The Outsider: Hard Knox Part 28

"Nail on the head."

"Do you think Beck's read it yet?" After watching the video and reliving a scene I had no memory of, I hadn't been able to say his name for weeks. But after seeing him whisked away in cuffs that last day in court, it got easier.

"I think the b.a.s.t.a.r.d's too busy being someone's b.i.t.c.h. He won't have much time in prison for any other extra-curricular activities." Knox still couldn't say Beck's name without frothing at the mouth, so b.a.s.t.a.r.d, sc.u.mbag, and son of a b.i.t.c.h had become popular stand-ins.

"Yeah, but I bet a few of the other Sigma Nus have read it. If they weren't already sweating, they're dripping now." I unfolded the paper and smiled-again-when I saw my name below the t.i.tle, Monsters Among Us.

"I'm pretty sure they've been sweating since an 'anonymous party' dropped off a box of videos at the police station that showed at least a couple dozen of them in situations that'll earn them hard time. If they weren't sweating before your article came out, it's only because they're a bunch of snakes who don't possess sweat glands."

I quirked an eyebrow. "Thank G.o.d for anonymous parties."

"Amen," Knox replied with a wide smile.

"Just how did you get to those tapes when, from the sounds of it, they'd been under heavier lock and key than the United States Const.i.tution?" I asked, tapping my chin.

"How did the anonymous party get those tapes?" he corrected.

I made a proceed motion flick of my wrist.

"The anonymous party may have snuck-slash-broken into the Sigma Nu house late one night while wearing a black ski mask and carrying a convincing-looking pellet gun. He may have held it to the head of one of the weaker, more spineless brothers in the house, who might have peed his bed after the anonymous party threatened to kill him and the little hamster he had in the cage beside his bed if he didn't tell the anonymous party where the tapes were, take the anonymous party to them, and not say a word about any of it unless he wanted to wake up one morning to find 'Hammy' in tiny pieces."

I shook my head, swatting his hand. "A hamster? Really? You'd stoop so low as to threaten an innocent, fluffy animal's life?"

"I can't say how far the anonymous party"-each time he said it, his voice went an octave lower-"would be willing to stoop, but if you're talking about me, then you ought to know by now that there's no level I won't stoop to."

I leaned in to kiss his cheek. Knox would go to any level for me. He would actually move the heavens and the earth if I asked him to, and I'd do no less for him. "Well, I don't pity the D.A.'s office for the s.h.i.+tload of cases they're going to have. The city'll have to build a new jail to keep up with the number of Sigma Nus being sent to prison."

"The upside to half of them likely going to jail is that one of their house colors is orange, so they're already used to strutting around in it." Knox pointed at a thumbnail photo of Beck in prison.

I wouldn't exactly say Beck looked like he was strutting, but he was in head-to-toe orange.

"And let's not forget the other upside," I added, folding the paper so I didn't have to see Beck's picture. "Sinclair's Sigma Nu chapter is officially suspended, and their house will become the Feminist House next year."

"Where guys will have to worry about being raped with the business end of a baseball bat."

My mouth fell open.

"Sorry. Bad taste." Knox pulled me to him and kissed my face until I laughed.

"Well, those women who will likely be living in the Feminist House next year, along with Harlow and a few others, have at least been on my side these past few months. I might have a whole bunch of haters against me, but I'm not totally alone. There's you and three, maybe four dozen others with me." I waved at one of the girls on Team Charlie as she pa.s.sed by and she waved back. It was nice ending the year with more friends than I'd started it . . . despite the number of enemies I'd accrued at the same time.

Knox winked my way while pulling something else from behind his back. "So enough about this big, front-page article that probably everyone in the country will read and make a mental note to not send their kids to Sinclair-"

"Oh, that's why I'm number one on the administration's. .h.i.t list right now."

"Let's talk about this article. One that I find truly fascinating." Knox unfolded the latest issue of the Sinclair Sentinel and pointed at the t.i.tle on the front page. "Bad Boy or Good Man?"

It had been a busy few weeks for me . . . "Catchy t.i.tle," I said around a shrug.

"Tell me this though. Am I really a dying breed of humankind who strives to do good yet expects none to be wasted on them?"

I shoved his chest. "You do know how to read."

"Given I only learned what I had to so I could read what was written about me in the women's bathroom stalls of seedy bars, I only recognized about every fifth word, but I think I got the overall gist."

"Well?" I scooted closer, admiring the article I'd written about Knox.

When Neve had finally accepted that Knox wasn't the great white preying on the students of Sinclair, she'd given me carte blanche to write whatever I wanted. Since the whole thing had started with Knox, I decided to stick with the subject matter and tell the real story of Knox Jagger. It wasn't nearly as inflammatory but just as complicated. It was, to date, the piece I was proudest of.

"The writing was sharp, the story gripping. You might have exaggerated some of my character traits, but your ending statement was poignant. 'So is Knox Jagger a bad boy or a good man? He's both. He's neither. He's a breed all his own.'" He gave me a sideways smile. "So now that the 'man of mystery' isn't nearly such an enigma, I guess it's time for you to find new subject matter."

Twisting around, I inspected the courtyard. It was alive with students and commotion and energy. A couple was arguing by the fountain, the girl looking ready to slap the guy with her water bottle. A couple of guys were sitting across from each other giving one another lingering looks. An ad-hoc professor stood a little too close to one of his female students and looked down her s.h.i.+rt every time she looked away. Someone wearing a gorilla suit was running around the courtyard shouting about freeing the lab rats in the science building.

