Page 63 of Protect Me
Like a coward, I retreated to the window. The order kept me inordinately focused away from him, though I felt as if I saw nothingbuthim. He stood in the same spot, all languor and grace, as I struggled to make the till work.
Something smiled down on me, because a second car slipped through next. I attended to it, hands still shaky. By the time I finished their order, I had pulled myself back together.
This is fine,I told myself.I have time to tell him the truth when I’m ready. It’s mine to own, not his. We have no obligation to each other.
It was just a kiss.
Yet, a fractured part of my heart quivered anyway.
I drew in a deep breath, closed the window, and spun around to face him.
Vikram was gone.
ChapterFourteen
VIKRAM
Idiot.
Idiot.
Idiot.
The word banged through my head with each step that carried me away from the Frolicking Moose, closer to my car, closer to freedom. To air. To the ability to think and breathe at the same time.
Insufferable heat billowed free when I opened the door and ducked inside, but I ignored it. Sweat beaded on my forehead when I cranked the car on, slung my seatbelt across my chest, and peeled out of the parking lot. Right about now, Katelyn might be noticing that I was the biggest. wimp. ever.
Why had I run?
Stupid question. I knewexactlywhy I slipped the hell out of there. A storm of emotion bubbled in my chest with an underlying ferocity. It tightened my lungs. Crashed my heart. Wreaked havoc on a spot I once held in greatest locked protection. No more. Kate had effectively smashed everything that once held me together.
Every guard.
Every prison.
Self-imposed jail may not sound like a very fun time, but control sure felt better thanthiswild, slippery ride of emotion. A slide of destruction and devastation that only love could create.
Only when Pineville existed in my rearview mirror, and the open highway sprawled like a gray artery in front of me, did I begin to fully breathe again. The heat of Kate’s kiss lingered on my lips like a burn. It sparked, like life essence, all the way through to my fingertips. There was no halt to the power. She’d already crashed into me. The pieces were too small to glue into the same Vikram again.
With a growl, I pulled off at a random point on the highway, parked away from cars whizzing past. I shoved my hands through my hair.
“Get. It. Together.”
It all happened so quickly.
One moment I pretended like I didn’t see her restraining order paperwork, and the next one I whipped around and into her arms. Did she kiss me as a distraction?
Maybe.
But then it became something else entirely.
Her lips had been just as eager as mine, as quick to respond. Her sexy gasp of surprise had only heightened the moment. I closed my eyes, scrubbed my hand over my face. My heart continued to slam in protest, so hard it rocked my chest. The percussive beats shoved blood all the way to my toes.
I tilted my head back.
Space gave me too much room to think now, and regret followed. Not for kissing her—or did she kiss me? No one could regret a chemistry so thick. Regret for running chased me now. For not knowing what to do or say. I’d kissed-and-run with countless women before. Laughed about romanticized ideas around affection and closeness.
The universe mocked me.
