Thin Love (19 page)

You’ve got to be shitting me,
she thought, realizing that Kona’s anger had nothing to do with her telling him he’d never change.

Kona stepped closer to the bar, leaned on his elbows. “Having a good time?” he asked Keira, still watching Mark.

“Yep. You?”

“Oh, I’m good, Wildcat.” He took a swig from his bottle, but didn’t let his eyes leave her face.

“Do
not
call me that.” Her voice came out too loud, and Keira cursed to herself when she noticed a few people turn in her direction. She knew her cheeks were setting off like a flame. She could feel the prickle of her embarrassment rush up her skin.

“Is there a problem?” Leann asked, turning around to face Kona.

“None,” he told her cousin, his smile exaggerating the cleft in his chin. “I think your cousin here is in a bad mood.”

“My cousin,” Leann said, locking her arm with Keira’s, “is not in a mood. At least she wasn’t until you showed up.”

“I was here first, sweetheart. You’re in my world.” To emphasize his point, Kona lifted his hands and gestured around him. Several of players loitered behind him, chatting drinking, kissing whatever mouth was on top of theirs, but at his voice raised, a few stepped up behind him and laughed, slapping his back.

“We can leave.” Keira wouldn’t look at Kona, couldn’t stand seeing the entitled jackass attitude he wore like a cloak. Leann’s lips parted, an argument broaching, and Keira knew she’d have something particularly harsh to level at Kona. Leann wove insults like a master, but Keira didn’t have the energy to deal with drama and was about two hours past enjoying Leann’s promised shenanigans. “It’s fine, Leann. Let’s just go.”

“Something wrong?” Mark said, walking to Keira’s side.

“No. We’re good.” She grabbed his hand and started to turn. “We’re leaving.”

“Oh, Wildcat, don’t leave. The party’s just getting good.” Kona’s voice got even louder and all around him, drunken players and their companions cheered.

“Come on,” Leann said, dragging Michael behind her as she headed toward the door. She knew her cousin would have to hurry her boyfriend from the scene. He was up to two strikes for stupid shit he’d gotten into the summer before and being in the middle of a fight could earn him a third.

Keira turned away from the bar, was right on her cousin’s heels and out in the hall with Mark next to her, when she felt a tug on her wrist and the imposing, heated sensation of a large, obnoxious jackass behind her. “Leaving already?”

“Hey, man, what’s your problem?” Mark looked fearless, pissed and Keira was impressed that his being a good four inches shorter than Kona didn’t make him back down from the big linebacker. “Why don’t you leave her alone?”

Kona barely glanced at Mark and Keira thought it wouldn’t be stupid at all to claw his eyes out or slap that pompous smirk off his face when Mark’s words were ignored.

“Who is this guy?” he asked her, his head jerking toward Mark who had stepped in front of her.

Keira nodded to Leann at the elevator, telling her with a head jerk to take off and then, she rounded on Kona. “He’s my date and he’s leaving with me.” It took three yanks on his sleeve, but Mark finally followed her, stepping backward to glare at Kona as they made for the elevator. She glanced at his face, eyes narrowed, his mouth drawn down hard, and Keira closed her eyes, said a small prayer that Kona would give up and let them leave.

No such luck.

“Keira, hold up,” Kona said, the harsh tone of his voice changed, softened by his small plea.

“Listen, man, I don’t what your problem is, but you need to back off.” Mark had to look up to glare at Kona and a quick rush of gratitude filled Keira’s chest at her date’s determined expression.

“I wasn’t talking to you.” Kona finally glanced at Mark, arms over his chest like he had to force himself to keep his hands still. He nodded to Keira. “I was talking to her.”

Mark’s shoulders straightened and he pulled himself to all of his 6’, but the threatening stance he held and the small scowl curling his mouth didn’t seem to intimate Kona. Keira could taste the crackle of violence on the air, the heavy sense that if she walked away, Kona and Mark’s pissing contest would become a bloody mess.

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 asshole, 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.”

He stepped forward, shoulders coming up. “You barely talked to him all night.” Back again was his attitude and with it, the elevation of his voice that told Keira his own temper was percolating. “He and Leann’s man were all on each other’s dicks. He’s not into you and I know you’re not into him.”

