Thin Love (21 page)

When Leann answered, hair pulled tight in a bun and wearing her leotards and dance shoes like she was about to head out, Kona at least had the decency to look apologetic. But the girl only squinted at him, the side of her mouth pinched in a suspicious frown.

“She’s not here,” she’d told him, looking like she was about to slam the door in his face.

“It’s not even seven? Where is she?” Kona tried not to wedge his foot between the door and its frame as Leann started to close it. He knew his voice sounded pathetic, that his words came out too loud.

“Why do you wanna know?” Leann was protecting her cousin. Kona had known that, but that hadn’t stopped him from moving his shoulders in a firm set. When he only inched up his eyebrow at her, Leann’s attitude deflated. “You like her?”

“Yeah.”

“You just want to have fun with her, Kona? Because she doesn’t need that shit.”

He rubbed his face, moved his knuckles into his eyes. “I like her, Leann. I like her a lot and if I just wanted to fuck her, I would have already.” He thought Leann would appreciate his honesty. “She’s got me spinning.” He looked down, kicked the tip of his sneaker against the doorframe. “No one does that to me.”

Finally, Leann exhaled, released what was left of her attitude. “She had a meet this morning at Lafitte Park. You can catch her at the finish line.”

Kona gave her a smile, grateful that at least Leann was being honest. “Thanks. I appreciate it.”

“Kona?” Leann called, stopping him before he could jog down the hallway. He expected a threat, one that would wipe the stupid grin off his face. But Leanna walked into the hall and for once, her face wasn’t wrinkled with a frown and she didn’t glare at Kona like he was an asshole. Her eyes were soft and there was a plea in her expression, one that had Kona releasing his defenses. “Keira hasn’t had much happy. Try to give her a little bit, okay?”

So that’s what Kona was doing. Sitting on that park bench watching the trail to his left, wondering what about Keira Riley had him waiting, had him wanting to make her happy.

“You got money on this shit?”

Kona closed his eyes, dipped his face in his hands when Ricky slid next to him. “What’s up, man?”

“You tell me, Kona.” Around them a small crowd was forming near the still taped-off finish line. Ricky’s legs were long, longer than Kona’s, and he stretched them on the bench, his shoulders relaxed as he dug out a bag of sunflower seeds from his jacket. “You’ve been avoiding me.” Kona heard the crunch of the seeds in Ricky’s mouth and tried not to look at him. A runner started to approach, leaner and shorter than Keira, but he still watched, looking behind her for Keira.

“I’ve had shit to do. Been busy.”

To his right, Ricky spat out three empty shells and they landed on the trail in front of them. He exhaled and slipped another handful of seeds in his mouth. “After everything I’ve done for you, man and you can’t give me a half hour?”

“What do you want?” He finally looked at Ricky, feeling the quick slap of anger tunneling into his chest. Kona didn’t want Ricky here. He didn’t want that asshole seeing Keira. He didn’t want him asking questions or making Keira ask any.

Ricky waited a minute before he answered, cheeks lifting so that his bottom eyelids curled up. “Shipment is coming in. It’s a month away but I need bodies.”

“I told you I was out.”

The smile on Ricky’s face wasn’t good-natured, it wasn’t friendly and Kona’s gaze lowered to the sunflower seed cracking between his teeth. “Kona, you can’t just walk away.” The crowd started to clap, but Kona kept his eyes on Ricky, on that not-a-smile grin and the slip of his black eyes behind Kona. “No one just walks away.” Ricky stood, moved his chin toward the trail and Kona followed him, his gut twisted hard when he saw Keira just feet behind the second place runner. Her face was flushed and her hair was matted with sweat to her forehead. That tight track uniform exaggerated the curve of her hips and the generous round of her breasts. She looked gorgeous. She focused hard, eyes narrowed as she gunned for the finish line.

“I noticed you took off last night.” Kona didn’t care that Ricky was still talking. He didn’t care that he’d followed him, sought him out. His attention was on Keira and her blue track shorts, the way her skin pinked, deepened, the closer she got to the end of the trail. “She’s hot,” Ricky said, and Kona whipped his head around, blocked the guy from Keira’s view.

