telling me to expect anxiety when I had a sexual relationship, but right now, all I feel is need and want and desire and hunger—for him.

  “Am I going too fast, Tulip? Am I?” he says raggedly as his hand slides under my skirt and traces the waistband of my panties.

  “I dare you,” I say.

  “Tulip,” he groans and slips his hand inside, brushing his fingers through my wetness with feather-light strokes while I shudder. He tugs on my hair, arching my neck back as he stares down at me, desire swirling in his eyes. “I want to hear you come. I want my name on your lips when you do, so bad, so fucking bad…” His breath hitches while his finger dips inside me and moves in and out.

  “Never…I never have…”

  “You will,” he growls as his thumb finds the upper part of my mound, teasing me with a hesitant touch, making me breathless as I arch to get more, just more. With his face flushed, he takes deep gulps of air, his eyes heavy and low. We’re moving fast, so fast, as he gets into a rhythm, working his fingers, circling and dancing and touching and—

  Tingles skate over my spine, pressure building and building, until I’m gasping and clutching his shoulders.

  “So sweet, so sweet,” he says in my ear, and the scent of his cologne, sunshine and sea, the feel of his quivering chest under my hands—all those sensations sharpen to a laser focus until I explode into a million shards of lightning, my body clenching around him as I call out his name, writhing against his hand.

  I float down, lazily and softly, as he kisses me.

  Dimly, I’m aware of more sounds around us, other than our breathing. Voices grow louder, students filling up the auditorium.

  Knox tenses next to me, trying to get his breathing under control. “Fuck. There’s a class coming in.”

  I let out a shaky breath. “Chorus probably.”

  He lets me slide down from him and I realize my clothes are barely even out of place, top still buttoned up, my skirt draping over my thighs. There’s a damp spot on my shirt, but I can put my blazer over it.