Page 71 of A Smile Full of Lies
It had been…him.The mask. The voice. The command to run. The way he’d caught me. The way he’d made me come so hard I saw stars without even taking off my clothes.
And then the goddamn picture on the wall.
Knox’sface staring back at me from that senior portrait. His younger self, frozen in time… jaw sharp, eyes steady, mouth unreadable.
I pressed my hands to my face.
“Jesus fucking Christ,” I whispered.
What thehellwas wrong with me?
I came in the house where his family wasmurdered.I came for a man I didn’t know. For a fantasy I typed into a fucking anonymous forum like a joke. And now I was shaking in Knox’s guest bathroom, dripping in shame and heat and something that felt dangerously close to grief.
My knees buckled and I caught myself on the sink. I had to pull it together. I had toact normalbecause I was living under thesame goddamn roof as Knox, and I couldn’t let him see what I’d done.
I splashed cold water on my face twice before stepping out of the bathroom, but it didn’t help. Neither did breathing. Or thinking. Or tryingnotto think about how my thighs still ached from the way that man had worked me against the door like I was made to break beneath him.
I walked back into the kitchen on unsteady legs, but Knox hadn’t moved. He was still shirtless. Still leaning against the counter. Still scrolling casually through whatever the hell was on his screen like he wasn’t actively ruining my fucking life just by looking like temptation incarnate.
The sweatpants were worse now. Lower somehow. More casual. More… deliberate.
I cleared my throat.
He looked up, all innocent curiosity and golden-boy smugness.
“You good?”
“No,” I blurted, heat rushing to my cheeks. “I mean… yes. I mean—” I gestured helplessly at him. “You have got to stop with the sweatpants.”
His brow lifted.
“What about them?”
I threw my hands up.
“You knowexactlywhat about them.”
He had the audacity to lean back against the counter, crossing his arms, every muscle flexing like he was doing it on purpose.
“Hmm.” He looked down, feigning confusion. “Is there something wrong with my sweatpants?”
I shot him a glare.
“They’re a hazard.”
“To?”
“My self-control.”
His mouth curved into a sinful grin.
“So you’re saying they make you want to jump my bones?”
I groaned, dragging a hand down my face, but didn’t say a word. I was not about to incriminate myself like that.
He leaned forward, voice low and smug as sin.
“Mmm. What if that’s the point, though?”
