Thin Love (Thin Love, #1)(139)
She needs a reprieve from him, from that song that shoots flashes of memory heavy in her mind. She still sees it all so clearly, feels his large hands on her naked thighs, the way his teeth raked across her collarbone. How he cupped her, teased her, how wide he felt inside her.
Keira suppresses the shudder that chills her skin and she slips through the crowd, finding the quiet of the city below her on the balcony. New Orleans shines in front of her—slow activity of blinking headlights, the low, almost unrecognizable refrain of a trumpet in the distance and for a moment she closes her eyes, focuses on that horn, hoping it will vanquish the flash of overwhelming memory.
Behind her, the opulent party continues. Ransom seems happy, drunk on the attention, on the praise Kona has given him all night, the introduction to players he’s long admired. She is happy for her boy, overwhelmed that he is now sixteen. But the night, the crowd, her laughing, dancing son are momentarily forgotten as that endless song persists, taunts her. She moves away from the glass doors, to an empty table hidden next to an alcove, hoping she’ll go unnoticed.
She doesn’t know why she is still here. New Orleans isn’t home anymore. Her stepfather’s estate could be settled over the phone, through emails and faxes. If she went back to Tennessee, there would be no complications. No former college sweethearts who wrecked her life. No hints of him wanting back in to see how much more damage he could do to her.
He hasn’t forgotten. There have been too many lingering stares shot in her direction, too many times he saw fit to touch her arm, direct her into a room with his hand on the small of her back.
She knows what he wants, but the idea of reliving the past is too much, too confining.
Hands shaking, Keira pulls a half smoked joint from her clutch, hurrying to catch a small hit that will numb her to Kona’s stare and those hopeful little hints he’s been giving her for the past three weeks.
One hit, then another, and Keira can feel the tension leave her, if only for a few minutes.
“That’s bad for you.”
She closes her eyes, cursing herself, cursing that song and the memory she knows pulled him out here.
Keira hesitates, tries not to notice yet again how much larger he is; how that massive twenty-year-old she loved so helplessly had somehow managed to grow bigger, more imposing.
She manages a look, brief and flippant, over her shoulders and blots out his large shoulders, his defined chest, how delicious his cologne smells on the night breeze.
“I have a habit of picking up things that are bad for me.” She doesn’t like how easily he chuckles, or how close he stands to her. “Besides, this is only an occasional indulgence.” Kona’s attention moves behind him, to the glass doors before he reaches for the joint. “Hypocrite,” she says when he takes a long drag.
“Occasional, Wildcat, like you.”
Keira doesn’t watch him too closely, doesn’t want to be consumed by his lips pinching on the joint or the wide veins on the top of his hand as he holds it. Instead, she looks at the waiter who steps outside to collect a few empty glasses. From the open door that never-ending song blasts out like a feather touch; teasing, reminding.
Their eyes meet.
“I never hate hearing this song,” he says, moving closer to pass back the joint.
She thinks, at first, she’ll play dumb, but he knows her tells, was a master at recognizing when she was lying. It’s pointless to act like she doesn’t remember. How could she not? He’d taken her on her pink sheets. The collection of stuffed animals she’d long ignored, fell from her plush covers with every moment of their bodies as this song played on repeat.
“You haven’t forgotten, have you, Wildcat?” Kona watches her lips circle the blunt as she inhales, her tongue flicking out to wet her dry mouth.
“No, I haven’t.” She looks at him, hopes he doesn’t notice the heat she feels warming her neck, across her face as he stares at her. “How could I forget?”
He takes the joint when she offers it and their fingers touch, then join when he throws it on the ground so he can lean over her, back her in between his massive arms resting on either side of her head.
“You wore a Black Crowes t-shirt and nothing else.” He shifts his fingers through her hair, pushes a few strands off her forehead. “I remember your hair was wet.” Kona twists a curl between his fingers.
Then Keira is shaking, swallowing hard when he abandons her hair completely and runs his fingers over the thin strap of her dress. “You weren’t supposed to be there,” she says, hypnotized by how good his fingertips feel against her shoulder, across her chest. “I had a shower because the heater broke. It was so hot in that room.”
“It got hotter.” There is a quiver moving his lips and she can’t tell if he’s fighting a smile or frown. “Sweet like candy…” he says, moving too close for breath, for control. Every detail is seared into her mind and the heavy timbre of his voice, the gentle fingering of her skin with his calloused hand only heightens the memory.
He smells the same, feels the same.
She feels the embers threatening to blaze.
“You felt so good, so tight around me, Wildcat.”
Oh God.
She can’t look at him, can’t let the memory take over. But his fingers lower, move down her arms, his enormous chest comes forward and she releases a soft mew of surprise when his thick thighs rub against her legs. He’s so close that she can do nothing but raise her eyes.