LEFT WANTING

SERA

“Are you kidding me right now?” I snapped, slamming the door behind me as I marched into his wing of the villa.

Knox barely looked up from where he was lounging on the arm of the leather sofa, a glass of something dark in his hand. His shirt was unbuttoned halfway, chest on display, like he’d been waiting for me.

“Well, hello to you too, Sera,” he drawled, a lazy smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth. “Guess you finally want my attention.”

“Spare me,” I hissed. “You need to stop.”

He arched a brow. “Stop what?”

“Don’t play dumb,” I said, crossing the room and pointing a finger at him. “That message. You said you wouldn’t bother me. That you wouldn’t push, and then you go and send something like that… knowing I was with Jared.”

His gaze flicked over me slowly, and I hated that my body reacted. Skin heating, and pulse stuttering. He was so annoyingly calm.

So maddeningly unfazed.

“I said I wouldn’t touch you unless you wanted it,” he replied, voice like velvet laced with smoke. “And I haven’t. All I did was tell the truth. You felt it, Sera. That night wasn’t nothing. You can’t fake the way you came on my cock.”

So vulgar.

I clenched my fists, heart hammering.

“It was a mistake.”

“No,” His jaw flexed, but the smirk didn’t fade. “A mistake is grabbing salt instead of sugar. A mistake is missing a turn on a road trip. What we had…?”

He stood now, slow and deliberate.

“That was real, and you can say whatever you want to convince yourself otherwise, but your body knows the truth. You still feel me.”

The way he said that made something deep inside me twist. I hated that he was right.

I tried a new angle, one I hoped would at least make him pause.

“Don’t you care about your brother?”

He actually laughed. A low, bitter sound that held no real humor.

“That question?” he said, stepping closer, his eyes pinning me in place. “That one’s not for me, sweetheart. That’s for you.”

I opened my mouth, but nothing came out. Because he was right again.

Knox and Jared weren’t close. They haven’t been for years. If anyone had betrayed Jared… it was me.

And he knew it.

I felt my breath catch as he took another step. Then another. Until my back met the wall behind me and he was towering over me, close enough that I could smell the heat of his cologne, feel the buzz of energy radiating off his body.

“You’re angry,” he murmured, eyes locked on mine. “But it’s not with me.”

I swallowed, trying to hold onto the edge I’d walked in with. My voice came out too soft.

“You’re so damn sure of yourself.”

“No.” His breath ghosted my cheek as he leaned in, close but not touching, towering over me. “I’m just sure of what I felt when I was inside you, and I think you are too.”

My breath hitched. Heat pooled low in my belly. His nearness was too much and still not enough. I could feel the shape of him, the intensity rolling off him like a storm waiting to break.

“You asked if I care about Jared,” he said, his voice low, thick. “I do. More than anything.”

I barely managed a blink before he added, “But I still want you. I can’t stop wanting you.”

He turned slightly, nodding toward the open bathroom door. “Right there. Everything changed that night.”

The marble walls stared back at me like a memory. My body remembered before my mind could catch up, and my breath shuddered.

“I crave you, Sera,” he went on. “You’re the sexiest woman I’ve ever seen. The way you move, the way you sound… God. You make me hard without even trying. I knew it was wrong to want you, but I couldn’t help it. I still can’t.”

His voice scraped against something deep inside me. Something dark, and wanting.

His hands found my thighs. Warm. Certain. They slid upward beneath my dress, parting them.

I whimpered, caught in the heat of it.

“Knox-”

I didn’t even know what I was begging for.

He found my panties and shifted them aside. His breath caught.

“Fuckk,” he muttered, his fingers brushing through wet heat. “You’re soaked.”

Before I could speak, he pushed a finger inside me. I gasped, grabbing his shoulders, barely able to stand.

Fuck me!

Knox’s finger moved inside me, slow, deliberate, and torturous. He watched every flicker of reaction cross my face, his eyes dark and steady on mine like he wanted to feel everything I felt.

“God, you feel so good,” he whispered, his lips brushing the shell of my ear. “Tight. Wet. Desperate for me.”

