Finding It (Losing It, #3)(9)

All of my friends were off chasing their dreams, moving into their futures, and I just wanted to want something with that kind of desperation, that kind of fire. I was an actress. I’d spent nearly half my life stepping into a character, searching out her desires, finding what drives her. But for the life of me, I couldn’t do the same for myself. It had been a long, long time since I’d let myself want something enough for it to matter.

I felt like such a failure. Every shoe before me represented a dream that would never be lived, a life that would never be loved. I’d never faced that kind of oppression or struggle.

This place bled with history and tragedy, and in comparison it made the wounds of my past seem like scratches.





4


ARE YOU OKAY?”

Hunt stood right next to me. On instinct, I turned my back to him. I was glad for it as I wiped my cheeks and my hands came back wet.

I cleared my throat.

“Yeah, I’m fine. Just yawned. Maybe I’m a little tired after all.”

“You mean I finally get to walk you home?”

I composed my face into a smile and turned. “Come on, then, Prince Charming. Let’s see what this chivalry stuff is all about. I hear good things.”

His lips tipped in a smile. “I haven’t been called chivalrous in a long time.”

I raised an eyebrow as we crossed the road back to the other sidewalk. “Fine by me. Chivalry sounded pretty boring anyway.” I was much more intrigued by the not-so-nice side of him.

He laughed, and I took a moment to get my bearings. We weren’t far from my hostel at all. I was pretty sure it was just a block or two north. Once we’d set off walking again, I looked at Hunt. “Tell me something. If you’re not walking me home because it’s the gentlemanly thing to do, why are you here?”

We crossed over another side street and he said, “Back on the serial-killer bent, are we?”

I surveyed him for a second. In my sobering state, he wasn’t any less muscular or intimidating, but he didn’t seem dangerous. He could be, definitely. His hands were probably big enough to crush someone’s skull, but all that power seemed dormant, locked under multiple layers of control.

“Nah, you’re not a serial killer. Too soft for that.”

“Soft?”

I grinned, and turned the corner. There was my hostel, tucked inconspicuously between a tourist shop and a restaurant.

“Hold on, now,” Hunt said. “Did you just call me soft?”

He took hold of my shoulder and spun me around to face him. I braced a hand against his stomach and—Holy mother of washboard abs! I looked up at him, at those penetrating eyes.

“Well, I wouldn’t call this part of you soft.”

His playful expression turned dark, the tension creeping back along his jaw.

His tone full of warning, he said,” Kelsey.”

I wasn’t sure what he was warning me against, nor did I particularly care. I tilted my head to look up at him, the colorful early morning sky still painting itself behind him.

“How did you know my name?”

“That girl said it. The one you came to the bar with.”

Katalin.

I smiled, and touched my free hand to his shoulder. “Well, then. You know my name, and I know yours. How else could we get to know each other?”

I let the hand on his stomach slide up until his chest arced outward. God, if his body looked half as perfect as it felt, I wanted to use it as a dinner table.

He swayed toward me, and the scent of him, woodsy and masculine, meshed perfectly with the morning air. His fingers touched my rib cage, and I shivered. Long and strong, those fingers could play me like a piano, and it would be a masterpiece.

He exhaled a heavy breath, and I nearly groaned at the way his muscles moved beneath his skin. I gripped the back of his neck, and a low rumble resonated in his chest.

I lifted myself up on my toes, my lips level with his chin, and said, “Feel free to keep showing me how not soft you are.”

The hand on my ribs flexed, and my shirt bunched in his fingers.

“Goddamn it.” He groaned, and tipped his head back away from mine.

Was that a good sign?

I resisted the urge to crawl up his body, and settled instead for wrapping my arms more fully around his shoulders. I tipped his head back down toward mine, and his breath puffed across my lips, warm and sweet. I pulled myself closer, and I felt the start of something pressing against my stomach.

I let out a breathy sigh at the same time that he pulled away.

He put several feet between us, and then in a low voice said, “You should go. Get some sleep.”

I blinked. “What?”

“You’ve had a long night.”

I blinked again. I had hoped it would become an even longer night.

“That sounds an awful lot like chivalry to me. Boring chivalry.”

He took another step away from me. “This is you, right?” He pointed to the hostel at my back.

“Uh, yeah, it is, but—”

“Good. Then I’ll leave you alone.”

But what if I didn’t want to be left alone?

He took a few more steps backward, until he stood in the sunlight that washed the main street.

“Good night, Kelsey. Or Good morning.”

Then he left, leaving me alone, still a little drunk, and mind-numbingly turned on.