A noisy, angry breath through his nose. “Why would she do that? Why would she torture you that way?”
“Because that’s what she does. She’s the youngest of four attention whores. They’re a circus, four gorgeous clowns with gags galore. Except instead of squirting flowers and hand buzzers, it’s exhibitionism and insults. They’re in constant competition with each other, and Natasha is queen. I suppose it’s her right as the youngest. And they’re rewarded constantly on social media and through their show for their shitty behavior.”
“I’ve never watched it,” he admitted. “Just never sounded interesting to me.”
“Me neither. I mean, I’ve watched a few episodes because they’re my clients and I thought I should give them a fair shake since everybody knows they’re a shitshow. I wanted to judge them on their own merit. But I think the show has created a drama machine. Their audience craves it, and so they keep delivering. I just don’t think assholes are funny. It’s why I hate Seinfeld.”
I watched him for a reaction. There was always a reaction—the admittance was blasphemy in some circles.
But Kash only smirked. “Well, they are all assholes.”
“Thank you,” I said, gesturing to him. “I just don’t think it’s funny to be a jerk. Call me crazy.”
“I don’t think you’re crazy. Not about Seinfeld and not about the Felix Femmes.” He paused. “How’s everything else going?”
Brock. He meant Brock, and I let loose another sigh. “I don’t know. I’ve got it all packed up in boxes where I can’t see it in the hopes that I’ll forget about it.”
“And how’s that working out?”
“Terrible. But what else can I do? Wallowing won’t do any good. I’d rather keep trucking in the hopes that, at some point, it won’t hurt so bad.”
A flash of emotion shot behind his eyes, there and then gone. “What’s been the hardest part?” he asked honestly, so sincere.
I answered instantly, before I had time to think, having already dissected and cataloged the entire affair. “The hardest part is being wrong. I was stupid to trust him. I should have known better. I could have avoided all this if I’d been smarter. If I’d paid more attention.”
He waited for me to continue, but when I didn’t, he said, “I think it’s worth noting that the hardest part isn’t losing him.”
“It’s not,” I answered definitively. “I’m more confused about how I dated a guy with calf implants.”
A laugh burst out of him, and I smiled at the sound, though my heart twisted.
“It just seemed right, you know? In my grand master plan of life, he was exactly the right man for me.” My mind pulled that thread, adding, “Maybe that’s been the real hard part, the truth under the truth. Realizing that the infallible plan was in fact fallible. That what I thought I wanted isn’t what I wanted after all.”
“As someone who seems to operate strictly by rule and plan, I can imagine that’d be hard,” he said simply.
I was struck by the truth of his statement, a flick of a tether in my heart. It wasn’t so much what he’d said, his observance no revelation, but in the way he’d said it. In the soft assurance of his face and his solid presence. For the first time in a very long time, I felt understood and heard, and by a man who didn’t know me at all.
It was safety, I realized, and the feeling struck another chord.
“Ivy said I should find myself a rebound.” It was a test, a gentle probing for a reaction.
It was offered by way of the warming of his eyes and the ticking up of one corner of his lips. “Did she?”
“She did,” was my only answer. I took a sip of my tea, watching him over the rim of my mug.
“Well, they say the best way to get over somebody is to get under somebody.”
A laugh, nervous and tittering, jumped out of me.
“You looking for volunteers, Lila?”
My laughter died at his directness. “That’s silly,” I hedged, certain I misread his meaning.
“Is it?”
I opened my mouth to oppose but closed it again. Then, I snagged a thought. “I’m not really in a place to make pragmatic decisions.”
“On a rebound?”
“On much of anything. But yes, that too. How can I willingly involve someone in all of this? It wouldn’t be fair.”
“The biggest danger is to the reboundee,” he said. “And I happen to be immune.”
The proposition hung in the air for a moment, simmering between us. There was no mistaking his intention, and a shocking rush of yes whispered through me.
“Immune?” I asked quietly. “How?”
A pause. “I already know what things are between us and what they’re not. You’re not looking for anything serious, and I’ve never been one for the notion. The reason rebounds exist, why they happen so often, is that when you’ve been hurt, a distraction makes you forget the pain. And I’ve been told I’m an excellent distraction.”
That smile, tilted and teasing. But his eyes were dark and full of promises.
He stood, closing the space between us with little more than a shift. My mug disappeared from my hand, placed on the table by his. But I hadn’t seen the action—there was only Kash, towering and sturdy and safe. His smile faded as his gaze hooked on my lips.
“I can make you forget all about him,” he promised. His hand, warm and rough, cupped my jaw, thumbed my cheek. “Is that what you want?”
My thoughts were a tangle, jumbled by his proximity. By the heat of him radiating into the chill of my skin, the damp of my hair. The scent of him sliding over me, around me, pulling me into him without thought or permission.
Something in my mind yelled through the fog to stop, to think. To make a pros and cons list, to be rational. But with Kash looking at me like that, holding my face like he was, none of it seemed to matter except for one question, the question he’d asked me.
Did I want to forget Brock? I pulled the thought from the mire, searched for my answer.
And that answer was clear and true as daylight.
“Yes,” I whispered.
Deliberately, slowly, he framed my face with both hands, tilted it up to the sky. Moonlight burst around him in a halo, the sound of rain against the glass of the greenhouse, the musky scent of earth and fragrant flowers. The moment held, quiet and still. And just when I thought maybe he’d changed his mind, he shifted, slanted, tilted my face with tender force, and brushed his hot lips to mine.
A sharp, simultaneous intake of breath, the kiss first a brush, then a seam, then a heady tangle of lips and tongues. We twisted together, relief palpable and anticipation tangible as I stood on shaky legs without breaking the kiss. My hands slid up his chest, over his shoulders, around his neck, into the silken depths of his hair. Our bodies were flush, his hand in the small of my back without knowledge of how it’d gotten there, holding me to him as if he couldn’t get me close enough.
I was no longer cold. There in the circle of his arms, I was on fire.
Nothing about the kiss was delicate and yet it held a gentility, an exploring tenderness. His fingertips tasted my skin with exquisite demand, precise and deliberate as they trailed the length of my neck, the line of my jaw, the tender space behind my ear. With the slightest squeeze of possession, he tilted my face, angling to delve deeper into my mouth. And with a sharp breath through my nose, I did the same.