Chapter 2

Kimani

"You're misbehaving again, Lia."

His voice came from across the room and it moved through me the way it always did, low and unhurried and so deep it felt like it had weight to it. I had been staring at the front door since Jaxon closed it, giving myself approximately three seconds to collect myself before I had to turn around and deal with whatever Roan King decided to do with thirty minutes alone in a room with me.

Three seconds was not enough.

I turned around slowly, keeping my expression as flat as I could manage, which was harder than it should have been because he was looking at me with that specific look that he had. The one that said he found me entertaining in a way he was not going to bother hiding. I had been on the receiving end of that look enough times to know that it never meant anything good for my composure.

I was also, unfortunately, hopelessly in love with him.

That was the part I could never fully talk myself out of, no matter how many times I tried to approach it logically. Roan King was thirty years old, twelve years older than me, my brother's best friend, and the man who had somehow become the most important person in my life over the course of the last year without my full permission. I was not sure if it was his face that started it, because his face was the kind of face that made you forget what you were saying mid-sentence. Or maybe it was his voice. Or the way he looked at me like I was the only thing in a room worth paying attention to when he decided to look at me, which he did not always do, which made the times that he did feel like something significant.

I did not know exactly what it was. I just knew that I was in it and I had been in it for a long time and there was no logical exit.

He was obsessed with me too so at least it was fair.

"Misbehaving," I repeated back at him, making sure my tone communicated exactly how little I appreciated that framing. "You're calling it misbehaving. Roan, I have been sick since Friday and you didn't even know. The love of your life has been lying in bed with a scratchy throat and a headache for three days and you had no idea."

"You didn't reply any of my texts, Lia."

"Because you didn't send me any."

He tilted his head slightly and looked at me the way he did when he knew something I did not know yet. I felt my stomach do something uncomfortable.

"I was worried," he said. "Jaxon didn't drag me here. I brought myself because I hadn't heard from you and I wanted to see you." He paused. "You want to explain to me how I was supposed to send you texts?"

I opened my mouth.

"How will you know I was texting you," he continued, his voice dropping just slightly, "when you blocked me?"

The sitting room felt smaller than it had five seconds ago.

I had blocked him. I had blocked his number four days ago on a complete impulse because he had been ignoring one of my messages for six hours and it annoyed me and I was a Gen Z dating a millennial and sometimes the only tool I had was petty and I used it. I had meant to unblock him eventually. I had simply not gotten around to it because then I got sick and it slipped my mind entirely.

The problem was that I had not told him I blocked him. So how did he know.

"How did you know I blocked you?" I asked. My hands were starting to feel clammy and I pressed them flat against my thighs.

He stood up from the armchair.

I took a step back without deciding to.

He was tall in a way that always caught me off guard even though I had been around him long enough that it should not. Six foot four of entirely too composed, entirely too self-assured man walking toward me at a pace that was deliberately unhurried because he knew exactly what he was doing.

"How did you know?" I asked again because I needed him to answer before he got any closer.

"Because I didn't unblock my own number from my end." There was a low sound in his chest that was almost a laugh but not quite.

My eyes went wide.

"You hacked my phone."

I said it out loud and it still did not feel real coming out of my mouth.

"Are you just finding out, firefly?" His hands came around my waist before I could decide what to do with the distance between us and he pulled me in close and my brain made a very poor decision to stop functioning properly the moment I was against him.

"When did you do that," I said, and I meant for it to come out sharp and demanding but my voice was doing something softer than I intended. "How long have you been in my phone?"

"Three years ago."

"Three years." I pulled back just enough to look at his face and see if he was serious. He was completely serious. "Roan. Three years ago I was sixteen years old. We didn't even start dating until last year. You hacked my phone when I was sixteen?"

He did not look even slightly apologetic about this.

"How do you think Jaxon always found out about those boys?" he said, and his voice had gone lower now, more quiet, and he dipped his head toward my neck and his breath hit my skin warm and slow and my entire body reacted before my brain could file any kind of formal complaint. "Who do you think it was making sure Jaxon knew exactly who to chase away?"

My thighs pressed together.

That was involuntary. I would like the record to reflect that it was completely involuntary.

"Let me go," I said, and the words came out smaller than they should have. "Jaxon is going to be back soon and he cannot walk in here and see us like this."

"Not happening." He did not move. If anything his hand spread a little flatter against my waist, fingers sitting just at the hem of my sleep shirt. "Go and unblock me, Lia."

It was not a request. It was phrased simply, stated simply, but it was not a request and we both knew it and the worst part was that something in me responded to it in a way that I was not going to examine right now.

"My phone is in my room," I said. My voice came out quieter than I meant for it to.

"Then let's go get it."

I did not have time to respond to that because in one motion he bent and had me up over his shoulder like I weighed nothing, which to him I probably did, and I let out a sound that was somewhere between a yelp and a laugh before I pressed my lips together and remembered I was supposed to be annoyed with him.

"Roan, put me down!"

His palm settled low on the back of my thigh, just below the hem of my shorts, warm and easy and completely unbothered by my objections.

"Nice shorts, Lia." I could hear the smirk in his voice without even seeing his face.