Kiss Me (Promise Me Book 3)

by Brea Viragh

  “I’m going to take a guess and say milk but no sugar, and not because the bitterness suits you.” He poured a cup into one of the mismatched mugs hanging on hooks beneath the cabinets. “Good morning, by the way. I hope you slept well.”

  “Yeah, morning, it was fine, how about you, don’t care.” I shook my head when he placed the cup on the table. He didn’t bother to linger. Typical Kai behavior, I decided. He wanted to keep me on my toes.

  The moment he turned his back, I studied him. He looked clean and put-together for such an early hour. Did he ever rest, or did he stand in front of the mirror all night to get his hair right? He moved around in the kitchen as though he’d been there for years instead of hours. And damn if he didn’t look like he belonged. That bothered me more than how he’d guessed my coffee preference.

  “I’m sorry if I startled you last night.” Kai kept his voice mild and easygoing, yet each syllable scorched me hotter than a branding iron. How did he do it? “I didn’t mean to. I wasn’t thinking straight.”

  I eyed him speculatively. “Which part?”

  “Ha! Both, I guess. I shouldn’t have barged ahead. Although I have to say, it was lonely on my air mattress. It would have been much better to have an actual bed.”

  “Well, Nolan decided he didn’t want to sleep alone either. Him I let stay.”

  “Are you serious?”

  “Oh yes. I was the big spoon.”

  “Stop it, temptress.”

  “Can’t be helped. Nolan is a snuggler. How does that make you feel?”

  Kai blinked, pursing his lips. “Touché. Good to know you can rip me to shreds first thing in the morning. It’s a tough skill to master.”

  I shrugged it off, the heat from the mug insulating the tiny seed of cold in my heart. “Aren’t you a devil.”

  “I’ve been called worse.” He turned around again. “I’m always barging ahead with things that sound right in my head. I don’t stop to think before I army-tank forward. You know? Not sure if things will come out exactly the way I planned, if I took time to plan.” He waited for a beat before continuing. “Do you ever feel like that?”

  “Like what?” I responded quickly, taking a sip of coffee. Surprised when it turned out to be good. Better than good. It was a lifeline.

  Kai furrowed his brow, dragging a chair from beneath the tiny table and straddling it. “Like you’re following through on something before you’re ready.”

  I shrugged. “I can’t say.”

  “Funny. You struck me as the type of person who ran before she walked. Must be my mistake.”

  “Must be.”

  “I’ll apologize again for coming into your room.” He reached over and gave my hand a pat. His smile was equal parts sincere and arrogant, a tiny dimple appearing at the corner of his mouth. I wanted to nibble his dimple until I knew its every nuance.

  “Although I like to think we had a nice ten or fifteen minutes to chat,” he said.

  “We’ve had more than our fair share of time to talk. My voice is still hoarse from the hours of talking through the night.”

  “As I recall, you screamed and wailed to the point where the neighbors banged on the wall. It turned me on.”

  I quickly shushed him. “Keep your voice down before someone hears you! I don’t want to listen to you anymore. Let’s get one thing straight.” I leaned forward, lacing my fingers and assuming an air of absolute business to keep my poker face strong. “We need a certain game plan for how we proceed from here.”

  His long fingers tapped against the side of his mug in an easy rhythm. “I agree. It’s always better to be prepared.”

  I scowled. “We’ve never met before this moment, got it? I know you want to play all lovey-dovey, fingering me under the table and all…” The mention of the indiscretion had Kai’s smirk widening. “However,” I continued, “it has no place here. Once Thanksgiving is over tonight, we go our separate ways. No one can know.”

  “That we slept together?” Kai supplied, taking a sip. “Or that I came into your room last night?”

  “Does it matter?”

  “I’m curious where they both fall on the scale of indiscretions.”

  “Ten. Ten plus. You better keep your mouth shut.”

  His forehead creased and his face took on a cold look. “I’m not one to go around trumpeting my personal business, and it’s insulting that you think I would.”

  “You could have fooled me.” I hid my face in my cup.

