Page 29 of Runaway Hearts: Seduced by Danger

After taking the bag from the delivery guy and settling the payment, I close the door. I unpack the food, handing the dish to my now-known stranger.

Should I ask him if he’s Hiroshi Kwunaru the Seventh?

Hiroshi doesn’t suit him.

“I’m going to give you a name,” I say and tilt my head to the side to assess his features. I narrow my eyes and search the confines of my brain. “Dean?”

He frowns. “You don’t want to know my real name?”

“We both know that would be dangerous.”

A tiny smirk appears on his lips, but his frown deepens. “I can’t deny that.”

“What about Bruce?” I ask, totally ignoring that he confirmed his dangerousness. But the name makes him scrunch his nose. “Kai.” I grin. “Thy shall call thou Kai,” I say, making a cross sign with my chicken skewer.

He rolls his tongue in his mouth. “I don’t have a say in the matter?”

“No. I baptize you, Kai Kiken the Eighteenth.”

“Kai Danger?” He smirks, cocking his head.

“Because of your crazy killer eyes.”

He snorts. “You read too much.”

I gasp while my head snaps away from my shoulders. “There’s no such thing as too much reading!”

He chuckles at my evident disgust at his words. The chicken winks at me, and I giggle. I drown it in tzatziki.

“I’d love to be in your head, damn,” Kai says.

“You’d be scared, Kai,” I reply with a sly smile.

“Maybe not.”

I hum, not paying attention to him and his comment. His voice bounces like a distant echo, coming back weaker each time. And I hum louder until a bloodstain on his T-shirt screams at me. Survival instinct on alert, I get on the bed and lift his shirt, grumbling with dissatisfaction. The sticky stitches have fallen out.

He laughs, his melodic voice echoing through the room.

Whoa!

His abs wave in a mesmerizing motion. As my fingertips trail over his warm and smooth skin, I run over the defined ridges and valleys of muscle, each one like a brick in a wall.

Damn, he’s so firm.

But there’s no excessive bulk, just pure strength and efficiency marbled by the imperfections of criminal life.

The scent of exertion and burned wood lingers in the air around him. It’s oddly calming.

Goosebumps rise on his arms as I meet Kai’s eyes, and he stares back with a strange glint. I resist the urge to lick my lips when he reaches out to take a lock of hair and runs it through his fingers.

I don’t understand what’s happening within me.

All I want is to bury myself in his arms and listen to him assure me that everything will be okay from now on. That we’rebothsafe.

And that feeling is so unsettling to me that I dismiss it. I get off the bed, lost in a haze of utter confusion.

My hand plunges into my bag to seize the brand-new suture kit I bought hours ago. “I’ll stitch you up.” Sitting on the bed, I pull out what I need.

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