Page 76 of Honey and Spice

I swallowed, suddenly uncertain. “Should I go?”

“Do you want to?”

“No.”

“Then I don’t want you to.”

Then his lips were nipping at my ear, sending a shiver through the delightful loophole of our no-kissing rule. I was moving back against him and I could feel the depression and extension of his bare chest against my back, agitating my heart rate further, a throb that dropped below my waist as it rotated in a rhythm that he immediately, excruciatingly, matched. His hardness spoke directly to my softness and turned me molten in the places where it mattered. Malakai’s teeth scraped the soft part of my lobe, tugging it with a tender surety.

I felt myself becoming feral.

I swivelled under his arm to face him and, fuck, dawn suited him, landed sweet on him, and the narrow column of new sun made the blaze in his focus more intense. My stomach flipped, my pulse skipped, my breath tripped. His too-respectful hand remained on the incline of my waist, his thumb searing circles into my skin. I was just about to askWhat is this, what is happening, what have we started?when I saw a glimmer of something cross his face, a flash of something, something like—apprehension? It sent a nervous knot into my stomach despite the tie between us winding tauter and tighter by the second.

Malakai held my gaze, in a space I couldn’t figure out the dimensions of, face inscrutable. His thumb stopped its hypnotic circuit on my hip. Then he removed his hand from my waist, dragged his knuckles down the side of my face, and said, “Uh, actually...”

Heat fled my body. “Oh.”

He swallowed. “Maybe this isn’t a good idea, what with your project and the film and us working together. It might confuse things—”

“Of course. Totally. You’re right.”

I swiftly got up, grabbing for a sweater that wasn’t where I thought it was. Was it possible to die of embarrassment? I was sure it was happening. I was about to die in a fucking hot pink bralette. At least it made my tits look great. Not great enough for Malakai to want to kiss on them, though. Would he speak at my funeral?Sweet girl,he would say with a tasteful glimmer in his eye.But I just wasn’t into her like that.

Malakai sat up, and the soft apologetic crease between his eyes felt like hands tightening around my throat. He ran a hand across his head. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to...” He trailed off, as if lost for words.

Didn’t mean towhat? Have me feeling like I would go insane if I didn’t have his mouth on me? I almost laughed. Instead, I fished my sweater from under the covers. “Oh my gosh, please don’t worry.I’msorry.” I pulled it over my head and got up. “I shouldn’t even have... It’s cool. And you’re right. It would have been a bad idea. A terrible idea.”

“Kiki.”

I shoved my feet into my shoes and grabbed my phone and key card, still searching inside for my dignity, feeling around for the shape of it. I grasped at something with its semblance, crossing the room, where I turned to face him, my hand curved around the cool of the metal door handle. Malakai’s hand flew to the back of his head; he looked like he felt bad, like he felt sorry, and I hated it. I wished his rejection was more brittle; it would have been easier for me to cut it cleanly from me. But this, whatever this irritatingly soft thing was, was clinging on to me, tacking on to my fingers as I attempted to peel it off. It was more brutal.

“Erm... we’re still on for this weekend at Ty’s, right?”

In my mortified haze, I replied something like, “Yeah! Sure!”—too light and garishly bright, like cheap jewelry. I know I blurted something about an early seminar we both knew I didn’t have before running back to my halls, as fast as my Ugg knockoffs would allow me to.