The Outsider: Hard Knox Part 24

His brows rose. "I was going for celibate. So celibate I was starting to worry my d.i.c.k might have forgotten what it's wired for."

I patted his chest. "I'd say you can lay that concern to rest."

He nodded with a silly smile. "So while I suffered in celibate h.e.l.l for the past three months, at night when I'd crawl into bed in the room right beside where you were in your bed, I'd close my eyes and-"

"Fantasize about me naked, wet, and eager while you waxed your johnson?" I leaned up on my elbow, trying to act offended.

He smiled at my suggestion. "I did what I had to do to get by. Let's leave it at that."

"Let's do leave it at that." Had I known Knox was "thinking" about me while I was "thinking" of him, those private servicing sessions would have been much better. Closing my eyes, I opened them a few seconds later to find the two dark ones across from me still open. "I thought you were exhausted."

"I was. I am." He settled a few loose chunks of my hair behind my ear, staring at me so intently, it seemed as though he were afraid if he closed his eyes, I'd disappear. "But I have to say something first. Or a couple somethings."

His pillow was so plush and billowy I knew that if I kept my head on it, I wouldn't be able to hold sleep at bay. I raised my head and rested it into my hand. "I'm listening."

His brows pinched together as his gaze fell to the necklace dangling on my chest. "Tonight, it was your first time-"

"Yes, I realize you were the conquistador of my virginity. Do we need to rehash this? Because unless you've got de-de-virginizing me on your mind, maybe we can high-five and b.u.mp chests over your mad game tomorrow morning."

Knox didn't laugh; his smile didn't mirror mine. His expression stayed creased with seriousness. "I don't think you know how much it means to me that I was your first. I don't think I can even find the right words to tell you how much it means to me."

As soon as I realized he was being serious, I scooted closer to him and rested my hand on his chest.

"I was your first. I've never been anyone's first," he said. "Or second. Or tenth probably. I'm not the guy a girl waits for. I'm not the kind women want to be their first." He looked at me with an apology written on his face. "I'm the guy they want to screw on the rebound. The one they want to f.u.c.k during some wild, reckless night. The one they come to when they want to p.i.s.s off their fathers, or boyfriends, or anyone. I'm the guy women come to when they want to forget their life for a few minutes, and they forget me after that. I'm who they come to when they're done waiting and want instant gratification. No one would pick me as the one they'd wait for."

His hand covered mine on his chest. For the second time, my skin felt warmer than his. I swallowed, pretending there wasn't a ball stuck in my throat. "Well I did." I curled my fingers around his. "A whole twenty years I waited for you, and even though I didn't know it was you specifically I was waiting for, that doesn't change that it was you, Knox Jagger, who I was waiting for." I pressed what was quite possibly the sweetest kiss in the history of sweet kisses into his mouth. "I wouldn't want anyone else to have been my first."

His eyes were closed when I pulled back, a moment of peace ironing out his expression. "Rewind about nine years and a whole slew of bad choices . . . If I'd have known you were in my future, I would have waited for you too."

That earned him another kiss that, had I been witnessing it instead of experiencing it, I would have stuck my finger in my mouth and cringed. "This coming from the man who's been with so many women that even I'm not brave enough to ask if that number's in the dozens or hundreds?"

"From the very one."

"You're telling me if twelve-year-old Knox could have seen me in a gla.s.s ball, he would have been happy to turn away the droves of panty-dropping Jagger groupies for close to a decade?"

His hand moved to the bend of my neck and cradled it so gently it seemed impossible that hand had been split open earlier from trying to decimate semi-truck tires. "Positively."

I didn't smile. I grinned. Charlie Chase didn't grin-at least not more than once or twice a year. "That is the most romantic thing anyone's ever told me."

"Good, because I'm going to need those extra credit points moving into my next 'something.'"

His heavy sigh made me sigh. I'd both realized and accepted that a relations.h.i.+p with Knox wouldn't be paved with gold and lined with daisies, but as he prepared to dip into whatever heavy topic he was about to, I found my bravery floundering. I found myself doubting if I had enough courage to hear what he had to say, accept it, and move on. All I could do was hope I did.

"You know I've got a past, Charlie," he began slowly.

"We all do."

