Jesus. How was I supposed to face him when we both knew he was better off without me? We should just scrap this whole weeklong trip, and go our separate ways. He could continue going wherever he was going. I could go back to Texas and find out if they had rehabs for self-destructive bitches.
“Just a minute.”
He didn’t listen, because a few seconds later the knob was turning, and the door that I hadn’t locked was swinging open.
I rushed to wipe at the mascara under my eyes, and grabbed a paper towel to pretend like I’d been washing my hands.
“Hey,” Hunt said.
“Jesus. Impatient much? If you have to go that bad, I’ll get out of your way.”
I was almost past him when he caught my elbow and turned me toward him.
“Don’t,” he said. “Don’t do that.”
“Do what?”
“Pretend that you’re okay when you’re not.”
Funny thing, that. You have to know what’s real to stop pretending, and I lost sight of that a long time ago.
“I’m not pre—”
“Kelsey.”
Fuck.
His eyes. His goddamn eyes drilled into the very core of me.
“Why do you care?” I was horrified to hear the hitch in my breath.
“Why wouldn’t I care, princess?”
“Because I’m horrible. All I do is screw things up. Including you. You should be running as fast as you can in the other direction.”
“But then who would carry you when you fake-twist your ankle?”
I choked on a laugh, which turned into a sob, and I covered my face with my hands before he could see me fall apart. “See? Horrible.”
He pried my hands away, so I just turned my face down.
“You’re not horrible, Kelsey. You are vibrant and beautiful, and you burn. Burn so vividly. Fires can damage, but they’re also beautiful and vital and they can purify and give the chance to start fresh. You’re not horrible. Not at all.”
I wanted to listen to him, wanted to believe the things that he was saying, but my brain could only seem to zero in on the fact that he knew I was destructive, too. I’d spent my whole life wanting to be something more, to be noticed, to burn like Kerouac’s roman candles, but I’d never stopped to think about the harm I could do.
“I think I should go home,” I said.
His hands on my elbows pulled me in closer, and he said, “I don’t know what to do to convince you.”
“There’s nothing,” I said. “There’s nothing you can do.”
I gave him a sad smile, and the hands on my elbows slipped around to the small of my back, and his lips claimed mine in a scorching kiss.
Except that. You can do that.
I resisted for a second, trying to pull back, but his arms wrapped all the way around my waist, crushing me to his chest, and a few seconds of resistance was all I had in me. I clutched at his back, my fingers scrabbling to hold on to him. His tongue slid between my lips, gliding alongside my own.
This was burning. The heat, the fire between us blazed, and I couldn’t be close enough to him. I let one hand trail down to his lower back, and slipped it beneath his shirt to press into his heated skin. At the contact, his kiss turned frenzied, and I felt the cool porcelain of the sink bump against my lower back. I dug my fingernails into his skin, and a rumbling groan poured from his mouth. The arms around my waist slid to my hips, and he lifted me up and onto the sink.
“I should stop,” he whispered against my mouth.
I hooked my legs around his waist and pulled him into me. I found that spot at the corner of his jaw just below his ear that I knew affected him and pressed a light kiss there. Then I grazed the sensitive skin with my teeth, and heard his hissing breath above me.
I said, “Don’t you dare.”
I returned to his lips and used the hand not under his shirt to pull his face closer to mine. My back pressed against the mirror, and the cool contact sent shivers across my warm skin. His hands slid from my bare knees up my thighs to the edge of my shorts. His fingertips dipped beneath the hem, ticking the skin of my inner thighs, and drawing a low moan from my mouth.
I tipped my head back against the mirror, and his lips trailed down my neck. I was so undone by him that my hands and legs were shaking, but that didn’t stop me from desperately pulling him closer. I traced the firm muscles of his back with one hand, and his hips pressed harder into mine in response.
I could feel the length of him pressed against the zipper of my shorts, and his mouth was working complete and utter magic on my neck, and I was certain that at any moment I was going to fall apart. I was going to burn so hot and so fast that I would just disintegrate in his arms.
His hips rocked into mine, his arousal pushing right at my core, and I arched into him moaning. He kissed from my neck down to my collarbone, and then nudged my shirt aside to place a hot kiss just above the line of my cle**age.
I reached my other hand down, intending to pull his shirt up and off, when a knock sounded on the door.
It was hesitant, and the voice that followed was the sweet café owner.
He said, “Food, sir. Madam.”
Hunt’s head dropped into the cradle of space between my neck and shoulder, and he groaned. “Damn it.”
Was it terrible that I didn’t care about going back out there? Sure, it would look bad, but we were newlyweds. Or they thought we were. I was all for staying in here and finishing what we’d started.
But before I could piece together the right words for this proposal, Hunt had stepped back and turned to face the wall.