Against All Odds

Chapter 49

STELLA

I sat back, my bottom settling against Killian's thighs.

"No condoms?" I repeated dumbly. My mind was taking a whole lotta time computing and I couldn't quite get my body to catch up.

All I knew was that I wanted Killian.

Did I care that literally days ago we had parted ways with the intention not to pursue anything further between us? No.

Did I want to think anymore about the issue of us?

Also no.

I just wanted to bone my ex and forget about the repercussions. Was that so hard?

Apparently, because now Killian was spouting something about condoms and looking so damn adorable with a haggardly pained look wrinkling the corners of his eyes...

"Oh," I said, realisation finally making a delayed entrance to the party. "No condoms."

"Do you have any?"

Did I? Nope. I didn't buy any because I didn't intend to bang my way through the Maldives, especially at a resort like the one I had been put in. From experience, such places weren't prime locations for singles to visit and get it on. Resorts like this one were created with the intention to cater to couples- a romantic getaway or honeymoon, for example.

Also, sleeping with someone while pining away after Killian wasn't something I had wrapped my head around, or even fleetingly considered.

"No." God, I felt a bit slow as the remnants of desire simmered low in my belly, trying in vain to take over once more. "Are you saying that after everything we went through in South Africa, you didn't buy any?"

Because we had been seconds away from tearing into each others' pants then.

Killian's look morphed into his signature droll one. "Did you?"

I gifted him an eye roll. "No, but that's beside the point."

"Is it?"

My hands settled on his shoulders- God, so broad and strong. He was a sight for sore eyes beneath me, all muscly chest and corrugated abdomen, splattered with dark and colourful tattoos. I felt his thumbs stroke absently at the underside of my breasts, a touch so soft I barely noticed it, yet enough to make my skin tingle and nipples pebble into points that felt too sensitive against the nylon fabric of my swimsuit.

Everything about this man was so distracting I had to physically shake my head to stave off some of the fog and compel myself to focus.

"Well, I have an IUD," I managed to point out as my fingers idly toyed with the bulge of muscle on one of his biceps, "and I had to get tested recently for visa shit before I came to South Africa, so..."

Something infinitely hungry and dark shadowed his brow. There was a moment of suspended silence, pregnant with unspoken insinuation, where I waited for his response and everything in Killian seemed to freeze, his body and hands still where he touched me.

"So I'm clean..." I finished when I assumed he wouldn't draw the obvious conclusion from my earlier confession.

Then my world spun off its axis and I found myself pressed into the couch, on my back, and Killian loomed over me, tangled with my legs. His head dipped, lips finding the curve of my shoulder, the edge of pain that accompanied the scrape of his teeth over my sunburn leaving shivers in its wake. "To put your mind at ease," he murmured darkly as he trailed small kisses across my shoulder, "I got tested shortly after Amber, and I haven't been with anyone since."