Chapter 36
Chapter Thirty-Six
A fter we’re clean and dressed again, but still enjoying our privacy together on the empty third floor, I keep catching Kimo looking at me. He’s not checking out my ass, or staring at my boobs. He’s looking at my face, and he’s got a goofy grin stuck to his.
“What?” I ask defensively, reaching up to rub away any wayward lipstick or smudged mascara. I checked myself over in the bathroom, but fluorescent lighting is nobody’s friend. “Is there something on my face?” At his widening grin, I narrow my eyes at him. “If you don’t tell me, I’m going to curse you with an ancient Russian curse.”
I don’t know any ancient Russian curses, for the record. I left the country when I was eight and haven’t been back, thank God. But Kimo doesn’t need to know that, and I’ve always found it to be an especially effective threat.
Kimo surprises me by taking my face in his hands, and that roving thumb of his strokes softly over my cheek. “I think I’m falling in love with you.”
That shuts me up. I goggle at him.
“It’s probably crazy fast,” Kimo continues on, undeterred by my silence. “My māmā told me not to fall too fast, or at least not to open up my stupid mouth too soon if I did.”
I can’t help but smile a little at that, even though my head is still whirring from the reverberations of that word. Love. Love? How could that be possible? That isn’t the kind of thing that happens to someone like me.
Kimo seems to take courage from my smile. “But I can’t ignore my gut, and my gut is telling me it’s you. You’re it for me. I knew it from the moment you karate chopped that guy in the butt. No–-actually, I think it was the moment you came out of hiding in that roadside forest, even if you could have gotten away. I liked you before that, don’t get me wrong—it’s not every day you meet a woman who’s propositioning someone in a men’s bathroom. I already knew you were honest and tough, but that was the moment I knew you were brave and kind, too. All Russian curses aside.”
That is...a lot of information. I don’t quite know where to start, so I choose perhaps the least important part to focus on. “Then why wouldn’t you sleep with me until now, if you were so into me?”
Kimo half laughs, half groans. “I figured you might not want to buy the cow if you were getting the milk for free. So I thought I should hold off on the good stuff to give you time to fall for me, too.” He raises his hands quickly, backpedaling. “Not saying you have to be in the same place that I am yet. But you like me at least a little bit now, don’t you, Mattie?”
His expression is somehow both terrified and hopeful. And mine is probably...flabbergasted. I don’t know what to say to that. To any of that. What are you supposed to say, when someone tells you they love you? This has never happened to me before. I’m the person someone tolerates until I kind of grow on them, and then they keep me around. I’m not the woman someone falls so hard for that they have to try to stop themselves from falling even harder.
There must be something wrong with him , is my immediate, knee-jerk response, the kind of thing I’d usually think to protect myself. But I immediately reject that. I think of Kimo’s generosity, his openness, his affability. There’s nothing wrong with him. He’s perfect.
Much too good for me . That one sounds more logical. I swallow heavily, searching his face. Maybe he likes me now because I’m different from the types of chill, easygoing women he probably usually dates, but what if the novelty wears off? What if he sees the thing in me that everyone else sees—the thing that makes me disposable?
He brushes his thumb over my cheek again. “Come back to me, Mattie. Where’d you go?”
“You don’t have to tell me that stuff just because we had sex,” I blurt out finally. “You don’t owe me anything. I won’t hold you to anything.”
Kimo winces, like I’ve wounded him, but he doesn’t let go of me. “Don’t do that, Mattie.”
I feel a rising panic inside of me. “Do what?”
“Try to push me away. I’m not asking for anything in return from you, just because I’m telling you that I love you.”
My eyebrows shoot up. “You’re in love with me now ? I thought you were just falling in love with me.”
“Yeah, that was a bluff. I’m in love with you.” Kimo tries his best to smile. “And that isn’t something I’m saying to try to trick you, or trap you, or force you into saying or doing something you don’t want to. I just love you, that’s all. I can’t help it.”
That panicked feeling in my chest has turned into something throbbing and almost painful. If he weren’t holding on to me, I might just turn and run deeper into the darkened building. Instead, I do my best to glare at him. “Don’t do that.”
“Do what?”
“Look at me with that stupid-handsome face!”
He frowns at me. “My face is stupid?”
I shake my head, irritated at his inability to read my mind. “No. It’s stupid how handsome you are.”
The frown softens into a smile. “Aww, baby.”
“And that!” I jab my index finger at him. “You call me baby.” It’s the type of endearment that, coming from anyone else might sound cheesy or sexist, but from him just sounds...right. Even if it shouldn’t.
“So?” He caresses me with that thumb yet again. It’s the sweetest, scariest thing I’ve ever experienced.
“You say it like you mean it,” I accuse him. “You say it in a way that makes me want to believe you.”
Now he is all softness, in his eyes and his smile, his hands stroking my face. “Then believe me.” He kisses me, slow and sweet this time, with none of the frantic passion from before, but somehow my heart is galloping even harder this time. When he’s done, he nuzzles my nose, then rests his forehead against mine. “You’re it for me, Mattie. I feel it in my gut.”
I continue to search his expression, even with his face so close to mine, his eyes closed. Maybe that’s the only reason why I can say what I do. “I...I think I love you, too.”
As if he senses my skittishness, Kimo keeps his eyes closed. He remains perfectly still, except for the grin that he can’t quite seem to hold back.
I smile, too, because I have to smile when I see him smile—it’s impossible not to. Despite this, my heart continues to race. “Please don’t hurt me.”
I don’t like to show that kind of weakness to anyone. It makes me want to crawl out of my skin. It makes me want to run and hide, this feeling, this rawness. But I need him to know, this isn’t some game to me. I’m not someone who can be played with, not like this.
He opens his eyes again, holding mine. “I got you,” he says quietly.