Worth It (Forbidden Men 6)

“Only if I can return the favor.” Catching the tab of her shorts, I began to ease it open. When I slid my hand inside, she gasped and squirmed against me.

“Sold.”

I kissed her, and we pleasured each other with our hands while we both leaned against our special trouble tree.

I woke to footsteps outside my bedroom door. It took me a minute to orient myself and remember I was in my new apartment, so the person walking past my door had to be my new roommate.

Suddenly wide awake, I sprang upright. For three days, we’d lived together, and for three days, I’d been a tense, emotional wreck. We hadn’t crossed paths once since the day we’d moved in. He’d helped carry all my things up from the back of Noel’s truck, and once that was done, he’d disappeared into his room.

I couldn’t say much about that, though, since I’d been just as blatantly avoiding him. But I doubt he held his breath whenever he heard me through the paper-thin walls, not the way I did. I mostly just sat around and waited for the next time his footsteps would pass by my door. I would listen to him in the kitchen, getting food, in the bathroom, showering, at the door, leaving for work. It blew my mind that he was so close now, so...right there, and I was doing nothing about it.

I checked the time and nearly groaned aloud, wondering what he was doing up at seven in the morning. He’d worked last night so he wouldn’t have gotten home until well after two. I’d tried to wait up so I could hear him come in—since I was turning into his personal stalker—but I’d passed out sometime after one.

Unless he was just getting in now—in which case I had to wonder who he’d spent the night with—but that didn’t seem right since it sounded as if he was opening the apartment door to leave, not enter.

Wait. He was leaving? But where was he going?

Throwing off my covers, I flew out of bed, jerked my feet into some house slippers, grabbed a sweatshirt, and rushed from my room. I yanked my arms and head through all the holes as I raced out of the apartment in hot pursuit. I had no idea why my curiosity was making me do this, but I was like a woman possessed. I had to know where he was going, what he was doing. At all times.

Even though I hauled ass to catch up with him, he was halfway up the block by the time I exited the building, which, actually, was probably perfect. He might not catch me following if I stayed this far back.

Knox had his hood up and hands stuffed in his pockets. He didn’t appear to be in a hurry—he just walked that fast.

I didn’t think he’d go that far on foot, but six blocks later, I was panting and sweating like crazy in my flannel sleep pants and ready for a break and maybe a foot massage. Once again, I wondered why the heck it’d been so important to me to follow him. I was about to give up, calling myself insane, and go home, but he finally veered off into a parking lot, where he passed rows of cars to enter a building called Speedy’s Gym.

I stopped in my tracks and blinked as he disappeared inside.

Okay, so he worked out. For some reason, I had not seen that coming, even though he was built like a brick house these days. It just didn’t seem like something eighteen-year-old Knox would’ve done, making it even harder for me to believe he was the same person as the man I’d just tailed eight blocks.

But seriously, how could someone change that much?

Realizing I was just loitering outside a workout gym in my pajamas like a total creeper, I trudged home and crawled back into bed.

When I finally fell asleep, I dreamed of my woods, and the strip pit, and a boy who apparently no longer existed. It was such a beautiful, bittersweet dream that when I woke again, tears clogged my lashes.

The shower was running in the bathroom. Knowing he was in there, naked and soaped up, running his hands up that wide defined chest, had me once again fully alert. But then I pictured him shirtless and stretched out on his back on the dock, waiting for me to kiss him awake. And then I imagined him in the gazebo, grinning as he greeted my breasts. In the backseat of my car, making me a woman.

My heart ached, and more tears filled my eyes as I mourned the loss of that boy. I questioned this whole ridiculous roommate situation for about the millionth time. I knew I was just torturing myself as much as I knew I wasn’t going to do anything about it. I was grasping at ghosts, and it was probably the stupidest mistake of my life, but I couldn’t seem to stop. I had to be close to him, even though he was a complete stranger to me now.

But he’d agreed to this living arrangement first, and I hadn’t been able to end the hope that maybe my Knox could still return.

I didn’t realize I had stewed in my depression for so long, until I heard the bathroom door open. Again, I held my breath and focused on nothing but his footsteps as he made his way into the kitc

hen.

I kind of dreaded facing him, afraid I’d burst into tears if I did. But then I felt crappy too because I’d been nothing but a chicken these past few days, just hiding out.

We couldn’t avoid each other forever, though. If we were really going to be roommates and make this work, we’d have to learn to communicate.

Pulling on the metaphorical big girl panties, I whipped off the covers and crawled out of bed. When I shuffled into the kitchen, barefoot and yawning, Knox whirled from the toaster to gape at me. I jerked to a halt, not expecting to find him shirtless and in nothing but a pair of low-slung blue jeans. He’d wrapped his bath towel around his neck and the terrycloth covered some of his chest, but it definitely didn’t conceal how utterly ripped he was.

Holy...

Wow, he looked good these days. Even better than eighteen-year-old Knox.

My jaw sagged. I think there were muscles sprouting from his muscles. And scars. I barely noticed them at first. But a white slash marred his ribcage while the one higher on the right side of his chest, almost to his shoulder, looked more like a healed puncture wound. I had to swallow, wondering how the hell he’d gotten so many scars. For some reason, I’d foolishly thought the one on his face was the only one he’d gotten in the past six years. But what if he had even more, more I couldn’t see?

What if—