Kindred (Book 1 The Kindred Series) (7 page)

   “I’m tired,” she interrupted Melissa sharply.
“I want to go home.”

   Melissa’s questioning onyx eyes gleamed in the light, but she bit lightly into her lower lip as she refrained from saying anything more.
Cassie’s
heart
beat fierc
ely as she hurried to the trash
can.
“My fries,” Chris
mourned
morosely.

   “I’ll buy you two batches next time!” she snapped, immediately feeli
ng guilty for her angry retort
. Chris’s eyes widened slightly but he didn’t say anything more
.
A
pparently
he had
decid
ed
that sacrificing h
is
fries was far better than arguing with her further.
It was a good decision as she felt half crazed at the moment.

   Though Cassie tried to ignore it, s
he could feel
the stranger’s
eyes burning in
to her with every step she took
. Her hands were
shaking;
her heart pound
ed
loudly in her ears, and her throat was so dry that she could hardly swallow.

   She could not deal with
this
,
not right now.
The strange sensations pounding through her were causing her composure to unravel. Something was going to happen,
and
he
was
going to be
the cause of it
.
She
didn’t know if that something was going to be good or bad though, could not sort through it, not with the emotions careening wildly through her. She
could not handle losing everything that she had ever known
, ever
thought
,
felt
,
and believed
all over again.
Yet, d
eep in the very marrow of her bones
she
knew
that
this strange
man could do all of those things, and more, if she allowed him to.

   She was not about to let him
though
.

   “W
hat put you in a
pissy
mood
all of a sudden
?”
Chris
mumbled
.

   Cassie shot him a dark look as she
started
to push him in the opposite direction of the man. She didn
’
t trust herself to look back
and
see if he was still standing there.
She was afraid that she would stand
,
frozen like a deer in the headlights
,
if she looked at him again.
She was a
fraid she would be lost to the startling force of
the stranger’s
magnetic
gaze
once more
.
“I just want to go home.”
   “Well
,
you’
re going in the wrong direction!
”
Chris
protested, trying to twist away from her shoving hands.

   Cassie looked helplessly
at
Melissa, needing some
assistance
from somewhere, but Melissa was not looking at her
.
I
n fact
,
her attention was riveted upon
the spot
where Cassie had last seen the man.
Melissa glanced
sharply
back
at
Cassie
, her eyes narrowed
slightly as she took in Cassie’s frantic expression.

   Chris pulled away from her, shaking his head in disgust. “Women,” he muttered.
“I’ll
never understand them
.”

   Cassie stared after him as he stalked a few feet
away
, heading toward the man
still
half hidden in the shadows of the building.
Chris
turned back to them, tapping his foot impatiently
as he folded his arms over his broad chest
. “Are you coming or not?” he demanded irritably, obviously still aggravated
with her for
being snippy
,
and
throwing
away
his fries.

   Cassie glanced pleadingly at Melissa
but her attention
was
still
focused upon the strange man. Cassie wanted to reach out to her, to hide behind her, to seek protection from her, but s
he found herself unable to move
. She could
still
feel his gaze upon her,
pinning her to the spot
, burning into her soul
. Melissa turned
slowly
back
to her; a half smile curved
her full mouth.

   “Come o
n Cassie, it’s getting late,
”
she said, her voice irritatingly bright.

   Cassie sta
red helplessly at her. She
wish
ed
she
could
underst
an
d what was going on
, why this man made her feel so strange and excited
and
frenzied
.
She desperately w
ish
ed
that she could go back in time,
wished that she had
never come to B’s and S’s tonight.
She wished for many,
many
things, but
n
one of them were going to come true within the next minute.
And
even if they did come true,
she
had the unsettling
fe
eling
that
he still wou
ld have found her. That he
still
would have walked into her life.

   That realization did not
hing to
ease the tight knot of anxiety crushing her chest.

