To the Stars (Thatch #2)(101)

Her back arched away from the bed, and I swallowed her pleasured moan when she came minutes later. Even through the trembling in her body, she frantically grasped for the towel still hanging on my hips. Once she had it off, I reached over and began digging around in my nightstand without ever breaking from the kiss, and grabbed a condom. Harlow helped me roll it on as I pulled off her shirt, and before I even let her body hit the bed again, I was pushing into her.

“Knox!” she gasped, and gripped at my shoulders as I silently, and physically, claimed what had always been mine. I’d wanted to take this slow, but her moans earlier and the way her nails were digging into my back now were making it impossible.

I gripped her hips as she wrapped her long legs around my back, and a growl rumbled in my chest at her breathy plea for more. I moved quickly but thoroughly inside her as she matched each movement with one of her own, and dropped my head in the crook of her neck as I got closer to my release and felt her tightening around me. My hands moved to grip the comforter, and I bit down at the soft spot at the base of her throat as I tried to hold off my release for her, and the start of her second orgasm sent me into my own.

Harlow held me against her trembling body for minutes after, and I only moved away from her long enough to get rid of the condom in my bathroom before I returned to her side and pulled her into my arms.

We hadn’t used condoms our first two times together, neither of us having thought about it at the time, or even after. Harlow still hadn’t asked me to use one in the handful of times that we’d been together since then, but it was something I knew she needed—just like she needed the time of doing things on her own. While she said she trusted me, I’d still gotten tested again for both our peace of mind. But even though I was clean, it hadn’t gone over well. Harlow’s parents had come back into town and were at her new apartment, and her dad had found my results—which led to him asking why I’d needed to get tested anyway.

I’d had to have another talk with Harlow’s dad because of that. Safe to say I was trying to figure out ways to get back on his good side.

“Knox?” Harlow murmured a few minutes later, and tilted her head back to look into my eyes.

I raised an eyebrow in question, but didn’t speak, just tightened my grip on her and reveled in the fact that there was more of her to grip.

“Thank you . . . for everything. Not just tonight, not for the last month and a half, but for the last seven years. For always being there, for being what I needed at every point in my life, and for knowing what I needed even when I didn’t.” Her eyes filled with tears, and she smiled shakily. “There were times before, when my eighteenth birthday was so close, and it frustrated me that you wouldn’t just let us be what we both wanted. Then with Collin, I was always so scared that he was going to find out about you, and that you were going to get hurt—well, more hurt . . .” She trailed off, and ran her fingers gently over where I’d been shot. “It terrified me that you wouldn’t listen to me, that you kept saying you were going to get me away from him. I thought I knew what was best, that we needed to just act like it wasn’t happening so I could keep everyone safe. Then lately, even though you were usually with me, I could feel that you were holding back. I didn’t know why you were, or what had come between us, and it worried me.”

“Low,” I whispered. My forehead pinched and I pressed my palm to her cheek. If I’d known it had been bothering her, we would’ve talked about it before tonight.

“But at the same time it felt like nothing was between us, and there has never been one moment where I couldn’t see how much you love me. So now that I know what you’re doing, and why you’re doing it, it just makes me appreciate and love you more—like everything else did.” She pressed her hand against where mine was and held my stare for a few seconds before continuing: “I don’t always understand why you do what you do; but I know you always have a reason, and that reason is usually for my best interest. So—just, thank you. I love you, Knox Alexander, and I am so lucky to be loved by you.”

My mouth was on hers before she could finish getting the last word out, and a high-pitched sound of surprise turned into a giggle as she wrapped her arms around me.

“When you say things like that, it makes me want to forget why I’m giving you this time,” I informed her, and she laughed again as she pulled away from me.

“You say that, but I know you. I know you wouldn’t follow through with that.” Her blue eyes searched mine, and I found myself caught in them when I noticed that a part of Harlow was finally winning—my Harlow. “I want to ask you when you think we’ll be ready to move on from all this, but I have no doubt you’ll let me know.”

I smiled knowingly. “As I said, Low, you won’t be allowed out of bed—that will be your first clue.”

She rolled her eyes, but her smile offset the action. Her eyelids slowly grew heavy, and just before she let them shut, she murmured, “Knox?”

My lips twitched. “Yeah, Low.”

“I’m sorry for wasting time.”

My face twisted and my chest ached. I swallowed past the tightness in my throat, and whispered honestly, “Never.”





Epilogue


Knox

Six months later—Thatch

“WHERE ARE YOU?” I asked, and shifted my weight nervously from foot to foot.