We both spin when we pass to keep talking as we walk backward. “You going to the staff cabin tonight?” he asks.
I shrug, non-committal. My mom is expecting me at the house, and something tells me her eighteen-year-old daughter wanting to get drunk with the rest of the staff won’t change her mind.
“Well, I’m really good at the drinking thing, so I probably won’t notice one way or the other.” Cole grins again, and I laugh, but when he opens his mouth to say something else, he stops.
And a second later, I know why.
I back straight into a rock-hard chest, and when hands curl around each side of my waist, every part of me knows who they belong to.
“Leighton,” Knox says, his voice harsh behind me.
I close my eyes for a second, hating how my body instantly wants to sink back into him. When I open them, Cole has paused by the break room, watching us cautiously as he slowly turns the knob. Knocking the hands off my hips, I force a quick smile.
“I’ll see you for the dinner shift,” I tell Cole.
It takes a second before he nods, and as soon as he disappears through the door, I spin around to a clenched jaw and dark eyes on me. The shiver racing over my flesh reminds me I haven’t seen Knox more than a few times all week, even if my traitorous gaze would float around the dining room, regularly searching for him. He finally fell in line, dressed in a teal polo with his name and position embroidered in white on the front. The sleeves stretch over his biceps, and I can see the outline of the prominent bulge in his shorts.
My nipples harden, and I cross my arms over my chest, not wanting him to notice. “Did you miss the day of kindergarten where they taught you to keep your hands to yourself?”
“You backed into me…” He trails off at the end, dragging his gaze over me. The heat in his eyes makes me think maybe he’s wanted to see me the past few days too, and I feel the dampness between my thighs, my clit aching at the idea of him scanning faces for mine like I did his.
“You need to finish the schedules for next week,” he growls, finally bringing his attention up again. “Which you can’t do in the hallway flirting with a townie.”
“One, I have until Monday to finish the schedules. And two…” I clench my fists, my temper flaring. “Cole and I were talking. Just because the ivy chicks can’t utter a sentence without shoving their tits in your face, doesn’t mean everyone else is incapable of holding a conversation without wanting to fuck the other person.”
My face warms when I hear the envy thick in my tone over what I spent all of last summer watching, and I start to back away from him. But Knox catches me around the waist, tugging me toward him so my chest brushes his.
“Careful, Leighton,” he says, his voice dropping even lower, so gravelly my skin burns. “You sound jealous.”
“Of the ivies?” I spit back with a laugh. “Never.”
“Not of the Ivies.”
Knox’s thumb brushes over my belly, and I shiver when it grazes the top of my khaki shorts under my polo.
“You sound jealous of someone else touching me.” His eyes dart over my head toward where Cole disappeared into the break room, then home in on me, somehow darker. “Of the possibility of me touching them.”
The thought turns my stomach, but I tip my chin up to glare at him. “You can touch whoever the hell you want.”
“Can I?” he growls back at me. “Whoever I want?”
I swallow, my chest rising faster while we stare each other down. He makes a second pass with the pad of his thumb, slower this time, so I feel him dip under the waistband. The air surrounding us thickens, the hallway narrowing until only enough room remains for the two of us.
“Say it again, Leighton.” Knox’s jaw works overtime beneath the skin, like something inside of him is about to snap. “Tell me I can touch whoever I want.”
My eyes further narrow at him, and I smile wryly. “Whoever the fuck you—”
That’s all I get out before Knox listens. And then he touches whoever the fuck he wants.
Me.
Chapter Four
Knox
I’ve spent the week chasing glimpses of Leighton around the resort. Half of them required me to make up fucking excuses to get where I knew she’d be. Real pathetic shit.
The handful of times our gazes locked, she’d lay one of her glares on me. Then I’d have to fight the urge to tug her into a utility closet, to show her exactly what her bratty little looks do to me. The only reason I didn’t was the possibility I might be reading her body wrong—seeing something that wasn’t really there.
But then the spike of jealousy hit her eyes when she brought up the ivies. A flare of indignation over how they pointlessly throw themselves at me. It gave me all the proof I need. Leighton wants me. And since we’re far past any delusions of how fucking badly I want her, we’re not leaving this damn hallway until I have her.
She gasps when I move into her, backing her into the dark corridor that leads to the maintenance room. The second we round the corner, I grasp her jaw and crash my mouth down on hers. At first, her lips give under mine, but then she whimpers and starts kissing me back, and I stop fucking breathing. Everything spirals, the earth’s rotation changing direction.
We grab at each other, her hands pulling at the back of my neck while mine tangle in her golden hair. The heat of her breath sends a current over my skin, and when her pillowy lips part for me, I dive in. I swirl my tongue with hers and groan at the sweet taste of her, hard as steel and straining against my zipper.
By the end of last summer, I’d jerked off, thinking about fucking Leighton Howard anywhere and everywhere at Haven Cove. But somehow, I’d missed the maintenance hallway.
I’m not sure which of us is responsible, but her back hits the wall at the end beside the door. My knee pushes between her legs to spread them, and she rocks her hips, rubbing her pussy on my thigh. A soft moan escapes her, and I press into her more to draw out another one of them.
I wrench my mouth away from hers and drop my gaze to her ugly-ass sand-colored polo. Underneath it, she has on a tight red tank top. I saw her walking into the staff lounge this morning, the fabric stretched and curving around her perky tits, her nipples poking through.
“Take it off,” I say, my voice rough with lust.
When she doesn’t move, I drag my teal one over my head and throw it on the floor by her feet. Her heavy-lidded gaze drinks in every inch of muscle on my chest. My cock lurches at the thought of her hands pressed against my pecs while she rides me, and I thrust my erection into her.
I don’t even care that someone could walk by right now, squint enough to see our figures moving in the dark. They wouldn’t say shit about it unless they wanted to chance getting fired.
“Take off your fucking shirt, Leighton.”
The second time, her eyes snap up at the command. And it takes all of one second for shit to fall apart. Leighton’s eyes dart around, both of us out of breath.
“What the fuck, Knox?” she hisses. She shoves on my chest, so I back away from her. “You can’t push me into hallways and…and—”