"True, but some people have pasts, and others have pasts. I have the second kind." His words were slow, deliberate, but the pace of my heart was fast, erratic. He continued, "I come with a lot of baggage-a whole luggage carousel of it. We won't be able to make a trip to the grocery store without running into someone who's heard a rumor about me or thinks they know me-"

"Or someone who knows you." I forced myself down this rabbit hole of honesty with him.

He nodded. "That too."

The thought of running into one of Knox's one-night stands while we were shopping for bread and milk made my blood curdle, but he was right. In this town, at this university, we could never hope to live anonymous lives. "I know that, Knox. Believe me, I know that. However, lucky for you, I like my men with a moderate-to-heavy amount of baggage." I squeezed his hand, trying to lighten the heaviness shadowing his face.

"Yeah, but this man's in the astronomical-to-catastrophic baggage range."

I worked a smile into position. "Even better."

A few moments of silence pa.s.sed, Knox watching me carefully. "Are you sure?" His hand tightened around mine before he'd finished his question.

"Little late for 'Are you sure?' don't you think?" My eyes skimmed down his naked body before looking at mine.

He couldn't be distracted. "Are you?"

I didn't blink. "I'm sure."

He blew out a long breath, looking equal parts relieved and terrified. "Then I need to know that when you hear things about me-as outlandish and far-fetched as they might seem-instead of holding it inside, you'll come to me. Don't let it fester. Come to me the minute you hear whatever it might be. Don't wait. Voice honest concerns, and I'll give you honest answers. I swear."

I peaked a brow. "We saw what happened the last time you made a solemn vow."

This time, my attempt to lighten the mood worked. The corners of his mouth twitched. "That wasn't my fault. You beguiled me. You stripped me of my strength. You cast a spell on me that whisked away my willpower so you could have your way with me."

"You're on to me," I said around a laugh.

When our mingled laughter came to an end, that patch of skin between Knox's eyes creased again. "You promise me you'll do that? Bring up whatever concerns you have whenever, wherever, however? It's the only way we'll have a fighting chance at this thing."

I knew that as much as he did. "I promise. Any concern. Any question. I'm coming to you with them all."

"Well?" he asked, staring into my eyes. "Do you have any now? Anything I can put to rest before we both pa.s.s out and don't wake up until Monday morning?"

With the mention of sleep, my eyes started to close on their own. I was just about to reply with a no and a goodnight when a couple very real and big concerns cut through me. "All I need to know right now is this, and I know these questions might fall on the outlandish, far-fetched end of the spectrum . . ."

"They usually do when they revolve around me," he said, encouraging me with a nod.

I inhaled and worked up some courage. There was no way to beat around the bush with these questions, so I just focused on getting them out as succinctly as I could. "Have you ever drugged a girl at Sinclair?"

The words sounded harsher than I'd intended them to sound, but Knox barely flinched. Either he'd been expecting me to ask something along that line, or he'd heard even more out-there accusations. When his head shook, I exhaled.

"No."

I nodded, chewing the inside of my cheek. "Do you sell Rohypnol, or any drug for that matter, at Sinclair?"

When Knox's expression barely broke, I wanted to curse Neve's name for the rest of my life for putting that kernel of doubt in my mind. For planting the seed that Knox could, in any way, be a.s.sociated with the atrocities taking place on campus. For getting me to wonder just enough to ask him two questions I almost wished I hadn't.

Again, he shook his head and answered with a solemn, "No."

I hadn't realized I'd been holding my breath until it came rus.h.i.+ng out. "I'm sorry. Those were s.h.i.+tty questions, and I'm sorry I asked them."

He tilted my face toward his again. "Don't be sorry for asking questions. Don't be sorry for doing the very thing I just begged you to do. Don't be sorry."

"Too late," I muttered, mentally cursing Neve's name and her file one more time. "Why are you so calm? Why aren't you outraged I'd ask you those questions? If I were in your shoes, this is where I'd be kicking me out of bed and probably out of my house."

"Because of all the accusations I've had thrown at me, those ones aren't so out there, and because it's you asking. I want you to ask. I want to be able to answer." Checking over his shoulder, Knox saw what I did-the first signs of a new day. "And since it's morning, maybe instead of sleep, we should get up. I can make breakfast and give you the backstory-the whole backstory-just so you have it. After that, you can decide if you want to run away screaming or wake up beside this disaster of a man."

