Page 31 of Hyperspeed
His breath was a warm caress on my lips. I couldn’t be sure if it was the alcohol or a residual effect from Dray’s groping, but my skin burned with each one of his exhales.
“What the fuck were you doing with Dray?” His voice was low, an edge of something sharp coiled beneath it.
I forced myself to smirk, not wanting him to know that my insides were fizzing like a firework preparing to explode in my stomach. “Dancing, Mercer. You know, the thing people do at parties?”
One hand left the wall as he brought his index finger to my lips, not quite touching, but enough for me to feel the thrum of anticipation. Kai closed the gap, his fingertip lightly brushing my lower lip, and I hated the way my breath hitched. His eyes dropped to where we connected, just for a second, before rising to glare at me once more.
They were dark, overtaken by his blown-out pupils.
“With Dray?” he scoffed, spitting the name like it tasted foul.
I noticed the way his chest heaved. The way his eyes continued to flick between my eyes and my mouth. The way they tracked the movement of my tongue when it crept out to lick my lips.
“And?” I watched him through narrowed eyes. “What’s it to you? Jealous, hotshot?”
“No, I just don’t enjoy seeing you with him,” Kai huffed, returning his hand to the wall. Heat radiated from his muscular body, and while I should’ve pushed him away, I couldn’t.
I let his fierce gaze pin me in place.
“You’ve butted into every conversation I’ve had tonight. That’s how your stupid little game works, right?” I laughed, more sarcastic than joyful. “Yet dancing with Dray is where you draw the line?”
“That wasn’t dancing,” Kai growled. “That was soft-core porn.”
Kai could say he wasn’t jealous until he ran out of breath, but his poker face was terrible. Envy was written all over his expression, which made me wonder. Had he spent the night cockblocking me because he wanted to annoy me, like he insisted? Or was he cockblocking me because . . . because he wanted me?
Well, two could play that game.
I leaned forward until the tip of my nose brushed his. “Did it turn you on, Mercer?” I purred, enjoying how the muscles in his jaw twitched. “Does it make you jealous when I get attention from someone else? Someone who isn’t you?”
“Please,” he scoffed, cheeks turning a beautiful shade of pink. “If I wanted you like that, I’d have you.”
His arrogance cut through the heat swirling in my gut, and my skin glowed red with irritation. “You seriously think I’d submit to you?”
“I know you’d melt the second I touched you.”
“You’ve already touched me, and I’m still in one piece. Alive to tell the tale.”
Speaking of tails . . . I whipped his leg with my mine, but he didn’t react. Like he barely felt it because his focus was solely on me. My body vibrated with thesame energy, just begging to be released. To shove him away. To punch him. To explode.
But I tamped it down, letting the tension stew. I raised my hand and dragged my fingers down his chest, feeling the way his muscles twitched. Kai’s breath hitched before he could catch himself, and he forced an unimpressed glare, as though daring me to call him on it.
Naturally, I obliged.
“What’s wrong, Mercer? Feeling a little flustered?” My index finger moved back and forth along his waistband, teasing the hem of his shirt.
He smirked, but it was mostly for show. And when he spoke, his voice was rougher, deeper than before. “You wish.”
“I don’t have to wish.” My finger slipped under the hem of his shirt, trailing over his heated skin. I pushed up onto my toes—because even in heeled boots I was a good two inches shorter than him—and pressing my lips to his ear, my breath tickling his skin, I whispered, “You’re burning for me, aren’t you?”
Kai turned his head until our cheeks brushed. It was a stupid, fleeting thing, but it sent a thrill straight through my core. One of his hands left the wall, curling around my back and sliding under the sheer material of my shirt. He stroked the bumps of my spine, moving down, down, down until he reached the base of my tail. He rubbed with firm yet gentle circles, and electricity coursed through my veins, my limbs, my cock.
And I fucking whimpered.
“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” he growled.
His free hand gripped the back of my neck, pulling me in until there was barely an inch between our lips. He breathed in every one of my exhales, and I did the same with his, sharing this little pocket of air. We said nothing, just stared, brushing each other’s skin until Kai was panting and I was pressed up against him. The smallest movement would close the distance, would bring our lips together so we could devour one another.
I didn’t move, and neither did he. It was like we were waiting to see who’d crack first. And when he squeezed the base of my tail, making me whimperagain. . . Fuck. I worried it might be me.
