Thin Love (61 page)

Kona gets up from the table, fingers itching to touch her, tell her it will be okay. “He’s not medicated?”

“No. He hates what the doctors had him on. Said it killed all his motivation.” The muscles around Keira’s eyes tighten and her gaze slips to Kona for a moment, as though she expects him to lecture her, tell her she is a bad mother. “We handle it with diet, with exertion, that’s why he runs so much and then the same things you and I both had to learn—the counting, the breathing. But he’s much worse than either of us were, Kona. Calming him takes a lot of effort.”

“You mentioned something about the piano.”

She nods, reaches for another cup. “I started that when he was eight. Some little jackass pushed him out of line at school and Ransom broke the kid’s nose. Got suspended and I brought him home, sat him down in front of the piano. I made him stay there and play until he was calm and it just sort of worked. If his attention is distracted and he’s moving, even if it’s just his fingers, then he’s not as angry.”

Kona steps behind her, needing to touch her, to let her know he would never judge how she raised their son. Keira drops the cup in her wet hands, back straightening even further as he circles her waist with his hands on the counter at her hips. “You’re a great mother, Wildcat. He loves you, I can see that and he respects you.” Kona rests his chin on the top of her head and can’t help the quick inhale, the scent of her hair that hasn’t changed. “I’m proud of you and I’m so thankful that he has you.”

His praise seems to relax Keira. The straight bearing in her shoulders and back eases and Kona can feel the tension leaving her body. “I didn’t have a choice. I knew what kind of mother I
didn’t
want to be.” She shrugs but he can feel a small tremble working in her arms. “I just did the opposite of my mother had done to me.”

He moves the hair off her shoulder thinking about how strong she’d been, how it kills him that he wasn’t there to help her. He’s missed so much and right then Kona promises himself he’ll never let her struggle on her own again. He will be there, hopefully at her side. She looks up over her shoulder, her eyes catching his, and then she quickly turns back around. “What are you doing?”

The day hadn’t been just a stroll into the past. Kona had watched Keira, saw how she’d returned his stares, the way she didn’t bat his hand away when he led her into a room or opened doors for her. She had eased since the night of the party, didn’t seem so opposed to his attention and now it was just the pair of them in his large home. Kona couldn’t stand not touching her for another second.

“We’re alone for the first time in weeks and I’ve had to be around you all day, walking down sidewalks where I held you as a kid, in hallways where you touched me and all I wanted to do is kiss you again.”

“Kona…”

His hands go to her hips, around her stomach. “I’ve been thinking about the party, about kissing you, that song, and how you didn’t hate it. How you kissed me back, how you touched me. I know I’m obvious. You know what I want.”

“You can get that from anyone.”

She is testing him, he knows; it’s in her tone, in how straight she holds her back and Kona can’t help the frustrated growl that leaves his mouth. “You’re not just anyone.” He takes a chance, eases down to kiss her neck, slides his fingers at her nape to expose all of that skin to him and she doesn’t push away from him. “I realized something that first day in the Market, even after I saw Ransom, after I realized you’d kept him from me all this time.”

“What… what did you realize?” Her voice sounds like a whine, then a moan when Kona kisses behind her ear.

“That I haven’t breathed in sixteen years. Not since you, sweetheart; not a real breath once since that day I pushed you away.”

“And… you… you can now?”

His breath moves down her neck and Kona loves the blanket of chills that covers Keira’s skin. “Like my lungs are wide open. Every time you walk in a room, every time I hear you sing, see you smile, touch you… it’s like breathing for the first time.” He pushes her hair out of his way, kisses further down her neck, moves the thin, linen shirt she wears to get to her back, then lowers to kiss her again, right on the spot he’d missed all this time and then, eyes widening, he takes his mouth from her skin. .

“You little liar.” She tries turning around but he keeps her still, lowering her shirt more to see that bright Hibiscus tattoo. “Thought you got rid of it.”

“I… I tried to.” She comes around, hands on his chest. “I meant to, but there was never enough money, then when there was, I just… couldn’t.” When he shakes his head, Keira laughs at him and he loves the sound, loves how easily it comes to her. “Look who’s talking. I know you covered yours up. I saw that spread you did in GQ. You have that massive tattoo over your chest now, all down your arm.” He backs away from her and his fingers go to his buttons. “What are you doing?”

One cock of his eyebrow silences her and Kona grins at Keira’s widening eyes, at how they lower onto his chest as each button comes loose. “I added to my tattoo, Wildcat. I didn’t cover it up. You didn’t see that in the spread because I didn’t want my chest shown. That tattoo is for you and me. No one else.”

Kona pulls open his shirt, and throws it onto the island and Keira’s eyes move to the colossal Polynesian tribal designs, all black, all connected, that cover his shoulder, half his arm and his chest.

“Sixty hours with a
bone-tipped rake and a striking stick. I was on the big island for three weeks and most of that time was with Naoki, an old war buddy of my tutu knae’s. There was no smartass tattooer telling me not to get inked for some girl, like Michael did. There was me, Naoki and his two sons. Up until a month ago, this piece was what I was proudest of in my life. Until I met Ransom. Until you introduced me to my son.”

Keira’s eyes soften and she stretches out her fingers like she wants to touch him, but then curls her hand into a fist, until Kona reaches out to her, and places her hand on his shoulder. “
This,” he says, to the black waves that circle his entire shoulder, “is for the persistent memory of those I’ve loved and lost. It’s for Luka, for my tutu kane, the ones I pushed away when I was too stupid to realize how lucky I was, how loved.”

Kona turns, slides Keira’s fingers along his skin, up his shoulder, his breath shuddering at the feel of her nails smoothing over his traps, to his shoulder blades. She touches the spherical sun with waving flames and pointed spikes on his back. “This is for rebirth, for the renewal of myself, for me learning to forgive myself and never letting my weaknesses bury me again.”

