Chapter 11
Both Tiana and Niko remained quiet as they made their way through the crowd. His hand remained on her lower back as she led the way down the pebbled path to the river. Once they reached the water, she turned to Niko. “Thanks for escorting me out of the festival. I can make it home from here.”
Niko stared down at her. She could practically see the thought bubbles above his head, wondering why she’d come down this way. There were no residences by the river, so his confusion was warranted.
“I’m not having my girlfriend walk home alone at night.”
“I’m not your girlfri—”
Her sentence was cut off when Niko leaned down and covered her mouth with his.
Just like the first and second time he’d kissed her, she was taken by surprise.
This time though, his lips were familiar.
Her body instantly melted into his. She hadn’t planned to.
It wasn’t her decision. It was a completely involuntary response.
He didn’t ease into the kiss. It landed hard and unapologetically, possessive and sure, designed to knock the air from a person’s chest and make them forget where they were or what they were doing.
His large, warm hands cupped her face and neck, fingertips pressing into the hinge of her jaw like he might unlock her at the seam.
It felt like a kiss meant for a woman he fully intended to claim as his own.
Despite every lie she’d told herself since the first time he’d kissed her, Tiana had secretly been wishing for this kiss.
Her mind had thought of little else than how his mouth on hers made the world collapse to a single axis.
She felt the heat beneath her skin, immediate, embarrassing in its intensity, igniting from her chest outward.
Her hands, with minds of their own, slid up the front of Niko’s hoodie, fisting the cotton, pulling him closer, until their entire bodies were pressed against each other.
The present dissolved. There was no town, no water, no festival, just the way he molded his lips to hers, then the sudden suggestion of teeth, a playful nip at her lower lip that made her gasp, and in that split second, he deepened the kiss.
His tongue was velvety and hot, coaxing a response from her that left her knees wobbly and her willpower scattered to the wind.
She kissed back just as fiercely, giving as good as she got, and if this was a battle, she was determined not to surrender, even as her body betrayed her by trembling with want.
Niko suddenly pulled away, just enough to breathe her in, both of them panting like they’d run a sprint.
When he rested his forehead against hers and his breath fanned her face, she asked, “Who…what was that for?”
His thumb stroked the pulse at her throat, his voice was rough as gravel when he explained, “You can’t say that you’re not my girlfriend, even in private. It might slip when you don’t mean it to. Every time you start to say that this isn’t real, there will be consequences.”
Tiana was fairly certain the concept of consequences was designed to have a negative connotation. In this case, she wanted to tell him that he wasn’t her boyfriend again so she would receive the consequences of her actions.
He dropped his hands and took a step back from her. She wasn’t entirely sure, but she thought she might have noticed his hands were shaking a little bit. Maybe she wasn’t the only one who was affected by their smooch.
They stood, staring at one another in silence for about thirty seconds, before she asked, “What?”
“I don’t know where you live to walk you home.”
“Oh, right.”
Crap. Tiana had completely forgotten what she was doing, where she was, what was going on. His kiss was the equivalent of a control-alt-delete to her mind, it wiped it of all data.
She could see he was serious. There was no way she was going to get away with him not walking her home.
Home. That was a loaded word for her and so many other kids she grew up with. Four letters that held so much expectation, disappointment, pain, neglect, shame, rejection, hurt, and instability.
Her current housing was not ideal, but it wasn’t even close to the worst living situation she’d been in.
She wasn’t ashamed, per se, but she certainly wasn’t proud of it.
Between Pops’ medical bills and now the increase in the lease, she’d had to make some sacrifices.
She’d had to downsize, which was not exactly easy to do considering when she moved to Hope Falls, she lived in a one-bedroom apartment.
They walked down beside the river, with her leading the way, and she shivered as the wind picked up.
The next thing she knew, she was being wrapped up in Niko’s down feather parka with fleece lining.
In stark contrast to her slender five foot two frame, Niko’s muscular six foot two frame practically swallowed her whole.
