I sway on my feet. Kai drops the branch and shifts his grip on me, holding me firm, one hand on my waist, the other at my jaw. He’s gentle, but I feel him burning the fuck up, lighting us both on fire as his tongue slides with mine.
He likes this.
More than that, he wantsit.
He wantsmore.
Not happening the first time he puts his mouth on a dude, but I let it escalate, just a little. Let him grind against me. Let himfeelme—all of me.
We’re both hard.
Kai’s breath hitches as it hits him, and a shudder wracks his whole body.
God, this man.A moan is trapped in my chest. I force it down and slide my palms under his T-shirt to the heated skin beneath. Then it’s my turn to shiver as he wraps my hair around his hand and deepens the kiss, backing me against a nearby tree.
The trunk hits my spine, the roughness a perfect contrast to Kai’s embrace, and I can’t keep my groan to myself.
It severs the connection. Our lips break and Kai’s eyes fly open. “Did I hurt you?”
An airless laugh escapes me. “Not likely. Are you okay?”
No words seem to come to him. He releases a staggered breath and braces an arm on the tree trunk. He lets his gaze travel from my mouth and down my body, absorbing where we’re pushed together, not a bible width of space between us.
Not an inch between our cocks.
He’s so hard. His length is straining against his shorts, and it takes every ounce of restraint I possess not to palm him.Squeezehim. I want to see his eyes roll. Want to see fresh sweat bead his brow as desire overwhelms him.
But this isn’t about me, and what I want is easy to ignore, cos what I need matters so much more.
And Ineedto know he’s all right.
My hands are still under his shirt. I stroke his hips with my thumbs. “How are you feeling? We taking a swim, or what?”
Kai gives me a slow head shake. “Are you kidding? Only reason we’re jumping in that river is to cool my blood before it pumps out of my fuckin’ eardrums.”
“That’s an image. And a misguided one. Your blood isn’t anywhere near your eardrums right now.”
“Tell me something I don’t know.” Kai pulls back a fraction, breath still coming hard. “Areyouokay?”
“You don’t need to ask me that.”
“Why not? I want to know.”
Fair enough. I search for the words to explain that kissing him made my head spin like a runaway waltzer car. That I’m not sure I’ll ever catch it. Or if I want to. Adrenaline roars in my ears, and I like it. I likehim. “I’m okay. I mean, could probably do with CPR, but other than that.”
Kai laughs and there’s a freedom in that rich sound I wasn’t expecting. One kiss doesn’t hold all the answers. It opens a door he didn’t know existed. A path.
A fucking journey.
Or a journey of fucking.
Oops. Heat pulses in my groin. I should give Kai space, but with the tree at my back, I have nowhere to go.
So I watch him instead, track his gaze as he zones in and out of awareness, lost in thought. He’s so easy to look at that it’s tempting to do it forever. To forget the real world exists in that distant place we’ve left behind.
But his stomach growls and I have food in the bag I dropped in the shade when we reached the clearing. And maybe that’s why fate brought us together. So I can gift him my limited skills until he finds his place in the world again.
10
