Burnout (The Holland Brothers Book 1)

I’m about to climb into bed and watch some TV when Quinn yells my name from the living area of our dorm room.

“Yeah?” I call back.

She doesn’t answer, but then there are more voices. Did she invite people over? I walk over to the door and open it. Knox smiles and waves from where he stands in the entryway of our suite.

I had to cancel our practice tonight for a team dinner and I’m so excited to see him that it takes me another few seconds to realize something is off about him. He doesn’t look upset exactly, just not quite himself.

He takes a step forward, lethal like a panther. Quinn shoots me a smile as I step back to let him into my room and close the door.

“Sorry to show up unannounced,” he says, glancing around my room. It’s a mess.

“No, it’s fine.” I clear the laptop and notebook from my bed and place them on my desk, then turn around to face him.

He’s smiling, but his eyes are so dark, and he’s tense in a way that I don’t understand but it has me almost nervous with anticipation.

“Good.” He stalks forward and lifts me into his arms. His mouth covers mine, hard and demanding.

I melt into him and wrap my arms and legs around him.

“Miss me?” I smile into the kiss.

His answer is to suck on my bottom lip. He backs me up against the wall. I can feel him already hard underneath me. My pulse skitters as his mouth leaves mine and trails down my neck. One of his hands slips beneath the hem of my shirt.

He groans when he realizes I don’t have on a bra. His large, calloused palm cups my breast and then squeezes. He ducks down to drop wet, open-mouthed kisses onto my neck. His teeth graze my nipple, then he flicks his tongue over it.

My head falls back. “I missed your mouth.”

“Yeah?” He pulls away and looks up at me, all cocky and smug.

I nod, heart racing with the throb between my legs.

“I missed yours too.” With his thumb he drags my bottom lip down and lets it go. “This fucking mouth will be the death of me.”

He takes me over to the bed and drops me on top. My shorts and panties are gone in a flash and then his mouth is covering my pussy.

He’s learned my body well in the short time we’ve been hooking up. I’m so close to getting off and he’s still fully dressed.

I sit up and manage to get his shirt off.

“You’re still wearing too many clothes,” I protest. He grins and helps me shove his jeans and boxers down. He stands long enough to take them off, then climbs back on top of me. His body is insane. Tattoos and muscles and the nipple piercing. None of it turns me on as much as the look in his eyes though.

I reach for him, pulling him high enough so I can kiss him. I could kiss him for hours and never get tired of it. My hips rise instinctively, desperate to be closer. The head of his dick nudges at my entrance and slips in just the smallest amount. I let out a gasp. It feels so good and it’s literally just the tip.

“Fuck, sorry.” Knox shifts immediately.

I almost want to tell him that it’s fine and we should just have sex already, but I lose my nerve. I trust him, but I know it will make it that much harder when things between us end.

“Wait.” I push him over onto his back and climb on top of him. I want him and I love the way his jaw flexes as my pussy glides over his length.

I grind over him slowly a few more times. He swallows hard and a vein in his neck pulses. I can tell how hard he’s working to hold back and it pushes me to continue.

“Gonna come if you keep that up,” he says, voice gravelly.

“Me too.” I grind over him harder.

“Ah, fuck.”

My body trembles and my arms feel like Jell-O as I hold myself up. Right before I’m about to collapse onto his chest, he takes over. With his hands on my hips, he moves me over him. I come apart, moaning his name loudly as I bury my head into him.

His release is quieter, but the grip on me is relentless as he shudders and spurts onto my stomach. Neither of us speaks as we catch our breath.

I grab my shorts and clean myself up, then find him a towel. He pulls on his boxers and jeans and I get into my favorite pair of sweats. Then we fall back onto the bed.

Knox leans against the headboard. He still has a strange expression on his face, and I know there’s more to why he showed up here tonight than just a hookup. The mask he wears, closely guarding his emotions, makes him look less like the cocky guy I’m falling for and more like the jerk I thought he was when I first met him.

“How was your day?” I ask, snuggling up to his side. It hadn’t occurred to me until right this second that maybe this was goodbye. My heart races and panic slowly creeps in.

“Long. How was yours?”

I swallow down the lump in my throat. “Good. Sorry I had to cancel on our training.”

“It’s fine. I ended up needing to deal with something anyway.”

