16. Kira
16
KIRA
Pussy Posse Group Chat
Kira
Soooo…funny story…
G
I knew it. You and Warren totally had sex again.
Dottie Girl
Rach, you owe me twenty bucks. I told you she wouldn’t last another day
Rach
Dammit, Kira. You couldn’t have waited a few more hours?
Kira
Who said anything about sex?
Rach
AHA! My twenty dollars is safe.
G
You haven’t had sex?! Seriously?
Kira
No, there has been no sex. I did, however…
Sort of…
Punch him in the face……..
G
KEEKS!
Dottie Girl
Why am I not surprised?
Rach
Damn. Now I owe Amir twenty bucks. He totally called it. He knew you’d be due for a violent outburst sooner rather than later.
Kira
It was an accident. And so was the fact that I almost climbed into his lap and humped him on a park bench.
Dottie Girl
That’s it. I’m switching to FaceTime NOW
I belly flop onto the mattress in my hotel room, propping a few pillows up to hold my phone so I can video chat with my girls. Dottie and Rach appear simultaneously. A moment later, G pops up in the lower left-hand corner, but her pretty face is obstructed by her husband. By the looks of it, he’s trying to suck her heart out of her pulse point.
“Georgie, honey, look out. You’ve got a blood sucking tick on your neck,” I say, flicking my phone screen like James is a bug I can shoo away from here.
“I know, he won’t get off,” Georgie says as she pats his head.
“It looks like he’s trying to get off, if you know what I mean,” Rach jokes, and Dottie wolf whistles.
“Adler. Put your Edward Cullen fangs away and let us talk to Georgie in private. For fuck’s sake, you’re a grown man, not a sex-crazed teenager.” I flick my phone screen again, just for emphasis. Unlatching, James looks through the phone screen and into my soul.
“You people interrupted my Georgie time. Seriously, Keeks, don’t you have a geriatric CEO to be making out with right now?”
“Don’t you have an ocean submersible to implode in?” I fire back, causing everyone to laugh. Thankfully, James takes the hint and detangles himself, leaving me to fill in my friends on the events of the day in peace.
“What the hell was Jonathan even doing in New York?” Rachel asks when I get to the end of my story. I shrug.
“Who knows? He probably has a tracker on me, some kind of microchip that pings the second I might be feeling any sort of contentment. Like, ‘Oh lookie here, Kira is feeling a little happy. It’s time to swoop in and fuck it up.’ Remember a few years ago when I was doing the corresponding gig at the San Francisco Marathon? He showed up and “accidentally” kept cursing on camera, causing the network to cut the live feed. I never made it onto the news. Nope, I was shoved into the realm of blooper compilations that only stoned teenagers and bored Baby Boomers watch.”
“What a freaking snake. And he ruined your big moment! Ugh, you and Warren huddled together in the park on a chilly Manhattan afternoon, forced to share body heat to keep warm. The tingle of that first brush of your lips and the way you could have melted into it, letting the city pass you by as you sunk into each other. That’s the kind of swoony first kiss a romantic can only dream of,” Georgie says, a dazed look in her eye. She’s a romance author; she’s got a way of finding the poeticism in every situation that I love.
“It wouldn’t have been our first kiss anyway, G.”
“It would be your second first kiss. In my experience, second first kisses are just as romantic, if not more so than the first.” Dottie says, gazing off to the side where I’m sure Stephen is sitting and making googly eyes right back at her.
“It wasn’t romantic. I’m not supposed to like him.”
“Do you hear yourself, Keeks?” Rachel asks, rolling her eyes. “You’ve been saying for weeks that you don’t like Warren. Now you’re saying you’re not supposed to like him, which means that you do. Stop fighting yourself, babe. There’s chemistry between the two of you. It wouldn’t kill you to explore it. ”
It could, though. I’ve been down this road before. I might have been younger and na?ve as hell, but I lost a piece of myself when Jonathan betrayed me. I let him take pieces of me every time we slept together. Every time I shared an idea or a dream, he got another piece of me, and he used those pieces against me. Warren already has my job. I don’t know if I have it in me to risk giving him my heart, too.
I say goodbye to my friends, letting them loose to their own loves with promises of drinks and spa days when I return hanging in the air. I hit the volume button on the remote, letting the sound of Julia Roberts and Richard Grere finding their happily ever after on the television screen provide the soundtrack to the echoes in my mind.
Leaning back against the headboard, I pull my knees into my chest. Now that I’m alone, I can feel the beginning of the adrenaline crash start to simmer in my chest. From the lunch meeting to the punch to the altercation with Jonathan, not to mention the almost kiss…I shouldn’t be surprised that my mood is dipping right now.