“You need to not look at her.”

“Calm down. I’m not gonna fuck with your girl.” Hands on his jeans, Ricky dusted away the seeds from his fingers. His gray jacket was thin, but lined with padding. He shoved his packet of seeds in his pocket and Kona caught the glint of black metal in his waistband. “But Kona, shit happens when I don’t get my way.” Ricky watched Keira run past them. She cleared the finish, stopping a good twenty feet behind it with her coach jogging toward her, handing her a bottle of water and her sweats. “And I always get my way.”

Keira was already dressed, leaning on her knees to catch her breath. Kona didn’t want Ricky there. He didn’t want the threat of what Kona did for him to touch her. It took control, mammoth control, but Kona kept his hands in his pockets and didn’t move them around Ricky’s throat. “Stay the fuck away from her.”

“I will,” he said, finally looking away from Keira. “You just make sure you pick up your phone.”

Kona followed Ricky until he passed the runners and their families and he tried not to frown too hard when the man stared at Keira again, when his eyes raked up her long legs. Kona approached her trying to cool his temper, trying to push back the thought that Ricky knew who he’d been waiting for.

Keira smiled when he approached, but he could tell she felt awkward, nervous.

“You came? I didn’t tell you about the meet.”

He took the towel from her hand and wiped her face dry. “I wanted to see you. Couldn’t sleep last night.” Kona smiled, loving how red her face was, how cool her skin felt. “You place?”

“Third.” The small smile that had been working on her face disappeared and she looked behind her at the two girls who’d finished ahead of her.

“That a bad thing?”

“It’s not first.”

He appreciated her irritation. They were both athletes. They both liked to win, third place was last place and he got why she was disappointed. Keira walked past him, headed away from where the runners and their coaches were standing. He followed after her. “Don’t they do ribbons or medals or something?”

She nodded, pouring the remainder of her water over her face. “Gotta keep moving so I don’t cramp. Walk with me.”

“Hey,” he said, stopping her with a tug of her wrist.

“What?” Keira rubbed the towel across her wet skin and stepped back when Kona stood in front of her.

This was new for him, chasing after a girl, trying to get her attention, but Kona didn’t mind that Keira was making him work. He didn’t mind that she let her competitiveness distract her. He wasn’t the center of her attention and, oddly, that didn’t bother him.

“You hungry?”

“Starving.”

“Good. We’ll catch a bite when this is all over.” He waved to the runners and the coaches nodding their girls over. Kona walked with Keira back toward the other runners. He took her hand, ignored her expression when her eyes lingered too long at their fingers locked together. “Don’t have a heart attack or anything.”

Kona loved the sound of her laugh, how it made a quick snap of sensation work in his stomach. He enjoyed that feeling, let it fill him as he led her toward her coach, but his eyes moved around them, searching for the threat he didn’t want touching her.

He hadn’t stopped touching her. Not once, all night. At the restaurant Kona kept his calf right against hers as they sat at the crowded bar eating. On the levee, watching the street performers flip and dance around the French Quarter, he kept his hand flat against her back. As they walked back to his Camaro, he held her hand.

Keira liked the attention, but as they drove down Canal Street, his hand resting on her knee, she wasn’t sure what that attention meant exactly.

It hadn’t been a perfect date, the constant calls he ignored throughout dinner and as they walked the Quarter had been an annoyance, but Kona smiled at her a lot, held her close to him. He wasn’t perfect, but that’s what she liked about him.

“You wanna go to my place? Grab a beer?”

The streetlight above them was red and in its reflection Kona’s dark eyes looked shadowed. Verve Pipe’s “The Freshman” funneled out of the speakers as he stared at her, eyes low lidded and a clear question moving up his eyebrows. She opened her mouth to answer, something biting working its way up her throat, but the light changed and the asshole behind them laid on his horn.

“I guess that’s a no,” he said, gaze on her as he shifted gears.

