I inhaled, filling my lungs with her scent.
Clean, crisp lime wrapped in vanilla.
Like she’d rolled around in a bed of those little white blossoms.
Shit, I wanted to do a little rolling around, too.
“Kenna.” Her name was a rough plea from my mouth.
Do you feel this?
Shivers tremored through her body, rising across her flesh, and she slowly turned around. Immediately, she backed into the counter, not shocked to find me there but somehow terrified at the same time.
She swiped the back of her hand over the droplets of water that clung to her lips.
An impossibly sexy move that she had no idea she’d perfected.
“Hey, K-k-kyle . . . I . . . I was just going to bed,” she said, flustered and sweet and shy. I wanted to dip my fingers into the well of it, stir it up, watch her bloom.
She started to slide out around me. I stepped in her way. Her eyes widened with surprise. A timid animal that was trapped.
I cleared my throat, not sure what to say, but knowing I needed to give her something.
I’d waltzed in like an arrogant dick. Making demands. But I knew her well enough to know she would have sent me packing if I’d given her another option.
“I just wanted to tell you how much I appreciate you being cool with me being here.”
Incredulity filled her eyes. “You didn’t leave me much of a choice, did you?”
I angled my head her direction. “You really want me to leave? If you really, really want me to go, say it, and I will. Don’t get me wrong, I want to stay.”
Fuck, I wanted to stay.
“But if you really don’t want to be around me that bad? I’ll leave right now.”
Distress swirled around her being, the girl squirming, casting her gaze away before she finally looked back up at me. “No. I really don’t. It’s just sometimes hard for me to accept strangers being in my space.”
I inched closer, eradicating all but a breadth between us, the air growing dense and thick. A frenzy of energy swirled around her, nerves and anxiousness, and I swore, need.
I could taste it.
Feel it.
Wanted to drown in it.
I dipped in closer. “Kenna. You think I’m a stranger?”
I said it like a question. Hoping to God she’d take the step, make the move, or at least give me some kind of indication she might want me the way I wanted her.
Tell me that she recognized me.
Panic parted her mouth, and she swallowed hard. Then she fumbled to duck out from under me, spinning around with her hands pushed out like a shield between us. “I, um, so . . . I need to go to bed. Goodnight.”
She spun back around so fast that she tripped over her feet, stumbling forward, catching herself just before she fell. Her hand went up to tug at a piece of hair that had gotten loose from the pile on top of her head, embarrassment radiating from her as she beelined for her room.
The door clicked shut with a finality that had me pressing my hands to my face, wanting to punch myself in my own dick.
That did not go well.
God damn it.
Frustrated, I went for the fridge. Jerking open the door, I grabbed a bottle and popped off the cap. I tossed it into the trash and started to head out, only to pause when I noticed she’d left her laptop sitting on the counter.
Open an inch.
Like she’d still been working on it and carried it in while she got a drink of water.
I glanced over my shoulder, wondering if I should take it to her.
Hell, knowing I should.
I angled back so I could see down the short hall, and the light had gone off in her room.
Guessed that was all the go I needed to start nudging the screen up, just a fraction, wanting to feel closer to her, understand her better, maybe read one of the essays that had entranced her all day so I could see exactly what it was that made her tick. What put those twitchy, adorable smiles on her face and made her teeth clamp down on her bottom lip.
Okay, fine, I was being a nosy fucker.
My brow pinched when I caught a glimpse of what was on the screen.
Not an essay.
Pulse thudding, I glanced over my shoulder again, wondering what the fuck I was doing when I lifted the lid the rest of the way.
The words glowing on the screen came into full view.
I scanned over them.
It was a blog, and a recent post was up, an answer to a question that had been posted left halfway completed, the curser still blinking like a beacon in the night, something about dealing with social fear and how it can be debilitating.
What the fuck?
Unease curled through my being, and I knew I should slam it closed, but there was nothing I could do but note the blog website address as I lowered the screen to where it’d been left.