Chapter 3 A DANGEROUS FIRST LOOK

SERA

No, this man was the opposite of Jared.

The opposite of polished and composed.

Rugged. Yes, that was the word.

He was shirtless, and I couldn't stop my eyes from roaming.

Broad chest, anf uscles that didn't come from hours with a trainer but from real work, thick arms, veined forearms, dusted with just enough dark hair to make my thighs clench.

His skin was sun-warmed bronze, his jaw square and stubbled, like he hadn't bothered shaving for anyone.

His dark eyes hooded and lazy dragged over me, slow and deliberate, lingering far too long like he was deciding what he wanted to do with me... and imagining it in detail.

I stood frozen in place, the air suddenly thick and too hot, my body responding before my mind could catch up.

My nipples tightened beneath the thin fabric of my tank top, the breeze catching the hem of my barely-there shorts.

His gaze dipped lower.

Fuck.

Say something, Sera.

I opened my mouth, but nothing came out. My throat was dry, and my tongue suddenly a useless weight.

He didn't speak. Just watched like a wolf that had spotted prey and knew it had nowhere to run.

I finally found my voice, though it came out breathless.

"Who... who are you?"

He smiled. Not sweet. Not friendly.

It was a smirk. A slow, smug curl of his lips that sent a bolt of heat straight between my legs.

And then-

"Sera, baby, there you are," Jared's voice came from behind me.

I jumped like I'd been electrocuted, instinctively taking a step back.

Shit.

Jared walked up beside me, looking between me and the man, oblivious to the electricity crackling in the air.

The man, this stranger turned his attention to Jared. The smirk stayed.

"Knox," Jared said, grinning wide.

My stomach dropped.

No fucking way.

This was Knox?

The elusive, estranged brother Jared barely spoke of? The one he hadn't seen in years?

Knox turned fully toward him and they clasped hands, pulling each other in for a hug.

"Been a while," Knox said, voice still that rough gravel, laced with heat even now.

"Way too long," Jared agreed. "I'm glad you made it."

I couldn't stop staring.

I should have looked away. Should have fixed my face, but I couldn't. My gaze trailed down the muscles of Knox's back, the way his jeans sat low on his hips, hinting at a V-line carved by the gods.

He turned back to me slowly like he knew I'd been watching.

I blinked, trying to play it cool. My cheeks were burning.

Jared slipped his arm around my waist.

"Sera, this is my brother, Knox. Knox, this is my fiancée."

Fiancée.

That word landed differently now.

Knox's eyes dragged over me again, slow and unhurried, like he was trying to commit me to memory. He didn't bother to hide it. His gaze paused at my mouth, dropped to my bare legs, then made its way back up again.

"I've heard a lot about you," he said, his voice low and rough with a kind of amusement curling under it. "Though Jared didn't mention you were this..."

A pause, just long enough to make it deliberate.

"...striking."

"She is, right?" Jared chuckled beside me, not reading anything into it. "I got lucky." He added, pressing a kiss to my temple. I forced a smile.

Knox's lips curved, and he reached out a hand.

"Pleasure to finally meet you, Sera."

I slid my palm into his. Big mistake.

The moment our hands touched, something jolted through me.

A spark. No, an actual shock like the first roll of thunder before a storm.

I felt it in my palm, in my spine... and in my core.

His grip was warm, firm... but it was the way his thumb brushed over the inside of my wrist, just barely, that had my breath catching.

It was subtle, easily passed off as nothing. But it wasn't nothing.

I swallowed hard, trying to keep my face neutral.

"The pleasure's mine," I managed, voice a little too airy.

We stood there like that, holding hands too long to be appropriate. Finally, I eased mine free, but it felt like I left a part of myself in his grasp.

"You're... taller than I imagined," I said, desperate to say something, anything to cut the tension.

Knox's lips twitched like he was holding back a laugh.

"So are you," he replied, his voice dipping to something almost velvet. "In heels, I imagine."

There it was.

A flicker of something dangerous behind the tease. His eyes dipped once more to my legs and the stretch of skin between the hem of my shorts and the top of my thighs.

