Thin Love (Thin Love, #1)(43)

She liked Mark. He was a nice guy. He was tall and broad, but he didn’t have Kona’s size. He didn’t make strangers take a step away from him when he walked down the street. Kona did, and Keira thought being beaten senseless by a jealous linebacker wouldn’t be Mark’s idea a good first date.

Kona grinned, mouth bunched to the right, an expression that read like a taunt as he tipped his head to the side and watched Mark like he was a kid on a playground. “You got something to say to me, brah?” Mark took a step and Kona met him, that smug, bastard sneer still on his face.

“That’s enough.” Keira wedged herself between them, her back to Mark’s front, and when he slipped his hand on her hip, Kona moved his jaw into a grind. Keira acted quickly, worried that the growing anger seething in Kona’s eyes as he stared at Mark’s hand would only spiral into something she couldn’t control. She pushed Kona’s chest, made him step back and rounded on Mark. “Give me a second, okay?”

His gaze left Kona’s face and some of the anger dimmed from his expression, but he didn’t take his hand off her hip and he kept that defensive bearing in his shoulders. “I don’t like this,” he told her, gaze shifting to Kona. Keira let Mark lead her, as he walked back, holding her fingers. “He your boyfriend or something?”

“No.” She didn’t like how quietly she answered him or how much saying the word bothered her. “There’s… something, but it’s not like that.” She glanced behind her to see Kona leaning on one shoulder, arms folded, against the wall. “He won’t touch me.” She knew that. Whatever Kona was, he’d never be a threat to her and she hoped Mark could see she believed that. “He’s just trying to mark his territory or something. It’s no big deal.”

Mark hesitated, squinted at Kona. “Keira, that guy is a freaking silverback.” Again, he glanced behind her and the frown returned to his face. “Look at him. That isn’t a dude who thinks you’re no big deal.”

Over her shoulder, Keira caught Kona’s glare. Despite how cool, calm he held himself, his eyes were lit with something she’d seen in him before. It was wild and dark and had Keira feeling that stare could break her.

When Mark said it, when a small line formed across his forehead, something shifted in Keira’s mind. She and Kona had skirted around this for weeks now. It was the unspoken current that hissed against her skin when he looked at her. It was that small, still whisper in her subconscious that she pretended she couldn’t hear. It had been there from that first night in her dorm. It was that little burst of energy she felt when she touched his arm as he throttled her attacker. It was the same pull that made her stay with at the hospital; that had her kissing him before she left.

Kona knew it was there, he’d told her as much, but until Mark confirmed it, until someone outside looking in pointed it out, Keira’s blinders stayed firm. Now they had been removed and the heft of what she felt, what Kona incited in her, worked out of her skin like a sweat.

Mark dropped her fingers and the severe pull of his mouth softened, returned to the sweet smile she’d already grown used to. “What’s my play here? Do you want me to duck out so you can have a conversation? Or do I just cut my losses and forget I have your number?” Keira bit her lip and stared at a small curl flattened against Mark’s forehead. When she said nothing, hesitated to slide her gaze back toward Kona, Mark sighed. “I’ll give you a few minutes.”

She watched Mark slip into the elevator, stared after him as it moved down each floor, the light on the numbers overhead dinging off with each descent, but she didn’t turn around. Behind her, Kona left the wall, stood too close. She could see his large shadow cover hers on the floor in front of her. Her thoughts were scattered, a jumble of anger and want and confusion that she could not organize into logic.

Kona had acted like an *, that shouldn’t have surprised her, but it was his attitude, he jealous glares and taunting scowls at Mark that had lit the fuse of her anger. He did that, seemed to be the only one to tease at the root of her temper, begging it to raise, to rankle into something that would be ugly.

“Keira—” just the sound of his voice, now calm, now mildly apologetic, flooded growth and sustenance right onto that newborn root and she jerked around, ready to attack.

“What exactly is your malfunction?”

“Mine? What about you?” Kona pinched his lips together and Keira was too angry, too annoyed to read into that defensive expression. “Who the hell is that guy?”

“I’m sorry, how’s that your business?” She took a step, a quick one that had Kona moving back.

“It’s not.” It was then that Kona’s arrogance deflated somewhat. Hands working through his hair, the linebacker grunted, moving his neck as though he struggled with a reasonable excuse for his anger. “I just think you could do better.”

Keira could only shake her head, staggered by the small, futile defense Kona grasped onto. “Mark is pre-med. He comes from a good family and he volunteers at the battered women’s shelter. What’s bad about any of that?”

Kona’s laugh was quick and bitter. “You don’t like him.”

He was doing it again—that assumption thing that galled Keira into a whip of fury. “Fuck you, Kona. You don’t know what I like.”