Page 24 of Faithful

“Oh, I get it.”

“No, you don’t. What if things go bad between me and the person I’m seeing, and that person goes to TMZ to get back at me for the breakup or something like that? Gavin’s entire career is built around his image of the wholesome family man.”

Kai snorts out a laugh. “Sounds funny coming from his naked gay son who just had sex with a notorious Satan worshipper.”

Oddly enough, his comment lightens the mood a bit and I find myself smiling despite the current bleakness of my situation. “I don’t care what people say about you.”

“I’d dump you if you did.” He sinks his fingers into my hair and yanks my head back down, leaning into me, covering me with his firm, lithe, bare body. “You shouldn’t sacrifice yourself and your entire life for your father’s career that’s built on fucking lies.”

“That’s not what I’m doing,” I say, very unconvincingly since he’s got the upper hand, both literally and metaphorically. He’s right and deep down I know it, but my brain is mush. I’m not the best opponent right now.

“Yes, that’s exactly what you’re doing,” Kai whispers, holding my gaze. “You’re letting his vanity ruin you.”

“What’s it to you?”

“Do you plan on hiding forever?”

My heart stutters, flips, picks itself up, and struggles to get back on track with beating.

“You said it could be a secret for as long as I wanted,” I mutter, fear wrapping around my gut.

Kai draws back. Tries to remove himself.

I don’t let him.

I pull him down to me instead. We’re face to face and skin to skin and he’s staring again.

“You said for as long as I wanted,” I repeat with trepidation.

“That was before.”

“Before what?”

Kai grabs at my neck, fingers flat against my pulse point. “Before I started to care about what happens to you, dickwad.”

Coincidentally, the song playing in the background ends and the room goes silent and this silence only punctuates the weight of the words he’s just thrown at me. I’m speechless and stunned by his confession and I need a moment to gather my swimming thoughts.

Kai’s still glaring, his eyes dark and unyielding, his jaw clenched. His hand remains on my throat, pushing into the soft tissue and muscle and veins there, and I can feel that quiet pressure and the real meaning behind it. I can feel it with every part of my body.

“I don’t wanna argue,” I finally say, my voice low.

“What do you want?”

I pull him into a kiss because right now I know no other way to explain, to show.

The images on the TV shift and dance and a new song comes on, the notes filling the room with gentle, sad sounds.

“You, that’s what I want,” I mutter into his mouth, my hands running up and down his naked back. “You.”

I’m not certain how it happens or even why, but there’s a click of the lock and a sudden change in the quality of light and cool air washing across the back of my head.

“Oh my fucking God!” a female voice shrieks somewhere in the apartment.

Kai abruptly ends the kiss and jerks back. All I register is the look of horror twisting his features before he slips from my grasp and away from my line of sight.

I shoot up from the sofa and spin around.

Leigh’s standing by the door, clasping her luggage with one hand. Her other hand is currently covering the upper part of her face.

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