Knox Page 9

  And it’s not just this time that's finished. I promised myself that, after Knox came over and I got to have one last amazing round of sex with him, I needed to end things.

  The sex is incredible, yes, but I never should’ve laid a hand on a witness in an active case. Not just any case, but the biggest one of my career.

  I wanted Knox from the second I saw him, though, sprawled out naked in his bed. When I couldn’t stop thinking about being with him, I gave in to my needs and mixed business with pleasure. But he’s all wrong for me even if he feels so fucking right.

  Teeth bite down into the skin of my shoulder, forcing me out of my head.

  “You’re way too good at that,” I tell him honestly. There’s no doubt that I could become addicted to him, which is all the more reason to end this now before I have to choose between him and my career in law enforcement.

  “Yeah, well, don’t think that made up for everything,” Knox says, but his voice is teasing now, not angry like before he went down on me. “It’s was only, like…fifty percent amends.”

  “Then I’ll have to owe you the other half,” I tell him over my shoulder.

  “Or…” he starts as his big hand slides down my stomach and cups me possessively between my legs where I’m still so sensitive I shiver. “You could let me take you to bed and work off the rest tonight.”

  Part of me wants to say yes because I’m already desperate for more of him, even though I’m still feeling echoes from my orgasms. But the other part of me knows it’s not smart to continue this. Besides, I hope to have a job in another city soon, far away from here.

  “Actually,” I tell Knox as I reluctantly remove his hand from my pussy to turn around and face him. “I don’t think we should do this again.”

  “You don’t?” he asks with his forehead bunched in confusion.

  “No,” I say with my hands resting on his waist. “Not that I haven’t loved being with you, but you’re an informant in a murder investigation. That’s a line that I never should’ve crossed…”

  “Oh, right,” he says as he takes a step back and pulls his jeans up to fasten them, jaw clenched tightly. “Now that the case is solved and the bad guy is locked up, there’s no reason for you to keep fucking your informant for information, is there?”

  “That’s not all this was, Knox,” I tell him, but it’s too late. A huge, impenetrable brick wall comes down between us as he closes himself off.

  “Stay away from me and my fucking friends,” he barks before he grabs the door and jerks it wide open even with my weight on it.

  “I’m sorry,” I say, but it’s too late. Knox is gone, and I feel awful, not just because I hurt him but because I wasn’t ready to let him go.

  Chapter Nine

  Knox

  “What the hell were you thinking?” I bark at Gabby when she walks out of the police station. Her smile slips as soon she looks up and sees me.

  “Knox…”

  “He could’ve killed you!” I grumble.

  “He didn’t, and Cain’s got a great deal,” she says. “He’ll be out in a few weeks.”

  “Does he know you risked your life for his freedom?” I ask.

  “I did what I had to do to get Mario arrested and Cain out. Now it’s over, so just let it go, Knox,” she huffs.

  “I still can’t believe you didn’t tell me what you were planning to do!”

  “Calm down, and let’s go home,” Gabby says. “I’m tired, and I don’t want to listen to you bitch anymore.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry if my concern for you is such a goddamn problem,” I mutter as I follow her out the parking lot and toward the apartment.

  “What is your problem?” she asks. “And how did you know it was tonight? Did Detective Horton call you?”

  “Yeah, she called me all right,” I answer with a bark of laughter because laughing is better than crying when you’re a grown-ass man who’s been kicked to the fucking curb by a beautiful woman. I knew Jade was out of my league, so why am I even surprised by her quick dismissal? I got to fuck her, right? Twice. That’s more than I could’ve hoped for. Of course I wish for more, but this isn’t the first time and won’t be the last time I don’t get what I want in life.

  “Detective Horton came in guns blazing. I swear, if Mario would’ve twitched, I think she would’ve shot him,” Gabby says, her admiration of the woman obvious. And I hate hearing that it came down that close, for both Gabby and Jade’s safety.

  “I’m just glad you’re okay,” I tell her. “Please don’t talk to Jade again without telling me, though.”

  Gabby stops walking on the sidewalk to turn and look at me underneath one of the street lamps “Jade?” she repeats, using her first name like I did. Oops.

  “Detective Horton,” I correct. “She told me to call her Jade. Didn’t she say the same to you?” I ask.

  “Nope. And why did she want your phone number but not Ivan’s?” Gabby asks.

  “No idea. Could we not talk about her, like, ever?”

  “Yeah, sure,” she replies with a grin before she turns to start walking again. “So, do you think Ivan will be pissed about what I did?”

  “Fuck yes,” I tell her. “And that’s all on you to explain. I’m going straight to bed. Just leave out all parts about me except that you called me to walk you home from the station.”

  “But I didn’t—” she starts, and I shush her.

  “You called me to walk you home,” I repeat. “The rest is all the truth.”

  “Fine,” she agrees as our apartment building comes into view. “But I get the feeling you’re holding out on me.”

  “Nothing you need to know,” I say because I don’t want to talk about Jade. My friends would all lose their shit if they knew I fucked her. That’s one secret that I plan to keep from them. A secret that I won’t be able to forget for a long time, if ever.

