Page 32 of Something So Strong

“Who says you aren’t gonna kill me first?” I ask as I stand. And when I walk away, I hear a sigh that sounds a whole lot like frustration.

“Here, hold this,” Kai says once we’re both in the hallway.

Turning back to him, I see him holding out his coffee cup, and I take it from his hand as he steps closer.

Without saying a word, he takes both sides of my untied tie and runs his fingers down the silk.

Frozen in place, I don’t know where to look. But when I bravely let my gaze fall back to his, I see it downcast, studying the fabric as his hands move. When he squints, several creases form on the outsides of each eye that don’t completely disappear when he relaxes his cheeks. His eyebrows are full but neat, and he looks even more handsome with his hair swept completely back off his face. There’s a rose and a skull tattoo with a knife through the middle that spans from beneath his left ear and into his shirt collar, and he smells like cigarettes and cologne.

By the time he’s finished, my heart is pounding so hard I swear he can feel it when he clasps the top of the tie and slides his fingers all the way to the bottom.

“There.” Kai’s eyes rise to meet mine and I’m drowning in hazel. “You look perfect,” he says, reaching for his coffee cup. His fingers graze mine like they did yesterday, and he lifts his chin, beckoning for me to follow.

Matching his step, we walk side by side towards the exit.

“Fuck, it’s cold,” I hiss, crossing my arms over my chest when the heavy dawn air punches me. “I should have brought a jacket.”

Without skipping a beat, Kai wraps his arm around me and grabs my bicep. “What do you need a jacket for when you have me to keep you warm?”

Any argument I could come up with would be mute because I don’t want him to let me go. So I don’t answer him, and we walk the two hundred meters to the back of the main hotel building with his body pressed against the side of mine.

“After you,” he offers, opening the staff entrance door and moving aside.

Walking through, I step into a cement-lined corridor that looks like it runs along the entire back of the building. When Kai closes the door behind him, it almost feels colder than outside in its starkness, and I hug myself, trying to get back some of his warmth.

“Through here,” he says, opening another door that sends bright, welcoming light and warm air into the gray hallway. Following Kai, I stand just inside the carpeted room and watch as he walks past a row of lockers—dragging his fingers across the metal doors of each before throwing his coffee cup in the garbage.

“Over here, Jess.” He summons with a wave of his hand. “I’ll get you logged in.”

Moving to a computer on a small desk, Kai leans over it and rests his palms next to the keyboard. In a flash, my eyes are on his back, and the tattoos now visible through the stretched, white cotton.

“What’s your staff ID number?”

I give it to him.

“Jean-Jesse Kendrick, hey?”

I shudder. Fuck you, Mum.

My mother is French, pretentious, and thinks her shit doesn’t stink. So when it came to naming me, she went with family tradition. But did she take into consideration that I wasn’t going to be raised in France? Of course, she bloody didn’t. So instead of calling me John and not traumatizing me, she went with the continental spelling. And do you think kids give a fuck about pronunciation? Of course not. Children are cunts!

“Are you keeping any other secrets from me, Jean?” Kai reaches for my hand and leaves no space for me to react to him calling me that twice, or to process the fact that it dripped off his tongue like butter with the perfect French inflection. I’m as good as a deaf-mute, just standing here as he takes my hand in his left and uses the fingers of his right to single out my thumb and press it against a scanner.

I need to do something, anything, to stop from self-combusting.

“Are these shoes okay?” I pull my hand away and step back.

“Oh, babe.” Kai shakes his head and turns to rest his hip sideways on the desk. “Even if guests could see your feet, your shoes are the last thing they’d be looking at.”

“I didn’t design the uniform.”

“There are some ugly fuckers that wear this get-up. So I can promise you, the uniform is only the icing on your cake.”

I take a bold step forward until the toes of my boots are only inches from his. “You wear it pretty well yourself.”

Kai looks down at my shoes, then slowly drags his gaze up my legs, lingering far too long on my crotch before moving on to my torso and finally my eyes. “I don’t know how the hell I’m gonna get through training you this morning. You’re distracting the hell out of me already.”

“Only in good ways, I hope.”

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