"To a hotel bar in Chicago."
"I didn't have anywhere else to go."
"And me?" The question scrapes out of him. "What was I?"
"I have no clue what you mean."
"Last night." His gaze cuts to me, fierce and hungry. "Was I just… available? Convenient?"
The question slices through me.
"No," I say.
"Then what?"
I can't say it. Can't admit that I looked at him and saw something clean.
"You looked at me," I say, voice small. "Like I had a name you wanted to learn."
He reaches across the console and lays his palm on my thigh. Warm. Steady. Claiming. I jump, but I don't pull away.
"You're not going back," he says.
Not a question.
"I can't."
"You won't." His hand tightens. "Because I'm getting you out of this city. And they don't get to touch you while I'm still breathing."
Heat races up my neck. "You don't have to—"
"I know I don't have to." Pitched below the engine, rough enough to scrape bone. "I'm choosing to. You ran to me, Sloane. Not away. To me."
"Knox—"
"You're mine now." He says it as fact. "If you want to stay alive, you're going to let me do what I do."
I stare at his profile, heart pounding. Streetlights paint him in gold and shadow. The light catches the scar across his knuckles; his hands on the wheel are unwavering.
"What if I don't want to be yours?" I whisper.
His thumb strokes across my thigh. "Then tell me to let go."
I open my mouth. Nothing comes out. My fingers find his wrist where it rests and close around it.
Knox lets out a breath.
"That's what I thought," he murmurs.
His hand stays the whole way out of the city, thumb moving in slow circles.
The skyline shrinks behind us. The highway opens into darkness, and I stop checking the mirror.
Chapter 4
Knox
Chicagoblursintoasmear of steel and sickly orange streetlights in the rearview as I push the car harder than I should. The rental engine growls beneath my hands. It's steady, obedient, and a hell of a lot calmer than the woman curled in the passenger seat.