Thin Love (40 page)

Bright blue eyes blinking, Keira smiled, something she hadn’t done all week and Kona let some of the tension in his shoulders ease. “Time for medicine?”

“Yeah, baby, sit up.” He spooned the syrupy stuff past her chapped lips and she took it gladly.

“How is it you haven’t gotten sick?” she asked, brushing Kona’s hand aside when he touched the back of his hand to her forehead. He frowned, forehead pulling tight and Keira rolled her eyes. “It takes a couple of days for the fever to leave.”

“It’s been three, Wildcat.” Kona slid closer, moving his fingers to her neck, feeling along her glands. “At least these aren’t swollen anymore. How’s your throat?”

She slapped his hands off her neck. “Still scratchy but better than yesterday.” When he started to push back from her, Keira grabbed his hand. “How are you feeling?”

“I don’t get sick.” Keira shook her head. Kona knew she thought he was full of shit, but he wasn’t lying. His mom had always told him he’d taken the warrior genes in the womb since Luka was always down with one childhood sickness or another and Kona had never so much as got the sniffles. “Seriously. I’ve never even had a fever.” He leaned closer, kissing her neck. “Except when I kiss you.”

Keira’s voice was deep, sounded thick and when she laughed at him, that crackling sound settled into a coughing fit. He pulled her against his chest, rubbed his hand down her back and for the hundredth time cursed Keira’s cousin and the funk she’d brought into their dorm room. Leann’s bed was made, hadn’t been slept in all week. She’d chickened out of staying at the dorm once Keira got sick, scared she’d have a relapse, leaving Kona to play sole caregiver. He didn’t mind, but some things Kona couldn’t do; Keira had absolutely refused his help when she had to piss and hadn’t had the energy to even grab a shower in the past few days. Kona loved the girl, but three days in bed, sweating out a fever had made her a little ripe.

When Keira’s cough settled, Kona let her go. “You think maybe you wanna try to grab a shower?”

Her smile was lopsided, very cute. “You trying to get me naked, bebe?”

“Always, Wildcat, but mostly I was thinking that a shower would break up some of that crap in your lungs, make you feel better.”

She only hesitated for a moment, then her shoulders dropped and she let Kona walk her into the bathroom. The room was small and too damn girly with soft beige walls and a fluffy rug and makeup and hair things scattered over the cabinet above the toilet. It barely fit a toilet, pedestal sink and full tub and shower - still pretty fancy for a dorm room. It was nice at times to have connections. Kona standing in there with her was a bit of a squeeze, but he helped her out of her pajamas, slipped off her thong and even managed to keep his hands to himself when she sat on the closed toilet lid completely naked as he turned on the shower.

It was the most she’d moved all week and her motions were slow, sloppy. Kona worried that she couldn’t manage to bathe herself and washing her hair was completely out of the question. “I don’t need a chaperone, you know.” She climbed into the shower, smiling as the hot water spilled down her back. “I could use company, though.”

“Keira, don’t be stupid. You’re sick.”

One small glare and Kona knew he’d messed up. She hated being babied. She hated him thinking she was weak. “Hale, get naked.”

Kona stripped off and climbed in behind her. A small voice in the back of his mind reminded him that he hadn’t touched her, not the way he wanted, for days, but he ignored it. He ignored how good she felt leaning on him, how her fit body slid against his as he lathered her back and she arched into his touch.

“I feel high,” she said, voiced muffled against his chest.

“Actually, you feel fucking wonderful.” He felt her laugh, but the hot water and steam must have been working its magic because no racking cough followed the sound.

“I’m sorry I’m such a mess, Kona.” Keira turned and her arms moved up his shoulders. She smiled, rubbing her tits against him. “Thank you for taking care of me, bebe.”

Kona nodded, closed his eyes, tried to concentrate on scrubbing shampoo into her hair and not the slow kiss she planted on his neck. Predictably, his dick reacted. He grunted, tightened his eyes when she continued to kiss him. “Wildcat, stop it.” She only held on tighter when he moved her head back to rinse her hair.

Her low moan had Kona’s own grunts deepening. “The water feels so good,” she said, stretching her neck against the spray and Kona’s eyes moved on their own, slipping down her body to those sweet, hard nipples begging for his mouth. When Keira lifted her head and she caught the way Kona bit his lip, how he gnawed on the inside of his cheek, she skimmed one hand from his neck and rubbed her thumb over her breasts, fingers going lower the larger Kona’s eyes got. “You like that?”

He could only nod, his gaze stuck on the way her long fingers disappeared between her thighs. “You need to stop,” he told her, still watching her touch herself. He was mesmerized by the slip of her fingers inside her, how her breathing got heavier the faster they worked. “Keira…” It was a warning he knew she would ignore and though he felt like an asshole, he couldn’t tear his gaze from the movement of her hand; he couldn’t help leaning forward or keep his lips from covering one hard nipple.

He nipped against that sweet, dark flesh, eyes wide as Keira’s fingers disappeared, in and out, again and again and then Kona couldn’t help it any longer, and he touched himself.

“Baby, you’re sick,” he said, before he covered her mouth, before he moved her hand away and pushed his own fingers into that sweet center. “Shit, you’re so hot. So tight.”

“For you, bebe. Only for you.” Then Keira was the one touching him, working those slender fingers around his dick until Kona didn’t think the heat in that small bathroom came from the hot shower spray.

“Keira…” That time, he said her name like a prayer, not a warning, trying to tell himself that he shouldn’t take her; she had the flu and what kind of asshole does his sick girlfriend in the shower? But before he could pull away from her, before he could do more than lean against the wet tile, fingers still inside her, Keira’s hand began to move faster and her teeth raked against his neck, and Kona became a shuddering mess of stupid.

