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Kash smells of tobacco and leather, of clean soap and underneath it all, of hot, sexy boy. Pheromones, I think, shamelessly drawing in the scent. He smells all male, and it makes my toes curl on the rug and my breath catch.
He has one hand pressed to my back, the other tangled in my hair, and I can feel his breath on top of my head. It’s… intimate.
Tears are still spilling from my eyes, but he feels so good, his tall, lean body pressed to mine, his touch soothing, the strength in his inked arms reassuring.
It takes me a long moment to realize he’s shaking, too.
Startled, I pull back just enough to see his face. “Kash?”
He draws an unsteady breath. His gray eyes glitter but his cheeks are dry. “You okay now?”
I nod.
His hand trails down the side of my head, twisting in my curls, then it cups my cheek, and I can’t help but lean into his rough palm.
In contrast, his voice is soft like kitten fur. “What happened?” His thumb brushes across my cheekbone and a deep shiver goes through me. “What’s wrong?”
All of it, I want to say. Everything. Too much, it’s all too much to bear.
But the last straw was… “West and Nate had a fight.”
His ash-blond brows knit. “They did?”
“They’ve never fought before. Not like this.” And the lump returns to my throat. “They won’t talk to each other. And… and…”
His thumb brushes away a stray tear, his clear eyes pensive. “And so you don’t spend so much time together anymore?”
“No. I mean yes, that’s it. We used to play videogames together, and I’d watch them spar, and West would make us pancakes, and we’d hang out watching movies…”
“You miss them.”
“Yeah.”
“They’ll get over it. Give them time.”
“It’s been more than a week already.”
“Since the brunch.”
“Yeah.” God, I wish I’d never gone. I wish I hadn’t reacted to Nate’s jabs, that he hadn’t provoked West somehow—I still don’t know what it was he said that set West off like that.
I wish that he and West had never fought.
“That’s not all that long.”
“It is. For them, for us… it is. I just… miss them.” God, I hate how my voice ends in a wail. I’m not that girl—weepy, whiny, entitled. Cringing, I put my hand over his, tugging it down. “Sorry. You’re right. It’s not that long.”
“Sometimes a week can feel like a year,” he whispers, letting me pull his hand down, between us. “Like a century.”
“Like a lifetime,” I whisper back.
What’s this dark connection between us? He’s not supposed to get me like this, so easily, to follow my thoughts so easily, as if he’s known me for years.
He’s not supposed to be standing so close to me, the light catching on his blond lashes and the small freckles on his nose and cheeks, on his nose ring and the silver in his brows.
I place his hand, so much bigger than mine, over my heart. It thumps away, too fast, and he sucks in a harsh breath.
And then he’s kissing me, his mouth coming down on mine, warm and rough like his hands, tasting like root beer and rainfall and the night.
