by Eden Butler
“I like the way you taste, nani.” Kai rolled over, moving her legs apart in an attempt to demonstrate, but she pushed on his shoulder, shaking her head. “What? You love this.”
“I do.” Gia inhaled, eyes closing for a half second as though she was relishing a memory that had something to do with Kai’s mouth and fingers and the various places she’d let him put them. “But I have a lunch meeting in an hour with Cat. We’re going over the draft choices for next…” Gia went silent, shoulders pressing deep into the mattress when Kai immediately took her clit into his mouth. “Not…fair…”
Maybe it wasn’t, he thought, going about his business, watching her reaction, listening to the sounds she made as he pushed her lips apart with his thumbs. But Kai quickly realized fighting dirty with Gia was the only way to get her to stop making excuses. He hadn’t lied to her that night in the shower. She was his, no matter if she believed it or not. But he had a hard time making her realize that when they were anywhere other than in this room.
“Kai…oh…oh…deeper… please.”
He listened because he knew that’s what she needed. Gia knew her body. She knew what made her feel best and Kai was a fast learner. He knew how to touch her, to love her and they both knew it. But Gia still hadn’t admitted that she wanted him beyond these apartment walls. She hadn’t agreed to dates or anything in public where Keola or Nalani wasn’t there. Gia had admitted she couldn’t do without Kai’s touch, without what he did to her, but that didn’t mean she’d ever agree to needing him.
She was scared of herself, of the world outside of the haven they’d made here. She was worried what would happen if anyone found out about them. Kai wouldn’t settle. He wouldn’t let her pretend that there was nothing between them, but he was learning to pick his battles. Gia outside of this place would happen. For now, he’d take them just as they were.
“Yes! Oh, God, Kai!”
He held onto her, pushing her closer with his hands on her ass, keeping her against his lips, her fingers tugging in his hair as she filled his mouth.
“I told you I was tired of this, Kenya.” The voice came from the hallway. Gia was still moaning, still coming down from her orgasm, her grip still on Kai’s hair. But he knew that voice. He knew who the woman spoke to.
Fuck, he thought, trying to take Gia’s fingers from his hair.
“And I told you to stop calling me,” Cat said, her voice high and angry. “I don’t have time for players…on or off the field and I told you…Oh God!”
“Shit!” Kai said, grabbing a pillow to cover Gia.
“I’m sorry!” Cat said, turning away from the bed with her hands waving like she was trying to dry her hands. “Oh, God, Gia I’m so sorry. So!”
“Get out! For the love of God, get out of here…” Gia said, her face turning pink as she threw a pillow at her assistant.
“I’m going! I’ll just wait in your…”
“No! Go. I’ll call you…later. Oh God!” She bolted off of the mattress, grabbing her robe to cover herself as she stepped behind the half ajar door and waved Cat from her room.
“I’m so sorry! I swear…I didn’t mean. I have the keycard you gave me! I…I’ll go. I’m…sorry!” Cat’s voice was panicked and breathy as she moved down the hall.
“Shit! Oh…fucking shit!” Gia said, throwing her robe to the floor as she moved around the room, grabbing clothes she’d discarded the second Kai had walked through her front door. “This is a disaster. This is fucking…”
“Hey,” Kai tried, standing in front of her, trying to keep her from losing it completely. “She’s not going to say anything.”
“Of course she is,” Gia shouted, hands over her face.
She didn’t try to fight Kai when he led her to the bed, kneeling in front of her. “You pay her well, you told me that. And she’s loyal. You said it yourself…you and Cat are friends.”
“But that doesn’t mean…”
“Nani, this isn’t that big of a deal, honestly. Try to calm down and…”
“Calm down? Are you crazy?” She shook her head, brushing past Kai as she moved into her closet. He’d only seen her like this one other time, two weeks before when Keola walked into her living room and found a pair of Kai’s boxers stuffed between the cushions.
“These aren’t yours,” his daughter had accused, head tilting as she watched Gia’s eyes round. Then, a light seemed to come on inside his keiki’s head and she connected the wrong dots. “Miss Gia, do you have a boyfriend now?”