He was still looking out the window, so I couldn't see much of his face, but from his voice, I could tell he was dreading the thought of that as much as I was.

"No offense to your whole backstory, but I don't think I can manage another blink before falling into a coma, and really, the idea of all of it being dumped on me at once instead of bits at a time makes me think I might go into shock. If you're okay with it, let's do backstory on a case-by-case basis."

Knox stared at the morning light for another moment before tilting his head back. "I'm okay with that."

"Thank G.o.d." I sighed. The mere thought of everything Knox could unload on me about his past made me feel slightly nauseated. "Now, disaster of a man, this disaster of a woman wants to fall asleep beside you."

Turning around, I tucked myself back into him, molding and bending my body to his. It only took him a couple of moments to catch up, rewrapping his arm over me and swinging a leg over me as well. The lights were still on and morning was breaking through the window, but the moment my eyes closed, I felt sleep closing in.

"Charlie?"

I smiled against my pillow. "I know, Knox. I know."

His face buried deeper into the back of my head as his arm tightened around me. "Good."

The last thing I thought before falling asleep in Knox's arms was if that would be the only time.

TWO MONTHS LATER, I was still falling asleep in Knox's arms. I was waking up in them too. Most of the time we shared his bed, sometimes my bed, and sometimes whatever piece of furniture we'd gotten tangled up in the night before. Most mornings, I woke up naked, sometimes partially naked when we'd been so rushed that even the complete removal of clothes took too much time. Most mornings we woke up a little late and had to rush to make it to our cla.s.ses. Most mornings I woke up knowing something about Knox I hadn't known the morning before.

Every morning, the first thing I did when I woke up was smile.

Life with Knox was good-never easy or without its share of challenges and complications, but always good. The guy I wouldn't have hesitated to hurl a flaming bag of dog c.r.a.p at earlier this year was the same one I shared my lunch with now. The guy who had so many things written about him on women's bathroom stalls that a person would have thought he had to be nailing chicks by the dozens had only been with one woman in close to four months. The guy who'd been a mystery was becoming less of one, but I wasn't sure Knox would ever not be an enigma in certain respects. Some people were naturally uncomplicated. Knox was the opposite.

The guy who could p.i.s.s me off so badly I wanted to slap him one minute could issue an apology the next minute that me want to do nothing but kiss him . . . He hadn't changed in that regard. Knox and I had our share of spats and battles, but as hard as we argued or as high as our anger charged, we always found our way back to each other. It seemed nothing-not even the time we'd been approached at the gas station by one of Knox's one-nighters asking if she could join us for a three-way like the last time she'd been with Knox-could keep us apart. There was seemingly nothing, big or small, that was bigger than the way we felt about each other.

I'd just been ruminating on that thought as I poured over some notes for an upcoming test when I heard the telltale tinkle-tinkle I'd done my best to dodge most of the year echoing through the library.

Neve was still my professor, but other than standard cla.s.sroom stuff and her occasional check-ins about how the big article was coming, I kept my distance. As the weeks had ticked away, I think she started to get the message that I wasn't eager-putting it lightly-to blame the whole roofie-date-rape pandemic on Knox. She knew I was living with him, and if she hadn't noticed Knox and me holding hands walking across campus, or making out behind the cafeteria, or doing much worse inside the custodian's closet in the building he had Forensic Pathology in, she would have been the only one. But whether she'd seen us or not, and whether she a.s.sumed I was only with him to get the truth out of him or not, I didn't care.

I wanted to wait to approach her until Knox and I had put together enough evidence to prove who had slipped the roofies into my drinks, but we had about as much of a suspect list now as we'd had at the beginning. One of these days, I'd have to suck it up and talk to her-preferably before the end of the year when she decided to give me an F for not handing in the "article to end all articles." But as the tinkling got closer, I considered stuffing everything in my bag and sneaking out of the library undetected. Between my notes, textbooks, and highlighters, I had managed to litter a whole table though, so a quick break wasn't in the cards.

Neve rounded a row of bookcases and marched toward me with a look on her face that made my stomach rope into knots. "Please tell me you don't have anything scheduled these last few months of school."

