Chapter 24 – Kev
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
KEV
Peeking into the brand-new computer lab Davis had surprised the men with a few days ago—the one she’d single-handedly set up after cleaning out the storage room without telling them, not even telling him—Kev leaned against the doorframe, crossed his ankles, and watched her.
Ever since their kiss, ever since he’d had her in his arms again, tasted her, felt the softness of her skin against his lips, the need to do it again had drummed inside him like a second heartbeat. He’d been so distracted by it on the trails yesterday he’d almost weed-whacked his big toe off. Making Madigan add a twelfth Little Timber house rule to the list: No Flip-flops On The Trails.
But watching her now as she talked to the guys after their class, listening intently while answering their questions, looking competent as hell, he had to bite his lip against the desire stirring in his post-shower sweats. He couldn’t help it. She was always DEFCON levels of sexy, but hair-up, all-business, stern-but-helpful teacher Davis needed a whole new scale. This Davis made his mouth water. This Davis made him harder than the ruler he imagined her smacking against the chalkboard when someone misbehaved…
“’Sup, Kev?” Brayden said, his hair messy like he’d been running his hands through it for the last hour, his mechanical pencil sticking halfway out of his mouth until he pulled it out and said, “You already missed the class today, if you were thinking about joining us.”
Stepping inside the room, Kev stifled a groan when Davis turned around, when she noticed him, when her cheeks went a little pink and the corners of her lips curled into a smile that looked shy but definitely wasn’t.
“Thanks, Brayden.” Kev’s voice dropped an octave all by itself. “But I’m not here for class.”
Ace rolled his eyes while quiet and reserved Noah, of all people, muttered, “Ugh, time to go.”
“Come on, everyone,” Stanley said, standing from his chair, stretching his back with a mighty bear-like groan. “Let’s get out of Davis’s hair.”
But it was Brayden who caught his attention. Because he was staring at Kev with a strange sparkle in his eye, an even stranger smirk on his face as he leaned toward Davis to mutter something that sounded a lot like “Remember, maybe it’s just true or false.”
After Davis huffed a laugh, nudged Brayden’s shoulder with hers, and then gave Ace some parting remarks about variables and quadratic equations—a thing that turned Kev on so thoroughly he wondered if he had a secret teacher kink—she leaned back against one of the desks, taking her turn to watch him. While the men walked past him through the door, Kev got an encouraging thumbs-up from Brayden, a firm pat on the shoulder from Stanley, a tight nod from Noah. And then Ace pretended to smack him in the dick, making him leap back out of the way.
But eventually, finally , they were alone.
“Hi,” he said in the sudden silence surrounding them.
“Hi,” she said back, still leaning against that desk, her fingers curled over the sides.
The sight of her did something to him—her coy smile, her snug yellow shirt, her tanned, muscled thighs filling out her cutoff jean shorts. The way she sucked her lower lip into her mouth, then let it slide back out. The way she stared at him under her lashes, running a fingertip along her collarbone. And when she tilted her head, he recognized the moment for what it was. This sudden aloneness. This charged silence. This tension strung so tightly between them it hummed. This was a scene from a romance novel.
So he asked himself, what would Smithson Kane do right now? Alone with Daphne at last? How would they fill the next few pages? Kev could see it. Smithson would reach behind him, pull the door closed, and turn the lock without ever breaking eye contact.
Which, slowly, Kev did.
Tightening her grip on the desk, Davis asked, “Why did you lock the door?”
He prowled toward her, one slow step at a time. “Did I?” he asked instead of answering. “Must be habit.” He raised a brow. “Can’t ever be too careful.”
“Did you”—her throat bobbed through a swallow—“need help with something?”
Funnily enough, he actually did. He wanted to do some research about wild horse roundups, get some better insight into what River might have gone through. But for some reason that had a lot to do with her heaving chest, her pupils expanding as she continued to grip the desk, looking like she wanted to back away but having nowhere to go, he could only tell her, “I think I do.”
“Kev,” she whispered as he entered her space, as he noticed the little vessel in her throat bounding with every beat of her heart. “What are you doing?”