“No!” she’d tried, glaring at Kai when he laughed at her. “Of course not. Boys are gross.”
“My makuakāne is a boy,” Keola had reasoned.
“Yeah, but he’s the grossest.”
“I…shit, what am I gonna tell her?” Gia said, shimming into a pair of jeans.
“That your lineman gives good head?”
“Kai!” She stood in front of him in her bra and jeans and nothing else, glaring at him like he’d tried to knock her over the head and take her wallet. “This is not fucking funny.”
“Why? Are you embarrassed of me?” He watched her smiling, but a ripple of anxiety moved through his head.
“Of course I’m not embarrassed…God…It’s just…” She shook her head, rubbing her hands into her eyes. “This is what I was talking about this whole time. If anyone finds out…”
“You mean besides your assistant?”
“If any of my bosses find out…” she corrected, ignoring his comment, “then one of us is gone and I can promise you it won’t be the man with all the sacks. My contract with the team isn’t nearly as good as yours. They can afford to buy me out.”
Kai frowned, clenching his teeth when that expression on Gia’s face shifted from frantic worry, to utter fear. How often had she told him the amount of bullshit she had to wade through to get to the place she was now? Years of listening to men telling her she couldn’t do her job well. Loud, obnoxious voices that called her a bitch or an opportunist for just trying to make something of herself.
“Gia…” he tried, hating seeing her like this. Hating more that she’d lost the ease and easy vibe that had been over her minutes before. “Please don’t worry. Talk to Cat. She’ll understand. You’ll see.”
“I just…maybe.” She moved into the bathroom, brushing her hair into place, dusting a makeup brush over her face before she hit the light and left. “Look, I have to go talk to her. I’ll…call you, later.”
“When?” he asked, hating how desperate he sounded. Gia shook her head, moving out of the room and down her hall to grab her jacket and keys sitting on the island.
“I…don’t know. It might take some time to see where Cat’s head’s at.” She pulled on her jacket and dug out her keys. “Lock up before you go, okay?” Then Gia left, that frantic worry still making her eyes bright and wide. She left without a backward glance, without even telling Kai goodbye.
19.
KAI
GIA WAS A STORM. A wild, unexpected hurricane that twisted through Kai’s life leaving behind destruction. But when that storm was coming through, there had been moments of quiet—the stillness before the pending chaos.
He missed the noise.
Kai had to find out where it had gone.
The administration offices were located on the top floor of the building next to the stadium. Kai could make it to the field or the gym inside five minutes if he was in Gia’s office and the lobby in less time than that. He hadn’t been there since the day he’d returned from Hawaii to have a sit down with Coach Ricks about how he could catch up and if he’d be allowed any field time during the playoffs. They’d crashed and burned in the NFC playoffs with Kai getting most of his play time. But walking through the hallway that led to Gia’s office filled him with more anxiety than he’d felt heading into that sit down with Ricks.
Gia had ghosted him. In fact, she seemed to have ghosted everyone. For two weeks he’d given her space. Kai didn’t blow up her phone the whole time since she ran out
of her apartment worried about Cat finding them together. He decided to give her a little breathing room to sort out her game plan because the woman always had one. He didn’t want to mess with that.
But two days later, he’d gotten no texts. No calls and another day after that, there’d been no answer at her door. Nothing had happened to her, he knew that much. Mr. Blanchard, the old vendor from the Market asked Kai how Gia liked the fresh asparagus she’d picked up the day before. Then made him promise to have Gia send him the recipe for her mother’s marinara they’d chatted about when he saw her.
So, no. She wasn’t missing.
That stubborn assed woman was hiding from him, and it was starting to piss Kai off.
There were two large bouquets of flowers lined across Cat’s desk when Kai walked up to it. The arrangements were massive—roses and peonies, some sweet pea buds that he recognized from the small flowers Gia had planted in the boxes out on her balcony. From behind them, he made out a pair of long, toned legs and French tip toenails peeking out from open-toed heels and nothing else aside from the low muttering complaints Cat made.