  
No matter how much she didn
’
t want to
,
s
he
had to face this.
Whatever
this
was.
She had never run from anything before, no ma
tter how much she wanted to
, and she was not about to start now. No, she was not a coward,
but
she was shaking like a leaf
.

   Taking a deep breath, she straightened her shoulders
,
and
fak
ed
a bravery she did not feel
a
s she
fell into step beside Melissa. Melissa’s gaze was steady upon her, but she did
n
’
t ask any questions. Chris
moved
beside them, a dark look in his eyes as he
continued to shoot
Cassie disgruntled look
s
.
For someone that was so good at reading people, he was frustratingly
oblivious to her emotions right now.
C
lench
ing
her hands tight,
her nails dug into her palms as
they moved swiftly toward the corner of the building.

  
Though she tried hard to fight it, her gaze was drawn back to
the stranger
as surely as a magnet was drawn to metal.
He stood silently amongst the
shadows
,
but
the light
from B’s and S’s
was enough to highlight
his perfect, hard features. The world seemed to slow again
, fading away, blending into nothing
ness
as h
is presence
filled her universe.

  Like a black hole, she could not resist falling into him, becoming lost to him
as she was sucked in
.
He was the moon, and she wanted to gravitate toward him as she became trapped within his fierce, compelling pull. And like the moon with the earth, she needed him to survive. And she
wanted
him! Slowly the hollowness inside
her
began to mend itself again, she became whole once more. It was right,
she
was right in a way that she hadn
’
t been in so long. He healed all of the hurt and loss and confusion that had been enshrouding her, choking her.

 
Suddenly
she couldn
’
t recall why she would
even
want to fight against the
strong
draw he had over her
. Couldn’t recall
why she shouldn’t just throw herself at him right now. No
matter how pathetic and crazy
it would be
.
For some strange reason she was certain that he would not deny her, that in fact he would eagerly accept her in his arms.

   He was magnificent, his face hard and beautiful all
at once. His strong jaw and firm
mouth were clenched together, a muscle
twitched
in his cheek
as his emerald eyes blazed into hers
. His
wavy
black hair
was wind
tossed and disheveled
as it fell around his
chiseled
face
.
The boyishness of his
tussled
hair
add
ed
a
n
almost vulnerable air to him that she was sure he did not possess.

  S
hift
ing
slightly, his
lithe
muscles flex
ed
and flow
ed
fluidly beneath
his jacket and the
tight
black t-shirt he wore.
He reminded her of a dark panther, lurking within the shadows
,
hunting its
prey. For that brief moment she
truly
enjoyed the fact that she seemed to be his prey. It became difficult to
breathe through the anticipatory constriction in her chest
; her skin tingled with the fierce urge to touch him
.

   “Hey,” Chris greeted, nodding to
the stranger
.
Chris
slo
wed slightly, his head tilted
to the side as he studied the man curiously, apparently trying to get a read on him.

   The man nodded back, but his gaze didn
’
t leave hers. Cassie
could not stop herself from
slow
ing
her pace
, her body tensed
as she moved past. She had to force herself not to stop, not to reach out and touch him, not to run her fingers through
that
thick
, tempting
hair.
Her body
was
alive with electricity;
her nerves spark
ed
and fire
d
,
thrumming with
her fierce desire to feel him.

   For a moment
she thought that he was going to touch her as he moved subtly again, his body coming within centimeters of hers.
Every molecule in
side
her
s
creamed for his
touch
,
s
he
needed
his touch
.
Though the
two of them
did not
make contact
, she
could
s
till
fe
e
l
the warmth
of hi
s skin
against hers.
Instinctively,
she knew
that
to touch
him would be the most exquisite thing
she would ever experience.

 
S
he
had n
ever
imagined
that she would
feel
like this about someone.
She
had never thought it
was
possible to be this lost
,
and found
,
all
at
once
.
And she had been found.
He
had found her, and he was not going to let her go. The thought was frightening, as was the certainty that immediately followed it.