Page 45 of Sunrise

Guess we both suck at sharing our feelings.

“I’m not ready to say them yet,” he admits, looking up at the stars. “I’ve only said them to one other person, and it damned near killed me a million and a half times.”

That would be me he’s talking about.

“Knox.” I hold his face again and make him look at me. “I’m not going anywhere ever again.”

“But you did once. You left.”

“For a blink.”

“Felt like forever.”

“I came back, didn’t I?”

I never made it through college. Knox thinks it’s because my scholarship fell through when my grades slipped around the time Ryker’s mom died. That isn’t true. I couldn’t stand being so far from him. Starting a new life, in a new state, at a new school, was never going to work for me. What I needed was here. It washim. But if I ever confessed to Knox that I dropped out to be with him, even when we were on shaky ground and only just friends by then, he’d blame himself. According to Knox, I was smart and deserved the best things in life. He never realizedheis the best thing in my life.

My parents never forgave me for dropping out. We haven’t talked in years because fuck them. I’m still mad they couldn’t see how broken I was back then. If I ever have a kid, I’ll be so up in their goddamn business it’s not even funny. Instead of supporting my decision to stay here with my friends, they shamed me and called me a failure and a disgrace. I honestly didn’t see that coming.

Whatever.

Found family is way better than blood family, anyway. Just ask any one of us.

“I’m not going anywhere, Sunrise,” I say again, running my thumb along his cheek. “I promise.”

He closes his eyes and sighs. “Tonight feels like a very trippy dream.”

“May I kiss you?”

His green eyes pop open, and he holds my wrist. “You don’t ever have to ask me for permission, Alex.”

My breath quivers when I exhale before leaning in and pressing my mouth to his. We’re slow with it. Steady. Strong yet soft. I barely pull away so I can adjust my stance and then I go back for another. Snaking my hand around the back of his neck, I kiss him again, adding a little tongue. I build it between us—the lust, the tension, the sensuality.

Finally, I pull away and smile. Jesus, I’m shaking. “How was that?”

Knox looks drugged. “Better than popping a molly.”

“Well, you would know.” I definitely don’t. He got into drugs once I broke up with him. Ryker and Dmitri were furious about it and did everything they could think of to make him stop. I was too fucked in the head at the time to help.

“I just wanted that high again,” he once told Ryker. “I need that feeling back.”

I was his drug of choice. His first high. His first kiss. His first everything.

And I still am.

“This is the best birthday ever,” he says, shoving his helmet back on.

We ride until the sun rises.

???

The club is closed by the time we get back. Housekeeping is vacuuming and disinfecting. The kitchen’s closed. No music, no writhing bodies, no passion or mysteriousness. The Monarch Club feels completely different in the daytime. Like a hoity toity hotel instead of a sex dungeon. It’s weird to be on this side of the surveillance camera for once. I’m usually holed up in my office, chugging caffeine, keeping track of Sophie until this time of day when she usually leaves for her day job, or goes home.

One might call it an obsession. I’d diagnose it as over-protective.

In the past year, she’s had two occasions where someone has tried to overstep her boundaries.Triedbeing the key word. They’re no longer members of the club, and I’m pretty sure they have permanent physical damage, thanks to Dmitri.

If anyone loved her first, it was him. Not romantically, but definitely on another level beyond coworkers. They bonded quickly after she started working here, and the way she just fits in with all of us is sometimes too perfect.

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