“Someone there?” she said, sliding her hands between two of the bouquets to push them apart. “Kai.” Her light brown skin brightened when she glanced at him, her cheeks turning pink when he smiled at her. He got her reaction. The last time she saw him he was face down between her boss’s legs.
“Cat,” he greeted, pointing between the large containers of flowers that had taken over her desk. “You got a problem.”
“Yeah…no shit…I mean…” She cleared her throat, standing to get an unobstructed view of his face. “It appears so.” Cat flared her nostrils, grabbing one of the bouquets, then seeming to think better of it before she held the stems in one hand and chunked them in the trash.
“You know, it’s not my business.” Kai moved his chin, frowning at the sheer wastefulness. Those flowers were annoying, he was sure because he knew the man that sent them, but they looked damn expensive. “Seems like a shame to get rid of these…” she opened her mouth, looking as though she might argue with him, but shut it when he held up a hand to quiet her. “When there are so many cancer and children’s’ wards that might benefit from the little bit of color those could add.”
The fading pink color on her cheeks brightened again and Cat instantly reached for the flowers she’d discarded, pushing them back into the glass vase before she moved all three arrangements on top of the file cabinets behind her.
“You’re right,” she told him, grabbing a Kleenex from her drawer before she straightened her skirt and plastered a professional smile on her face. “Now. Mr. Pukui, what can I do for you?” She glanced over his shoulder, toward the elevators before she lowered her voice, not giving him a chance to answer. “You don’t have to worry about the…thing.” Cat waved the Kleenex, dropping her gaze to the trash can when she tossed it inside. “I…uh, didn’t say anything and I won’t.”
“I told her…” Kai went quiet, nodding to one of the assistants he knew worked in Ricks’ office as she moved through the lobby. He waited for the woman to disappear into the elevator before he continued. “I told her you wouldn’t go running your mouth.”
“Of course I won’t. Look, I know that Gia…” Cat watched him, her expression shifting from understanding to worry the longer she watched. When she bit her bottom lip, he understood she was keeping Gia’s confidence. Cat folded her arms, head shaking like none of her reasoning mattered. “It’s…fine, really. She’s…good.”
“Cat,” Kai said, stepping closer to the woman’s desk, feeling his jaw clench as he tried to keep himself calm. “Where the hell is she?”
Again, Cat opened her mouth, like she had a quick answer for him, but couldn’t give it. “Look, Kai, I’m sorry, but I couldn’t possibly…” She pushed her eyebrows together, biting the inside of her cheek when he released a low grunt, his frustration quickening. Cat exhaled, rubbing her hands together, seeming like she understood how he felt. “I’ll get fired,” she told him, her gaze moving around her desk, to the laptop on top of it and the mail that looked like she hadn’t gone through it yet today. “I get that she can be…closed off, and I understand that you’re worried, but I love my job and Gia’s a friend.”
“Come on, Cat…”
She shook her head, forcing a laugh when she said, “Sisters before misters.”
“That’s…bull—” Kai stopped himself and that grunting sound left his throat again.
“I know you’re worried, but you don’t need to be. She’s got a job to do, we all do, and she’s trying to do it.” Cat lowered her shoulders when the elevator opened and another delivery boy headed toward her with an even larger bouquet of flowers. “Son of a…I’m gonna get fired anyway…”
“Another one,” the guy said, his smile lowering when she pointed to the remaining empty space on the filing cabinet. “Can you sign…”
“Don’t you know my signature by now?” Cat recovered her quick temper, something out of character from what Gia had told Kai about her assistant and scribbled her name across the man’s clipboard. She was focused on the flowers, muttering something about “obnoxious assholes” under her breath when Kai saw his opening.
“Wilson is relentless,” he told her, remembering his friend’s drunken tirade about Cat and whatever guy he’d seen her with after the Atlanta game.
“She just needs convincing,” he’d told Kai, the tequila making his logic even less sensible. “I’ll just have to show her how good I can be to her.”
“I thought you said she’s seeing that guy…” Pérez had told the man, head shaking when Wilson waved him off.
“He’s nothing. Me and Cat…we got history.”
