I nod, wiping my suddenly sweaty palms along the legs of my jeans. Right. Go. We need to go. And I need to focus on the job at hand. Things are messed up enough. Adding any additional complications to the mix would be absolutely crazy.
Except, as I climb into the front passenger seat of the van, I can’t help thinking about how warm his body felt next to mine. How his eyes had that crazy, sexy look in them. How much I really, really want to know what he tastes like.
“Here.” After starting the van, Draven drops a small bag in my lap.
“What is it?” I ask.
“Open it and see.”
I stare at him uncertainly before reaching into the bag. I pull out three of my favorite chocolate bars. They’re the same kind that I was trying to get out of the vending machine the night we met.
“I don’t understand.”
“You never got your candy the other night, you know, with the break-in and all. So”—he shrugs—“I figured I owed you.”
His voice is steady, but his fingers tap nervously against the steering wheel. He doesn’t put the van in gear. Is he waiting for something?
I want to reach over and cover his hand with my own, press a kiss to his darkly stubbled cheek. But neither is a smart move. Not now when everything is such an uncertain mess. So instead, I just say, “Thank you. That was really nice.”
“It’s a couple candy bars, Kenna,” he tells me with a smirk. “Not world peace.”
True. But he didn’t have to buy them for me. They aren’t necessary, not the way Jeremy’s chocolate milk is. That he did it anyway, because he was thinking of me, feels…nice. The simple gesture makes me feel special and that’s not an emotion I’m usually acquainted with.
“Well, thank you, anyway.” I open one of the bars and break off a piece. Then I hold it out to him. Instead of taking it from me, he leans toward me. Opens his mouth a little. My throat goes desert dry as I feed him the chocolate.
His lips brush against my fingers as he closes his mouth around the candy, and suddenly I can’t breathe.
To hell with everything I just told myself about villains and complications. I want to kiss him.
I lean forward, nearly falling off the van’s bucket seat in the process. But I don’t because he’s leaning forward too—meeting me, catching me. We’re so close that I can feel his warm, sweet breath against my cheek, my lips.
He stops, though. He doesn’t move any closer, and I know he’s waiting for me. Making sure this is what I want. This villain, this self-proclaimed “bad guy” is turning the control over to me, letting me make the decision. It’s something no other guy—not even Jeremy—has done.
This sends me over the edge, and I close the last of the distance between us in a rush.
I brush my lips over his, my eyes fluttering closed. And then nearly jump through the roof when his cell phone explodes with the old Guns N’ Roses song, “Welcome to the Jungle.”
He groans and curses, but pulls away. “Dante,” he mutters bitterly before yanking his phone out of his jeans pocket. “What?”
He listens for a second. “Slow down, Rebel. What’s going on?”
I sit up at the mention of my best friend’s name and give him a quizzical look. He holds up a hand for me to wait.
“They’re doing what?” His voice gets louder. “We’re on our way.”
“What’s wrong?” I demand as Draven throws the van into drive and barrels through the parking lot and out onto the street.
“Nitro,” he spits out.
All kinds of visions flash through my head. “Did he burn down the hotel?”
“Not yet. But give him ten minutes.”
I’m a little afraid to ask what that means, so I keep my mouth shut for the rest of the ride except to ask, “Is Rebel okay?”
“She’s fine. Dante won’t let anything happen to her.”
We squeal into the parking lot, and Draven barely takes time to turn off the van before he’s racing through the lobby to our suite. We’re in the back corner of the top floor so it’s a bit of a run, especially when Draven refuses to wait for the elevator. We asked for that room because there were no close neighbors—a fact I’m grateful for when I follow Draven inside to find Jeremy hanging from the spinning ceiling fan while Nitro lobs small orange fireballs at him.
So far, it doesn’t look like any of them have hit Jeremy, but with Nitro’s control issues, I’m not sure if that’s by accident or design. Then again, his aim could be messed up by the fact that Jeremy keeps trying to fry him. He’s using his technopathic powers to send volts of electricity straight at Nitro from every object in the room that is currently plugged in.
The side effect of him using that power is that everyone in the room’s hair is standing straight up. It’s not a bad look on Draven or Dante, but Nitro’s looks even more like a matchstick. And I really don’t want to know what I look like.
“What. The. Hell?” Draven demands over the noise of Nitro and Jeremy’s yelling.
“Get him down!” I order Dante, who is watching the scene with a huge smile on his face.
“I’d love to, but I’m not the one who put him up there. He jumped up himself.”
“Seriously?”