  “What is that supposed to mean?”

  “You seem ready to embarrass me. I…don’t know how to proceed,” I admitted. “It’s a fucked-up world when I have to walk on eggshells every second of the day.”

  He shook his head. “I don’t want you to walk on eggshells. I want to sit here and have coffee with you. Maybe get to know each other better. It’s not much to ask.”

  “It is to me.” I rubbed my eyes until I saw stars. “Take my advice and make sure you keep yourself to yourself. What we did wasn’t right.”

  Except I wasn’t sure that was true. The pain in my stomach was sharp enough to give me second thoughts.

  “I think it was the rightest thing in the world,” Kai retorted. “I’m not sure why you see it differently.”

  “Because I don’t want you.”

  “Wow, you think you can keep lying to my face like I won’t know?”

  “You don’t know me.”

  “I beg to differ,” he said.

  “I—”

  “Good morning, everyone!”

  Thessaly burst into the room and I stood up so abruptly I dumped the rest of the coffee right down my front. She saw Kai and me at the table, and amusement crept across her face.

  “I am sorry.” She didn’t sound sorry in the least. “Did I interrupt something?”

  The idea pleased her beyond measure. I wiped at the stains down my front, steam rising from my robe. Thank God I’d had the padding to protect my skin.

  “Nothing at all.” I grimaced, hands sticky. “You just ruined a good cup of coffee and my favorite bathrobe. Good one, Mom.”

  “I thought I was the only one who woke up with the sun,” Thessaly said, moving toward the stove and switching on a burner. “Imagine my surprise to find the two of you sitting here, chatting. Two old friends in a new setting. Or two new friends in an old setting, whichever makes more sense.” Again she flashed an annoying, secretive smile.

  “I was about to leave.” Grumbling, I turned to the door. Imagine my shock when Thessaly whipped out a hand and halted my progress.

  “Don’t go on my account! I’m going to make breakfast for us and there are bran muffins in the fridge. What kind of food do you like, Kai?”

  “Oh, I’ll eat pretty much anything,” he remarked.

  Not the potential threat of Mom’s interference, nor the minor third degree burns on my chest, could stop the flush of color dotting my cheeks. How could he…blatantly…

  I hid the blush with my bangs. “Sorry, I’m not hungry.”

  I didn’t mind lying to Thessaly. She’d be used to it by now, content with puttering around her greenhouse where she coaxed flowers to bloom instead of wrestling to get the truth out of me. But I hated how my throat tightened when all I wanted to do was turn tail and run.

  “Do you need any help?” Kai asked her, resuming his standing position.

  “Aren’t you the sweetest? Seems we need to keep you around.” Thessaly released my arm with a wink. “Don’t you think so, Nell?”

  I nearly answered with an agreement before I caught myself. Instead, I squeezed my eyes shut, dreading the thought of what she’d say next. “He’ll leave with Nolan, Mom. I’m gone tomorrow too.”

  She shuffled over to the cabinet, removing a pan from the rack and setting it on the blazing red stove eye. “What do they say in town? Don’t count your hens before the fox comes?”

  Insert tacky cliché here. “Don’t count your chickens before they hatch?”

  “Exactly! I wouldn’
t be too quick to leave. They’re calling for severe weather.”

  I scoffed, glancing down at the stains dotting my front. The mysterious “they” and their predictably wrong weather predictions. “When are they ever right? I’d bet my left foot that we end up getting nothing.”

  “No, I think they’re on point this time. The European model agrees.” Kai changed his posture in an attempt to get comfortable. He was a man more used to answering questions than asking them, I could tell. “Before we left, I pulled up the ten-day forecast.”

  “I refuse to believe it.”

  “I’m saying you should settle in. If it snows, you aren’t getting down the driveway,” Thessaly stated.

  I glanced over at the eggs going into the pan. “My car can make it.”

  “Unless you have four-wheel drive, I think not.” She could not have appeared more excited with the idea if she’d planned it herself. I wouldn’t put it past her. A slight wiggle of the finger and a strong intention might have the skies opening to do her bidding.

