Kona loved the sound of her laugh, how it made a quick snap of sensation work in his stomach. He enjoyed that feeling, let it fill him as he led her toward her coach, but his eyes moved around them, searching for the threat he didn’t want touching her.
He hadn’t stopped touching her. Not once, all night. At the restaurant Kona kept his calf right against hers as they sat at the crowded bar eating. On the levee, watching the street performers flip and dance around the French Quarter, he kept his hand flat against her back. As they walked back to his Camaro, he held her hand.
Keira liked the attention, but as they drove down Canal Street, his hand resting on her knee, she wasn’t sure what that attention meant exactly.
It hadn’t been a perfect date, the constant calls he ignored throughout dinner and as they walked the Quarter had been an annoyance, but Kona smiled at her a lot, held her close to him. He wasn’t perfect, but that’s what she liked about him.
“You wanna go to my place? Grab a beer?”
The streetlight above them was red and in its reflection Kona’s dark eyes looked shadowed. Verve Pipe’s “The Freshman” funneled out of the speakers as he stared at her, eyes low lidded and a clear question moving up his eyebrows. She opened her mouth to answer, something biting working its way up her throat, but the light changed and the asshole behind them laid on his horn.
“I guess that’s a no,” he said, gaze on her as he shifted gears.
They drove down Canal, passing by hotels, restaurant and tourist shops, and Keira had to take a moment, inhale the warm, musky scent of his cologne and the soft leather of the seats before she was able to answer.
“I’m not really interested in being around your friends, Kona.” She’d had enough of the football team at Nathan’s party, and from what she’d already seen of the team house told her that Kona’s “home” wouldn’t exactly be quiet or even remotely sane. She wanted to be with him, not his fans. His hand left her knee and she could feel the annoyance vibrating from his body. It was in the way he straightened his neck, how he leaned away from her. But before she’d let him get angry, Keira grabbed his hand, pulled it back to her knee and he watched her, saw how she laid her fingers on top of his. The tension lessened and a lazy smile pulled at his mouth. “I’m also not really eager to go where so many have been before.”
It was a sting, but one Kona took in stride.
“Fair enough.”
One turn and then another and the CPU campus came into view. Keira loved the entrance to their small university. The huge oaks and magnolia trees that lined the street, the slow moving street car that slid down the median and the massive buildings that looked like something out of the Scottish Highlands and not the center of a huge city always made Keira wistful, wanting to walk those cobbled sidewalks at sunset just to soak it all in. Kona pulled into her building, the parking lot relatively empty of cars; the green light of the clock told her it was only eleven. Leann wouldn’t be in their room. Saturday nights were for Michael, and Keira knew she probably wouldn’t see her cousin until the next afternoon.
Kona killed the engine but left the battery running and the music changed, pumped Jodeci’s “Feenin’” into the cab. Keira blushed, and stared out the window as the lyrics danced between them. Baby making music always made her smile.
She could feel Kona watching her. His body was so large and as his elbow rested on the console between them, that massive presence became palpable, invading her space. There was sensory overload working in that car—the heat of Kona’s body pumping toward her, the smell of his skin, the slow, sensual beat of the bassline in the song—she felt it all like a vibration to her senses and without saying a word, without even touching her, Kona Hale had Keira crossing her legs, hoping that sweet throb in her center would ease.
“Wildcat?” he said, voice tickling right against her neck.
She turned her head, let it rest against the seat and Kona was there, just there, with his lips close enough to touch. All she had to do was lift her chin, take what he was offering.
“Last night, at Nathan’s?” She nodded, letting a slow blink bring back those intense minutes in the hallway. “That… that kind of shit usually doesn’t do it for me. Know what I’m sayin’?”
She knew what he meant. There had been anger and resentment and an overabundance of reaction. She couldn’t explain what that was, what had her lashing out and liking it, but Keira couldn’t deny what it had done to her body.
“That was a first for me too.”
Kona’s head dipped, just once and the long stare he gave her heightened Keira’s already sensitive nerves. He moved in closer, one finger brushing across her forehead and his eyes followed the movement as though he loved the way her hair fell against her skin, how it felt between his knuckles.