“Is everything okay?” I can’t go another minute without knowing. I don’t think he’s cold enough to come over, hook up, and then say peace out forever, but it does cross my mind.

At first, I think he’s going to wave off the question or dodge it, but he quietly mulls over his answer and then says, “My dad showed up at the track today.”

“Oh.” My relief is second to my surprise and I struggle to figure out what to say next.

“Yeah.” He laughs bitterly.

“Does he come around a lot?”

“No.” A muscle in his cheek flexes. “He was never really in the picture. My parents separated when we were little, and he came and went as he pleased. Then my mom died when I was in junior high. Cancer.”

“You’ve been taking care of Flynn since you were in junior high?”

He shakes his head then says, “Well, kind of. Right after she died, there was a long stretch where he stuck around. A year or so. He drove a truck so even then there were times we had to fend for ourselves while he was on the road. As time went on, he showed up less.”

“And no one else knew you guys were on your own?”

“He popped in every couple of weeks. Often enough that no one really asked any questions, and we weren’t about to say anything. None of us wanted to be split up or end up in the system.”

My stomach clenches. My parents wouldn’t even let me stay home alone until I was almost thirteen. I had thought it was dumb and I griped about not needing a babysitter. So no, I can’t imagine.

He couldn’t have been more than seventeen years old with only his older brother to look out for him, and three younger ones to worry about too. A fierce protectiveness surges through me, which is ridiculous because Knox doesn’t need me. He’s constructed his life so he doesn’t need anyone.

“We managed,” Knox says as if he can read my thoughts. “Then Hendrick got a full-ride scholarship for football. I don’t think he wanted to leave us, but he wanted to get away from it too, you know?”

I don’t know. I can’t even wrap my head around it, but I nod.

“That’s when our dad’s absences got longer and longer until he just stopped coming around at all.”

“How did you survive?”

“I dropped out of school and got a job. Arch pitched in, Brogan too. He’s not even related by blood, but he did whatever he could to help us.”

“Brogan isn’t your real brother?” I ask.

“He’s a brother, for sure, but no, not by blood.” He brings his hand up to cover mine resting on his chest and runs his thumb over the top of my knuckles. “He and Archer have been best friends for as long as I can remember. Brogan didn’t have the best home life. I mean, not that our house wasn’t dysfunctional, but we had each other and we had Mom. He was an only child with two parents who didn’t give a shit. Our mom took him in, always let him stay over, got him presents at Christmas and on his birthday just like he was one of us.”

I wrap an arm around him and squeeze as hard as I can. “She sounds like an amazing woman.”

“Yeah, she was cool.” He lets his head fall over to rest on mine. “I can remember her watching the Olympics when they were on. She loved women’s gymnastics. She’d be super impressed by you.”

“What did she do?” I ask, wanting to know more about the mom that he obviously loved very much.

“She owned The Tipsy Rose. Well, it was called Rosie’s Place then.”

“Really?” I smile. “I wondered about the name.”

“It’s a nod to Mom.” He confirms my suspicion as I let my gaze fall over his left arm. It explains his tattoos too. Roses—so many of them.

I sit up and look him in the eye.

“I’m really impressed by you too,” he says and my heart flutters. He’s complimented me before, but this feels more important. I want to hear him explain all the ways he finds me impressive someday, but not right now.

“I’m impressed by you too. It’s a really noble thing you did, taking care of your brothers. Still taking care of them.”

He shrugs it off. So very Knox.

“Was racing always what you wanted to do?” I ask him.

“Yeah. I stopped for a few years with everything going on. I didn’t have the money or the time to be traveling to races. I thought I was done for good. I’d made my peace with it, but then Hendrick moved back home, and he encouraged me to get into it again. Told me I’d always regret it if I didn’t give it a shot.” He smiles in a way that makes me realize how everything they’ve gone through has created this tight-knit bond between them.

And it’s forged him into this amazing man who would give up everything for the people he loves. It’s seriously sexy.

I want to ask him more. Specifically, about his dad and what showing up at the track means, but Knox brushes his lips over mine and smiles, and I don’t want to drag him back to a place that I know is touchy.

“What are you doing Sunday?” he asks.

“I have no idea. Why?”

His smile turns into a smirk. “I want to take you somewhere.”

“Okay.” I don’t even need to know where. I want to be pretty much any place he is. I’m absolutely addicted to kissing him, but I’m also falling for him a little more with every new tidbit I learn.