  Chapter Ten

  Jade

  December

  “Sorry to bother you, Chief. I just need to give you this,” I say as I hold up the envelope in my hand that had taken me three weeks to finally put in motion. If I can just work through my notice without any problems from the chief, I’ll be home free.

  “What is it?” he asks when he looks up from behind his desk.

  Walking over to him, I place it in his hand even though that contact is almost too much.

  “I’m turning in my resignation and two-week notice.”

  “Your notice?” he asks as he pulls out the letter and his eyes skim over it.

  “I’ve been offered a position with the Greenville PD,” I inform him. Not only is Greenville over an hour from here, but it will also put me closer to my family on the coast.

  “Oh really?” Chief Stokes asks before he tosses the letter down and starts thumbing through an old school Rolodex.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Just a moment,” he says, holding up a finger as he lifts the phone from the cradle and punches in a series of numbers. “Chief Roberts, please,” he says into the receiver, making my breath hitch.

  Why the hell is he calling my new boss?

  “Jim, how are you? It’s Randall,” the Chief says cordially. Then, his eyes cut to me when he tells him, “I just heard you’ve offered one of my detectives a job. Good timing since internal affairs just launched an investigation. It’s recently come to my attention that Miss Horton offered…sexual favors to our academy instructor because she was unable to pass on her own merits.”

  “That’s not true!” I yell as I slap my palms down on his desk.

  “It is unfortunate,” the chief says into the phone. “Perhaps you’ll want to strip her rank and make her re-enroll in your academy to avoid any accusations of biased treatment. Right, well, that’s probably for the best. Just let us deal with her. Sorry for any inconvenience.”

  “What are you doing?” I shout at him as he hangs up the phone.

  “Saving you the trouble of packing,” the chief says with a smirk.

  “
I’m responsible for arresting Guerra when no one else could! The least I deserve is to be able to work in a department that’s not run by a bunch of sexist assholes!”

  “No one made you bend over my desk, Horton. You gave it up to me without a word of protest,” he argues as he points to the edge of his desk that I wish I could forget. “So don’t put the blame on me now if you’re having buyer’s remorse.”

  “I didn’t have a choice!”

  “Of course you had a choice. You could’ve refused and walked out, but you didn’t, did you? Now get the fuck out of my office. If you ever mention this shit again, I’ll jerk that badge off of you quicker than you can blink!”

  No, no, no. This can’t be happening!

  The room spins around me as I race for the door. I barely make it across the building to the women’s restroom before my stomach heaves and I start retching violently into the toilet, losing the toast and orange juice I had for breakfast this morning.

  I’m so fucking screwed. I’ll never get out of this hellhole, out from under that bastard no matter what I do.

  Tears stream down my cheeks as the vomiting thankfully recedes. When I reach for some toilet paper to clean myself up, I see the wrapper of a feminine product sticking out of the trash bin that’s built into the wall. The simple sight sends me into an even worse tailspin.

  For some reason, I can’t recall today’s date or how long it’s been since my last period.

  Finally, I concentrate hard and do the math.

  My period should’ve been…last week.

  I’m late.

  Not just a day or two late but an entire fucking week late, which is unheard of for me.

  “No. Hell no. I can’t be pregnant with his baby,” I say aloud to reinforce the fact I’m certain of. Just imagining a baby with the chief’s face makes me start puking again.

  After the heaves and some of the shock subside, I think back and assure myself that I had a period five weeks ago, right after I took a Plan B. “Thank God it’s not his,” I mutter to myself as I slump with my back against the stall wall in relief and say a prayer of gratitude to the heavens.

  So the only other times I’ve had sex recently were…the two screaming-down-the-walls-it-was-so-good times with Knox.

  God, I should’ve known it was too amazing to have just been for a few incredible orgasms. We fucked so hard the condom apparently couldn’t hold up to do its damn job!

  I’ll need to pick up a pregnancy test at the store and take it to be sure, but I already know what it will say.

  Now I just have to figure out whether or not I should tell Knox.

  I may be quick to blame him for being so virile a condom was worthless, but really this is all my fault. I let my selfish needs take over against my better judgment, and now I have to deal with the consequences.

  Knox is better off not knowing. He’s young and has the rest of his life in front of him, along with a lot of bad decisions he can’t seem to avoid making. I’m such a pain in the ass that this may be the only chance I’ll ever get to be a mother since there’s probably no man out there in the world who will want to spend his life putting up with me.

  My career is pretty much over or at least as far as it will ever go, and it’s always been the most important thing to me.

  Within a matter of seconds, that’s changed, and I haven’t even taken a test yet. My heart knows already, and now, the son or daughter I haven’t even met is suddenly my top priority, making my job seem completely worthless other than providing the income needed to take care of the two of us.

  There may be a million thoughts racing in my head, but there’s one that’s louder than the rest put together.

  Me and this baby will be perfectly fine. There’s just no other option.

  Chapter Eleven

  Knox

  April

  The majority of the last few months of my life has consisted of lounging around the house eating my emotions, interspersed with trips to Escapades to try and erase one set of tits and ass from my memory and replace them with another. A few times I even thought about getting a blowjob, but I knew those quick moments of pleasure wouldn’t come close to filling the void Jade left behind.