“You don’t know anything about me!” It was a pointless argument, something Keira decided right then she didn’t need to bother with. Kona Hale didn’t know what he wanted. He didn’t know her, he didn’t see her and she wouldn’t spend another minute letting him pretend he did. “You never will.” When she turned, eyes narrowed, focused on the down button on the elevator, Kona followed and this time when he grabbed her arm, his fingers bit into her skin.

“Yeah? Bullshit.” She jerked her arm away from him, shoved him once when he backed her next to the elevator. She expected his voice to be licked with fury; his eyes certainly flickered with anger, but when he spoke, Kona’s tone went flat, almost blunt. “You like music and
Les Mis
and onion rings with extra ketchup.” He stepped closer, eyes calmer. “You like Toni Morrison and think you were Shakespeare’s woman in a past life.” Another retreat from those dark eyes and Keira’s back was against the wall.

He’d remembered. Small tidbits of likes and dislikes, weird habits that she didn’t think anyone noticed, fears of what she didn’t want to become—Kona had paid attention to them all. Quick lunch grabs in the cafeteria and long nights in the library, both of them sweaty and stinking from practice, both rambling about their childhoods, about their families, it all came back to her then. Kona was a mammoth presence with a bigger personality that most days Keira found overwhelming. But there was a person behind that strength and sarcasm that he’d let her see. There was someone kind, someone who just wanted to be heard and Kona had shown her in brief glimpses, small smiles, that until then, she’d put out of her mind. She hadn’t wanted to get attached. She didn’t think he’d bother, but as Kona’s gaze slipped around her face, as his breath moved like a whisper across her cheeks, she realized he’d also seen the girl she was when she thought no one was watching.

“You hate football,” he said, rolling his eyes, “and if you ever have a kid, you want to name her Lennon, maybe Joplin.” Kona moved inches from her then, elbow on the wall by her ear. The space between their faces grew smaller, breath hotter then, closer. “You like sonnets and poetry but are too nervous to enter a poetry slam or sing in front of anyone but Leann.” He brushed her bangs off her forehead. “Does that asshole know any of that?” There was no tease in his voice, no inflection that made Keira want to lash out. It was curiosity, wonder and, Keira thought, the hint of hope.

She couldn’t think of a defense, nothing that would answer the question in his eyes. “Mark isn’t an asshole and you need to back up.”

“You don’t want me to back up, Wildcat.”

“Stop calling me—”

“Shut up.” He took her face, large fingers stretching across her cheek, the tips resting on her temple. And then, the smell of beer, the warm touch of his lips covering her mouth and Kona Hale kissed Keira Riley.

Hard.

She heard his growl, felt the tilt of her head as Kona moved it, fingers pressing down and that moan grew deeper. Keira wouldn’t let him control her, wouldn’t release the sweet heat of her anger as Kona consumed her mouth. When he slipped his free hand around her arm, pulling her forward, Keira’s temper flared bright, hot and she pushed back the buzz on her skin and the thought of how delicious he tasted.

He’d kissed her. Again. No regard for her temper. He was too much, assumed too much, wanted too much and Keira couldn’t contain her rage. She pulled away from his mouth and tried not to stare at the wet shine on his bottom lip. Chest moving hard, Kona challenged her with glare, leaned back in, but Keira’s palm against his chest stopped him.

“Don’t do that again.”

“You liked it.” He hadn’t moved; elbow still on the wall at her side, breath fanning against her lashes and then, Kona let some of that arrogant attitude surface. “I liked it.” He underlined his point by moving his hips, brushing his hard dick right against her. “I
really
fucking liked it.”

Keira didn’t think, didn’t question why the ripple of heat crowding between her thighs was nothing to the whip of anger Kona’s little move roused in her. She didn’t care that he was beautiful. She didn’t care that she wanted him to kiss her, everywhere. Kona smirked, his throat moving with another growl and she lashed out, pushed his chin with her nails digging deep. She meant to move him aside, to eliminate that leer from her sight, but the sweat from his skin made her fingers slide and she scratched an angry cut along his cheek.