Page 32 of Beauty and her Billionaire Beast
15
Knox
I wake up on my side. I’m still fucking tired. It’s daybreak, and a bright beam of sunlight is directly on my face. It pierces into the room through the opening between the automatic blinds. Squinting, I block out some of the glare and notice Isabelle next to me. Our bodies are facing each other,and her slender index finger is tracing a path down my barechest.
This is afirst.
I’ve never slept in the same bed with a woman, for starters. I’ve also never had a woman in my bed where no fucking tookplace.
“Good morning,” she greets me with asmile.
“Morning. You’re up before me. How’d yousleep?”
“Very well,thanks.”
“Good,” I say, and stretch onearm into the air and the other up toward the headboard, getting the kinksout.
“You came back to bed with me. How come you didn’t wake meup?”
I trace the back of my hand along the line of her jaw, then run my fingers into her hair. “Didn’t want to wake you. You didn’t kick me out of your bedeither.”
“That’s because it’s your bed,” she says with a shy laugh. “But maybe Ikind of like the feel of a warm body next to me. You know, keeping the covers nice andcozy.”
“Oh. So just any old warm body will do? Or mine specifically?” I ask, to see herreaction.
Color stains her cheeks, and she looks away briefly, seeming to struggle for an answer. “That’s a pretty loadedquestion.”
“Not really. It’s a pretty simple one.” I place one hand at her backand pull her to my chest, rolling us until I’m on top of her. Straddling her hips, I sit back and hold her in place at her shoulders. “Tell me,” Idemand.
She stares up into my face, trying hard to look serious, but she soon erupts in a fit of girlish laughter and giggles. “Is that an order? What do you want me tosay?”
“Just thetruth.”
“Uh, what’s the questionagain?”
“You know what it is. Answerme.”
“Okay…but you have to answer a question I have for youtoo.”
“Sure. I’m an open book with you. Askaway.”
Her hands move up to my chest again, fingers sliding along my skin. I look down and see her doing the same thing again, tracing a couple of fingers along the dots of scarlet, red, and pink lines scarring my otherwise smooth, tannedskintone.
“You’re still fighting? At those cage clubs or whatever they’re calling itnow?”
I nod. “Underground fight clubs. And yes. That’s what I do. It’s a hobby. It’s who Iam.”
“You didn’t have all these scarsbefore.”
“Think of them as badges. I wear my medalsproud.”
She stops her hand at a long, raised line where some cheating dickhead fighter cut me.He had a razor blade slipped in between his index and middle fingers, embedded into his protective boxing hand wraps. The wound he gave me wasn’t serious, but I bled like a pig that night. I got fifteen stitches to close that shit up. But I still won that fuckingfight.
“I think I saw a few before. But so many of these are new. Do theyhurt?”
I clasp my hand over hers, where she’sstill touching that scar. “Nope.”
“What about right after you gotthem?”
