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I stared at him for a moment. “You can’t just show up at my job like this.”
“Says who?” Kai slowly looked around the room before his stormy eyes met mine. “I don’t see your boss anywhere.”
“Please don’t mess this up for me,” I said to him with a bite in my tone. My voice was hushed yet I saw the way his jaw ticked. “I like this job. Ineedthis job. I can’t have you here distracting me.”
Kai fell silent as he reached into his back pocket and pulled out his wallet. I watched him for a moment with confusion laced in my expression as he plucked out his ID and set it on the desk in front of me.
“Give me a library card then.”
My eyebrows were pinched together. “For what?”
“So I have an excuse to be at the fucking library.”
Panic instantly filled me. This was my safe place. I shook my head. “Absolutely not.”
He lifted an eyebrow at me as the corners of his lips twitched. “Are you going to deny someone who is requesting a free library card?”
“Your parents have a massive library. Go read the books there.”
“Already have,” he said with a smirk as he planted his palms on the desk and leaned forward slightly. “Plus, there is far more interesting material here than there is in their library.”
I cut my eyes at him. Kai was back to his games, and a part of me was excited by it. While he showed me his softer side behind closed doors, something about this side of him always had a way of irritating me and making me clench my thighs together simultaneously.
“Are you going to give me a card?” he questioned me as the smirk vanished from his lips. A fire was burning in his eyes as he stared down at me. “Or shall I call your boss and tell her that you’re refusing to give me one?”
Instinctively, my tongue slid out to wet my lips. “You wouldn’t dare.”
“Is that a challenge, Winter Reign?” There was nothing playful about his voice as his eyes continued to burn holes through mine. Kai wanted me to challenge him, he wanted me to test him. I watched him grow up this way—constantly testing the limits around him.
“Do it,” I growled as I leaned forward into his face. His minty breath skated across my face as he let out a breath. “I dare you.”
I didn’t mean it. I didn’t want him to actually call my boss, but I wasn’t going to be the one who cowered and backed down from Malakai Barclay. He already had too much power over my emotions and my life and I was done with it. If he wanted to play these stupid games, he had better be prepared to lose.
“You do know all I have to do is make a call and they will terminate your position here?”
I nodded. “I know the power you have, Malakai. I know the pull your family has.” I paused for a moment as I straightened my spine. “I’m not afraid of you.”
His jaw tightened. “You never were.”
“Because this is just the side you show to the rest of the world. I know this Malakai and I never cared much for him.”
A cruelness settled in his irises as he didn’t break eye contact. “That didn’t stop you from following me around everywhere I went.”
Kai always acted like an asshole in moments of vulnerability. The times he actually let me in when his guard was down were few and far between, but I had been inside his soul before. Kai’s walls were up so high in this moment, there was no way to see past them or through them.
“Because I know the real you. I can see past you being an asshole because I know there is good inside of you, even if you refuse to believe it.”
What a turn this conversation had taken.
Kai’s expression gave nothing away, but he couldn’t quite hide the wave of emotion that passed through his stormy irises. He was good at hiding the way he felt, but his eyes always betrayed him. Even in the coldness and the ice that settled around them, I could always see the warmth lingering inside.
He may have acted like he was made of ice, but there was really a fire burning inside him.
“So, are you going to call my boss or not?”
He remained silent and his gaze faltered as he pushed away from the desk. He stood at least a foot higher than me and his form loomed above me as his gaze collided into mine again. “No,” he said softly as he shook his head. He took a step back. “Keep your safe little job, Winter.”
I crossed my arms over my chest defensively as I refused to be the one to look away from him. If he wanted to be like this and have these little stare-downs, I was not going to be the one to lose. He called my job safe like it was a bad thing.Like he was never safe for me when in reality, he was the one who had always protected me…