It enveloped her with warmth and the sexy scent of fresh laundry, musk, and cedarwood.
She let herself briefly, very briefly, luxuriate in the delicious aroma that wafted up to her nostrils and the warmth that cocooned her before she pushed it off her shoulders. “I’m not taking your jacket.”
Niko ignored her protest completely and readjusted the coat so it was back in place.
“Niko!” Tiana tried to squirm her way back out of it, but she was unsuccessful.
“What?” he asked, his voice infused with faux sincerity.
“You know what,” she replied.
“I know I can play pin the jacket on the fake girlfriend all night if you want to.”
“Oh, so you’re allowed to say ‘fake girlfriend’ but not me.”
His eyes twinkled. “Do you want to kiss me to teach me a lesson?”
He was obviously teasing her, but the answer was yes.
She hoped her cheeks weren’t red, because she was beginning to feel very flushed. She sighed and shook her head as she once again tried to remove the jacket. “You’ll be cold, you just have a hoodie.”
He lifted his hoodie and undershirt and pressed her hand to his upper torso. She sucked in a startled breath.
His eyes locked with hers as he held her hand in place. “I run hot.”
Yes. Yes, you do. He wasn’t just warm, his skin was hot to the touch. Not only in temperature but in form as well. Of course, she knew he was a professional athlete, but the ripples of muscles beneath her touch were very hot in a non-temperature way.
A shiver of tingles rushed through her entire body as she yanked her hand back as if she’d just touched a stove. He grinned down at her, knowing exactly the effect his body had just had.
She pulled his coat tighter around her, and his scent engulfed her.
This thing between them was dangerous. Everything with Niko felt real.
Maybe it was because she’d had a crush on him for so long, or maybe it was because of her self-imposed single status and the fact that it had been years since she’d been kissed or touched by a man.
Whatever the reason, what was happening between them felt good, it felt real, and she needed to remember it wasn’t.
No matter what the tabloids said, Niko was a good man, she believed that in her soul.
But when it came to women, he was who he was.
Just the week before he’d had a threesome in Utah with Andrada and Camille, two women she knew from different events she’d been at over the years.
That was not the sort of man who wanted to settle down and have a family in a small town, which was all Tiana wanted.
She was not a threesome girl, or an open relationship girl, or whatever other kinds of arrangements he had with women in his life.
The biggest freak flag she had to fly was that she’d always been curious about having sex in public places.
Had she ever acted on it? No. She was too scared to do it.
So, even that was just her fantasy freak flag.
An image popped into her mind of Niko and her being intimate at the festival.
Him pulling her behind one of the buildings where no one could see them, but they could still hear people passing by.
She didn’t have a voyeuristic fantasy, it was more the thrill of maybe getting caught, not actually getting caught or being seen by anyone, so even her freak flag was vanilla.
She felt Niko staring at her, and the entire right side of her body tingled with a flush. She was embarrassed even though she knew he couldn’t actually read her mind.
Once they reached the dirt path that led through the wooded area to the small cabin she was renting, she pulled out her flashlight. They were both quiet as they walked along. If it were reversed, she would be sure that she was being led to her death.
“Do you walk home at night, by yourself, a lot?” he asked.
“I have mace and a stun gun.” She patted her bag as she glanced up at him.
His jaw tightened.
“And it’s not that far.”
“What happened to your Range Rover?”
She glanced up at him. How had he known she’d had a Range Rover?
Maybe he’d seen her around town in it, or maybe he knew because it was one of the things she’d been awarded in her divorce settlement.
Everything about it was online. It was so highly publicized thanks to Brock claiming she was a gold digger.
He didn’t mention she’d paid for the car with her own money that she’d made teaching yoga.
Brock had not paid a dime for that vehicle, and although she was eager to tell Niko this, she worried it would seem defensive.
“I sold it,” she told him.
“To get what?”
“Nothing.”
“You don’t have a vehicle?”