Page 48 of Known By You
Half his mouth quirked up into a smile and he was just… oof. He looked good.
Gray sweatpants and sneakers with a hooded sweatshirt on top, a beanie pulled low over his ears. He yanked that off as he and his long legs strode toward me, his cheeks a dark red.
“Sorry. Didn’t mean to. I snuck in a jog while he was conked out. Got a little restless, so I took my chance.”
Our eyes met as we passed and he set a hand on my shoulder, a gentle squeeze there that made my insides tumble around in a spin cycle before he let go and practically leapt up the stairs.
“Come on in. If he stays asleep, I’m going to run to theshower but I’ll be super quick,” he said, dropping his voice to just above a whisper once inside.
Following his lead, I inched the door closed quietly. “Sounds goo?—”
In the few seconds I’d painstakingly closed his front door, he’d stripped off his sweatshirt—and whatever he’d worn underneath—and was holding them at his side as though the sight of his ruddy cheeks, bare chest, dark tattoos that would never not be a little bit of a thrill, and low-riding sweatpants wouldn’t summarily off me when flashed around so spontaneously.
Our gazes snagged and I could’ve sworn there was heat flickering in his bright eyes, but he tsked, breaking the moment.
“Sorry, I overheated. I’ll just be a sec.”
Clearing my throat, I mumbled, “Yep. No problem.”
I did not say, “Why stop at the pants?” or “Need any help in there?” or anything else that felt like rolling off my tongue because I’d already crossed a boundary with him once.
Although honestly, he now clearly knew I was interested so why would he go parading around flashing his abs all willy nilly?
Willy nilly ab flashing was not acceptable or helpful for this little… crush I’d developed.
That was really all this was, too, and I needed to remember it.
Sure, Kenny was the nicest human being I’d met in a long time and had a way of seeing through my protective quiet and pulling out things I normally would never talk about. He was caring to those around him, gentle with people, but still so magnetically masculine in an effortless way. He was encouraging and positive, but notbecause he ignored hard things—because he’d learned from them. I admired him.
And yeah, he was the most physically attractive person I’d ever met, and fine, maybe he had a kind of abrupt cheeriness I normally would be repelled by. But for some reason it felt like a complementary magnet…
None of that mattered to my real life. I could admire his good looks and positive attitude and the incredible way he’d handled the challenges of his past, but it needn’t turn into anything more than a basic crush. I didn’t know how to handle this particularly well since I wasn’t a woman whohadcrushes.Thatwas why it all felt so novel, anyway.
And also nothing here felt real or normal because it wasn’t my real or normal life. So… also that.
I’d convinced myself of this quite thoroughly, right up until he came down the hallway with something tucked against his chest. He stopped when he met my eyes and grinned, moving one hand to reveal a tiny pitch-black kitten snoozing away in the literal palm of his hand.
“Ms. Liz Malcom, please meet my new cat, Kit.”
And there it went. Another piece of my flimsy resistance to this man evaporated into thin air, just like that.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Kenny
So apparently, kittens were chick magnets.
Or at least, they were effective lures for Liz Malcom, who visibly melted when I revealed my kitten.
“I think I believe in love at first sight now,” she said, an awestruck tone to her whispered words as she gazed at my cat.
I think I know the feeling.
Pushing the thought away, I smiled even wider than I already was. “If anything can prove it exists, it’s kittens.”
Thiskitten, who’d gotten cuter by the second, even if he had torn up my arms and chest a fair bit in the last eighteen hours.
“I want to hold him so bad, but I don’t want him to wake up.” Her brows were pinched, and she looked pained.