"Um, only minor things like finis.h.i.+ng papers, studying for finals, writing another article for the school paper, and putting together a list of excuses as to why I won't vie for homecoming royalty next year." I flourished my hand at my imaginary crown. "Everyone wants me to run and won't seem to take no for an answer."

From her arched brow, my attempts at sarcasm had been utterly wasted on Neve. "Well, clear your schedule. Clear it all. You've got work to do, and I just brought you the proverbial straw." She slapped a manila folder down in front of me, crossed her arms, and waited.

"The proverbial straw for what?" I stared at the folder like it could have been a land mine.

"For breaking that son of a b.i.t.c.h's back." Since I evidently wasn't doing it fast enough, Neve threw the folder open and smacked the photo covering part of the top page.

It was an old mugshot. I fought my disbelief, but I could see it was him. Even in a black and white photocopy, the shadows in Knox's eyes were present. Trying to pretend she hadn't shaken me with this reveal, I shrugged. "So he's got a record. Would you expect a guy with a name like Knox Jagger not to?"

Neve raised her eyebrows. "Don't even think about playing coy with me. This whole time you've been shacked up with this guy, I let myself believe you were only doing it to get the research you needed to get the job done. I believed that if you were sleeping with the enemy, there was a reason behind it other than you just liked the way he looked in a pair of tight jeans. I chose to pretend there was no way in h.e.l.l you could actually feel something for this a.s.shole, so don't repay my blind trust with a reticent act." She drilled her finger on a particular spot on Knox's rap sheet. "Why don't you read what he was booked for and try giving me that coy thing again?"

When my eyes ran across the box she pointed at, I had to shake my head and wonder if I needed gla.s.ses. The typed letters and words were as legible as hieroglyphics at first, but when I tried again, the hieroglyphs formed letters that formed words that I wished I could un-read.

The breath left my lungs in one great surge.

"Feeling coy now?" Neve's tone hinted at victory, like what rested on the table was something to celebrate. "I can't even begin to tell you how much digging, bribing, and begging I had to do to get this record since he was a juvenile at the time, but you can thank me in the acknowledgement part of your article, because Charlie, this thing's going to be big."

Her words were nothing more than background noise as I reread those words over and over, knowing that the next time I read them, they would say something else. I had to have read them close to a hundred times before the room spun as I slowly accepted those words, those charges, weren't going to change.

"Charged for possession and distribution of the illegal substance Rohypnol," I read. Speaking the words made me flinch.

"Also known on the street as-"

"Roofies." My eyes closed. I couldn't look at the page anymore. I couldn't read the charges again or gape at his photo, his eyes staring right into mine with that mix of vulnerability and strength I'd seen a million times. "Knox was charged with having and selling roofies."

"When he was only sixteen." Neve sat on the edge of the table, looking like she wanted to cartwheel around the library. "Turns out the b.a.s.t.a.r.d was even one as a juvenile. Who would have figured?" She tapped her chin, eyes narrowed on the ceiling. "Oh yeah, that's right. I did."

The library had started revolving a minute ago, but now it was whipping around with such velocity that I couldn't decide what direction I was going. I couldn't tell up from down anymore.

"I can see you're a little sh.e.l.l-shocked. You should have drawn thicker emotional lines when you were sleeping with the enemy." Neve patted my hand. She actually patted my hand, like a hand pat could comfort the storm raging inside me . . . like she could be someone who could comfort me in the first place. "You can thank me later."

She was turning to leave, the folder still open and glaring at me, when I cleared my throat. I prayed I could still form words. "This doesn't mean he's responsible for what's happening here." It wasn't the journalist in me who issued that statement; it was the Charlie Chase who'd fallen so hard and deep for the man in that photo she couldn't find her way out.

Neve broke to a stop. When she turned around, she stared at me with eyes wide with disbelief. "My G.o.ddess. He really has blinded you, hasn't he?"

My palms flattened over the desk. "I'm not blind. My eyes are wide open. I acknowledge that Knox was arrested five years ago for the very crimes you've accused him of here at Sinclair. I acknowledge that this puts him high on the suspect list." My breath was coming in shallow pulls, which only exacerbated the carousel feeling. "But just because this means he may be guilty doesn't mean he is. We can't be sure this boy is the man we're looking for today." I stabbed my finger at the picture of Knox while I tried not to look at it. Not that looking at it wouldn't keep it from being permanently cemented into my memory, but I was pretty sure if I did look at that photo again, I would break down-either in tears or sobs or in a crazed, p.i.s.sed-off rage.

