“Where do you stand?” He asks me roughly.
I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know—
“Kayden, it’s only one night.” I reason with him.
“Everything’s going to be over after tonight. And after the fight—after you win—we don’t ever have to think about Jax ever again,” I tell him, brows descending low on my face.
“Don’t you want that?”
He shivers, sensing the volatile emotions running through my body.
“Kayden—” I start off again.
“I have to go,” he murmurs sadly.
I hold my breath, nodding tightly. As much as I want to keep him here, he’s right. I’m taking too much of his time and the fight is starting soon.
“Okay. Fine,” I relent.
He doesn’t bother to give a reply. My heart sinks when he hops off the roof and moves out of the cell. I follow, trying to keep up with his pace. He walks in fast, huge strides, fists clenched on either side of him as he gets on the pathway leading in the direction of the crowd. But before he makes it to the end, he twists around unexpectedly.
He stares at me with so much intensity it immediately takes me back to the first time he looked at me in the apartment—when everything had been uncertain between us. It still is.
I stop in my tracks. Kayden sprints back to me. My heartbeat turns erratic.
He draws me to him and weaves his fingers in my hair.
“Fuck it,” he says and mashes his lips with mine.
I’m so taken aback by his abruptness that my legs almost give out on me the second our lips meet. But he captures my body with his huge arms to steady me, setting aflame every inch of my skin with his tight grip. I cling to him like I’ve been denied being with him for an eternity, kissing him back just as fiercely. For a moment, everything is right with the world and my shattered nerves begin to heal.
More. I need more.
I make a strangled gasp of delight as his lips glide down my neck, hungrily devouring my skin, like he’s finally allowing himself this little moment of greed, to sink into me without caring about the ominous storm hovering over us.
I want to take my time with his lips—kissing them, biting them, nibbling them. I want everything I can get from him, even if it’s just scraps.
Kayden pulls away from me briefly, nose touching mine.
I want to know what he’s thinking because I know that there’s a million thoughts billowing through his mind right now.
My lips part, ready to ask him, but not before he closes his lips over mine again.
This kiss is different. It’s slow and delicate, my body weakening from being weighted down with an unexpected, mournful sadness. His hands tremble as they capture my waist, lips pressed against mine sorrowfully, like he wants to draw out this moment as long as he can before the distance settling between us grows wider until it’s nothing but a wide, unending chasm.
It’s only then I realize what this kiss is.
It’s a good-bye kiss.
When Kayden tears himself away from me, we’re both breathing hard.
“I’m gonna set things right for you, okay?” He presses a light, comforting kiss on my forehead. “For us.”
Alarm bells sound in my mind and I rocket out of his grasp.
“What the hell are you going to do?” I demand. But he doesn’t give me an answer, already swiveling his body back around and walking away from me with purposeful strides, leaving me completely in the dark. “What— Kayden!”
No, no, no, no, no—