  “We’ll see what happens tomorrow.” I said nothing else for fear of jinxing myself.

  Thessaly measured out her dandelion coffee while eggs simmered on low. “How does everyone feel about cream cheese in their eggs?”

  “I like them creamy.” Kai shared a wink with my mother that had her giggling while she stirred.

  Bastard.

  She continued to spout orders about how she wanted the day to proceed. I never considered arguing the point. There was no escape, only retreat. All these people, with their combined issues and pretenses and undercurrents. I was happier walking the linoleum-lined halls of the hospital. Or chatting with girlfriends over a good bottle of wine and cookies from the sweet shop in town.

  Now I was stuck with social and familial duties. It was the perfect recipe for a headache of epic proportions.

  “What a nice thing to hear. Good to know there’s a man around who appreciates the finer culinary aspects of breakfast,” Thessaly babbled. “You hear this, Nell?”

  Pulling at the still steaming collar of my robe, I tried to come up with a biting response. “Until I decide to puncture my eardrums with a steak knife, yeah, I hear it.” An invisible clamp took hold of my chest and squeezed.

  When you’re brought up with two people who “only want what’s best for you,” you learn about self-preservation pretty quickly. This situation was, for lack of a better description, bad news.

  “I’m going to go upstairs before I say something I’ll regret,” I informed both of them. “There’s nothing worse than being stuck in the middle and taking the bullet.”

  Thessaly’s hands went to her hips. “What does that mean?”

  “It means I can read the room. A skill I picked up on my own.”

  “You are being rude to our guest.” Her eyes narrowed. “I don’t know what’s come over you, but stop this instant.”

  “Sure, it’s all me.” I shrugged. “It usually is.”

  “Nell…” It was the quintessential mom voice. We weren’t in middle name territory yet, but we were getting damn close.

  I turned to Kai and our eyes met. His were full of concern and curiosity. Mine blatant pessimism.

  “You want to tell me what’s going on in your head?” he asked. “There’s something serious there, I can see.”

  “I never do anything without a reason. You haven’t given me one yet.” Turning on my heel, I strode out of the room with my mother’s questions trailing behind me like exhaust fumes from a leaky muffler.

  I was making a big deal out of nothing. After all, Thessaly hadn’t dug in the claws yet. But years of knowing her patterns, her stratagems, kept me on edge. Each move was careful and calculated, which meant her interruption had come when planned. Ergo? She might have been listening to our conversation. Ergo further? She might know about me and Kai and our night of raunchy animal sex.

  I couldn’t take it anymore.

  “Stupid,” I admonished on my way out. The unmistakable sound of the double doors snapping together caught my attention, though I didn’t turn.

  “Go away.”

  “Nope. I’d rather talk to you.”

  The spilled coffee had turned chill, the dampened cloth sliding against my skin.

  Happy fucking Thanksgiving.

  I clomped up the stairs with all the grace of a boulder. A small squeak of loose wood behind me let me know how close Kai came. If he meant to corner me, force me into conversation, extract the promise of a second date, then he had another think coming.

  My teeth ground together when I rounded the landing.

  “This is going to happen. One way or another,” he told me conversationally.

  His tone got my back up. Ooh, I wanted to smack the smugness off his face. I imagined it just like in the cartoons: one good slap and his nose would spin around his head.

  “Jackass,” I hissed under my breath. “You’ve got a lot of nerve, talking to my mother in that voice. Sucking up and talking about creamy eggs.” I quivered with frustration, trying to come up with a real good crusher to knock Kai on his ass.

  His eyes widened. “Are you kidding? I defended you! I tried to take the focus away from you and the only thing I could think of was creamy eggs.”

  “I didn’t need your help. I can handle my family on my own, thank you.”

  He grabbed my wrist, pulling me inside my bedroom and barely taking the time to close the door. Instead of continuing the verbal parry, Kai leaned against the doorjamb with an I-just-won smirk. Waiting for me to retaliate. “Whatever you say.”

