Never Standing Still (The Never Duet #1)(28)

“Listen, Kalli, I just think you’ve put yourself in a box and closed it up tight. And even though someone wants to open it up, to give you a little light, you’ve decided to make it impossible.”

“And you think you’re the one to do that? To show me a little light? This has been my life for ten years, Riot. You don’t think I know a little more about this than you?”

“Undoubtedly, but you haven’t let anyone try. Let me try.”

“It’s not worth it,” I muttered, turning away from him and facing the city again. “I’d let you in, you’d make yourself comfortable, then you’d realize what you’d gotten yourself into and be gone again.”

“Now you’re not giving me enough credit. You’ve got really low expectations of everyone around you while holding yourself to ridiculously high ones.” I heard him stand and walk toward me. “You could at least let me earn the disappointment you’ve already attached to me. Let me have the opportunity to change your mind about how it could be.”

He came to stand next to me, but didn’t touch me. “It’s not that simple,” I whispered, a little ashamed at how broken I sounded. “I can’t let you hurt him, I’ve already hurt him enough.”

“Kal,” he said gently, his hand gripping my arm, pulling me to him. He brought my head to his shoulder with his other hand, and I went willingly. Allowing myself, for just one moment, to feel him. He stroked my hair while his other arm wound itself around my waist, making sure I was pressed firmly against him.

“I don’t know what kind of men you’ve surrounded yourself with in the past, but I can promise you I’ll never intentionally hurt you. And I wouldn’t dream of hurting your brother. I can’t guarantee everything will work out, but I would never hurt you, Kal.”

“It’s the unknown that worries me most. The things neither one of us can guarantee.”

“You can’t protect him from everything. Have you ever considered that by keeping him from being hurt, you might also be keeping him from being happy? I know you’re preventing yourself from finding happiness, but what about him? Couldn’t he benefit from a healthy relationship with a man? Couldn’t you both? It doesn’t have to be dangerous or hurtful, Kalli. It could be wonderful.” His words were whispered against my ear, his hand stroking slowly down the back of my neck, smoothing down my hair.

His words were weapons against every piece of armor I’d ever put up, and my defenses were crumbling around his voice.

“We could be so wonderful,” he said, his voice so low and pleading.

I’d never heard anyone mean what they said as much as he did in that moment. He believed, with every fiber of his soul, the words he was saying to me; I could feel it. In that instant, like a lightning strike, I was convinced to believe him, to let him in, even if it meant heartache down the road. I simply couldn’t keep myself closed up anymore. He’d pried the lid off the box and now that I’d seen his light shining in, I wanted out.

I pulled my face away from his shoulder, slowly moving to look him in the eye. His caramel eyes shone back at me, searching mine for any indication of where I was headed or what I would do next. My gaze fell from his eyes and wandered down to his lips, and I let myself remember how lush they’d looked that day at the waterfront. Even now, with the moonlight illuminating them, they looked inviting.

“Don’t forget your promise,” I whispered, my eyes darting back and forth between his lips and eyes.

“I’ll never do anything to hurt you,” he said again, still a whisper, but adamant.

“Kiss me,” I breathed out, my voice shaky and low.

He paused for a moment, tilted his head slightly, then slowly moved his mouth closer to mine. I watched his eyes as he moved closer still, silently begging him to be the man he claimed to be. Willing him to not make me regret that moment. Pleading with him to make me whole again, to show me how to be the person he saw me as.

When his lips met mine I expected heat, fireworks, sirens, something. But what I felt was relief. A strange, yet absolutely wonderful, feeling of respite came over me. For just that instant, I was weightless. I was suspended in time, feeling his lips against mine and nothing else.

Then, just one moment later, the heat came. As his lips brushed over mine, the friction built and the warmth rolled over me, stinging along my spine, trembling in my hands. His hand moved to the back of my neck, just as it had that first day we’d worked together, and he gripped me there as his tongue teased the seam of my lips.

Without permission, my mouth yielded to him, opening, inviting him in, and a moan escaped me when he took that first hesitant pass with his tongue.

With one hand on my neck and the other cupping my cheek, he pressed into me, taking more from me in one kiss than I’d ever given anyone with all of my body. He licked, nibbled, tasted and took. And all I could do was give myself over to him. I could hear his breath pulling in heavily through his nose as our lips passed over one another’s. I felt his fingers flex against the skin of my neck, and after a minute or two, his erection pressing hard into my belly.

My hands found their way to his narrow hips, sliding around his waist to the back of him. I gripped his shirt beneath his jacket, digging my fingers into the fabric, trying to bring him as close to me as possible.

We stood at this abandoned viewpoint, just us and the city, sharing a kiss with the sky. The kiss never tapered, never waned. It built and burned, and soon his hands moved down, floating over my body. They moved over my shoulders, down my arms, and then to my waist. His hands wound around me, the feeling of his big hands moving over my skin making my breath hitch in my lungs and my heart pound with need.