“Hmm,” he murmured, leaning on the desk across from her, letting his gaze travel down her throat, over her breasts, her thighs, knees, all the way down to her perfect toes in her sandals. “Nothing.”
“Nothing?” she repeated, and when she swallowed again, he pushed himself off the desk.
Stepping toward her, he leaned forward to place his hands next to hers. When she didn’t tell him to back away or place a hand on his chest or do anything other than stare into his eyes, he angled his head, dipping to run the tip of his nose along the length of her neck. Entirely aware that he was being rash and wild and all the things he wasn’t supposed to be, not caring one fucking lick, he muttered, “That’s right,” against her skin. “Nothing at all.”
She raised her chin toward the ceiling, giving him full access to her throat. And as she slid her hands up his arms, widening her legs to let him nestle between them, she said, “It doesn’t feel like nothing.”
“It doesn’t?” he asked, grasping her hips, lifting her onto the desk while she clutched at his shoulders. “What does it feel like?”
Sliding her hands up his neck to thread her fingers through his hair, she gently scratched his scalp in that way that made him purr. “It feels like everything,” she said, hooking her heels behind him, grasping his face between her hands, drawing his lips to hers.
She was right. It was everything.
Kissing her again was timeless, thoughtless, formless everything. Timeless because he wanted it to last forever, eons, an eternity between her lips. Thoughtless because thought didn’t belong here. Comprehension had no place in the vanishing sliver of space between their bodies. Formless because he was no longer confined to the boundaries of his body. He was everywhere at once, surrounding her, pulling her, pushing her, driving against her.
He slid his hand up her side, his erection pressing through his boxer briefs and flimsy sweats into the firm denim seam at the apex of her thighs. “Have I told you how incredible you are?” he asked between kisses. “How amazing this room is?” He gave her a gentle thrust. “How indescribably sexy you look today?” He did it again, letting his hand drift across her ribs until it covered the soft swell of her breast.
“No, you— Oh ,” she gasped when he grazed his thumb over her stiff nipple. When he realized from some distant shore of his mind that this situation might be getting a little out of hand.
“Well, you are,” he said. “It is.” He pinched her nipple through her shirt, nearly losing himself in his pants when she bucked against him. “And you really fucking do.”
“Kev.” This time she moaned it into his mouth, her hips rocking against him, meeting him thrust for thrust. “This, oh god . This is… I’m too— Fuck .”
“Too much?” he asked, pulling back, removing his hand from her breast to brush her hair off her cheeks while she continued to move against him, chasing a release he could tell wasn’t very far away. “Should I stop?”
“I don’t know. Maybe.” She closed her eyes when he thrust against her again. “No. Never mind. Don’t stop.”
Ghosting his lips over her ear, he said, “I’m so hard, Davis. From the moment I saw you in the doorway. With your hair up and your shorts clinging to your ass. With your confidence. Your fucking swagger. I’m so hard you’re making me leak.”
She shuddered in his arms, let loose a keening little whimper.
“What about you, baby?” he asked, kissing her jaw, grasping her hips again, rolling her over his rigid length. “Are you feeling it? Are you wet?”
“Come on, Kev,” she whispered, dropping her forehead onto his neck. “You know I am.”
“Oh, but I don’t,” he insisted, moving his hands from her hips to her thighs, her knees, spreading her legs wider. “Tell me, Miss Thompson. Teach me. Show me how I can find out.”
Yep, definitely a teacher kink.
Curling her fingers around his neck, she pulled him into another kiss and grabbed his hand. She’d just started to guide him to the button of her cutoffs when someone knocked on the door.
“Honey?” The handle rattled, the sound like a slap to his face, a bucket of ice water dumped over his head. “Are you still in there?”
Davis froze, her eyes doubling in size when she hissed, “It’s my fucking mother.”
Hauling himself away from her, Kev shook his head, shaking off the effects of her hands, her lips, her body. As potent as any drug he’d ever used.
“I’m here,” Davis called out, snapping her fingers, pointing at Kev to sit in the chair behind the computer. “Come on in.”