"There's never a shortage of subject matter," I said as, from the sidewalk, a guy flung a banana at the impa.s.sioned gorilla, thumping it right in the head. "Obviously."

"Enough about subject matter." Knox nudged me, his arm coming around behind my back. "Let's talk about a subject that matters to me."

I kept my eyes on the raging gorilla and tried to pretend Knox's mouth dropping to my neck wasn't undoing me. "If it's the subject I think it is, talking isn't usually involved."

Knox nipped at the base of my neck, eliciting a soft sigh from me. "That's never kept you quiet before."

"Is that so?" Lying back on the gra.s.s, I grabbed his s.h.i.+rt and tugged him down over me.

He rolled almost all the way onto me, lining up his hips where he knew I could feel him. Already ready to go. Trying to keep from smiling so I wouldn't give myself away, I slid my hand into my purse and rifled around in it until I felt what I was searching for. With the fabric wadded up in my hand, I reached around Knox's backside, opened his back pocket, and stuffed it inside.

"Is that what I think it is?" he asked with a p.r.o.nounced smirk, his hand gliding down my side. When it got to the hem of my skirt, he stopped.

"I've always wanted to do that," I answered, draping my arms around his neck. When his fingers slid under my skirt and up my inner thigh, my breath came in irregular pulls.

"d.a.m.n, it is what I think it is." His voice was a few notes deeper, and his thumb stroked a spot on my body that made me want to shudder and leap.

I patted Knox's back pocket I'd just stuffed my underwear into. "And to think that whole time, you really were calling every single number."

"It wasn't a lie." His words were m.u.f.fled as his lips brushed my collarbone.

"No, just an omission that, instead of a booty call, it was more of a checking-in call."

His lips continued their journey up my neck. "I'm just one human being looking after another human being."

My eyelids drifted closed as his hands and mouth continued to make me feel things I should have been embarra.s.sed to be feeling in a public place. "Given how full your pockets would be leaving a party, I think it's more accurate to say you're just one human being looking after a few dozen others-every morning after." When Knox had confessed that as part of his quest to make his life count for something, he had in fact, gone through every single pair of panties he'd accrued in a night and given each girl a call the next morning to make sure she hadn't found herself in a bad situation-just a quick call to make sure they hadn't wound up in an unfamiliar place with no memory of what had happened to get them there-and once he found out they were okay, he ended the call before they could get their hopes up that Knox Jagger had chosen them over their panty dropping rivals. The very guy who could have bedded every last one of them instead choose to take the role of a father checking in on his daughter . . . or a brother checking in on a sister. It had taken him a couple tries to get out the brother and sister part.

When Knox's touch became more urgent and I knew I was moments away from throwing my head back and filling the entire courtyard with my soprano, I managed to squeeze out a few words. "Not now. Later." My eyes closed as he touched me one last time before his hand moved back down my leg.

"Then what now? It's the last day of school. You're here; I'm here. What now?"

I s.h.i.+fted a bit farther under Knox until I could feel his hips pinning mine. "How about you kiss me like you did in the hospital? That should get me by until we make it back to the privacy of our bedroom."

Knox's hand covered my cheek, his fingers splaying across it. Kissing the tip of my nose, he said, "How about I kiss you right after this . . ." Lowering his mouth to just outside my ear, he whispered three words-the three words that made this whole roller coaster of a disaster of a wonderful year all worth it.

"I know, Knox," I whispered. "I know."

He pressed his forehead into mine, and we closed our eyes together. "Good."

Then the boy I'd done everything I could to keep out of my life at the start of the year, the same one who'd turned out to be the only one I couldn't keep out, kissed me.

Thank you for reading HARD KNOX by.

NEW YORK TIMES and USATODAY Bestselling Author, Nicole Williams.

Want more of The Outsider Chronicles?.

Check out DAMAGED GOODS.

releasing early September 2014.

When Liv Bennett said good-bye to her sinkhole of a hometown, she planned to leave that chapter of her life behind forever. But forever turned out to only be three years.

After her addict of a mother up and disappears, Liv returns to what she considers her own personal h.e.l.l smack in the middle of nowhere Nevada to take care of her two younger sisters, and she promptly reinst.i.tutes the golden rule that got her through her first nineteen years of life without getting knocked up, roughed up, or messed up: don't date the local boys and, G.o.d forbid, don't fall in love with one of them.

It isn't long before that golden rule is put to the test.

Will Goods grew up in the next trailer over, but the wild, careless boy who used to tear up the town with his three brothers has morphed into someone else so completely, he's almost unrecognizable. The quiet, contemplative man who works on cars every night and takes care of his mentally ill mother every day is nothing like the local boys Liv grew up avoiding.

But when Liv considers suspending her golden rule just this once, she finds out something about Will that will change everything.

Will Goods isn't who he used to be-he's not even the man Liv thinks she's gotten to know over the summer. He's become someone else entirely.

He's become . . .

Damaged Goods.

Other Works by Nicole:.

CRASH, CLASH, and CRUSH (HarperCollins).

LOST & FOUND, NEAR & FAR, FINDERS KEEPERS.

UP IN FLAMES (Simon & Schuster UK).

GREAT EXPLOITATIONS.

THE EDEN TRILOGY.

THE PATRICK CHRONICLES.

end.