“‘Because’ feels like a real shit reason to not kiss you, sweetheart,” I groaned. The corners of her lips turned up as her big bright blue eyes swiveled back to me.
“Because you’re… you’re a…”
I arched a brow. “A tattooist?”
She rolled her eyes, biting back a grin. “I mean besides that. Before that.”
My look hardened. It’s not like we’d ever filled Kennedy or really many people in around here about our pasts. But it also didn’t take a genius to put the pieces together.
“I left that life behind.”
“Did you?”
Her eyes darted meaningfully from me to the doorway, where I turned to follow her look to see Caleb lying asleep on the operating table.
My jaw tightened. “I didn’t say it left us behind.”
I grinned, but her mouth went tight. “Well, there you go.”
“You got a thing against kissing bad boys?”
Kennedy swallowed, her cheeks reddening. And I swear, I watched her hips do that thing again where they arched towards me, as if they had a mind of their own. Her breath caught again, and I groaned as I saw those nipples pucker against the cotton of her t-shirt.”
“Or maybe,” I growled, leaning in, my eyes burning right into her. “Maybe you’ve got a thing for kissing bad boys.”
She gasped as I moved close again, my lips closing the distance between us.
“Landon…”
“Kennedy.”
“We… oh fuck,” she whimpered quietly, the softness in her words making me groan as my pulse raced and my cock swelled in my jeans.
“Tell me no one more time, sweetheart,” I groaned, my body shaking as I tried to hold on to my control. “Say it one more time and I’ll walk away. But you need to say it, or I won’t be able to stop myself from kissing you like I’ve been wanting to fucking kiss you since the second I saw you.”
Kennedy moaned, swallowing, her eyes wild, scared, but fierce as they darted across my face.
“I-I…”
“I’m counting to three.”
“Please,” she whispered, panting, and I swear I could see her restraint crumbling.
“One.”
She shivered, her breath coming faster.
“Two.”
“Oh fuck.”
We never got to three, because right after two is when both of us broke.
I groaned as she pressed herself into me, our lips crushing together as she melted into my chest. My big arms circled her, holding her possessively as I fucking lost myself in her lips. My tongue found hers, and her soft moans teased through me like flames, burning me, setting me on fire. I growled, pulling her tighter to me, kissing her hard enough to bruise as my cock pulsed against the front of my jeans.
I pushed her back into the counter, kissing her fiercely, like she was mine to claim. Her hands gripped my t-shirt tight, and when I felt her hips rock against me, I groaned as I started to fall.
Caleb grunted from the other room, and it was like flipping on the lights during the last dance.
Kennedy gasped sharply, shoving herself away from me, panting, her cheeks red as her eyes darted to mine.
Fuck.
“Uh-uh,” she whispered, her eyes wild as she shook her head. “No, that… no, Landon—”
“Kennedy—”
“This can’t happen,” she whispered, slipping out of my arms and slowly backing away. Caleb made another sound, and she glanced past me, her brow furrowing for a second before we both watched him drift back to deep sleep.
“I—I need to go.”
Before I could even say a damn thing, she was whirling, storming across the room and grabbing her bag and marching right for the back door.
“Fuck, Kennedy—”
“You guys can stay here tonight,” she said quickly, not looking at me, her voice all business. “Keep a watch on him and keep him hydrated. I’ll check on the wound in the morning.”
She pushed the back door open and took one step out before she paused, her shoulders heaving as she panted. Slowly, she turned back, her eyes flitting to mine for just one froze second.
“I just…” she swallowed, biting her lip. “I just can’t, okay?”
And just like that, she was out the door and gone, leaving me wondering just how the hell I’d managed to fuck that up so badly.
Shit.
3
Kennedy
I took a slow, deep breath as I slid my key into the front door of the clinic. The lock turned, and I shivered, something hot teasing through me as my lip caught between my teeth.
…Holy fuck, what the hell had I done the night before?
Ignoring the part where I’d pulled a bullet out of a gorgeous, tattooed outlaw of a man I barely knew. Ignoring the part where his equally gorgeous, equally tattooed, dangerous, hot, mysterious, and unknown friend pressed me not to involve the police or a hospital about the whole thing, there was that kiss.
Okay, both kisses, to be honest. Yes, I knew the first one where Caleb had kissed me on the operating table was probably more from a place of joking around, or just him being out of it from loss of blood. Kissing Landon had been different. That kiss had been… yikes. Sizzling. Scorching. So, so wrong and forbidden. I mean, hot or not, I knew trouble when I saw it, and Landon Jacobs had trouble spelled across his forehead in neon. Hell, so did Caleb.