All Chained Up (Devil's Rock #1)(41)

“Why is that such a surprise? I didn’t sleep with anyone for eight years. What’s another two months?” He detected her shock in the long pause of silence. He reached out and pushed the hair back off her shoulder. “I went a long time without. Figured I might as well wait for something good.” Something other than a quickie with someone he just met. “And you were very good . . . Nurse Davis.”

A dark shadow crept over her cheeks and he knew she was blushing.

His levity slipped, remembering that it had been so good that he didn’t even use a condom just now. “But I shouldn’t have done that. Not like that.”

“According to my menstruation app, this isn’t even the time of the month when I’m most fertile,” she said quickly, like speaking the words fast made it somehow less embarrassing. She reached for the comforter as though recalling her nakedness. He watched hungrily as she pulled the covers over her, hiding her body from his eyes. That would be his last glimpse of all those curves, and that knowledge filled him with an ache. A longing that shot straight to his cock. He felt himself harden all over again and knew he had to get the hell away from her. Fast. Before he lost control again and she was too sweet and obliging to deny him.

“It’s not likely . . .” she hedged.

Not likely. He supposed she would know about that better than anyone. She was a nurse and it was her body, but he still wasn’t proud of himself, and he still wasn’t okay with what happened. No matter how much he’d reveled in her . . . bare-skinned. No matter how much he wanted to lose himself in her again, he couldn’t.

She was as bad for him as he was for her. Around her, he lost control. And he needed to be in control. Losing control was what got him in prison. And he had vowed to never make that mistake again.

He stood up from the bed and reached for his clothes. He dressed in the dark, watching her watch him. Emotion flickered over her gaze. She was so transparent. Wore her emotions like a badge on her face. It made her all the more enticing. She wasn’t hard to read. He didn’t have to wonder what she felt or thought. Unlike everyone else he had been around in the last eight years. Always distrusting them. Always second-guessing.

She looked wounded. And that only made him feel like a bigger bastard. He pulled his shirt back on and then stood there, his hands hanging at his sides, empty, bereft.

“You’re going.” Not a question. Just a simple statement. She lifted her chin as though his leaving her in the middle of the night didn’t bother her in the least. As though he hadn’t just screwed her and was now running for the door. No, it wasn’t a huge f*ck-you at all.

“I should go.”

She nodded stiffly in lieu of a reply.

“You’ll let me know,” he added, his words hanging with implication, his gaze sharp on her. You’ll let me know if I messed up your life and knocked you up.

“Of course,” Briar said quickly. Too quickly. And he knew she was lying. She wouldn’t let him know. The good, responsible, respectable girl in her wasn’t going to reach out to a felon she had a one-night stand with for anything. For her, this was where it would end. If the possibility of fatherhood wasn’t hanging over him, he could let her do that. But she would be hearing from him again.

Fatherhood.

A bolt of panic shot down his spine. Knox never thought he would be a father. Never wanted to be. It was enough for him to take care of Uncle Mac, run Roscoe’s, and convince his parole officer that he was walking the straight and narrow. Eventually, North would get out and together they would take care of Uncle Mac and Roscoe’s. The bar had been in his family for over seventy years. It was their legacy. Roscoe’s had been standing when Sweet Hill was nothing but tumbleweeds. For now it was on him to make sure it kept standing. Fatherhood wasn’t supposed to happen. Not to him.

North wasn’t like him. He still smiled. Still found things to laugh at—even in prison. North could be a father someday. Married with a couple of kids. Not him. He had ruined enough lives. He wouldn’t ruin some innocent kid’s life, too. And he sure as hell wasn’t going to ruin Briar Davis.

If it wasn’t already too late for that. That fate might already be decided. In that case, he would make the best of it. It was the only thing he could do.

“Briar . . .” He hesitated, hating to make any demands on her. Knowing he didn’t have that right, but she had to understand. She had to believe she wasn’t alone in this. “I want to know.”

“Okay. Fine.” An edge entered her tone. “I’ll let you know.”

He pulled his phone from his pocket and opened it to his contacts. “What’s your number?”

She paused for a moment, and he arched an eyebrow, waiting until she rattled off her number. He punched it in, saving her to his contacts and then sliding his phone into his back jeans pocket. “I’ll text you so you have my number.”

“Okay.” Another one word reply. He didn’t like it. Her cold acceptance. He wanted her to talk. To say something. To not sit bundled under her covers looking so wounded. But then he would have to be someone else. A guy that would spend the night with her. Take her to breakfast. To church. To dinner at his parents’. Not him.

“All right.” He moved to the door, feeling like a grade A bastard. He hovered in the threshold of her room. Nothing about this was right. Leaving. Staying. “You’ll be hearing from me.”