by Unknown
“What makes you say that?” Amiira questioned instantly, her eyes involuntarily following the movement of his hand.
“Isn't that part of consulting?” Kian asked, his facial expression a staunch inquisition, lined with overt knowing. “Figuring out what others are doing that isn't serving them and changing it so that they reap the benefits from that change?”
“Yeah,” Amiira remarked lightly after awhile, letting his words sort of swirl around in her tipsy brain. She all of a sudden had this staggering urge to ask him a million questions about himself. “I guess you're right.”
“Is it what you want to do forever?” Kian further pressed.
Amiira's expression changed for a split second as that question resonated in her consciousness. It was highly specific and a bit intrusive as far as standard introductory questions go. Her eyebrows furrowed slightly and her lips parted as if she was going to offer a series of words in response that never came out.
“I'm sorry,” Kian offered as he saw the way her face changed and the lack of an answer seemed to grab her. “I didn't mean to be invasive.”
“Oh no,” Amiira countered, almost feeling a strange inclination to reach out and physically convince him of no harm done. The question had just caught her off guard. It was like someone asking you about all your hopes and dreams and insecurities and fears when the word forever entered into the equation. It was also a bit of a struggle because she felt herself wanting to tell him her other aspirations and goals. She felt almost prone to disclosing things about herself to him and she didn't know why. “It's fine. It's just a long story.”
“I'm a patient man.”
Amiira let the relative silence settle around that admission as their eye contact held. She felt her insides jumble and the already lovely light headed, warm feeling she was enjoying because of the alcohol, accumulate and then spread throughout her entire body. She couldn't take her eyes from his, even though she felt herself make a concerted effort to do so.
“That's a positive character trait,” Amiira finally responded in almost a whisper, running her hand through her hair once more and taking a deep breath as she finally looked away from him and towards the water. “You should hold onto that.”
“I intend to,” Kian bemused softly, folding his hands comfortably in front of him as he followed her lead and looked away.
Their newfound patented silence came coursing through the atmosphere once more, only interrupted by the sound of the ocean, and the crisp jutting of the intermittent light wind. Before long, Amiira broke it and began speaking about something rather arbitrary.
For two additional hours, they stayed outside like that, becoming more closely acquainted with one another.
Chapter 10
Amiira was propped up on her elbows as she watched the animated, luminous water a few yards away from her, crash onto the shore as it ebbed and flowed in its natural state. The sun beamed down on her body warmly, her manicured toes sinking further into the bit of sand that ran into the end of the towel she was sprawled out on. She'd been lying out in the sun for at least an hour, Riley was a couple of feet away lounging on her own towel as she read a book.
Amiira concentrated on the feeling of warmth and comfort that the sun radiated all over her bikini clad body. Her eyes, shaded by dark oversized sunglasses, gazed back at the water as she reveled in the absolute lulling of her senses that she was experiencing. If she wasn't careful, she could easily roll over and fall asleep right then and there, as she was coated by the delightful rays of the sun.
She hadn't gotten much sleep the night before. After her conversation with Kian, which had lasted much longer than she had anticipated, started unfolding into the night, she couldn't really sleep once it had come to an end and she was tucked firmly into her plush oversized bed. She had replayed almost their entire interaction in her head several times before pure exhaustion had seized her. What she had learned about Kian during that conversation had both shed light on who he was, while also opening up many more questions in her mind.
Questions she wondered if she should even be contemplating.
Kian had revealed himself to be very easy going and down to earth, but there was this sort of quiet meticulous intellect that he gave off when he spoke. He was incredibly interested in a great many things, traveling being something he was most passionate about.
He was thoughtful, but also had this underlining bit of intensity that made her heart flutter and her eyes assess him more closely. She found herself being more fascinated and taken with him after their conversation, than she had been prior to it, when all she had to go on was physical attraction and a strange, almost palpable magnetism.
Amiira felt herself toeing a line that she had promised herself she'd stay away from, but she couldn't help the fact that he invaded her thoughts almost perpetually. She looked out into the vast, unfolding water where he and Wyatt had been earlier in the day surfing, and found herself wondering what he was doing, if he was in the kitchen, in his room, if he'd left.
She tried to shake off her cerebral fixation on him and just enjoy being in the moment with the ocean and the sky unraveling above and in front of her. She sighed as she leaned back onto her towel and further stretched her already relaxed muscles. She closed her eyes and tried to focus on the calming undulations of the water, and before she knew it, she had fallen into a light and wistful sleep.
About 40 minutes later, she heard Riley trying to gently wake her.
“I'm gonna go in but I didn't want you to burn,” Riley explained, her towel, water bottle and book all in hand, as she peered down at a somewhat groggy Amiira.
“Thanks, yeah I'm gonna head that way in a minute,” Amiira said as she gave Riley an appreciative nod.
