She just needed some time to sort through all of this and think.
Chapter Eleven
Drea was tipsy AF. Katy could tell from the way she stumbled on her way out of Kannon’s truck. And then she turned and leaned back in, pointing at Kannon, who sat behind the wheel watching her with an amused smile.
“Hey! Hey, you, Lionmaaaaan.” Drea slurred. “You’re all right. A little scary when your eyes are all lit up like a bug light like that…” She swirled her finger in the general direction of Kannon’s face. “But you seem nice to my friend, and she could use a nice man after the last one.” She stood back onto her driveway and gestured grandly to Katy, who was sitting in the middle of the bench seat next to Kannon, wishing to God they could do Drea’s drop-off faster. “I approve of you fondling her poontang—”
“Okay!” Katy yelled, reaching for the door handle to close it. “We’re good here. I’ll text you when I get back to the hotel safe.”
“—of watering her delicate flower! Splish splash,” Drea called through the closed door.
“Oh, God,” Katy uttered, mortified. Was that Kannon laughing? She couldn’t tell over the shame that was roaring in her ears.
And Drea wasn’t done. “You’re welcome to rub the magic lamp and see if all your wishes come true!”
“Please drive away now,” she muttered to Kannon.
“What’s your number?” Drea was frowning at her phone, poking the screen. “I’ll send you pictures of Katy when she was in braces. I’ll save your digits under the name Aladdin. Get it? Aladdin and the magic lamp.”
Katy stared straight ahead, her cheeks feeling like she’d fallen face-first into a bonfire.
Through his laughter, Kannon gestured to Drea and said, “I like her.”
“I don’t. I’m demoting her. She’s now just an acquaintance,” she muttered as Drea’s phone clattered onto the concrete.
“Don’t worry!” Drea called out. “It’s not broken! I got a kid-proof screen protector. It works on drunk people too.” She laughed at herself, picked up the mishandled cell phone, and stumbled toward her front door, her purse cradled in her arms like a baby.
Kannon snorted and pulled out of Drea’s driveway. “What hotel?”
“I’m at the Mountain Lodge.”
“Whoo, fancy.”
It was her turn to snort. “Before you go thinking I’m rolling in the dough, I haven’t taken a vacation in two years, and I got the room for half-off with promotion codes and schmoozing the reservation desk. I’m very charming.”
“Agreed.”
The sound of the blinker was loud in the silence that followed, so Katy leaned forward and turned up the radio dial. A Beck Brothers song came on, and she smiled. “I grew up on country music.”
“Yeah? Which parent liked it?”
“Uuuh, my dad. He was the only parent.”
Kannon frowned and tossed her a quick glance. “Where was your mom?”
“She was around until I was three. I don’t really remember her. My dad said she wasn’t cut out for being a mom and left to pursue acting.”
“I’m sorry,” he murmured.
“Ugh, don’t be. I’m not some sob story, and I don’t need pity. I didn’t feel deprived. My dad’s sister, my aunt, was the one I went to when I needed girl advice, and I quit looking for my mother’s face in other women when I was really little. I looked her up once. She has social media. She seems happy. No husband, no kids. She travels everywhere. She didn’t look too sad that I wasn’t in her life, so I decided I wouldn’t be sad that she wasn’t in mine.”
“You say it lightly, but it must’ve been hard to do.”
“Nooooo pity.”
Kannon chuckled and gave a two-fingered wave to a driver coming from the opposite direction that waved to him first. “I get it. You’re tough on that stuff. It’s pretty cool you just decided not to let it affect your life.”
“Yeah, well, I settled for a guy who didn’t even like me back so I’m pretty sure that would be some long-leftover abandonment issues or mommy issues or whatever. So I didn’t get away from it totally unscathed.”
“Whatever, you seem just fine to me.”
“Really?” she asked, doing her best not to slur her words because, good Lord, those margaritas were still working their way through her.
“You’re talking to a lion shifter raised in the most brutal Pride in the world, at war with some crew or another for most of his life, with commitment issues out the tail. One of us seems relatively normal between the two of us, and it ain’t me.”
“Despite your life, you seem pretty normal to me, too,” she said softly.
He pulled into the circle drive of the lodge and put the truck into park. “If you give me the keys to the minivan, I can have it waiting in the parking lot for you by morning.”
