What the Heart Haunts(8)
***
Nalla rocked under his kiss, her hands fisting in his shirt as she clung to him. He was firm, but demanding. Determination and longing making up for inexperience, raw need giving him confidence. This time she couldn’t shove him away. Nalla kissed him back, nibbling at his lower lip until they parted and she swept a tongue inside his mouth. Tasting him again, everything that she’d once had and at times still longed for, she could taste it all in his mouth. Like a promise ripe for the taking.
He drew back on a ragged breath, his eyes widening as he looked at her. Almost haunted. “But I still need to know, why did you kiss me?”
He lazily rubbed a thumb over the edge of her jaw. It was a good question. Not one she could answer easily.
She cringed a little. “At first? Because you reminded me of the Hunt, of running...because I wanted Herne to lose another Hound.”
And because I wanted you to fall.
“And now?”
Nalla started to shake her head but he held her still. “Nalla, and now?”
“Because I’m tired of being lonely.” She squeezed her eyes shut to hold off the tears. “Why are you doing this?”
Khost leaned in and kissed her again, his lips a soft smile against hers. “At first?”
A heart-breaking chuckle slipped from her as she waited for his answer.
“Because I didn’t have a clue and I’d never felt anything like it before.”
She swallowed. “And now?”
Khost leaned his forehead against hers and sighed.
“Now? Because you make me feel things that somewhere deep inside me, I know I’ve felt before, but I can’t remember when. I can’t remember anything past a good run. I’m tired of forgetting, Nalla, and you make me remember.”
His thumb skated over the edge of her lips. “You make me feel.”
She looked at him then, unable to avoid it. His bright gold eyes were vivid in the moonlight, wild, but not the same endless expanse that she’d first seen. This time a man stared back out at her, Khost stared back out at her. Wonder and want so deep in that gaze it almost sucked her down. Sadness lurked around the edges, a longing that made her heart twist in empathy.
His gaze slipped to her lips again and Nalla wanted nothing more than for him to kiss her again. He made her feel too, things she hadn’t felt in a long, long time. Warm, needed, happy. But there was no going back, not for him.
“Don’t,” she whispered. “If you cross that line, you’ll be stuck here. Don’t you remember what I told you?”
“But if I don’t cross that line, I just go back. To endless nothing. To something fake and numb. Is it supposed to be like that? Where I don’t feel anything at all except...sweet Herne I don’t even know what to call it. The run. It’s amazing, but it’s like a high that fades into nothing until the next ride. You just exist when you’re not running, nothing more. There are never any dull moments. Never this longing, never this sadness. My chest,” he paused and pressed a hand to it. “It hurts.”
“So going back means you don’t have to feel this pain! That’s not a bad thing.”
Khost smiled, the gold in his eyes lightening. “But when I kiss you, I feel lighter. Breathless. Almost as wild as I do on the Hunt. It makes the pain right here and now worth it, and the pain? It makes the happy tightness in my chest seem real.”
He nipped her bottom lip. “Feeling this—all of this—it feels right. Or am I wrong, am I not supposed to feel a damned thing?”
Nalla couldn’t tell him that. She wouldn’t take loving Malek or Gabriel back, even if it got her back in the Hunt. She longed for that kind of love again, but she had love to compare against Herne and the Wild Hunt. Khost had nothing, no clue. Still... She couldn’t tell him that people weren’t meant to feel...not when the opposite was true.
People were meant to love.
Her frown must have been all the answer he needed.
“See, I didn’t think so.” Khost leaned in and kissed her again, his body crowding close, his hips bumping hers. “So I don’t want to go back.”
“That’s a choice you make for forever.”
He shrugged. “Then I’m making it. And maybe it won’t be so bad because we’re not alone. Not saying we’re meant for forever, but you won’t be the only one knowing what’s up there and what’s right here. You won’t be the only one that’s left the Hunt behind.”
And she was so tired of being lonely. Nalla hugged him tighter and drowned out whatever else he was going to say on a kiss.
***
Chapter Five
Khost groaned under the weight of her kiss, the way her hands shook when she cupped his jaw and held him there. Her fingers snagged in the edges of his hair, tugging as she drank him down. He stepped into her until he heard the soft thud of her body hitting the truck behind her, a low whimper sounding in her throat. Khost broke the kiss and leaned his head against hers, just breathing in the scent of her. Her shampoo left a citrus tang against the back of his throat when he breathed her down deep.