“I’ve got a meeting.” It’s a lie, a bad one, but Keira doesn’t look at him, keeps her intentions off her face. Keira’s shirt is wrinkled and she shakes it out. “So do you.” Back to him, she sits on the mattress, picking lint off her shirt before she tugs it on. Behind her, Kona slips to the end of the bed, just the sheet covering him and she closes her eyes when he touches her, stopping her as she tries to dress.
“Hey. What is this?”
She looks at him, gives him a brief, dispassionate kiss. Her smile is forced, that touch too brief and she knows Kona won’t buy that she isn’t hurrying away from him. “This is me getting dressed. That’s all this is.” She gives him another quick peck and comes off the bed picking up her jeans from the dresser.
“I know what this is,” he says, not stopping when he hears her heavy sigh.
“What are you talking about, Kona? I’m just getting dressed. I can’t stay in bed all day.” Her jeans are up, zipper fastened and Keira decides to be flippant; not to let on to why she’s really leaving. She can’t linger here, can’t put off what has to be done. She tries not to watch him as he slides from the bed; the sheet falls back and his wide back, that gloriously naked ass doesn’t jiggle or flinch as he pulls on his jeans.
One black ballet slipper is under the dresser, the other, somewhere Keira can’t see and she stops, stepping back when Kona stands in front of her, hands holding her arms. “You’re running.”
“No I’m not.” Even to her own ears, those words come out too quickly.
Kona walks back, leans against the dresser and she moves around the room, finally spotting her shoe underneath the bed. She feels cold, chilled by the loss of his hand on her, by the way he folds his arms watching her. “If this isn’t you running then why were you trying to sneak out before I got up?”
“I was going to leave you a note.”
“A note?” Kona pushes off the dresser, coming too close to her, his large body intimidating, his mouth hard. “That’s what I get from you? After last night? I get a note?”
He always has to make everything difficult. He can’t just let her leave, could he? Won’t let her walk away and she knows that. Since the night of Ransom’s party. She knew if she kissed him he would keep coming for her. He would come from her until she broke him. Until he broke her again. Like the last time.
Patience gone, Keira throws her shoe on the floor. “What the hell did you expect? You thought we’d fall back into it again? You thought I’d sleep with you and then what, exactly? We’d all be one big happy family?”
He doesn’t like her anger; she can tell. Those massive hand are at his side, clenching into fists. “I didn’t think anything beyond your being wrapped around me, but why does this feel like you’re running out like I’m some fucking douchebag you slept with when you were drunk?” Keira won’t listen to this. He is being irrational, stubborn. She tries leaving, moving around him to reach the door, but he is faster, wider and blocks her path easily. “Because I’m not. Whatever else you think, I’m not just some fuck and you damn well know it.”
“I never said you were.” People don’t change, things do. Kona is proof of that and the idea is unsettling. It’s infuriating. “God, you still do that shit.”
“What do I do?”
“You get these stupid self-deprecating ideas in your head and then run with them. You think you know me so damn well, think you know what’s going on in my head. You always did that and it drove me crazy.”
Hands over his face and a low, frustrated noise rumbling in his chest, Kona frowns at her. “What else am I supposed to think? You were sneaking out, trying to avoid this conversation.”
“I was not.” She pulls away from him when he reaches for her, slips on her shoe, but he still won’t budge from in front of the door. “Kona, let me go. Please. I’ve got things to get through today and I don’t have time to smooth your ego because you didn’t get the chance to kick me out.”
A small twist of his head and Kona’s mouth drops open, but he recovers, blinking as though he hadn’t heard that insult for what it was. Keira knows she’s grasping at straws, searching for something that will push him away or at least move him from the door. Still, Kona’s anger is quick, face reddening as he glares down at her. “Shit, why don’t you tell me what kind of person you think I am, Keira? You think I fuck anything that throws it at me and then toss them out?” Her dismissive shrug only stokes his anger further. “If you thought so little of me then why the hell were you with me last night?”