She couldn’t think of a defense, nothing that would answer the question in his eyes. “Mark isn’t an asshole and you need to back up.”
“You don’t want me to back up, Wildcat.”
“Stop calling me—”
“Shut up.” He took her face, large fingers stretching across her cheek, the tips resting on her temple. And then, the smell of beer, the warm touch of his lips covering her mouth and Kona Hale kissed Keira Riley.
Hard.
She heard his growl, felt the tilt of her head as Kona moved it, fingers pressing down and that moan grew deeper. Keira wouldn’t let him control her, wouldn’t release the sweet heat of her anger as Kona consumed her mouth. When he slipped his free hand around her arm, pulling her forward, Keira’s temper flared bright, hot and she pushed back the buzz on her skin and the thought of how delicious he tasted.
He’d kissed her. Again. No regard for her temper. He was too much, assumed too much, wanted too much and Keira couldn’t contain her rage. She pulled away from his mouth and tried not to stare at the wet shine on his bottom lip. Chest moving hard, Kona challenged her with glare, leaned back in, but Keira’s palm against his chest stopped him.
“Don’t do that again.”
“You liked it.” He hadn’t moved; elbow still on the wall at her side, breath fanning against her lashes and then, Kona let some of that arrogant attitude surface. “I liked it.” He underlined his point by moving his hips, brushing his hard dick right against her. “I really fucking liked it.”
Keira didn’t think, didn’t question why the ripple of heat crowding between her thighs was nothing to the whip of anger Kona’s little move roused in her. She didn’t care that he was beautiful. She didn’t care that she wanted him to kiss her, everywhere. Kona smirked, his throat moving with another growl and she lashed out, pushed his chin with her nails digging deep. She meant to move him aside, to eliminate that leer from her sight, but the sweat from his skin made her fingers slide and she scratched an angry cut along his cheek.
Kona’s hiss was low and Keira could see, by the return of his glare and the tremble on his top lip that he was trying to control his anger. A half a step, barely passable as a movement at all, and Keira’s heart thudded hard. Nostrils flared with his heavy exhale and then, like a blink, Kona’s smug smile erased his anger.
“Didn’t know you liked the rough shit, Wildcat.”
It was his laugh that blinded her. She couldn’t hear anything but the heavy rush of her blood pumping in her ears and the echo of his humor in the dark hallway. Then, the rage that only Kona could pull from her, had her lashing out. She stood straight, defensive, and slapped him right across the face.
The sound was like a whip, quick and deafening. She’d moved away from herself in that moment, replaced by some creature consumed with venom and she didn’t understand why her fingers stung or why Kona’s head was turned away from her and his skin was streaked with a bright red handprint.
He turned his head, unhurried, a shift in his eyes that came before his face was back in front of her. And inexplicably, the look he gave her and then the slow, meticulous slide of his tongue in the corner of his mouth, had Keira’s nipples pebbling against her shirt.
That look made her wet.
She expected his anger. She expected him to back away, to snatch from her the heat that his body and the moment poured over her skin. But Kona’s eyes did not narrow. They didn’t squint down in his anger and his face was not a mask of abject rage. Kona Hale brought his tongue into his mouth, before the cleft in his chin came up and a smile slid across his face.
Keira stopped breathing.
And then that mysterious, unnamable zip that always crackled between them shot out hard, like the force of a lightning bolt, and Keira didn’t think about why she wasn’t scared, why she found it impossible to squeeze her legs together tight enough to take the throb away.
The throb became a pulse and that pulse beat into an ache when Kona’s deep growl grew louder, sounded nearer the closer he leaned toward her. The growl wasn’t angry, wasn’t a coil of frustration and Kona paused, lingered just long enough in front of Keira until all she felt was hot, tantalizing breath on her face.
Kona grabbed her collar and Keira let him, wanted him close, wanted him dragging her forward. “I fucking love your hands on me, Wildcat.”
They came together quick, with the speed of a shot. The frenzy was hard, gripping, gripping fingers, mouths and tongues colliding, anger and desire and beautiful heat collecting, touching so that the zip Keira had denied for weeks flooded into a landslide.