He couldn’t stop now, Flick thought—this was just getting interesting. “But?”
“But I felt like the only thing that wasn’t stopping them from ripping their clothes off and banging each other senseless was because I was in the room.”
Flick smiled at his grumpy tone. She pushed a button and liquid poured into the small cup below. “And why would them sleeping together be a problem?” she asked as she picked up his coffee and walked back to the table.
“It would be like putting a match into a tank full of liquid gas.”
“They are both adults and it’s their explosion,” Flick reminded him. “Speaking of adults—or rather kids who think they’re adults—how did your conversation with Tally go?”
Kai groaned. “As well as can be expected.”
“I know it’s not any of my business, and you don’t have to tell me, but how did she end up in Mercy? Why is she here?” Flick asked, knowing that there was a good chance that Kai would tell her to butt out. Or he’d clam up or change the subject. She knew Kai would rather have his legs waxed than open up.
“Now that’s a long story.”
Flick wrinkled her nose. Well, it was worth a try.
Kai looked at his watch and was surprised to see that he'd been sitting in the bakery for thirty minutes already. Time seemed to fly when he was with Flick, whether they were making love or just, it seemed, talking. She was easy to talk to. He didn’t find himself checking his sentences before they left his mouth.
But now she was asking about his past, which was a minefield he didn’t really want to revisit. But Tally’s arrival in Mercy had catapulted him back to that time, to the person he was before. Talking about it probably wouldn’t help but for the first time—ever—he wanted to share...something. He wanted Flick to know something of the person he still was, beneath the muscles and the good clothes and nice car. Because that person was a large part of who he really was. Part savage, part thug, all mean.
Maybe it would douse the warmth he saw in her eyes, the desire. Both could disappear when he explained who he really was, what he’d done. And it would be better that way; she would distance herself and he’d stop thinking about her, and that part of his life could go back to normal.
“Are you sure you want to know?” Kai demanded, steel in his voice.
Flick didn’t seem fazed by his hard tone. “I asked, didn’t I?”
“It’s not pretty.”
“The truth seldom is,” Flick countered.
Kai took a sip of his espresso and placed the cup back in its saucer. “I grew up rough. Very rough. No parents, very little adult supervision.”
Flick’s eyes remained steady on his face and she didn’t react to his blunt statement. Okay, then. “I’m not going to talk about my childhood,” he told her, pinning her to her seat with a fierce look. “I’mnotgoing there.”
Flick’s expression didn’t change and her lack of reaction enabled him to go on. Oh, he still expected her to run, but she’d do it with grace and dignity and little fanfare. He hesitated, not wanting to jump, wanting to keep the status quo. Wanting to pretend, for just a second, that he could be a man who could be worthy of her, of something more than a hot, temporary affair.
But he wasn’t and he couldn’t be. He’d made his choices and they’d stained his soul. Being alone was the price he had to pay. It was just the way it was; he couldn’t start whining about it now. Besides, what did he know of being a regular guy, someone who could be a lover and a friend, someone who could be part of something bigger than himself? Fuck all.
It wasn’t like he’d had any decent role models to show him the ropes. At the time, survival had been more important.
The tips of Flick’s fingers on the inside of his wrist pulled him back to the present; to the rich smell of his coffee mingling with her light, floral perfume, to a curl that had fallen out of her ponytail, and to the fine line of her jaw. God, he’d much rather be kissing her than talking. But he had to do this—he had to put some distance between them, to smother the feelings she aroused in him. Because if he didn’t they would build and suffocate him.
It was all still a matter of survival, emotional rather than physical this time, but just as crucial.
“Talk, Kai.”
He forced his tongue to form the words. “At nearly eighteen, I was a semi-hard criminal, running scams, boosting cars, and, like I’d done all my life, trading information.”
“Where?”
“In the less salubrious parts of DC. Places you’ve probably never heard of. I was a street rat, possibly the king of the street rats.”
“Okay.”
“It took all my cunning and street smarts to avoid being dragged into one of the gangs that ruled those areas.”
Flick rested her chin in the palm of her hand, fascinated but not shocked. “How did you do that?”