The Kiss by Natalie Wrye

Author:Natalie Wrye [Wrye, Natalie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Wrye Writing

Chapter 17

KAYLA

Wednesday evening

“Kayla!” Deacon calls over my shoulder. “Kayla, slow down a sec. Just fucking wait.”

“No thanks, Deacon.” I reply, rushing towards the elevator. “I’m really tired.”

“Yeah, you seem like it, Jesse Owens. This isn’t a race.”

“Then stop following me.”

“You’re angry,” he calls out as I head farther into the hotel lobby.

“I’m not angry!”

“Then why are you yelling?”

I whirl on him, right in front of the elevator bank. “I’m not yelling!”

“Yeah, because that’s the normal volume of your voice.” He stops just as I stop. “Now tell me what’s wrong.”

“Nothing.” I say, crossing my arms, suddenly aware of the noise we’re making in the swank, overly expensive entrance hall. I lower my voice. “I just thought that I might see if you wanted that nightcap. I knocked on your door but there wasn’t an answer. But it looks like you already had your nightcap.” She motions back towards the bar. “Good for you. I hope this one has less STD’s than Daphne Summers. You know, I heard she never did fully get rid of that syphilis.”

He ignores me. “This is about that kiss, isn’t it?”

“Deacon, leave it.” But he doesn’t.

“No, seriously, this is about the kiss in my suite at Marilyn and Jesse’s engagement party.” He turns silent, watching my face. “Look at you. You’re seething right now. And you wouldn’t be if that kiss didn’t mean anything to you.”

I glare. “Why do you care so much about a dumb kiss in the first place?”

“Because it means something. And I know we’ve been trying to avoid it. Trying to act like everything’s fine between us after apologizing to each other and working together like we didn’t mean what happened. But we did. And it did. It happened, okay? That fucking kiss that ruined us both happened.” He throws his hands in the air, letting them drop just as quickly. “And I’m not ashamed. I’m done trying to hide how I feel, just in case you are. Pretending like this is fucking exhausting. And I’m honestly done.”

My best friend steps forward, crowding my space. The overly elegant hotel lobby loses all of its air in the moment that he faces me, towering over my small form, and I’m tempted to take a step back.

To ‘pull a Deacon.’ To flee. To run.

As I would have sixteen years ago at nine, when running was the easy way out. When you didn’t have to face the things you didn’t want to.

When life was as easy as putting on your tennis shoes and tearing away from the objects that hurt you.

But Deacon is too damn close, too damn…everywhere.

And I don’t want to lose any more ground to this man, who just so happens to be more intimidating than anyone I’ve ever known. A man who understands me, knows my ins and outs like the back of his lengthy hand. A man who is no longer even a bit of the boy I once knew, whose pure masculine power is so palpable in the air that my knees go weak at the sheer force of his overwhelming presence.

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