IZ: You’re mean. Cruel. Torturer!
KAI: Don’t you have dinner to get to?
IZ: Just you wait Kai Yamaki. I know how to hit you where it hurts…
KAI: Bring it on baby. I’m ready for you.
Chapter twenty-two
Isabelle
Six days full of flirty texts later, when I get to Kai’s apartment, I do as he told me over text and don’t bother knocking, simply turn the handle and walk inside.
“Kai? I’m here,” I call out when I don’t immediately see him.
His head pops out of his bedroom, and I can see he’s not wearing a shirt. “Hey Iz, gimme a minute. Just finished in the shower. I couldn’t get out of the stadium on time.”
“No need for clothes on my account,” I reply saucily, not expecting him to call my bluff. Serves me right when he does just that, swaggering down the hall wearing nothing but a very short towel wrapped around his lean waist.
“Really. Naked dinner? I’m in.” He comes to a stop when he’s in front of me, that smirk of his tempered by the affectionate warmth in his brown eyes. “Hi.”
“Hi,” I whisper back.
Slowly, so there’s no chance of me missing his movement, his hand lifts and cups my chin, tilting it upward slightly. Keeping his eyes open and trained on me, he leans down and brushes a soft kiss over my lips.
“Hi.”
“You said that,” I mumble against his lips that are pressed against mine again. I feel his curve upward in response.
“Mm-hmm.”
He kisses me again, deeper this time, and I let the shopping bags I was carrying fall to the floor, only thinking after it’s too late that it’s a damn good thing nothing inside was breakable.
With my hands now free, I wrap them around his bare waist, letting him draw me in tighter. He groans into my mouth when my hands roam up and down his back, his kiss trailing down my neck.
“Fuck, Iz.”
But I’ve got plans for tonight that require us both to be clothed, no matter what I joked about when I first arrived.
Keeping my touch the same, I gradually inch my fingers closer to his sides. Then, I attack.
“Shit!” He squirms, wrenching away from my tickling. “Isabelle!” He takes off with a laugh, but my finger catches in the edge of his towel, and it falls away, baring that delicious, tight ass of his.
He bends over and snatches it up before mock-glaring at me over his shoulder. “If you really wanted me naked, you just had to ask. Tickling is foul play.”
“Is it?” I put my hands on my hips and arch my brow. “Huh. And here I thought it was an acceptable form of revenge when someone teases you with certain ideas, then leaves you hanging for almost a week.”
“I had an away series,” he protests, but he’s grinning when he turns around, towel secured in place again.
“Excuses, excuses,” I tease as I sashay forward, placing my hands on his chest. I note how he flinches and I smile wickedly. “Don’t worry. I’ve made my point. For now.” Lifting up on my toes, I kiss his cheek. “Go put some clothes on. We’ve got food to prepare.”
By the time he returns to the kitchen, fully clothed but still dangerously sexy in a pair of low-slung athletic shorts and a snug-fitting black T-shirt, I’ve got most of the ingredients laid out on the counter.
“What are we making, Chef?” he asks, leaning against the counter beside me.
“Okay, so, Gianni and I were experimenting with variations on agnolotti the other day —”
“What the heck is anyo-whatti?”
