Page 41 of Kai's Hunger

He cupped my cheek in his palm. “I don’t want to frighten you off,” he murmured. “I need you, Lily.”

Need. There it was again. Capturing my heart and leading me down a dangerous path. Good or bad. Right or wrong. I wasn’t leaving Kai. Not now. Not when he was practically begging. I unbuckled my seatbelt and leaned closer to him, then placed my hand on his chest. “I’m not going anywhere. I might be seriously crazy, but I’m staying.”

His eyes warmed and he lowered his head to brush his lips across mine. It was such a small taste of him and I ached for so much more. It left me desperate.

“My brothers will be waiting,” he explained, as he opened the door and jogged around to my side. He placed the key in my hand and smiled. “I’ll see you later. At the café.” He pointed across the street. “Ask for Tessa. She works there and knows us. She’ll take good care of you.”

“An ex-girlfriend?” The ugly green monster reared its head.

“No. A friend only.”

“Of course.” I tried to take a step back, but Kai’s warm, calloused hand on the back of my neck stopped me. I glanced up at him and caught the heat of his gaze on me. “What is it?”

“Thank you for giving me a chance,” he growled. “In the midst of all this, you could’ve insisted I drop you off at the nearest hotel, and yet you chose to stick it out with me.”

I smiled, as my heart did somersaults. “You and I still have things to talk about, remember? I’m not letting you off the hook that easily.”

His lips tilted up sideways. “Good, because I want you to know me. Everything about me. And when you do, then we can continue what we started last night by the waterfall.”

My blood turned to molten lava at Kai’s quietly spoken promise. Speechless, utterly speechless, I watched as he crossed the street and entered the little café.

Oh, yeah, I was definitely heading down a dangerous path. And yet I wasn’t running in the opposite. Why wasn’t I running? Simple, Kai brought out something in me that I hadn’t known existed. It was thrilling and scary all at once.

Chapter Eight

Kai

Wyatt watched me enter and frowned. “You let Lily drive the SUV, I take it?”

“Yeah.” I stared out the window and saw Lily enter the shop. My gut tightened. She was too far from me. It took all my strength not to go to her. I suspected it would be this way until I could make the exchange.

Wyatt took a sip of his coffee before asking, “You’re in pain, aren’t you?”

I stiffened. “Huh?”

“Don’t fuck with me.” He pushed his cup away, then leaned close and whispered, “You’ll be in pain until you mate with her. And if you think it hurts now—”

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