“The guys are talking about making margaritas,” Riley went on as she shifted her weight a bit on her feet. Her slim body looked fabulous in her neon green bikini. She'd also definitely gotten a little color from her session with the sun that afternoon. “I'm gonna go get a shower.”
“Alright, I'll see you inside,” Amiira offered, as she sat up.
She glanced at the rolling low tide once more and briefly revisited her conversation with Kian from the night before. She quickly shook her head, almost as if that physical display would dislodge the thoughts from her mind.
She needed to stop. He was occupying too much of her brain. She needed to turn her mind to other things.
Amiira stood up and gathered her things, glancing down at her multi-colored halter bikini top and her black bottoms that hugged her butt and hips nicely. She thought about throwing her wrap around herself, but at the last minute thought against it as she slipped on her flip flops and started up towards the house. She thought that maybe she'd go see what Elijah or Wyatt was doing, or maybe she'd go for a drive. Just to try to put her mind elsewhere.
When she had reached the house and opened the sliding glass door, she was greeted by a somewhat empty space; she heard noises coming from the kitchen but the main common areas where vacant. As she rounded the corner she caught sight of the back of Kian's body. She instantly knew it was him because his long hair wasn't pulled back as it had been the day before or earlier that morning. His long dark tresses, that looked both soft and a bit messy, hit the back of his shoulders in swoops that curled naturally at the ends.
She's never seen a man with such gorgeous hair before. It was mesmerizing.
Kian was humming lightly to himself and seemed to be unaware of her presence as he seemed to be cutting something on a cutting board. She watched him in silence for a few moments. The way his body moved, the broadness of his shoulders, hidden underneath a black t-shirt. The slope of his lithe back muscles, the taunt skin of the back of his arms that peaked through the shirt material. The way the bottom of his shirt sort of lay caught on the side of his pants right where his ass started. He was thin but he definitely had a certain bit of lean cut to his ligaments that she could see even through his clothes.
“Need any help?�
�� Amiira forced herself to speak up and break the unwavering bit of ogling she was doing of him, without his knowledge at that.
Kian turned his head slightly while leaving his body in place as he looked at her, his brown eyes seeming to take in the full spectrum of her presence in a nanosecond. If she was less mindful of him in every way, she would have missed the quick once-over he gave her before turning back to what he was doing.
“Nah, I'm good,” Kian mumbled, as he continued cutting what looked to be limes.
Amiira set her belongings that she was still carrying on the barstool next to her, as she took a seat in the other one.
“Where is everyone?” Amiira asked as she continued eyeing the back of him. She was trying to resist commenting about his glorious hair, because anything she said would have sounded like a come-on.
“Wyatt's at the store because I didn't buy tequila last night, I don't know where Elijah is and Riley's in the shower.”
“How were the waves this morning?” Amiira questioned, as she propped her elbows lightly on the counter, content to watch him complete his task as they made small talk.
Before she knew what was what, Kian's entire body language changed and she heard the knife that he was using clank against the kitchen counter. His shoulders tightened and she saw him shirk back in pain.
“Shit!”
Chapter 11
Amiira had jumped up from her seat and was by his side, out of pure instinct and adrenaline, before she had even realized she was moving. Kian was wincing in pain and had his left hand gripping his right, as a look of discomfort laced the expression on his face.
“I'm okay,” Kian murmured underneath his breath.
Amiira saw a bit of blood on the counter and instantly knew what he had done. She grabbed a roll of paper towels that were nearby and gingerly placed a comforting hand on his shoulder.
“Let me see it,” Amiira said softly, trying to gauge the level of the wound, but his other hand was almost completely covering the afflicted one.
“It's fine, I'm okay,” Kian maintained, his bright eyes leaving his hands momentarily to look at her, as if he had just become aware of her proximity.
Their eyes locked and Amiira felt a bit of warmth come over her body, as she quickly shook it off, broke their intertwined gazes and tore off a sheet of paper towel from the roll.
Wordlessly she put her hand over his, pulling it gently so she could look at his wound. He relented with a soft audible sigh. The gash was on a bad part of his hand, underneath the knuckle in the meaty crevice beneath his index finger. Blood spooled out of the cut when it was fully exposed. Amiira quickly took the paper towel and gently applied pressure to the wound.
“It looks much worse than it is,” Kian assured her gently, his body turning further towards her.
Even though Amiira was preoccupied with his injury, she was not at all unaware of the laser like focus he had cast upon her in their relatively new and foreign closeness. She continued to hold the pressure against his hand without responding. His gaze against her face felt almost physical and she could feel the body heat coming off of his in waves. A faint smell of soap and sandalwood with some faint notes of mango crept into her nose as she took a steadying breath.
“You were distracting me,” Kian's velvety voice was almost a whisper and it made the hairs on the back of Amiira's neck stand up. She could feel the way he was almost willing her to look him in the eye.