“I’ve missed you.” She gripped him and Kona attacked her nipple again, moved his hips to match the rhythm she made with her hand against him. “Get inside me. I need you.”

Kona pulled his fingers out of her, already missing that heat, mind already made up before he put much thought into the decision and he gripped her around her waist, easily sliding her up the tile.

He made three quick, liquid thrusts and then stopped short, finally realizing he was feeling all of her, nothing between them. “Shit.” He was torn between the raw feel of her, the warmth and tightness unlike anything he’d felt before, and that weak little warning that told him he was messing up. Keira lifted her eyebrows, eyes still heavy lidded from the moment, likely from her flu. “I’m not wearing anything.”

She leaned her head against the tile and moved it once. “Right now, I don’t care. This feels, God…” And then Kona caught what that small moan meant when Keira clenched around him.

“Open up, Keira. Open wide…
ah
… shit…” and then Kona didn’t care that they were being irresponsible. He didn’t care about anything but being deep inside her, touching her, making those moans she released elevate, grow louder.

They’d talk about bad decisions later. They’d worry about consequences when she felt better, when he wasn’t so caught up in how she made his body buzz, in how much the sensation of her, all of her, was perfect and satisfying and just so damn right. They’d talk about how hard, how hot, how right it was to connect with nothing between then; how it meant nothing, would lead to nothing but the slide of their wet bodies working together, him filling her with everything he had.

Tomorrow would be another day and they’d be fine. They’d be careful later. Besides, what’s the worst that could happen?

Keira’s cough lessened two days later and she was able to push Kona out of her dorm, promising him she could manage to brush her teeth and take her meds without him hovering. He left, finally, after a long kiss and a vow that Keira would eat something more than a pack of Skittles and whatever those noodles were that Leann left in their mini-fridge.

Her professors weren’t worried about the absences. It seemed the entire campus had been hit hard by the flu and after a few quick emails on the slow university server, Keira was caught up and preparing for finals. She should have been happy. She should have been glad that the semester was winding down and Christmas break loomed. But her mother had called the day before and at the end of that conversation, Keira mentally scrambled for an excuse not to return to Mandeville when classes ended. Leann was spending the holiday with Michael’s family in Georgia and Keira didn’t think bunking at Kona’s place would go over well with Professor Alana.

“So, you’re dating that boy?” her mother had said when Keira picked up the phone. No “hello” or “how are you feeling?” The woman started in with an interrogation because she was angry, because she knew Keira was rebelling again.

After a dramatic, mostly forced cough, Keira answered her. “Yes, I am.” She listened to her mother’s slow, angry exhales, then Keira tried for sympathy. “He took care of me, Mother. Leann took off because she didn’t want to get sick again, but Kona stayed. He’s a good person and I care about him.” Her mother didn’t listen. To her, Kiera knew, there was only the dark skin, the features that were too wide, hair that was too black, too thick. She hung up on her mother when the woman beginning talking about mistakes and the
conversation
they’d have when the semester ended.

It was that conversation that weighed on Keira’s mind as she sat on her bed trying to study for her geometry exam. She knew most of their discussions, most of the times her mother didn’t get her way left Keira being smacked around and eventually agreeing to cave to whatever the woman wanted.
Not this time,
she thought, tapping her pencil onto her Geometry book. That was her biggest worry. She’d promised Kona if her mother tried slapping her again, that she wouldn’t just take it. She’d fight back and Kiera knew she’d be forced into retaliating when she stood firm on not walking away from Kona. He was hers and she would keep him no matter how many times her mother screamed, no matter how hard she hit her.

Keira laid back, moving her gaze over the white ceiling, to the plain light fixture in the center of the room. It was a white bubble with a brass center and looked oddly like a nipple. “The tit light,” as Leann called it and Keira let her vision blur, thoughts cluttered with imaginings of her mother’s angry scowl, with the hot, wine-tinted breath she knew the older woman would have. Then she blinked, eyes shifting to the left when someone knocked on the door. A quick glance at her clock and Keira jumped up, surprised that she hadn’t noticed that Kona’s practice had been over for nearly half an hour.

She hadn’t seen him since last night and studying and worrying over an argument she knew was a few weeks away had distracted Keira so that she hadn’t had time to miss him. They’d spent nearly the whole week together, Kona snuggled with her on her small bed, him only leaving for practice and to pick up food.

Keira pulled the door open, ready to tackle him, but the dark bruise under one of his eyes had her pausing.

“Bebe, what happened?” Keira caught the cold brush of him passing her, how he shook his head as though that mark under his eye was nothing. He moved around her room with his hands in his pockets, thick hoodie bunched over his wrists and his large shoulders set rigid, severe.

“You take your medicine today?” Kona moved his chin toward her bedside table, to the collection of wadded up Kleenex and the half empty bottle of amoxicillin.

She wouldn’t allow him to divert her. “What happened?” When Kiera touched him, he stepped back, moving out of her reach.

Kona’s sigh came out hard and he rubbed his eyes with his head down. “Luka and I had words this morning. It’s nothing.”

“If it was nothing then you’d let me touch you.”

A quick flash of his eyes and Kona’s top lip twitched. “I don’t know, maybe I’ll let you touch me after you explain to me what you and my brother were talking about that day at camp.” Kona pulled himself up to his full height, crossing his arms and the twitch in his lip shifted to his cheek.

Keira had a good idea where this was coming from, but she wouldn’t start right away accusing his mother. If he wanted to dig a hole, she wouldn’t give him a shovel. “You saw us together, Kona. We were just talking. You had your eyes on us the whole damn time.”