Adjusting himself in his sweats, which didn’t do much to hide his raging hard-on—something he gave Davis an almost bashful smile about when she mouthed an appreciative “wow” at him—he tucked himself behind the computer, grabbed the mouse, and started clicking at random shit.
“I can’t,” Ashley called through the door. “It’s locked.”
“Oh?” Davis said, innocent as spring rain while she collected her hair into a cleaner ponytail since he’d made a mess out of it. “That’s…weird.”
Kev snorted. They were so busted.
Getting herself in order, smoothing her soft yellow shirt back into place, Davis walked to the door, turned the lock, and pulled it open.
It took Ashley less than one second—a second in which she looked at Davis, and then at Kev, then back to Davis—for her to know exactly what had just happened.
“Hi, Ashley,” he said, sinking down into his chair when she arched a brow at him.
Smiling tightly, knowingly, she said, “Kev. You’re here late.”
Davis cleared her throat. “I just wrapped up with the other guys. And then Kev came by, needing help with…”
“Horse research,” he added helpfully when she stalled out.
“I see,” Ashley said, propping a hand on her hip. “Learning anything interesting?”
“Um…” He ruffled his hair, his knee bouncing so hard it probably registered on the Richter scale. “Yes?”
Davis palmed her forehead. “Did you need something, Mom?”
“I just wanted to let you know that your grandma is getting started on dinner, if you were planning on helping out.”
“I’ll be there in a few.” Taking Ashley by the shoulders, Davis physically turned her toward the door. “Thanks for the heads-up. ”
“Don’t push me,” Ashley said, half laughing. “I’m leaving. Bye, Kev!”
After making sure her mom was gone, Davis turned around. Then she walked back to him, leaving the door open behind her this time.
Sitting back in his chair, blowing out a heavy breath, he said, “That was close.”
She made her way around the desk, sliding her fingertips along its surface, stopping just shy of where he sat, and said, “In more ways than one.”
While her gaze raked over him, he rolled his lips together, his poor cock twitching back to life. “I know you need to go.” He reached for her, hooking his fingers through her belt loops and tugging, not feeling even the slightest bit bad about it this time. “But just give me five minutes, Davis. No, three. I can finish you off in three.”
With a pained laugh, she dropped her head until he rose to his feet, snaked a finger under her chin and brought it back up. Sliding his hand over her cheek, cupping her jaw, he said, “We probably shouldn’t have done that, huh?”
She nodded, then sighed, then said, “We need to be more careful.”
It was a statement with so many meanings. We might get caught. We might be rushing things. We might be losing control. We might end up hurting each other again.
“Yeah.” He met her stare, making sure she knew that he felt the weight of her words, that each hidden meaning sank into him like rocks in a river. “You’re right.”
He wanted to talk to her about them, about what they were doing and what it meant. But everything felt so good, so right. He didn’t want to risk saying the wrong thing, messing up, losing her again before she even left. Even though he wasn’t sure he actually had her. Even though he was too scared to find out.
Reaching up to toy with one of his curls, she asked, “Did you really need to research horse stuff? ”
“I did, believe it or not.” Snatching her hand, he kissed her palm, then asked, “Can I hang out in here for a few minutes?”
“Sure. Just”—she laughed, because the irony was funny—“lock the door when you’re done.”
He sat back down, then gazed up at her, studying her freckled nose and bow-shaped lips, her electric blue eyes, already trying to remember, already preparing himself for when he wouldn’t see her every day, maybe not for weeks at a time. “See you at dinner?”
She stepped closer, crowding between his open legs, and he felt the payback for his behavior coming when she leaned in, dropped her lips to his ear, and whispered, “Yes.” The word sent shivers across his neck. Shivers that shot straight south when she added, “But I have to change first. I think you might have ruined my underwear. They’re absolutely soaked.”
And before he could even begin to release the groan building up in his chest, she backed away, turned on her heel, and left him alone with that mental image invading his thoughts, her kisses still sweet on his tongue and an almost painful erection tenting his sweats.