  Then, a few weeks ago, the guys and I found out that Liam O’Donnell, the Irish crime boss who took over for Mario, was actually going to pay us to fight legitimately. That’s when I finally hauled my sad ass up and started training again to distract me from all thoughts of a sexy detective, who used me and tossed me aside.

  Tonight, though, I’m lying in bed, staring at the ceiling and trying to keep my hand off my dick. Not because of training or whatever, but because she doesn’t deserve to play a role in my spank bank fantasies, yet the woman continues to keep popping up.

  When a ringing suddenly begins to fill the silence, I jump up like there are springs in my ass to grab my phone, hoping it’s her, even if I know it won’t be.

  Don’t tell Ivan I was bummed out to see it was just him calling.

  “Yeah?” I answer after the second ring.

  “I need to ask a favor,” Ivan says urgently.

  “Ivan? Where the hell have you been?” I ask since he didn’t come home tonight.

  “I’m…working on something,” he says hesitantly. “It’s important, and I need your help.”

  “Sure. What’s going on?” Ivan and Cain are like my brothers, so I’ve always got their back, just like I know they’ll always have mine.

  “You remember where I keep my gun?” A few months ago, Ivan showed me and Cain the gun he bought to someday kill the man who murdered his mother.

  “Yeah,” I reply slowly. “Why? Is it killing time?”

  “It’s killing time,” he agrees. “Can you borrow a car for a few days and go buy some bullets for it?"

  “Right now? Where the hell can I get a car and bullets after midnight?” I say before it hits me. I know a woman in law enforcement, and this is a great excuse to finally contact her. She said she still owes me. I haven’t dialed her number once in months because there was no good reason for it, but now there is. It’s time to fucking collect. “Never mind, I think I can figure it out.”

  “Great, because I’ll probably need you to meet me someplace tomorrow with both. I’ll call with more details when I have them. Try to bring Cain and more guns if either of you can get your hands on them.”

  “Ohh-kay,” I drawl. “But would you like to tell me what the fuck we’re getting ourselves into first?”

  “I’m trying to help Liam save his daughter from the man who killed my mother,” Ivan explains.

  “That’s a pretty damn good reason,” I agree. “I’ll handle shit on this end, but you better be careful.”

  “I will,” he replies. “Thanks, Knox.”

  “No problem,” I tell him, glad to have this chance to call up Jade. “Talk to you tomorrow.”

  Without even pausing a second to talk myself out of it, I dial the number for Jade’s cell that I saved in my phone and put it up to my ear as it rings.

  “Hello? Knox?” she answers right away with a clear voice that tells me she wasn’t sleeping. Why wasn’t she sleeping? And since she knows it’s me, did she save my contact information in her phone too or just forget to delete it… “Knox? Is that you?” she asks again.

  “Yeah, it’s me. Hey,” I say.

  “Hey,” she repeats.

  “Sorry to call so late, but you owe me a favor and I need to collect tonight,” I tell her, then cringe because that sounds like I’m asking for sex. “I don’t want sex,” I clarify, even if it is a blatant lie.

  “Well, I still owe you. Mario’s defense attorney convinced him to take a plea a few weeks ago, so now none of you will even have to testify. He’s serving a thirty-year sentence.”

  “Wow, that’s great,” I tell her.

  “Yeah,” she says on a sigh. “So, you’re, um, you’re coming over here? Right now?”

  “If that’s okay. It’s pretty urgent,” I tell her. It could
probably wait until the morning, but I want to see her tonight. “I mean, you don’t have, like, company or anything tonight, do you?” I ask as a roundabout way of asking if she’s dating anyone.

  “No company,” she says. “You still have my address?”

  “Yeah,” I agree, thinking of all the times over the last few months that I nearly took the bus across town just to try and get a glimpse of her but knew it was just too pathetic. “See you in a few,” I tell her.

  “Okay,” she agrees before we hang up.

  …

  Jade

  “Fuck,” I mutter to myself after I end the call with Knox.

  Shooting up out of bed, or as fast as I can nowadays, I start pulling off my clothes as I make a beeline for the bathroom. Why is my first instinct to shower after hearing from Knox for the first time in months? Hell if I know, but that’s what I’m doing, putting my hair up to take a quick shower while I plan my next move.

  This is good, right? A chance for him to see what he did to me.

  For months I’ve been too afraid to show up at his apartment and confront him for fear of his anger and rejection. It’s weak of me, I know, but all these hormones swimming around inside are making me nuts and emotional. In the span of two minutes, I can swing from happy, to sad, to horny, to pissed off. That makes it pretty difficult to have an important conversation with someone. And while the guys at the station have blamed it on PMS, I won’t be able to hide my bump much longer.

  Tonight, I don’t plan to hide it. I’m relieved to finally be able to share this news with someone else. I haven’t even told my family yet.

  Since the hot flashes are also maddening, I slip on a tightfitting blue spaghetti strap tank top with a shelf bra and a pair of black yoga pants. Straight on in the mirror, it’s still not glaringly obvious, but if I turn to the side, yep, definitely a pregnant belly.