  How infuriating. “No, it’s not whatever you say. You’re supposed to apologize for sticking your nose into my business, and promise never to do it again.”

  “Sorry. Not my style.”

  “Apparently not.”

  I shrugged out of my robe in an effort to keep the stream of obscenities at bay. Focus. There had to be a better outlet for the leashed fury than Kai, a human example of a punching bag. The soiled garment dropped useless to the floor and I stood in my pajama pants and tank top.

  “Be grateful you have the opportunity to spend time with your family. They’re great people,” he said. He didn’t take the time to disguise the lecherous leer.

  “Sure. And some of us need to drink to get through the holidays.” I mimed a salute. “It’s the only way to manage until the next day.” I gave a half laugh. “While you’re busy trying to play the nice guy in front of my mom, do you ever stop to think about what you’re saying?”

  “I have no clue what you want me to do here.”

  In the midst of my stewing, I almost missed the distinctive clack of the lock.

  “I want you to leave!” I whirled and pointed to the door. “I want you to get out of my life. No more excuses. Say your goodbyes, walk yourself out the front door, and in the future pretend like you don’t know me. You were supposed to get gone the night we met.”

  Kai held his arms wide at his sides. “We never agreed on a one-time deal! You said it, I didn’t. Might I remind you, I seem to remember you asking me to stay.”

  “I would never ask you to stay,” I blustered, almost squirming under his scrutiny until I caught myself. There was an awful tingling on my scalp, an army of invisible ants marching across my head. “Never in a geological age.”

  “You did,” he insisted. “And I didn’t see you trying hard to stop me last night, either. Admit it, Nell. There’s something going on here between us.”

  Goose bumps rose to attention. “You’re delusional. It still doesn’t excuse you and my mother for ganging up on me. In my own kitchen.”

  “Stop trying to change the subject.” Kai tapped his fingers on the door once, twice, before striding toward me. “You’re putting all your anger at yourself on me instead of facing the issue.”

  We stood there facing each other, the tension mounting between my shoulders in an unconscious response to his deliberate, relaxed posture.

  “You don’t want to see me angry,
” I threatened.

  “No, I don’t. But I bet I can get you there easily. Your buttons are easy to push.”

  “I have no interest in betting with you. To tell the truth, I’m done with you. End of story.”

  God, he had magnificent hands. I glanced down at them, his thumbs hooked casually into the pockets of his jeans. I wanted to tell him how much I desired those hands on me, then shook the thought out of my head in a single violent jerk.

  “You know what your problem is?” Kai asked.

  I cocked my chin to the side. “I’m sure you’re going to tell me.”

  He smelled good too. Earthy, familiar. Pines in the forest after a draining day in the city. My temper kicked into high gear when he simply stood, calm against the rush and roar of blood in my head. He studied me a second longer.

  I wasn’t naïve. As much as I wanted to claim ignorance later, I knew what was coming. Could see it in his eyes even with the space separating us. Still, I was unable to move. He reversed our positions and pushed me back against the door, slanting his mouth over mine. Maybe, I thought, just maybe, he is worth this loss of control.

  A strange garbled sound tore from my throat, too guttural to be confused with actual syllables, before his hands wound through my hair. My heart beat once, twice, and in the span of time that took, the room blurred. The world stopped turning. And his mouth was heavy and hot on mine.

  There was nothing teasing about this kiss. Nothing simple or uncomplicated. It was complete demand. Harder than the Kai I knew, the one I’d brought home from the Tooth that first night. He was determined to bring me to my knees and I was powerless against him. Damned upset about it, too.

  Despite my reservations, my heart slammed upward and lodged where it caught. Throbbing to the point where it hurt to breath for kissing him. His hand caught in my hair and dragged me up onto tiptoes.

  I brought it on myself, I reasoned dimly, by dreaming of kissing him again in my weakest moments. Lusting after him over coffee. Before I knew it, I was plastered to his chest with his arm banded around my torso. His sex pressed against my hip.