the flat of his tongue inside her mouth, tasting, touching like he couldn’t get enough of her. Every touch meant something, and Gia felt each one with how deeply he kissed her, with how he moved over her, shifting their bodies against the cushions at their backs.
This was nothing like she remembered of him. There was no absinthe or bourbon to dull her senses. There was only the rain and darkness and Kai pressed against her, showing her with the shape of his mouth and the weight of his body how much he wanted her.
“Kai…” She said the name like a wish, trying it out in a breathy whisper that was half moan, half hopeful need and Gia wasn’t sure which she meant more. She only knew that if he stopped touching her, stopped the trail of his lips against her neck, his teeth against her skin and the steely hold of his fingers in her hair, she might just die.
“Kai…” she said again, surprised when he looked up at her, kissing her mouth, adjusting them so that his hips moved against hers and she felt the full size and shape of what he had for her.
“What do you need, nani?” He moved against her and she dropped her head back, fighting the ache that rose up between her legs. “Tell me what you need me to give you and it’s yours.”
“I want…”
Did she know? Gia wasn’t sure. In the dark, the answers came easily. There was nothing here but sensation and movement. There was quiet and the secrets only they could keep. But the morning always came. There would be no stopping it. That was the hardest truth Gia ever had to learn. You can never hide from the sun. It will always rise to meet you.
“Tell me,” he said, pulling on her leg to move them closer still together, groaning when she instinctively reacted with the brush of her hips against him.
When Kai moved his hand under the tee she wore, when he leaned back over her to move in for the kiss, Gia almost let him touch her. She almost relinquished all her control and let that lineman take whatever he wanted from her.
“Kai…I don’t…”
“Gia… please…” He grunted, pulling his hand from her bare skin but didn’t move away from her completely. She could make out the frustration in the hard lines of his features and the hard set of his mouth. When she touched his lips, smoothing her fingers over that soft skin, some of the tension left him. “You’re killing me.”
“I’m…sorry. I’m just…” She didn’t know how to explain herself. She couldn’t when she didn’t understand it herself. Gia only knew the path Kai wanted her on led to heartache and she’d had enough of that to last a lifetime. She wanted him, but not enough to risk what remained of the thing she’d once called a heart again.
Kai opened his mouth, making to speak against her fingers, but stopped, glancing into his apartment when the lights flickered on and a knock sounded at the front door.
“The super,” Gia supplied, moving her hand from his face.
“The super,” he agreed, slipping from the lounger before he pulled Gia to her unsteady feet. “I’ll help you to your apartment.”
“No,” she said, finding her ankle felt less tender and she could manage with a bit more weight on it than she’d been able to bear a few hours before. “I’ve got it.”
She was halfway to the door when Kai stopped her, calling her name over the sound of a second knock.
“If you…figure things out…”
She nodded, managing a smile. “I know where you live, junior.”
“Good. Then you won’t get lost on your way back here.”
9.
GIA
SHE THOUGHT OF MOVING. Several times since the day she had realized her new neighbor was Kai Pukui, she’d had thoughts of getting her realtor to poke around the city and find another place for her. He was a distraction she didn’t need. He was a temptation that had her contemplating the worst kinds of decisions—the kind that would see her ruining twenty years of hard damn work.
But Kai was a force of nature, one Gia didn’t seem able to avoid. Even if he wasn’t trying to enter her orbit, that annoying star circled her. Coming too close, reminding her what she’d almost allowed herself to do with very little fight from her.
He was an infant when you had a Rider Strong poster hanging over your bed in fourth grade, she reminded herself as she