“What by talking to you?” Amiira questioned gently, but with an air of incredulity. She looked around at her surroundings casually with all the inattentiveness she could muster, looking everywhere but into his face. “You guys have to have some peroxide around here somewhere.”
“There's a first aid kit in one of these cabinets,” Kian replied his voice still low, his gaze still as unflinching as it was when he'd first laid it on her.
“Does it hurt?” Amiira questioned almost purely out of reflex. She was suddenly somehow increasingly concerned with the level of pain he may have been experiencing, although his body language had calmed and seemed incredibly relaxed compared to before.
“Not anymore,” Kian said sincerely. Amiira suddenly felt his eyes everywhere and became more and more conscious of the fact that she was standing in her swim suit, half naked and completely exposed to his discernible eyes.
“Do those lines work well for you elsewhere?” Amiira posed rather deliberately, her eyes flicking up to meet his for the first time. She was instantly almost zapped into stillness when their gazes met.
“It wasn't a line,” Kian responded steadily, the slightest bit of a smile formed at the corners of his mouth. “Those are ineffectual and meaningless.”
“Put pressure on this while I look for the first aid kit,” Amiira instructed gently, wondering if her tone was wavering the way her insides were. They felt like jelly as she shifted her weight between her feet.
“You're doing a much better job at that then I would,” Kian responded.
Amiira's lips parted as an attempt to form some type of retort began, but no sound came from her mouth. Kian's eyes dipped downward momentarily and that brief change of focus made Amiira's breath catch in her throat. Her fingers unconsciously stiffened around the hand she was applying pressure to.
It must not have hurt because he didn't react, only further pulled her silently into his being without even physically laying a hand on her.
“Good,” Kian said suddenly, his voice a gentle respite.
“What?” Amiira questioned, almost fearful she had been trapped in some sort of daze induced by his hauntingly caramel eyes, and she'd missed the context in which he was speaking.
“You asked me how the waves were this morning,” Kian explained, his eyes roaming the angles of her face as if it held the secret map to some hidden treasure.
The almost tangible quality that existed in the air between them as their bodies loomed near one another was downright invigorating; Amiira could feel herself involuntarily lean into him until a voice pulled her from her trace-like state. Both she and Kian's heads snapped up as they looked towards the sound.
“What happened?” Riley asked curiously from the entryway of the kitchen. She could tell that she was interrupting something and if she hadn't started talking before she had reached the kitchen, she wouldn't have even bothered them.
“Kian cut his hand,” Amiira explained hurriedly as she took a small step away from Kian, she suddenly felt almost embarrassed and unnecessarily exposed. “Where's the first aid kit?”
“It's right here,” Riley remarked as she walked towards one of the deep mahogany cabinets, giving Amiira a very specific look that ranged somewhere on the spectrum of pleased and impressed. Likely, the look had to do with what Riley assumed she had just interrupted.
Amiira thanked Riley for the items once she had located them as Wyatt came bustling through the front door before she even had time to clean and bandage Kian's hand.
“What'd I miss?” Wyatt asked once he'd entered the kitchen, seemingly very much aware that the energy in the room was thick with something unforeseen.
“Kian almost chopped his finger off,” Riley explained simply, grabbing the Sun Chips that peeked out of the bag Wyatt was still holding.
“I did not, you're so dramatic Rye,” Kian retorted, and a small chuckle escaped his throat.
Amiira tuned them out as she worked on cleaning and covering his wound, all the while trying to stop her heart from racing a mile a minute after the moment she had just slipped so easily into with the gorgeous man standing at her side.
Chapter 12
A couple of hours and two margaritas later, Amiira stood in her shower, letting the hot water run over her tired and tight muscles. She couldn't help but replay the moment in the kitchen between her and Kian over and over in her head. Like a record spinning on an old player, long after it had stopped playing the music.
She had nothing to blame the incredibly intimate moment on but herself, and maybe even him a little
bit. She hadn't been drinking before it had happened, but once Wyatt had come back with tequila, she had needed something to calm her mangled nerves just at the mere sight of Kian.
He'd explained what happened to his hand in relative detail to both Wyatt and Riley, making it sound like Amiira was some sort of magical nurse, when all she had really done was apply pressure and clean the cut, like anyone with basic knowledge of surface injuries would have done.
It also didn't escape her how he'd place himself by her side following the incident. She didn't know if he was being purposeful in his movements or if it was all done on account of the involuntary energy that existed wordlessly between them.
Amiira also knew that Riley had certain suspicions since she had walked in on them in the kitchen. As Amiira played back the moment in her head once more, she felt certain that she hadn't been about to bridge the small gap in between their faces to kiss him, and she wasn't sure if he had been. But what she did know for sure is that if Riley hadn't entered the kitchen when she had, something inexplicable would have happened between the two of them.