Thin Love (Thin Love, #1)(69)
I’m so f*cking twisted.
That throb got worse when she remembered Kona’s lips on her skin, his knuckles inside her just two nights before and she lay on her stomach, slipping her fingers beneath the shorts she wore. She rubbed twice, felt her pulse against her fingers and then her door slid open and she shoved her hands under her pillow.
“You didn’t stay at Michael’s?” she asked, expecting her cousin’s sleepy reply. But then large hands settled on her hip, a larger body slid in behind her on the bed. For one split, frantic moment she thought to scream in sudden fear at the intruder in her room, but then she caught a familiar scent, sensed his unmistakable presence. Her fear turned to shock that he was there, that he had been able to sneak into the dorm without catching the RA’s attention, but he moved so quickly, so soundlessly and felt so warm, so comfortable that her shock quickly faded.
He didn’t speak for several moments, didn’t do much else but move his huge hand around her waist. She didn’t move, didn’t turn around, willed the bed to swallow her up.
“I’m so f*cked up. I’ve always been f*cked up.” Kona brushed a kiss against her neck and Keira squeezed her eyes shut, trembling when the smell of his skin and his hot breath made the throb worse. His voice was low, soft and she could tell that whatever he’d been drunk on earlier that night had left his system. “I shouldn’t have touched the redhead.” His hand pushed against her stomach, and her back was flushed against his chest. “I shouldn’t have touched Tonya Lucas, not after you stayed with me at the hospital. I don’t know why I’m the way I am. I don’t know why you make me so scared of everything I feel, Wildcat.”
“Don’t call me that.”
He ignored her. “I shouldn’t have let her touch me.”
Feeble deflection seemed all Keira had left; it was the only thing that kept the guilt from suffocating her. “You can touch whoever you want, Kona.”
She felt his stiffen behind her, then exhale, the breath cooling her hot skin. “I can’t. Not anymore.”
“Why?”
Hard thighs and the feel of rough denim against the back of her legs made Keira tremble and when Kona’s brushed one kiss on her shoulder, that tremble transformed into a shudder. “You know why.”
Keira rolled onto her back so that she could look up at him and her eyes went directly to his cheek, to the bandage across his face and the bruise that shadowed behind it. She caught her gasp behind her hands, eyes instantly filling, then pouring with hot tears that she didn’t wipe away.
Kona caught each one, the undamaged side of his face denting with his tiny smile. “I’m okay. Seven stiches. It was nothing.”
“God. Oh, Kona.” Keira tried to cover her face, didn’t want to see it, didn’t want Kona to see how gutted her shame made her.
“Shh. Stop now.” She let him pull her hands down, let him kiss her forehead. She’d do whatever he wanted, whatever he needed and right then, he seemed to need her head under his chin, his fingers in her hair. “I deserved it.”
“What? No.” Kona didn’t resist Keira’s tug on his collar. He didn’t flinch from the rise of her voice. “No one deserves that. I’m so… I have anger issues. I’ve had them since I was a kid and I just… God, Kona… that’s not an excuse.”
His shaking shoulders stopped her, had Keira leaning away from him to look at his face. The left side was still numb, likely from the anesthesia the doctor’s gave him before they stitched it up, but the right side carried a smile, it was thin, but it was still there. “I think I figured that out a couple of months back when you came tearing into the cafeteria looking like you were going to claw my eyes out.” He took her hand, kissed her knuckles. “I’m familiar, Wildcat. You think I don’t have issues? You don’t think my anger isn’t as stupid and quick as yours?”
He touched her faced, ran his fingertips over the dip above her lips. “I’m an *.” She didn’t disagree with him. “I shouldn’t have touched the redhead and I can’t touch anyone else because I don’t want to.” He leaned down to rest on his elbow, coming closer to her. “The thing is, I don’t wanna touch anyone but you.” Kona looked up at the ceiling as though he were seeking some sort of help from the heavens. “I’m gonna sound like a * whipped idiot.”
Keira pulled his head down so he had to look at her, breath held by where Kona was steering the conversation. “Why?”
“I want you. You know that. I want to do things to your body that are probably very illegal. But it’s not just that. Tonight, when that girl was on me, offering me shit that I’ve heard from a hundred other girls, all I could think about was how I wanted it to be you saying that shit to me.” He leaned closer. “But that would be too easy, right? Me taking you. Me inside you, that shit’s easy, Wildcat.”
“Don’t call me—”
“Baby, shut the hell up.” His kiss was deep, tongue brushing against her lips, silently asking to be let in and Keira obliged. In that moment, she’d give Kona her mouth, her body, anything he wanted from her. The kiss was over too quickly and when he pulled away from her, he left her lips humming. “You gutted me, telling me about your other options and when you did, I realized, I didn’t want easy anymore.” Kona’s voice got deeper, came out at a whisper and when he looked at her then, his eyes announced everything; told her all things she knew he couldn’t say aloud. “It kills me, thinking of you with anyone else. And I know I sound like even more of an *, but I think I’d kill anyone who touched you. That night, back at Nathan’s? The party? I saw you with your cousin, talking to Mark, letting him touch you, that’s when I knew.”