“He’s…something,” she said, hands on her hips like she was gathering a list of chemo units and children’s wards in her head. “This is getting ridiculous.” She moved her hand to the back of her neck, eyes narrowing over the flowers before she turned to face Kai. “My apartment is a hundred times worse. I think the Super is going to start charging me for all the times she’s had to let the delivery people in.”
“So, you want this to stop?” he asked, pointing to the overflowing bouquets.
“Of course I do.”
Kai nodded, fishing out his cell, thumb moving across the screen. He knew she watched him, knew that look on her face; the glance was full of doubt and suspicion. But Kai had an in that Cat couldn’t expect. He had skills that had nothing to do with what she’d saw between him and Gia.
“Puk!” Wilson said, his tone elevated, his mood chipper. “What’s up, man?”
“You know that favor you owe me?” Kai said, smiling when he heard the low groan his friend made.
“Yeah. I owe you. That kid is not mine. Thank you for getting that bouncer to fess up to it.”
“I’m calling it in…for a friend.”
Cat squinted, her mouth pursing as though she wasn’t sure what Kai’s plan was or why Kenya owed him a favor. He hoped she didn’t ask for details.
“What friend?” Wilson asked, that amused quality in his voice shifting into something that sounded like worry.
“The flowers?” Wilson sighed, not answering, and Kai knew he understood him. “Lay off.”
“For how long?”
“Indefinitely.”
Wilson coughed, like he’d taken a sip of something and Kai’s one-word answer had him choking on whatever he drank. “I can’t do that. It’s…working. Cat’s gonna…”
“Believe me when I tell you, man, it’s not working. It’s not working even a little bit.” Kai slipped his freehand in his pocket, shrugging when Cat nodded. “In fact, I’d say you’re getting the opposite reaction.”
Wilson’s breath fanned across the receiver and to Kai it sounded like the man was gearing up for another argument but then Kai cleared his throat, sending his teammate a silent warning he hoped he got and Kenya sighed. “What do I do?”
“Not this. You feel me?”
“Ye
ah,” Wilson said. Kai hated hearing that defeated tone in his voice, but knew this approach was the right one. “Yeah, I feel you.”
When Kai ended the call Cat rounded the desk, grabbing his hand to squeeze it. “You think that will be enough?”
“Kenya Wilson has a lot of vices, but he doesn’t go back on his word. I did him a solid. He knows it. I know it. He won’t bother you.” Kai glanced at the flowers, then back at Cat’s unsure frown. She was beautiful. Tall and elegant. Thin, but curvy. And there was something about her that Kai knew would make her attractive to any guy with a pulse. “Now, I can’t promise he won’t try something else…but don’t worry about the flowers.”
“Thanks,” she said, watching Kai long enough to make some internal decision that moved a small grin onto her lips. “Okay…” she continued, glancing around the office and into the hallway outside it before she finished. “Gia…she…moved out of your building.”
Kai felt sick and angry and a little lost. He watched Cat for a full minute, spotting her neutral expression, how she didn’t smile or laugh, as though she’d told him a bad joke no one would find funny. Then, he fell into one of the chairs across from Cat’s desk, rubbing the back of his head as he watched her.
“I…when?” Eyes closed, Kai ignored the imagined scenarios of Gia ushering movers down their hallway in the dead of night so he wouldn’t have a clue what she was up to. Or, worse, paying the building manager to have her stuff moved out when she knew Kai wouldn’t be around. He was glad his sister had taken Keola to see some of Keeana’s cousins in San Francisco. He’d hate to think of his girl’s reaction if she’d come across Gia sneaking out of the building like a rebellious teenager.
“Two days ago,” Cat said, sitting in the chair next to him. “You had that meeting with your manager, I think. About the supplements endorsement?” Kai stared at the woman, head shaking. Was there anything Gia and her staff didn’t know?
“She called your team and suggested the meeting. But that wasn’t because she wanted you out of the building.” Cat bounced her foot, a nervous habit that he’d never seen her do. “At least, I don’t think that’s why she told your people about it. She does stuff like that for all the players. I just…assumed…”