“Why are you so nice to me?” she asked suddenly.
He shrugged and stared out the front window for a few seconds too long. “I don’t know,” he admitted.
With a sigh, she handed him the keys to the minivan and got out. So did he, and when he met her at the front of the truck, she stuck her hand out for a shake. “Today was special.” She shouldn’t say these things to him, but this was the last time she would ever see him so it felt right to be honest.
He stood straight, spine stiff, looking down at her with some unreadable emotion in his eyes. “I wish…” He made a click sound behind his teeth and looked away at the mountain view. When he looked at her again, he had a plastered smile on his face. The kind Dayton used to get when she talked to him about their future. The forced kind of smile that hid the things he really wanted to say.
“I feel…sad,” she whispered.
“It’s probably just the margaritas talking,” he said in a flat tone. Ooooh, he’d already said goodbye then.
“Okay.” She clutched her purse tighter against her side as if that would ease the ache in her chest.
She walked away, but before she reached the door, Kannon’s hand was on the inside of her elbow, turning her. And then with a fiery look in his eyes, he pressed his lips against hers. Hard. He gripped her neck and pushed his tongue past her lips. She was supposed to stop this…for some reason…right? What reason again? Something about the color purple…
But he tasted good, and the low growl in his throat was so sexy. He was different from any man she’d ever known. and she got swept up in the moment. Sliding her arms around his neck, she kissed him back, and he lifted her off the ground with a rib-cracking hug. Her feet dangled, but she didn’t care. She held on even tighter and moved with him as he changed the angle of his face the other way.
And she kissed him, and kissed him, and kissed him. No one else existed in this town, this state, this country, this world, this universe. It was just her and Kannon, the boy who made her feel again. Trust again. Want…again.
He gentled the kiss and lapped at her tongue over and over, slower and slower until she didn’t know where she ended and he began. What was this feeling in her chest? Joy? Safety? Contentment? She didn’t even know. All she knew was that she didn’t want this to end. Not just the kiss either, but any of this.
She moaned softly into his mouth, and he dragged her waist against him so hard she could feel his thick erection pressing her just right. Oooooh, she wanted more. “Kannon,” she murmured against his lips.
Kannon froze. His hands stopped massaging her, his lips stopped moving against hers. His body might as well have been a stone statue.
And suddenly, he released her. Stunned, she watched him stride away. He didn’t look back either. He didn’t say goodbye or drag it out another second. His profile was angry as he slammed the driver’s side door beside him. Angry at her? Angry at himself? She didn’t know.
The roar of the truck engine startled her and made her jump. When he peeled out, he left black tire marks on the circle drive as he escaped her.
And that’s the way it was. Boys got girls to fall for them, and then they left them feeling like they were all broken apart.
She’d been wrong to kiss him back, but right in her decision to end this—whatever was happening between them.
She was free.
But for some reason, freedom had never tasted quite this bitter.
Chapter Twelve
Why couldn’t he leave?
Why, after half an hour, was Kannon still sitting in the parking lot, staring at the front door to the Mountain Lodge and kicking himself for what he’d done? He’d kissed her again. So what? He’d kissed her that first night in the road, and he’d been fine. He was fine. Totally fine.
He tried again to turn the wheel and leave, but his foot refused to press down, hovering right over the gas pedal. “Fuck,” he ground out.
Katy had done something to him over the past couple of days. Something irreparable. He couldn’t just shut down and go back to the routine of his life like he’d done with the other girls he’d dated.
She wasn’t easy to leave.
He tried to press the gas again, but the lion inside of him rumbled a threatening growl.
Fan-fuckin’-tastic.
Kannon scrubbed his hands over his face and blew out a steadying breath. She was the smart one. The right one. She’d told him she would leave soon, and she was right to pull away before they got too attached, because he could feel it. He was getting really fuckin’ attached. Too devoted. Too everything! She was a human with no place in his chaotic life, and he was selfish for kissing her like that. He had no right. No right at all.
Gritting his teeth, he jammed his foot on the gas and forced himself to leave the parking lot.
I feel sad.
He understood. Kannon had never felt a bigger void in all his life as he did driving away from her. Something was wrong with him. He needed to wash whatever she’d done to him out of his soul, and the only way he could think of was to go Challenge one of the males in the Tarian Pride.