It's All Relative(34)

Accepting her answer, April shrugged and started walking toward the hallway, most likely to strip off her moderate clothes and replace them with something much more formfitting. “All right, but I want to meet this hottie soon.” Twisting her head to look back at Jessie, she gave her a brilliant smile. “Invite him up this weekend for…dinner.” Her grin turned mischievous, and Jessie knew exactly what she meant by dinner.

Jessie frowned as her friend disappeared into her room. Keeping April away from Kai might not be easy, or even possible. She sighed. It also didn’t matter. Jessie couldn’t have anything with Kai but friendship. Best to let him move on quickly and she supposed that him being with her roommate would be better than him being with some random stranger. At least if Kai was with April, she would have an excuse to see him often.

Hating her train of thought, Jessie picked up the box. She hated the queasiness in her stomach whenever she had intimate thoughts about Kai, hated the fact that she was still attracted to him, and hated the horrible feeling in her heart at the thought of him helping April remove all of her modest clothing.

With those troubling, conflicting emotions tumbling in her mind, Jessie shoved the box into her truck and drove to Kai’s apartment. Twenty minutes later she was in the parking garage below his place, staring at his bike in the next stall. With his helmet slung causally over one of the handlebars, it was obvious that he was home. It made Jessie smile that he was here, and she forgot her queasy thoughts as a surge of butterflies flitted through her. She would get to see him. Wrong as it was, for now, he was only hers.

Grabbing the awkwardly large box, Jessie shuffled over to the elevator, and pressed the third floor button. She leaned back against the wall as the cage started to rise. The lifting movement mixed with her butterflies and increased her anxiety. She swallowed three times to calm herself. Really, she’d seen him every day since the club. She should be used to the anticipation by now.

The doors dinged open, and she headed to his apartment. Once again, her arms were too full to knock, so she kicked a greeting with her toe. She heard a muffled, irritated reply, followed by what sounded like low curses. Worrying her lip, she started wondering if maybe she shouldn’t be bugging him again. He was going to think his cousin was stalking him if she kept this up. Just as she decided to set down the box and leave without bothering him, the door swung open. Jessie’s gaze locked with Kai’s, and she halted her movement. And her breath. She just couldn’t get used to the absorbing color of his eyes. She couldn’t look away.

He tilted his head as he regarded her standing there. “Jessie?”

He sounded a little peeved, and Jessie was sure he wasn’t happy to see her…yet again. Shaking her head to jolt herself out of the trance created by the color of his eyes, she sputtered, “I’m sorry, you’re busy. I can come back later.” Her cheeks felt red-hot, and she suddenly wished she could hide the massive box she was holding behind her back. Guys didn’t care about this kind of stuff. He was going to think she was an idiot, and maybe she was.

Kai’s face softened, like he just now realized that he seemed grumpy. Shaking his head, he reached out to touch her arm. With pleading eyes, he said, “No, I’m glad you’re here. Please help me.” His face scrunched into an adorable expression of helplessness.

Confused, Jessie cocked her head as she studied him. It was only then that she noticed he was half-naked. Dressed only in jeans, he was scratching his bare chest, just below the black ink of the tattoo swirling over his collar bone. Her eyes widened fractionally at the sight of him, and she thought she should leave for an entirely different reason. But…he was family, and he’d asked for help. She couldn’t leave now. Nodding, Jessie followed him into his studio.

Giving her a bewildered expression, Kai gingerly took the box from her once she was inside. “What’s this?” He lifted the box a little, indicating it. Jessie’s eyes strayed to his flexed biceps when he did. Damn.

Clearing her throat, Jessie helped him set it on the floor in front of his bed. The bed. “Uh, just some crap I had lying around.” Looking at all his bare walls, Jessie began envisioning where he could put everything. “Just a little something to make your home a bit…homier.”

When she returned her eyes to his, Kai was staring at her; he seemed stunned. Finding his voice, he whispered, “You didn’t have to…you’ve already done too much…I can’t…” He bit his lip, still scratching his body, and Jessie smiled at his overwhelmed face. Finally, he shrugged and said, “Thank you, Jessie.”

She felt warm in places that her cousin really shouldn’t be warming her. Looking away, she muttered, “Well, don’t get too excited. It’s just some candles, art, knick-knacks…nothing to write home about.” She peeked up to see him softly smiling at her. He was also still partially nude. It was so distracting; it hitched her breath.

Trying for casualness, she touched his chest with her fingertips. His skin was cool…and inviting. “For someone who’s always cold here, you sure are shirtless a lot.” She started to laugh, but it came out in a nervous titter, so she stopped.

Instead of laughing with her, he sighed and dropped onto his bed. “Stupid bees,” she thought she heard him mutter.

Sitting down next to him, the huge box at their feet, she started twirling a curly lock of hair around her finger, mainly to stop herself from trailing them down his chest. “What?” she asked, still distracted by the shape of him.