If I sit here all night, I risk giving in to the spins and waking up to a depression hangover for the meeting with Lumina Salts. I could get dressed and go out. I’m in Manhattan. There are a million places I could live out my Carrie Bradshaw fantasies. I’ve already got the curly hair going since I let it air dry after my shower, after all.
I do a quick search on my phone for any club or restaurant that sounds intriguing, but the thought of putting on a dress and heels gnaws at me. Besides, drinking with strangers may take the edge off my emotions, but it won’t heal me. When I inevitably stumble back to this room by myself, I’ll have a champagne hangover to accompany my depression hangover. What I need is to not be alone.
I could call Pops, IronDad, or Tía Camila, but the three of them would just worry about me. Hell, they might even catch a flight to Manhattan if they got even an inkling that I might be a little sad. That won’t do.
I could call my brother and check in on him and Pancakes, but it’s early in California. He’s likely still in team meetings or getting a workout in before tomorrow’s game. I could call my friends back. All of them, any of them. They’d answer in a heartbeat, staying on the phone with me until I fell asleep if I asked them to. But I don’t want to take them away from their significant others any longer than I already have tonight.
Which leaves…
“Fuck it,” I say out loud to no one as I roll out of the bed. I throw a loose hoodie over my bralette and pull lounge pants and a pair of slippers on, tucking my key in my pocket and slipping out of the room.
Unlike this morning, when I reach Warren’s door, I knock immediately, not wanting to give myself the chance to chicken out.
“Just a moment,” he calls out from the other side of the door. I listen to his footsteps as he makes his way closer, fumbling with the lock for a moment before pulling the door open.
“Is everything alright, Kira?” he asks.
No. No it’s fucking not alright.
Warren is devastatingly handsome in his casual wear. His hair is mussed, like he’s been running his hands through it. Black frame glasses I’ve never seen before rest on the bridge of his nose. A simple white t-shirt clings to his broad chest, the sleeves hugging his generous bicep muscles and shoulders. The bottom of the shirt just barely skims the top of his navy-blue lounge pants, showing off the sexiest sliver of stomach. His feet are bare again , and in his hand is a floppy paperback novel I recognize from the mystery section at my favorite local bookstore.
He looks soft and so damn kissable, the way I imagine he might look if I were to wake up next to him. A pulse blooms between my legs, the dull ache that haunts me whenever I’m in this man’s presence growing stronger and more insistent. I cross my arms over my chest as I feel my nipples tighten into hard buds.
“I’m not here to have sex with you.”
I wince. Of course that was the first thing out of my stupid mouth. Just of fucking course.
“That’s…good to know.”
“Can I come in any way?”
“Be my guest,” he says, stepping back as he swings the door open wider. I breeze past him, but once I’m in the room, I don’t know what to do. Do I sit on the couch? Do I sit on his bed? The nerves of uncertainty mix with the tide of fatigue and moodiness, washing over me and making me feel unsteady on my feet.
“Have a seat, love. Anywhere you’d like. Can I get you something to drink?”
“Water, if you don’t mind.”
If Warren can sense my discomfort, he doesn’t show it. I take a seat on the very edge of the bed, tucking my hands under my ass so he can’t see them shake. I watch him move about the room, finding a glass and then opening a bottle of water from the mini bar. He hands me the glass and I take it, clinking it with the half-empty bottle when he offers it up.
“Cheers.”
“Cheers,” I say, slowly sipping the water. He sits down next to me, his thigh so close I can feel the heat of his skin on mine. We sit like that for long moments, sipping our water. It’s become a bit of a routine for us, to sit in silence. I can’t say that I hate it, but I know we can’t exist like this forever. Mustering up all the courage I have, I turn to him.
“You are completely unfair, you know.”
Great, Keeks. Go with the negative. Good job, dumbass.
Warren, to his credit, looks amused as he crosses one leg over the other and rolls his bare ankle in lazy circles. Damn him, that’s hot.
“I’m unfair? What about me is unfair? ”
“This!” I say, gesturing between us. “All of this is unfair! You’re a grown man in pajamas. You should be giving me the ick, but you look sexy as hell. And those glasses? I didn’t even know you wore glasses and here you are in your slutty little pajamas with your slutty little frames on your slutty little face. You are so hot, Ren. It fucking pisses me off!”
His brow furrows, but amusement paints his features as he presses his tongue into his cheek.
“You called me Ren.”
“What? No I didn’t.”
“You did, just now. And earlier, too. I’ve been reliving that moment in my head all evening. And you think I look sexy in my…slutty, did you say? You find my slutty glasses and my slutty pajamas sexy. You like me, Kira McKenna.”
“I do not.” I scoff.
“I think you do. You don’t have to admit it to yourself, but you can admit it to me. My little pest has a crush on me.”
He bumps my shoulder, and the light contact has me barreling towards the edge of losing my control.
