Thoughtful (Thoughtless, #1.5)(200)
Turning back to her, I cupped her cheeks in my hands. Her tears dried while I held her gaze, and I was mesmerized by the green-gold depths. “I couldn’t leave you. I remembered the look on your face when I told you I was leaving. No one’s looked at me that way before. No one’s ever cried for me before. No one’s asked me to stay before…no one. I convinced myself that you cared for me. I knew then that I would stay with you…even if it killed me.”
After a long, deep kiss that left us both breathless and wanting more, I pulled away. Grabbing her hand, I continued us on our relationship-altering walk. “I am sorry about being so…amorous with you. I never wanted to hurt you. I simply…wanted you.” When I gave her a roguish smile, Kiera missed a step. I wasn’t sure if that was because of me or not, but it made me laugh all the same. “When you asked, I did try to keep it…well, you had to know on some level that we were never innocent, right?” I pointedly raised an eyebrow, and she was reluctant about it, but she eventually nodded. Good. She couldn’t keep lying to herself about what we’d done.
With a smile, I said, “Well, I tried to keep it less…sinful…then. You made that shockingly hard to do,” I teased with a glare.
She looked genuinely confused. “Me?”
Amazed at her inability to see her own sexiness, I shook my head in playful exasperation. “Yes, you. If you weren’t dressed provocatively, or throwing yourself at me provocatively, or making very provocative noises…” She was obviously embarrassed at that, and I laughed at the cute look on her face. “If you weren’t doing all that, then you were simply just too adorable to resist.” I narrowed my eyes at her. “I am only a man after all.”
Stubborn as always, she shook her head and brushed off my praises with casual disbelief. Her self-image problems went as deep as my own. “You’re absurd, Kellan.”
She rolled her eyes and another laugh escaped me. She thought I was being ridiculous, but I was being entirely truthful. She didn’t know what I felt every time I looked at her. Even now, as she held my hand and walked with me through a dimly lit building, I was partially aroused by her presence. There was something about her that spoke to me on a primal level. I felt like I was constantly fighting the urge to throw her down and claim her. Maybe that feeling was just because of the sticky situation that we’d found ourselves in…but I didn’t really think so. She was just…it for me. “Again…you don’t realize how attractive you are to me. After all this time, I would think that was painfully obvious.”
She playfully elbowed me for my suggestive comment, and we enjoyed a moment of levity. But then seriousness settled around me. What I’d done to her next…never should have happened.
“I am sorry I took it too far. I should have let you end it. You were right to stop it. Everything that happened later was my fault. I should have let you go. I just, couldn’t…”
“Kellan, no it—”
She tried to object, but I interrupted her with a heartfelt apology for the disaster that had led us to where we were now. “The club, that was…intense. I wanted you so bad, and you wanted me, too. I considered pulling you into a bathroom and taking you right there. I think you might have even let me?”
I looked down at her and she nodded. Joy lifted me for a moment, but then I recalled the rest. “I saw Denny coming. I couldn’t do it. I pushed you away, praying desperately that you would tell him you wanted me. That you would choose to leave with me. You…didn’t, and it killed me.”
She stopped walking. I took a step, then turned to look back at her. Guilt and grief were waging war in her eyes, but all I could see right now was her lips on Denny’s. God, that had hurt. “I couldn’t even come home. I took your sister to Griffin’s. I think I bored her. I wasn’t much fun, moping on the couch all night like I did. Eventually, she gave up on me and turned her attention to Griffin. And, well, you know how that ended.”
Kiera swallowed a knot in her throat. Yeah, she knew now, thanks to Jenny, but she hadn’t known back then. And because she hadn’t known, because I’d hurt her, we’d gotten into a monstrous fight, and I did something to her that I would never forgive myself for.
“I was…I am really freaked out about what happened…in the car. What I said. What I did. I didn’t know you thought I slept with Anna until that moment, and I was so angry at you for…Denny, I let you believe it. I…embellished it.” I looked at the ground so I didn’t have to see her face. “Being angry with you almost made me want you even more.”
It took Kiera a moment to respond. I didn’t blame her. I’d been awful to her. “Kellan…you have no idea how difficult that was for me. How hard that was to ask you to stop, when my whole body was begging for you not to.”
She stroked my cheek and I swallowed; my throat felt raw. I didn’t deserve her understanding on this one. “You have no idea how hard it was to stop myself. I wasn’t lying, about what I had been thinking.”
Peeking up to look at her, I watched a contemplative expression wash over her face. She didn’t seem happy about what she was remembering. Again, I didn’t blame her. I’d wanted to keep going. I’d known that eventually she would change her mind and beg for me…if I pressed her long enough. I’d nearly ripped off her underwear and tasted her, against her express desire. She might have let me, she might have kept telling me no, but it was impossible to say. Either way, it would have been wrong. I was furious at the time, but now, I was glad she’d stopped me.