I felt the heat rise to my cheeks. Jared didn't catch the undertone, too busy grinning proudly at both of us.

"Knox has been off-grid forever. I wasn't sure he'd even show," Jared said, throwing an arm around my waist.

"Guess I couldn't stay away," Knox replied smoothly, his gaze still fixed on me. "Not after hearing so much about your bride-to-be."

His eyes lingered a second too long.

I felt the tension coil low in my belly, that strange, restless ache starting again.

It was probably nothing. I was probably overthinking it.

Right?

Still... it didn't feel like nothing.

Not the way his eyes moved over me, or the way his voice wrapped itself around his words like they were dipped in heat.

Not the way my body responded to it, traitorous and sharp and alive.

Then I realized that I was staring at Knox's mouth.

God.

Full, firm, with a perfectly cut bottom lip that looked like sin carved from flesh. The kind of mouth that didn't just kiss but it ruined. It devoured.

It whispered filth in the dark and bit down when you begged it not to. That mouth didn't belong to a man who played it safe. It belonged to someone who knew exactly how to use it... slow, deliberate, merciless.

Heat flickered low in my belly, and my thighs clenched on instinct.

I should've looked away. I meant to look away.

But I didn't until his tongue slid slowly along the bottom lip like he knew exactly where my mind had gone.

Shit.

My eyes snapped back up to meet his, and the look he gave me was lazy and loaded like he'd caught me mid-fantasy and didn't mind one bit.

Worse... he seemed to enjoy it.

I coughed, dragging my gaze to the side, pretending like I hadn't just undressed the man with my eyes and mentally climbed into his lap.

What the hell was wrong with me?

"Knox!" came a voice from behind. Jared's mom.

Knox broke his gaze from mine, turned slightly to look behind him.

"I should say hi before she gets dramatic," he said to Jared, but his eyes were still on me.

One last sweep down my body, slow and possessive and then he turned and walked away, his back muscles flexing with every step.

Only then did I breathe again.

Jared looked out at the view, totally at ease.

"I'm glad we're all here. This was a good idea."

"Yeah," I said, forcing a smile, my head still spinning. "It was."

But deep down, I knew.

The reason my body was on fire... my skin humming, my chest tight and hot?

Wasn't the weather.

It was Knox.

Fuck!

Dinner was... fine.

That was the lie I kept telling myself, even as I barely tasted the roasted sea bass and herb couscous on my plate.

Everyone else seemed genuinely at ease, the parents chatting animatedly about the wedding, Jared smiling, his hand resting on my thigh like we were just any couple in love.

But all I could think about was Knox.

I'd spent the entire meal avoiding looking at him.

Failing spectacularly.

He was seated directly across from me, and every time I dared glance up, his eyes were already there watching me.

Studying me, and undressing me with a slow, shameless sort of intensity that made my nipples harden beneath the thin fabric of my sundress.

I'm sure he could even see it.

Apparently, he was an artist.

That came up somewhere between wine refills and bread baskets. He spoke easily with both our parents, charming, casual, but there was a smirk always ghosting his mouth.

And maybe that was ridiculous, but every time our eyes met, it was like a finger trailing down my spine, heading lower, lower...

You're imagining things. You're overthinking it. I tried to scold myself.

But when someone looks at you like he could bend you over the nearest surface and ruin you with his mouth, it's hard to focus on table manners.

After dinner, the parents retired to their wings, jet lag finally catching up with them. Jared kissed my cheek and told me he had to jump on a business call, five minutes, tops before disappearing upstairs.

I stood up quickly, desperate to clear the table, to do something with my hands, my body, anything to distract from the heat pooling between my thighs.

"I'll take care of these," I offered, already stacking plates.

I didn't look to see who followed me into the kitchen. I didn't need to.

I could feel him.

The air shifted the moment Knox stepped in. Heavy and charged like lightning about to strike.

I faced the sink, rinsing off a plate, pretending I wasn't hyper-aware of every step he took closer behind me. Of the way my skin prickled, of the heartbeat now pulsing between my legs.

I set the plate down slowly.

And then...

"If I didn't know any better, I'd say you have been running from me all night," Knox's voice came, low and rough behind me.

I froze.