They drove down Canal, passing by hotels, restaurant and tourist shops, and Keira had to take a moment, inhale the warm, musky scent of his cologne and the soft leather of the seats before she was able to answer.

“I’m not really interested in being around your friends, Kona.” She’d had enough of the football team at Nathan’s party, and from what she’d already seen of the team house told her that Kona’s “home” wouldn’t exactly be quiet or even remotely sane. She wanted to be with him, not his fans. His hand left her knee and she could feel the annoyance vibrating from his body. It was in the way he straightened his neck, how he leaned away from her. But before she’d let him get angry, Keira grabbed his hand, pulled it back to her knee and he watched her, saw how she laid her fingers on top of his. The tension lessened and a lazy smile pulled at his mouth. “I’m also not really eager to go where so many have been before.”

It was a sting, but one Kona took in stride.

“Fair enough.”

One turn and then another and the CPU campus came into view. Keira loved the entrance to their small university. The huge oaks and magnolia trees that lined the street, the slow moving street car that slid down the median and the massive buildings that looked like something out of the Scottish Highlands and not the center of a huge city always made Keira wistful, wanting to walk those cobbled sidewalks at sunset just to soak it all in. Kona pulled into her building, the parking lot relatively empty of cars; the green light of the clock told her it was only eleven. Leann wouldn’t be in their room. Saturday nights were for Michael, and Keira knew she probably wouldn’t see her cousin until the next afternoon.

Kona killed the engine but left the battery running and the music changed, pumped Jodeci’s “Feenin’” into the cab. Keira blushed, and stared out the window as the lyrics danced between them. Baby making music always made her smile.

She could feel Kona watching her. His body was so large and as his elbow rested on the console between them, that massive presence became palpable, invading her space. There was sensory overload working in that car—the heat of Kona’s body pumping toward her, the smell of his skin, the slow, sensual beat of the bassline in the song—she felt it all like a vibration to her senses and without saying a word, without even touching her, Kona Hale had Keira crossing her legs, hoping that sweet throb in her center would ease.

“Wildcat?” he said, voice tickling right against her neck.

She turned her head, let it rest against the seat and Kona was there, just there, with his lips close enough to touch. All she had to do was lift her chin, take what he was offering.

“Last night, at Nathan’s?” She nodded, letting a slow blink bring back those intense minutes in the hallway. “That… that kind of shit usually doesn’t do it for me. Know what I’m sayin’?”

She knew what he meant. There had been anger and resentment and an overabundance of reaction. She couldn’t explain what that was, what had her lashing out and liking it, but Keira couldn’t deny what it had done to her body.

“That was a first for me too.”

Kona’s head dipped, just once and the long stare he gave her heightened Keira’s already sensitive nerves. He moved in closer, one finger brushing across her forehead and his eyes followed the movement as though he loved the way her hair fell against her skin, how it felt between his knuckles.

“I want to try something.” Those long fingers smoothed down her face until Kona held her cheek in his hand. “I want to see if that was some fluke.”

“You want me to slap you again?” His smile relaxed her, had her shifting her shoulders deeper onto the seat.

“No. I wanna try soft with you. I wanna try sweet, to see if it’s the same, if it does the same thing to me.”

She couldn’t help herself. “What did it do to you, Kona?”

Keira loved the way his eyes shifted up, how a deep, hypnotizing groan vibrated in his throat as though just the thought of his body’s reaction to her had him aching. He moved in, a fraction of a lean, mouth nearly touching hers. “It made me want to go slow.” He kissed her then, just a peck that lingered before he pulled away. “And fast.” Another kiss, this one longer than the last. “It made me think I could only breathe if I was inside you.”

And then, Keira’s own throat vibrated with a groan, a slow working sound that lifted up, caught as Kona’s tongue, warm and deliciously wet, slid against hers. There was so much power, so much tenderness in every touch he gave her; a shuttering throb of sensation, of heat that made Keira lightheaded. He was demanding and for once Keira didn’t let the fear of being controlled scare her. For once, she just gave in and let Kona guide her, work in her something real and raw.