Thin Love (Thin Love, #1)(141)

“You’re scared,” he says, mouth hot against her neck.

“I’m petrified.” Despite herself, Keira leans back, lets Kona wrap his hands around her waist. “I buried this shit. I left and didn’t want to look back. Your… memory, your touch… your… tattoo, I got rid of it all.”

Kona sighs, his grip on her waist tightens, but when he speaks, his voice is low, even. “I would never hurt you. You know I’d never touch you, not like that.”

No, he never had. Not once. She’d slapped him and punched him because she was angry, because they were twisted, because they both got off on it. But Kona had never returned the favor. His wounds ran deeper, cut wider.

“You’re no good for me. You were never good for me.” Keira turns, takes a step back so she can look at his face, so she can see how determined he is to change her mind. “I was a crazy person with you. Obsessed. I can’t relive the past.”

“I’m not the same person.” Kona pulls her forward, gripping her waist in his too large hands until their bodies are flush, until Keira can feel the hard, delicious planes of his chest and the corded muscles underneath his pants. She knows he won’t hurt her. She also knows he won’t let her go.

Kona takes her face again, moving her chin so she’s forced to look at him. “You’re not the same, Wildcat and that was a long time ago.”

And then Keira lets that girl sneak to the surface. She lets her take Kona’s mouth, pull his shirt so that her tongue licks against a wide expanse of tempting, copper skin. She lets that girl enjoy Kona’s mouth, his hands, the way he feels hard, demanding against her, until the night darkens, deepens and her rejection, though halfhearted, comes again.

Kona stops pushing, stops demanding and before he leaves Keira out on that balcony, he reminds her why she’d loved him in the first place. He reminds her why she should love him again.

“I only know one thing—no one sets my skin on fire like you do. No one. Not one person has ever made me feel like I’m alive like you. That hasn’t changed, not in sixteen years. Don’t try to pretend it isn’t the same for you.”





He is nervous about Keira seeing his home. It is a large, white Greek Revival, gated with a tall, ornate wrought iron fence and a row of massive oak trees that hide the front of the house from the street. The place is too big for him. Kona only bought it to avoid the memories of his brother, his grandfather, that came to him every time he stepped foot in his mother’s home when he visited.

Keira walks around his living room, eyes wide, taking in the lavish décor that Kona had paid a decorator he’d never met to set up. There are no pictures of his family or friends in the home, but his mother had placed several green plants and bouquets of fresh flowers there when he first returned to the city.

Ransom follows Kona into the large kitchen, his arms full of their Italian take out and the boy places the dishes on the dine-in table set in the breakfast nook that led into a screened-in porch. His son is already at home here, already familiar with the layout, where Kona stores his plates and glasses, and the thought makes him smile, makes him happy. The mess his son has left in his kitchen the past two days, though, does not.

“Mom, do you want to eat now?” he calls to his mother and Keira nods, joins them at the kitchen island, taking in the tall white cabinets and stainless steel appliances.

“This is nice, Kona.”

“Aside from our son’s dirty plates?” Keira smiles, shakes her head at Ransom when he shrugs. “Thanks. I had nothing to do with it.” Kona hands her a glass of Chianti and they all settle down for a helping of red sauce and thin, buttery spaghetti noodles.

“The carbs, man,” Ransom says, stuffing his face with garlic bread still warm from the aluminum wrapping. “There is no way anyone can stay away from them in this city.”

“Why do you think there are so many walking tours? You have to burn off everything you eat here, sweetie.” Keira says, slipping a slice of garlic bread in her mouth and Kona stares too long at her mouth, at her tongue licking across her lips.

They’d spent the day walking down memory lane again, despite Keira’s protests. He’d told her a few days before that he was considering a position at CPU. Brian had given him the word and Kona thought about it, wanted to see what the university had to offer him. He was getting too old for the NFL and he loved what the Steamers were doing with their team. He loved the city, how the coaches and owners ran their program, but Kona knew what another two year contract would mean for him; that he might not play every game, that he’d spend more time on the road, most of his days in New Orleans, away from Ransom and Keira.

The thought of them in Nashville makes an uneasy pinch burning in his gut. They hadn’t discussed what would happen at the end of the summer, but Kona knows a goodbye is coming soon. He doesn’t want that and so he convinced Keira to take Ransom to CPU, to tour the campus he didn’t get to see during the combine.

They’d visited the campus, the library—explained to Ransom about their first meeting there, the team house and the buildings where they’d taken their classes that first year together. Kona had noticed how quiet Keira had been, but when he’d begun to ask her about it, she dismissed him, started to recount how she’d purposefully gotten details about Kona’s game wrong just to piss him off.