"No, I suppose it isn't enough evidence to convict him in a court of law. Jurors might think that a rap sheet like his, paired with a b.l.o.o.d.y epidemic of date rapes at Sinclair thanks to the aid of Rohypnol since Knox Jagger enrolled three years ago, is a mere coincidence." From her tone, she was trying to make me feel stupid. It was working. "But here's the thing, cupcake, we're not in a court of law. We're not jurors who have to treat the accused as innocent until proven guilty." Her finger waved between the two of us. "We're journalists. We have a moral obligation to publish the truth and let the readers fill in the rest. Can we, with just this, write an article outright accusing Knox of being responsible for the date rapes on campus?" She crossed her arms, lifting her shoulder. "No, not outright. But we can publish what's been happening here, along with what we now know about Knox's past, and that should be enough to make the students and faculty demand that son of a b.i.t.c.h is burned at the stake." When my eyebrows peaked, she waved dismissively. "Or in today's punishment currency, expulsion or, better yet, jail time." Her gaze dropped to the file. "Or, should I say, more jail time?"

My lunch was not doing well in my stomach. My lunch of grilled cheese and tomato soup that I'd shared with Knox not even two hours ago. The lunch where he'd given me the bigger half of the sandwich, and as we kissed good-bye, he reminded me that our two-month anniversary was this weekend and he had something nice planned. The same guy who'd been responsible for . . .

I didn't know how long I'd been shaking my head, but it was long enough that the muscles in the sides of my neck had started to ache. "It's not him. He's not the one doing this. I know it."

Nothing like a potent dose of blind faith to p.i.s.s off There's-no-such-thing-as-faith-only-proof Neve Landry. Leaning into the desk, she flattened her hands and got in my face. "And how are you going to prove that? How are you going to prove Knox isn't the one we're after? You've been 'spending time' with him for over four months now. If you haven't found anything pointing toward his innocence in that amount of time, that's because there isn't any."

My eyes narrowed. "And I haven't found anything condemning him in that same amount of time, so if I'm to apply your same theory"-I got in her face too, not about to cower-"that's because there isn't any."

Neve shoved off of the desk, backing away like everything that needed to be said had been. "Maybe that's because you haven't been looking hard enough. Maybe you've only been seeing what you've wanted to see. Maybe it's time you look a little deeper into Knox Jagger's life, house, and drawers. Then let me know if you still think he's innocent."

Without a good-bye or a wave, she disappeared around a bookcase, tinkling out of the library. I struggled to grab hold of my world that was quickly spinning away from me. The world she'd turned upside down, shaken good and hard, and thrown in the opposite corner of the universe. I was still me, but the numb version.

The version that wouldn't be the same until I'd proven to her, everyone else, and-most importantly-to myself, that Knox wasn't the man she'd tagged him as. He was the one I believed he was. The one who'd never hurt me. The one who couldn't hurt me . . . But I couldn't ignore that he had been convicted of crimes that had no doubt hurt others. That was when I felt the tears p.r.i.c.king the corners of my eyes-when I realized and accepted that Knox wasn't the saint I'd convinced myself he was. He was the sinner he'd been trying to tell me he was.

Shoving out of my chair, I threw the file closed, stuffed it into my bag with the rest of my stuff, and thundered out of the library. I had to get to his place. I had to go through every closet, drawer, nook, and cranny so I could prove once and for all that he wasn't responsible for what was happening at Sinclair.

I'd have to deal with what he'd done in his past later. I'd have to sit down with him and probably shout and stomp and break a couple things to understand why he hadn't told me and why he'd done it in the first place. But right now, I had only one thing on my mind-proving Knox wasn't the same person he'd been five years ago.

I walked from the library to his truck in what felt like a blur, and the trip from campus to his place was another blur. I just kept trying to keep my mind emptied of the what-ifs and concentrate on rifling through his entire life until I'd proved he wasn't the man Neve had accused him of being.