Goddammit. Emotion swells in my chest. My eyes burn. He’s just teasing me, I know that. He’s being light and playful and that causes the weight of everything I’ve been carrying to come crashing down on my shoulders. Everything I’ve been holding back comes bubbling up. This can’t be happening. I don’t do this. I don’t show weakness. I don’t cry in front of people .
Except I am. The dam bursts. Tears I’ve been holding back for what feels like years begin to spill. Salt streams out of my eyes as I drop my head, burying my face into my palms while a broken sob works its way out of my throat.
“Oh, God, Kira darling, please don’t cry. I was only teasing.” Warren’s apology only makes me cry harder, my eyes and nose leaking all over my clammy palms. I feel him move, shuffling to put his arms around me. But it’s not close enough. I shift, crawling into his lap like a pathetic, needy child and burying my face against his chest. I don’t have it in me to be ashamed, not when I’m too desperate to be held.
Warren cuddles me close, running a hand over my hair and whispering soft apologies against my skin while I cry.
I cry for everything I’ve been through. I cry for the loss of the opportunity I was sure was mine. I cry for the years of hard work and biding my time that went unnoticed. I cry for the conflicting joy and loneliness of my friends finding love without me. I cry for the suffering and heartache I felt when I was sure I’d been betrayed by another man I’d given my body to.
I even cry for Becky the Pilates girlie. I hope she runs far, far away from Jonathan and is smarter than I was when it comes to who she shares her dreams with. And I cry for the strength and resilience I feel within myself, where even on my darkest days, I do my best to be a good friend, a good daughter, a good role model .
“It’s alright, love. Let it all out. You’re safe, I’ve got you.”
I cry for what feels like hours. I cry so long that Warren has picked us up and moved us to the back of the bed so that he can rest his head on the headboard while cradling me against his chest. By the time my eyes dry up and breathing slowly regulates, his shirt is completely soaked through and the skin around my nose has already begun to chafe.
“Fuck,” I say on a choked, humorless laugh. I immediately wince as my stomach contracts. Apparently, crying your eyes out for long enough is tougher on the body than any core class I’ve ever programmed.
“I am so sorry, Kira. I didn’t mean to hurt you. I never, ever meant to make you cry,” Warren says, burying his nose into my hair. I can feel the unsteady beat of his heart slamming against his chest, and it makes me ache.
“It wasn’t you. I mean, it was, but it wasn’t. I’ve got the spins.”
“The spins? Have you been drinking? Should I get a waste bin?”
“No, not the drinking spins. The brain spins. I’m just–” I sigh, burying my face into the tear-soaked spot on his chest because I can’t bear to look at him when I say this. “I’m just so fucking tired. I’m tired of feeling like I’m running as fast as I can and getting nowhere because my achievements go unnoticed, and my opportunities are taken from me. I’m tired of climbing all these mountains without a partner to have my back. I’m tired of being positive and peppy and funny when all I feel like doing is falling apart. And honestly, Ren? I’m tired of trying so hard to hate you. Even when you’re staying stupid shit or judging my fish son, or just being your usual pain-in-my-ass self, you make it impossible. Hating you is so fucking hard, and I don’t want to do it anymore.”
There. I said it, it’s out there. No taking it back now. Warren shifts beneath me, manipulating our bodies so that he can take my chin between his thumb and his forefinger and lift my eyes up to his.
“That is…a lot for one person to deal with.”
“It is,” I sigh. “I’m exhausted. And…and I’m lonely.”
“I’m lonely too, Kira,” he admits on an exhale.
We look at each other for a long moment, and I get lost in the sea of his ocean blue eyes. They’re soft and glossy, a shade of blue I don’t think I’ve ever seen before that I could easily drown in.
“Stay here with me tonight.”
I open my mouth to answer, but he cuts me off.
“Not for sex. I’m not being cheeky. Stay here with me so that I can hold you. So that I can make sure you rest. You’re carrying around so much Kira. Let me carry you for a bit. I can be so strong for you if you give me the chance to try.” His blue eyes flit back and forth between mine, waiting.
I lean in, bring my lips close enough to touch his but not quite making contact, letting the energy between us ricochet.
“I was just going to ask you to take your shirt off before we go to sleep. It’s all wet.”
He smiles, brushing the tip of his nose against mine.
“Precious little pest.”
“Kiss me, Warren,” I plead, my voice a desperate whisper.
“Kira…” he says, his voice pained. I know he wants to. I can feel it, the energy and chemistry buzzing between us, drawing us closer and closer. He has to feel it. I’ve caught him staring at my lips with hunger too many times in the last few weeks for him to try to pretend.
“Please?”
