Chapter 18 #2
No wonder he hadn’t seen the stars earlier. The heavy clouds that had been looming on the horizon just before sunset had completely closed in above them.
Tina was already on her feet, as were most of the other spectators. Tina and her friends hastily gathered up strollers and babies, and hurried toward the parking lot to get the kids strapped into their car seats before the downpour started.
“Get him to the car,” Tina commanded Smith, whose own reactions were a little more sluggish.
He nodded and hastily followed his sister to the car, glancing back over his shoulder to see where Kenna was while all this was unfolding.
She was standing as well, looking around uncertainly, obviously not sure where to offer her help.
She had no task, self-appointed or otherwise, and so stayed quietly on that stand.
A rock in the middle of all that coordinated chaos.
Once Smith had Flynn safely buckled in next to a crying Jamie, and he’d insured that Tina needed no further help, he headed back into the crowd, moving against the current of people rushing to reach the shelter of their cars. His only objective was to get to Kenna, still standing in the bleachers.
Her arms were slightly spread, hands cupped upward, and face tilted to the skies. Her dress and hair were plastered to her skin and body.
She didn’t see him approaching, which gave him a moment to simply stare and enjoy.
She was smiling. Her lovely dress clung to her body like a second skin, leaving very little to the imagination. Her braless nipples stood out in stark relief against the small mounds of her breasts, and tented the soaked fabric.
Smith’s mouth instantly watered as he imagined pulling them into his mouth. He could practically taste them, feel the texture of them against his tongue…
Christ.
Who was this woman? This crazy, beautiful, wildly unpredictable creature who didn’t even have enough sense to seek shelter from the rain?
He desperately wanted to know her.
The skies had really opened up, and they were the only two people left in the bleachers. At the first ominous rumble of thunder, the players also abandoned the field.
Smith glanced up when lightning streaked across the sky, still a distance away, but close enough to cause concern.
“Kenna,” he shouted, his words practically drowned out by the deafening rain. “Kenna!”
His second, more urgent, cry snagged her attention and she seemed to notice him for the first time. But instead of fading, her smile widened, inviting him to share in her joy.
“Smith, isn’t this wonderful? The rain is so warm.”
Her arms widened and lifted, as if she were embracing the elements, and Smith’s mouth went dry.
She was fucking wonderful. The words hovered on his tongue, but in the end, he simply stared at her beaming face, and soaked in her sensual appreciation of the moment.
“This is crazy,” he told her, moving closer so that she could hear him more easily.
She surprised him by turning toward him, stepping close enough for him to smell her delicate scent and feel the steam coming off her body as the cooler rain hit her skin.
“I know,” she told him with an incredulous, happy laugh. “I think I like being crazy.”
He swallowed again as he stared down into her lovely face, the stadium lights highlighting the perfection of her imperfect features.
He couldn’t help himself. He cupped her face and tilted her chin with his thumbs.
She didn’t protest. Instead she pressed against him and wound her cold, wet arms around his neck.
“You’re so fucking stunning,” he whispered reverently and claimed her mouth in a hot, deep, smothering kiss.
He sank into it from one breath to the next and devoured her mouth, ruthlessly slaking the thirst he had denied for too many months.
Lips open, tongue delving deep, the kiss was all-consuming and he was gratified when Kenna arched into him, her arms tightening around his neck as she returned his embrace with a ferocity and a need that matched his perfectly.
Everything else faded into the background, all the noise and distractions of the past, the rain, the rapidly cooling air, their soaked through clothing…nothing else existed in this moment but Smith and Kenna.
Until another startlingly loud clap of thunder boomed almost directly above them. It startled them both and Smith lifted his head in alarm, immediately aware of the precariousness of their position.
They were standing on wood and metal bleachers in the middle of a fucking thunderstorm.
Not smart.
Kenna was still clinging to him, but she was also blinking at their surroundings in dawning realization.
“How did you get here tonight?” Smith asked her.
“Tina and Harris gave me a lift.”
“Shit,” he glanced toward the carpark and saw Harris jogging toward them.
He lifted Kenna into his arms when he belatedly recalled her cast.
“I can wa—”
“We need to get to shelter faster than you can walk, sweetheart,” he interrupted her. “I’m taking you home, okay? Harris and Tina are going to want to get their kids home and settled as soon as possible. They’re all pretty soaked.”
It was a half-truth. The kids weren’t wet. They’d gotten them to the cars before the torrential downpour had started. But Harris and Tina were. And they undoubtedly did want to get home quickly.
His words silenced her protest and she nodded, dropping her head to his shoulder with what sounded suspiciously like a contented sigh.
Harris reached them when they were halfway to the parking lot.
“Everything okay?” He looked worried and it wasn’t clear if his concern was for Kenna or Smith.
“Yeah, I’ll take Kenna home.”
“Okay…” Harris hesitated. “Kenna, you sure?”
Kenna lifted her head from Smith’s shoulder and nodded.
“Yes, thank you, Harris. Please tell Tina I’ll see her tomorrow.”
“Will do. Drive carefully, bud,” he said, eyes on Smith. “The roads always get a little shitty in the rain. Parts of it flood quite quickly.”
“Will do, thanks.” With Smith’s assurance, Harris loped off back in the direction of his car, and Smith veered toward where he’d parked his .
Neither of them spoke as he slid Kenna into the passenger seat and then rounded the bonnet to get into the driver’s side.
It was only after he’d been driving for a couple of minutes that she spoke.
“That was stupid, wasn’t it?”
He tensed at the words, bracing himself for what was to come.
“Why do you say that?” he asked, ready to defend that spectacular kiss with his life if need be.
“Because nobody with common sense would simply stand in the rain and get soaked.”
Oh. The tension drained from his body as he realized that she wasn’t talking about the kiss.
Yet.
“I don’t know…” he said after a moment’s consideration. “Everybody else freaked out, ran for their cars, and got soaked anyway. You enjoyed the moment and embraced the inevitable. I’m having a hard time seeing that as stupid.”
“To be fair, most of them had kids to think of.”
“And a lot of them didn’t,” he shrugged.
“I don’t know why I did that,” she admitted. “I’m not enjoying being soaked at all right now a-and I’m starting to feel really cold.”
She was beginning to shiver. So violently he could almost hear her teeth rattling.
“I have a jacket in the back seat,” he told her. “Put it on.”
“It’ll get wet.”
“After which it’ll dry again.” His pragmatism—usually her strength—made her giggle. He smiled helplessly at the light, high-pitched, unfamiliar sound.
She reached back and grabbed the jacket, draping it over herself rather than putting it on.
“Why do you have a puffer jacket in your car in the middle of summer?” she asked, her voice muffled because her face was buried up to her nose under the jacket collar.
He shrugged.
“It’s been there since last winter,” he admitted, and she giggled again.
Fucking hell, when did she get so goddamned cute?
“I’ve told you so many times this car needs deep cleaning and disinfecting.”
“It has character.”
“And probably fleas,” she countered. She sounded so lighthearted that Smith didn’t have it in him to take offence at the slight against his precious car.
It was still raining heavily when he slid the car to a stop in front of her place. When she reached for the door handle, Smith stilled her with hand to her elbow.
“You’re not walking up those steps. They look rickety and dangerous on the best of days. It’s bound to be worse when the wood is wet and spongy.”
Her shoulders heaved with the force of her impatient exhalation.
“Okay, Galahad, do your thing,” she said in resignation. “But remember, I’m not the one with the head injury here.”
He winced at the reminder.
“And also…” he began hesitantly, disliking the nervousness he could hear in his own voice. “I think we should talk.”