Piercing Hatred | ✔️

35

~Flora's POV~

I stretched my legs out beneath the table as I plopped down in the break room a couple days later, setting my large bowl of macaroni in front of me.

"Mind if I join you?" Knox hummed out of nowhere, almost making me drop my fork in surprise. I glanced over my shoulder and frowned up at him as he set his food down beside me without waiting for a response. "You scared the hell out of me." I told him with a huff, beginning to mix my macaroni around to make it cheesier.

He just chuckled and brushed his fingers through his hair, messing up the strands slightly yet somehow still managing to look devastatingly handsome. "Macaroni again?" He asked with an amused smile, glancing down at my bowl. I felt a blush spread up my neck and into my face at his obvious teasing, feebly shrugging my shoulders. "So what?" I grumbled, embarrassed. I had gotten macaroni for lunch every day for the past three days now, which was normal for me. Even when we were kids I had loved macaroni, but who didn't?

"You have McDonald's again." I pointed out, gesturing to his bag of McDonald's. He, despite how fit he was, seemed to eat it quite a lot. I glanced up and down the length of his figure and frowned curiously. How often did he work out to remain in such good shape?

Noticing my gaze on him, a playful smile tugged at his lips, yet he didn't tease me about my obvious staring for once. "Touché." He hummed in agreement, taking a bite out of his burger. I began to eat as well, a peaceful silence settling over the room.

My eyes flicked over to him after I finished eating, watching him as he quietly scrolled his thumb down the screen of his phone, not noticing my gaze. He had finished eating before me but had decided to stay here with me, which had become a rather normal routine by now. I suppressed a smile and looked over at the clock, just to see that we only had ten more minutes left of break time.

I stood, causing Knox to glance up at me and watch me closely as I cleaned up everything that was on the table. He stuck his phone into his pocket and I grabbed his empty McDonald's bag, sending him a scolding look for not throwing it out yet. A smirk tugged at his lips and he suddenly reached out when I turned away, the strong grip of his hand on my hip causing me to fumble awkwardly with the bag.

Knox pulled me back abruptly, causing me to stumble over my feet and onto his lap, which was where he seemed to want me because he pulled me closer while the empty bag now laid on the floor where I'd dropped it. "Hey!" I frowned and looked at him with a furrow between my brows. He just hummed innocently and gently ran his hand down my thigh, a blush creeping up my neck when his lips brushed against my neck. "This isn't quite the place for this, Knox." I told him, attempting to be scolding and firm within my words.

However, my voice came out a little shaky, so I knew there was no way he took it seriously.

His teeth playfully nipped at my throat and I grabbed onto his wrist, a little embarrassed that such a small action had me wanting to clench my thighs. "Nobody's going to see anything, doll. It's fine." He assured me in a husky murmur, but I was still too anxious to relax. On the other hand, he continued kissing and sucking at my neck as if nothing was out of the ordinary, and I moaned quietly in complaint while shifting on his lap. "We can't. It's inappropriate." I protested softly, placing a hand on his chest to push him back.

Trailing his gaze over my face and down to my attempt to subtly clench my thighs shut, Knox squeezed my hip gently as he gave one last nip to my earlobe. "Fine." He said softly. "Then I'll leave you to think about what I'm going to do to you when I get you home, instead."

**

As embarrassing as it was to admit, I did spend the rest of the day doing exactly what Knox had expected me to. I snuck glances over at him through the remainder of our shift, nibbling on the inside of my cheek out of frustration.

Why did he have to do this to me? Curse him and his ability to affect me this way.

I huffed to myself and peeked at the clock that was hung on the wall, internally cheering when I saw that I only had four minutes before we could go home. For the next few minutes I kept myself busy, or it was more so that I fiddled around with nothing while watching the clock and pretending like I was continuously fixing a stack of clothes on a table.

"How many times do you plan to straighten and then un-straighten that pile there, doll?" Knox asked from behind me all of the sudden, the shock of him being so close causing me to whip my head around. I paused my fiddling and then turned towards him when I realized that he had caught me pretending to be busy, clearing my throat. "As many times as I can until the clock hits seven." I said, slightly tilting my head back to peer up at him.

An amused smile formed on his lips, his dark eyes sparkling with mirth. "That's not a very good work ethic." He teased, only earning a sassy look and a raise of the brows from me. "Yours must not be very good, either." I retorted. "At least I was pretending to work."

Knox chuckled and I took another quick glance at the clock, perking up when I saw that it was now one minute past seven. I looked back up at him and grabbed his hand in mine, pointing towards the clock. "We can leave." I chirped, completely forgetting about our pointless bickering.

Smiling, he spun me around by the grip on my hand and gave me a playful swat on the butt to push me forward. "Then let's get going, doll."