A soft moan escaped me before I could bite it back. I gripped his shoulder, fingers digging in as I tried to hold myself upright. His touch was unbearable in the best way, dragging pleasure out of me like a secret.

He added another finger, moving with devastating patience, curling just slightly with each thrust, grazing spots that made my knees tremble. His free hand rested on the wall by my waist, steadying me like he owned me.

He moved inside me with maddening control, his fingers slick and sure, dragging along every nerve ending until my thighs trembled and my breath came out in shallow gasps.

His eyes never left mine, heavy-lidded, dark, hungry like he was memorizing every second of my unraveling.

“You like this,” he murmured, voice thick with desire, low and filthy in my ear. “You love the way I touch you. The way I know your body better than he ever will.”

I whimpered, nails pressing into his shoulder. My knees threatened to give out with every slow curl of his fingers.

“I think about fucking you all the time, Sera,” He leaned in closer, lips grazing my jaw as he whispered. “Pushing your legs apart and taking you just how you need it. Not soft. Not careful. Hard. Deep. Fast… so fast you forget your name and can only scream mine.”

A choked sound left my throat. I was so close, it hurt. My body clenched around his fingers, aching for more.

“You think Jared could ever fuck you like that?” he growled, each word hot against my skin. “He doesn’t know what you need. Doesn’t know how to make you fall apart.”

His fingers quickened just slightly, not enough to give me release, just enough to tease me closer, closer…

“I’d have you on your knees, begging for it. Bent over the sink. Pressed against that wall. Anywhere. Every time. I’d ruin you, Sera.”

“Oh my God-” I gasped, barely able to breathe, my hips rolling toward his hand, desperately finding more friction.

“I’d fuck you until you were raw, dripping, and still begging for more,” he whispered harshly. “Until your body belongs to me, and when you cum…” he pressed a soft kiss beneath my ear, “you’d scream my name.”

“Oh fuck-” I gasped, crying out, unable to help myself. “Please…”

He stilled. Just for a second.

“You begging, Sera?” he asked, voice rough, almost tender. “Tell me what you want.”

I didn’t have pride anymore. Not with the way I was shaking in his arms, slick and needy and strung out.

“I want to cum,” I whispered, nearly sobbed. “Please, Knox…”

He gave me one last stroke, slow, deep, and maddening.

And then he pulled his hand away.

Gone. Just like that.

The sudden emptiness made me gasp, made my body scream in protest. I stumbled forward a step, blinking through the haze.

He stepped back, his chest rising and falling, eyes still burning into mine. His fingers glistened with me, but he made no move to return. No explanation. Just distance.

My thighs trembled. My breath hitched. Cold air rushed between my legs where his hand had been. I felt raw. Exposed. Denied.

“Why-?” I started, but the word stuck in my throat, raw and breathless.

Knox’s jaw was tight, his entire body tense. He looked wrecked, his eyes burning, his skin flushed, and the unmistakable bulge straining against his pants.

He was so obviously hard it made my mouth go dry, and yet… he was still in control.

Always in control.

“I want you,” he said, voice low, steady, but laced with heat. “I will never stopped wanting you.”

My chest rose and fell in shallow breaths, still pulsing from how close he’d taken me, and how fast he’d ripped it away.

“But I’m not touching you again,” he continued, stepping closer, just enough to make me feel the heat radiating from his body, “not until you admit that you want me just as much.”

His words hit somewhere deep and aching. I swallowed, throat tight, heart hammering.

“You want me to break up with Jared?”

His gaze sharpened. A slow, infuriating smirk tugged at the corner of his mouth as he stepped back.

“You don’t have to,” he said, voice dipping lower. “But you and I both know that what’s going on here-” he gestured between the two of us, “it’s real, and when you’re ready to stop pretending it’s not… when you’re ready to actually feel what this could be, I’ll be right here.”

He turned then, walking away into the bathroom and shutting the door, like it cost him nothing.

I stood frozen, thighs pressed together, heart in my throat, body dripping, craving, ruined. No one had ever made me feel like this, undone and desperate and burning alive.

Fuck! I’m done for.