She exhaled, shoved the hair off her shoulder and when she spoke, her voice was low, so low in fact that Kona thought she didn’t want him hearing her. “I was ten.” Then louder, she said, “I don’t talk about it.”
He wouldn’t push her. The night had been stupid with drama and from the brief time they’d spent together Kona figured out that Keira’s temper was swift. He just didn’t have the energy to argue with and he was damn tired of apologizing.
He gave her a nod, a silent understanding he hoped would let her know he wouldn’t pry.
Keira waved her hand around the room, a flippant gesture. “Where do you want to do this?”
One step toward the bed, as Keira moved in the same direction, and their shoulders touched. She wobbled a little unsteady on her feet and Kona held her elbow, his fingers moving down to her wrist. That same weird sensation he’d felt outside returned when she pulled his fingers from her arm. He didn’t know what the hell it was or if it meant anything at all, but he noticed how Keira held her breath at the touch, how her bottom lip dropped so that her mouth formed the smallest circle. Yeah, she felt it too, but his brief experience with her, had Kona guessing she would play it off, act as if the electricity she felt came from carpet static at her feet.
She blinked, moved her eyes away from him and Kona repressed the urge to call her out, tell her she was ignoring whatever was heating the air in her room. Instead, he chose to flirt.
He made sure his voice was deep, commanding before he took a step, got too close, breathed too hard against the top of her head. “Get on your bed.”
“What?” she said, eyes round, a little frightened.
Kona moved the right side of his mouth up, bit back the small flirty comment that itched the tip of his tongue. Keira was jumpy, a little anxious and he liked it. “How else am I supposed to check out your back?”
The small attempts he’d made tonight at getting her to relax were gone. The Keira standing in front of him, taking a step, two steps back as he walked toward her, reminded him of the girl he met in class earlier in the week. She tugged her hair off her neck and kept her eyes on her shoes. She was clearly nervous, obvious in her discomfort and Kona knew why. At least, he thought he did. Despite her attitude, the occasional sailor language, Keira was a good girl, the kind that didn’t often have boys in her room, maybe the sort that rarely spoke to guys in general. That told him one thing—she was inexperienced.
Ignoring that thought, Kona sighed, made sure he stepped back so that the burning red color on her cheeks would fade. “I’ll be a gentleman. Promise.” Kona motioned toward the bed, tried not to laugh as Keira eyed him, settled on the mattress with her back straight.
He wanted to laugh, to make a joke about how nervous she was, how stupid it was to think he’d try to take advantage of her. Then the blush on Keira’s face grew, shifted down her neck, to her arms and Kona caught a glimpse of her fingers, of her lips, shaking as though she’d caught a chill.
I make her nervous, he realized and the thought had him feeling contradictory emotions—pride, knowing that she wasn’t as resistant to him as she liked to pretend she was, and shame, remorse, that him just being here was making an already shitty night worse.
Back tight like a horse needle, Keira stilled, stopped moving completely as Kona slipped behind her, bringing his knee next to her hip. The proximity wasn’t necessary, but Kona wanted to test this thing, that weird electric something that had moved between them outside. He wouldn’t push her, hell no, that wasn’t his style, but he had caught a couple of glances from her in the library that made him think she wasn’t as disgusted by him as he thought. Really, he should have felt like a bastard. Less than a foot separated them on Keira’s firm, too tidy, too white bed. His breath moved down her back, rustling the brown hair that covered her cardigan. He could feel something there, something strange, something he couldn’t decide if he liked. And Kona knew he should give her distance, shouldn’t use Keira like a guinea pig.
But her hair glowed against the faint overhead light and the sweet jasmine scent had his fingers itching, aching to touch her. In one hand, Kona took her hair in his hand, moving it over her shoulder. It was softer than he expected, thick wisps of silk that felt good, indulgent against his fingers, but he didn’t linger on how sweet she smelled, how much he liked the feel of her hair running through his fingers.
“I, ah, have to lift your shirt up,” he said. He waited a second for her to fuss, to move away from him, but then Keira looked over her shoulder, eyes still narrowed and tight before she nodded once.