Chapter 4

ANNALISE

The sound of the bedroom door swinging open made me stop halfway.

My hands stilled over the edge of my dress which I had been lifting over my head.

I spun around from the mirror to find a smirking Knox standing there.

"Knox!" I yelled while yanking the hem of my dress down on instinct.

It bunched around my waist.

But I was wearing biker shorts underneath.

Anger surged in my blood vessels when I realised he hadn't knocked.

Right when I wanted to change into something comfortable—that’s when he chose to bring his sorry ass in?

Oh, I was so done with him!

He proceeded to lean against the door frame like he owned the place.

Well, technically, he kind of did since it belonged to his dad and he was next in line.

Still, fuck his ass.

Yet that didn't give him the right to just barge into my space like a stupid, homeless, mannerless vagabond.

His eyes did a slow and shameless sweep over me from my feet to my face.

Then he let out a low wolf whistle.

I nearly gagged.

"Well," he said. "Didn't know you had all that flesh hiding under those boring clothes."

Heat crawled up my neck.

"Get out."

He shrugged.

"Maybe I will, after I've told you that dinner has been set like your mum instructed me to."

His eyes dropped again.

"And, nice ass."

My eyes rolled hard in their sockets.

"Knox," I began in an irritated voice. "I told you to get the fuck out, now!"

He pursued his lips.

"It’s a compliment… it’s just so round and perfect," he pointed out when I turned away.

My eyes widened.

He sounded so genuinely puzzled.

I whirled around so fast I became dizzy.

"And what's it to you?" I snapped.

He shrugged.

"Well, first off," he started, “My mind is trying to process why exactly you go around wearing those ugly baggy things you call clothes at a school every day?”

"Mind your business!" I snapped.

He scoffed.

"Well, it's hideous, and you're not?"

My brows lifted.

"And so?"

His own brows furrowed.

"So what's the fucking point Annalise?"

My shoulder twitched.

I hated those tics around him.

"Will you…"

A tic interrupted me.

My neck started to twitch.

"Mac and cheese," I said after an involuntary whistle.

Laughter lines marred his face.

I could tell he was holding back.

"Cheese burger," the tics continued.

He couldn't hold the laughter in anymore and I heard the sound rippled straight out of his mouth in a shameless, aggravating way.

"You like cheese that much?" He managed to say through bouts of laughter.

"Will you fuck off Knox?!" I yelled.

"Sorry," he whispered.

"Sorry for yourself," I snapped before I grabbed my skin robe off the bed.

My arms were angrily shoved into it.

"And take note that my body and what I choose to do with it is absolutely none of your business. Now fucking move."

I pushed him backward into the hallway with both hands flat on his chest.

He didn't resist.

"I'm just saying."

He just kept talking while walking backwards from me with that lazy grin still sitting on his face.

I knew it wasn't my efforts moving him.

"You know this is like false advertising?" He pointed out. "You have been hiding a whole situation under those jumpers and for what?" He gestured with his hands.

"Shut up."

I pushed harder.

"Shut the fuck up."

Suddenly my head jerked to the side twice in a row as a tic hit me.

I hated that it did.

"There she goes," he murmured.

"Don't," I warned.

He raised his hands in mock surrender.

"I didn't say anything."

We both stopped because our parents appeared at the top of the staircase.

They were smiling at us like they had walked into a Christmas card.

"Oh, look at you two," my mother muttered warmly, "you're already getting along."

I forced a smile on my face.

Knox smiled back at her.

"I had an impromptu call so we won’t be having dinner with you both," his father said with his hands around my mother's neck as he drew my mum closer.

He looked between us.

"Make sure you both eat well."

"Of course," Knox replied.

"Bye," my mother called as they both headed down the stairs.

I eyed her as she walked away, she looked so comfortable with this new life while I was losing my shit, I was barely here and I have lost my shit with Knox… we haven’t even had dinner yet.

We both stood very still.

The front door shut behind them about two minutes later.

The smile fell off Knox's face.

Mine did too.

"Come eat," Knox said.

He turned away and went down the stairs to the dining room.

I followed after him.

Dinner was tense but a quiet disaster.

I sat across from him at the long dining table and stared at my food.

Every few minutes my throat would tighten while I was chewing.

I would still have to prepare myself for when the tic would push out before I could stop it.

"Screw me," I said.

Silence fell.

Knox looked up slowly from his plate with a wide grin on his lips.

I kept my eyes down.

My lips were pressed together so I would say nothing.

"Did you just say… Annalise. Did your Tourette's just tell me to screw you?" He teased me.

My nostrils flared.

"I swear to God, Knox."

He pressed his fist to his mouth to hold in his laughter and failed woefully.

Laughter filled the space.

His shoulders shook.

I picked up my plate and moved to the other end of the table.