My plea seems to break his resolve. He shuts his eyes as his forehead falls to mine. He says my name again but this time, the word sounds like a prayer. He pulls back, and I brace myself for the rejection. But he just removes his glasses, setting them on the bed beside him before pressing his forehead right back against mine. I tilt my chin, angling so that our lips just barely brush as my heart thumps against my breastbone.
And then finally– finally –his lips are on mine. It’s soft, slow, and teasing. A burning ember compared to the flames I’ve felt lashing between us all this time. He tastes like peppermint, and I can’t stop myself from searching for more. I tickle his bottom lip with the tip of my tongue and Ren lets out the sweetest sounding whimper as he opens for me. I get lost in his touch, in his kiss, and even though my body is begging for friction, my heart is happily sated with the slow make out session, hot and heady like honey.
When he lays me down on his pillow, cocooning us in blankets and curling against my back, I feel the weight of the world lift off my shoulders. Surrounded by the scent of sage and the warmth of Warren’s powerful arms holding me close, I drift into the deepest sleep I’ve ever had.
I can’t remember the last time I woke up in someone's arms.
Actually, that’s not true. Georgie is a big-time cuddler, and I’ve been her little spoon at many of our Pussy Posse sleepovers. What I mean to say is, I can’t remember the last time I woke up in a man’s arms, and while Ren might not have the same glorious Georgie-boobs that I like to use as a pillow, waking up next to him is an exquisite kind of torture.
His arm is banded around my waist, hand slipped under the hem of my t-shirt and splayed against my bare stomach. At some point during the night, I must have kicked my pants off. Unsurprising, since I think only demons and wack jobs sleep in pants. Ren must feel the same way, since I can feel the hair on his skin where his knee is slotted between mine.
We fit together like two puzzle pieces, and it’s completely unfair. I never had a shot in hell at hating this man, not really. He’s like Mary Fucking Poppins–practically perfect in every way.
I blink my eyes open, looking for the alarm clock to check the time. I try to slowly wiggle from his hold, but in his sleepy state, he only grips me tighter, groaning as he pulls my body back against his and directly into something hard.
Well, good morning. If I wasn’t awake before, I certainly am now.
I press my hips back, feeling the impressive length of him against the curve of my ass, and sigh.
Hello, bejeweled dick. I’ve missed you so much.
“Fuck, I’m sorry. It’s not often I wake up with the woman of my dreams in my arms,” he says in a low, raspy voice that has my insides fluttering. He might be saying he’s sorry, but the wiggle of his hips and the way his hot breath skirts across my neck says otherwise. I inch back, aching for more contact as I reply.
“It’s okay.”
“Goddamn Kira, this neck. I’ve dreamt about this neck. It’s haunted me. All this soft skin and the delicate slope of your throat. Every time you throw your head back and laugh, I imagine kissing you there.” He punctuates the statement with a brush of lips against the back of my neck and goosebumps erupt all over my skin. I take his hand from my stomach and guide it lower, right to the edge of my panties.
“Kira,” he breathes against my ear, hot and heady. “You should stop. My self-control is hanging on by a thread here.” Based on the way he’s slowly grinding himself harder into me, I’d say his self-control is already gone.
I reach back, threading my fingers through his hair. I arch my back as I press my ass against his hard-on.
“I don’t want to stop,” I say, and he growls, biting down on my shoulder as he gives in and bucks his hips against me. The sensation of him holding me, the sounds of his pleasure as he fucks against my body is enough to melt me. But when he slips his hand down past the waistband of my panties and finds my clit, I nearly cry out from relief.
He starts slowly, finding the perfect position to manipulate my clit with two fingers. When I moan, tugging hard at the strands of his hair, he takes the cue, rubbing me in tight, fast circles as his hips bounce against my ass. I want him in me. Want him to push my panties to the side and fill me to the brim. It seems almost absurd that we haven’t done that, haven’t breached the barrier of fucking in earnest. But hell, I don’t have time to beg for it before my orgasm is cresting, tingling its way up my spine and down my legs and bursting in a crescendo of pleasure that has me crying out his name.
“Kira, oh my god, darling. I’m gonna fucking come,” he whimpers before biting down on my shoulder, canting his hips and pressing hard into my ass as his own orgasm rocks through him. His loud moan against my neck sends a wave of pleasure and pride soaring through me, the aftershocks of my orgasm still rocking through where he’s cupping me.
“Fuck,” I sigh as Ren slows the rock of his hips, pressing soft kisses to the bite mark I can feel blooming on my flesh.
Whatever walls I’ve constructed over the last few months might have been hit hard last night when Warren held me as I cried and then spooned me to sleep, but now they’ve been fucking obliterated. I’ve been trying so hard to make the idea of him seem wrong that I never gave life a chance to show me how right he could feel.
It’s like stepping into the golden glow of daylight after a long, cold winter. Now that I’ve felt the sunlight, I am so completely fucked.