Then Kona moves Keira’s fingers along his arm, catching her eyes, holding them as he trails her hand to the dark and light shells intricately patterned against the tribal spaces that fill up his skin. “This is for protection, for my family, to remind me of what I lost, what I want to earn again.” Keira holds his gaze, doesn’t watch her fingers being moved back up his arm, to his chest where Kona marked himself for her all those years ago. “This entire piece is the story of my life, Keira; who I was, what I lost, what I want to have back and it all starts here. It starts with you, Wildcat.”

He steps forward, takes her hand and puts it over his heart. “Ku`u Lei. My beloved. Then. Always. I could never get rid of that just like I could never really get rid of you.” Keira’s face is in his hands, his thumbs smoothing over that skin he’d been aching to touch and his chest constricts, heart strumming steady, but fast. “I could be a thousand miles from you, telling myself I don’t want you, that I’d gotten over you, but it would be a lie. I remember the way your skin felt under my fingers. I remember the noises you made when I kissed you, how quick your breath got when I made you come, how soft you held me, how you made me feel things I didn’t think I was good enough to feel. You did that, always. You were mine and I never loved anything more. I never wanted anything or anyone like I wanted you. Like I still want you. My always, Keira. You’re still my always.”

And then, Kona stopped talking, stopped wanting and took what was always his.

She’d loved him like a song. She had told Kona that once.

His fingers were chords, the strong vibration of a beat that slipped into her chest, filled all the empty spaces that had been missing since her father’s death. His hands were a tempo, a crushing, consuming bass line that echoed in the stillness of her heart, filling it with heavy beats she heard singing into her ears. And that song had not faded, had not dimmed in the years they had been apart.

Kona kisses her, loves her with every touch and he plays loud, loud, loud inside her, seeping into the portions of her body, the thin wisps of her soul that only he could ever sing to her. All those years, all the struggle they both endured fades like the reverb disappearing behind a back beat as he comes to her, touching, kissing her against the sink, hands lowering, pulling her to his strong body. He is the drumbeat of her past, the soft melody of her memory coalescing in his extended arms, in the demanding, aching way his fingers play against her skin, under her shirt.

His words come in soft breaths against her skin, his mouth on her chin, across her face and Keira holds onto him, eyes rolling back with those strong, certain hands pulling her in, closer, surer than he ever had before.

But he stops; only a pause that has her blinking, another promise Keira doesn’t believe is spoken lightly. He stares hard, face stern, a promise in his features that his words could never break.

“This time,” he says, breath calm but quick against her neck, “this time I won’t lie to you.” Those chords dip down on her spine, up the tattoo she’d put there for him and he kisses her again, warm lips humming to the top of her pulse. Kona wraps his too large, too heavy arms around her waist. “This time when you walk away, I won’t let you stay gone. This time, Wildcat, I’ll follow.”

But Kona doesn’t follow. He leads. Mouth on hers, tongue touching against Keira’s and then she is lifted up, arms around his neck, legs over his waist, Kona kisses her with a fierceness that is staggering, slow.

“Too long, Wildcat,” he says, stopping for a breath, stopping to look her down, take in her wet lips. He can’t seem to keep himself from her skin for more than a few seconds and Keira closes her eyes, tightening her hands against his neck as he kisses her.

She wants to resist, to remember the promises she made to herself the day she walked away from Kona’s carved up Camaro. She never wanted to try again; never wanted to find anyone worth the gamble of a shattered heart.

But Kona was not some random person wanting her body. He was not some eager cowboy passing her looks across a bar or a cute singer wanting into her studio and her panties. Kona had been her everything, her always too. Keira’s brain tells her to stop; it tells her this is not smart, him touching her, her returning his attentions. Her heart screams louder, is more insistent and so Keira silences that logical refrain that tells her to walk away. The brain is rational but doesn’t know passion, can’t reason with love.

She listens to her heart.

It had been a long,
long
time since Keira let anyone touch her, longer still since Kona’s mouth was on hers, since she felt the hard planes and beautiful ridges of his body. God, how she’s missed this.

“Kona?” He stops kissing her long enough to look at her, a question moving his eyebrows up. “Make me buzz.”

A low, barely contained growl bursts from his throat and Kona holds her tight, his arm holding her in a steely grip around the waist as he carries her down the hall, into his large bedroom, not once taking his mouth from hers. He consumes her, takes from her any rational thought, but it isn’t like they once were. She isn’t overwhelmed by the sensation, scared by what her body wants.

Kona is slow, easy, sits them on the bed, Keira still wrapped around him, and his gaze stays on her as he slips her shirt off her head. His large fingers spread over her back, pull her bra off her shoulders and he makes to lower himself over her chest, but stops, eyes on hers. “You sure you want this?”

“My body needs this, Kona.”

His smile is light, sweet. “Baby, there isn’t anything I need more than you.”

Kona reaches for her, mouth edging toward her neck, but stops short when Keira’s cell chirps in her back pocket. “I need to talk to our son about his timing.” Kona’s smile is wide and when Keira twists around, is somewhat trapped by her bra straps, Kona slips her phone out of her pocket. He frowns, eyebrows drawn together as he looks at the screen. “Why the hell does he call you Marco?”

Keira’s laugh is quick, spontaneous, and she takes her phone from Kona to stare down at Ransom’s message:

Marco.

Tristan met us here.

Staying at Leann’s tonight.

See you tomorrow.

Have fun!

Keira smells a plot and twists her head to the side to stare at Kona. “We do Marco/Polo to check up on each other.” She shoots off her answer:

Polo.

I’m on to you, lil man.