When he wouldn't stop laughing, I abruptly stood to my feet, slamming my open palm on the masonia dining table.

"Now I've lost my appetite."

I turned away, storming off.

"Annalise, wait," he called.

I heard his chair scraping over the tiled floor as he stood and came after me.

"Hey, wait!"

I didn't stop.

I made it as far as the hallway before he stepped in front of me.

He stood with his arms crossed.

My brows raised.

He had his back against the wall, blocking the staircase without even pretending otherwise.

"Tutoring session?" he asked.

I blinked.

God! I couldn’t even get a break.

"Tonight?"

He nodded.

"The teacher's orders were to start tomorrow and you agreed."

He shrugged with that lazy grin.

"There's no way on earth I am failing this academic term because of your princess attitude. So go get your textbooks."

I gritted my teeth.

"Bastard," I murmured under my breath.

He leaned in.

"What did you say?"

I shook my head.

"I'll join you soon," I said, shoving him aside and going up the stairs to get my stuff.

The home study Knox brought me too was large and quiet with good lighting.

I dropped my textbooks down and pulled out my notes while telling myself that this was just work, just equations.

It would be just an hour.

"We will start with the Quadratic formula," I said.

"Okay."

My eyes morphed into slits.

"Do you even know what a quadratic equation is?"

He grinned.

"Enlighten me."

I explained it.

He listened, or appeared to do so while I wrote the formula across the top of the page and walked him through the first example in a tired voice.

I have him exercise right after.

He got it wrong.

I corrected him.

He was reaching for the pencil when his fingers grazed mine.

I pulled my hand back and kept talking to him like it hadn't happened.

He got the next one wrong too.

And the one after that.

"Are you doing this on purpose?" I finally asked in a clipped tone.

"Doing what?"

"Getting every single one wrong."

He leaned back in his chair.

"Maybe I'm just dumb."

I hated the sight of his pearly white.

"You are not dumb," I said to him without thinking. "You're just not trying."

Something shifted in his expression.

Then he got the next one wrong anyway and I put my pen down, aggravated.

"You're actually dumb," I said. "And ugly."

His eyes flashed.

He leaned across the desk.

I flinched.

His voice instantly dropped into something smooth and quiet when he spoke.

And it instantly put every nerve in my body on alert.

"Careful, stepsis. Keep talking like that and I might have to shut that pretty mouth of yours."

My breath hitched.

"You're a bully," I said. "And that is all you will ever be Knox."

He shifted his chair closer till his knee was pressed against mine under the table.

"What are—"

I gasped because he leaned in until I could feel his warm breath against the side of my face.

"Careful, tic-tac. That little twitch is showing again."

A pause.

"Or does tutoring your bully turn you on?"

My stomach dropped in my chest.

"Fuck you!" I snapped and stood abruptly to my feet.

My chair scraped back so fast it nearly tipped the moment I jumped back.

He smiled.

"Running away?"

My cheeks were burning.

I sat back down because leaving meant that he had won.

So I smoothed my notes and looked at the page and kept going.

I tried to keep my voice and my hands steady and failed woefully.

He reached across and let his hand slide deliberately up my thigh.

I gasped.

There was a smug look on his face as he watched my face the whole time.

I slapped him.

It wasn't hard enough to move him.

But it landed with a sound.

He sat back down with that infuriating smirk already curving his stupid lips.

"Feisty," he said.

I glared at him.

"Don't touch me again."

He leaned forward again in order to close the space between us.

His mouth was hovering inches from mine.

Our lips were not touching.

And he just remained there, just close enough for me to feel his breath.

He was close enough that my brain stopped producing useful thoughts and started producing only static.

My heart slammed against my ribs.

His eyes dropped to my mouth.

My breathing grew ragged.

The front door opened downstairs.

We both froze.

Voices floated up from the entrance hall.

It was his father's laugh.

My mother was speaking in the background too.

Knox pulled back slowly.

My chest was heaving.

His dark and unreadable gaze remained on my flushed face.

My hands shot forward to grab my textbook which I shut so hard.

I didn't wait.

I didn't say goodnight to my mother or his father—my new step father.

My heavily breathing ass rushed straight up the stairs and into my room.

The door slammed shut.

I pressed my back against the closed door.

Then I stood there in the dark, panting.

My chest was heaving.

Why wouldn't it when my heart was still beating too fast?

I hugged the text books to my chest.

My eyes stared at the ceiling.

Knox had bullied me for a year.

He had mocked my tics in front of crowds.

He had grabbed me by the throat in a school hallway and threatened me.

So I needed someone to explain to me, clearly and slowly, the exact reason my pulse was still racing as if I had just sprinted in a marathon?

And why the heat in my cheeks had nothing to do with anger instead.