Consumed » Kai Parker

Fifty One

"Mm, twenty," he mumbles satisfactorily, as I lower myself back down to the mattress and nestle close to his body warmth.

"Fifteen."

Amusement shines in his gaze as he studies me through half-drooped lids. "Thirty it is."

Shaking my head at his playful defiance, I press a lingering kiss to the corner of his mouth causing the ends to turn up. He closes his eyes, resting his forehead against mine while unhurriedly running his palm over the side of my thigh and hip. The rain is the only sound in the quiet bedroom apart from our synced breathing, giving me a momentary sense of peace and safety that I'm reluctant to break away from.

Another raucous clap of thunder resonates off the walls and I jump slightly at the sudden noise, my forehead rearing back from Kai's. He feels my movement and his lids peel open, an eyebrow arched teasingly.

"Scared of thunderstorms?"

"No," I tell him honestly, drawing circles with my index finger absentmindedly over his chest. "I used to be, when I was younger. Elena would let me stay in her room whenever there was a storm. We would always huddle under a huge fort of blankets and sneak hot chocolate into her room, even though our mom would scold us about only eating and drinking in the kitchen." A fond smile makes its way on my lips at the recollection of the childhood memory.

"Elena would tell me that the lightening was just a bunch of giant people in the sky taking a picture of the humans on Earth, and the thunder was the click of their camera." I snicker. "It was kinda impossible to still be scared after that. I even believed her for a little while."

Cheeks flushing with a trail of heat when I notice that I began to ramble, I peer up to find Kai's gaze trained on me intently with a small smile. The attentiveness he gives me even during the most trivial dialogue is something that leaves me pleasantly bashful and surprised each time I come across it. It's nice to have someone who's so willing to listen; even more so, who seems to genuinely like hearing what you have to say.

"I was the opposite," he says after a beat, his fingertips idly traveling under the hem of my tee shirt. "Loved thunderstorms. I'd run outside in the rain and jump in the grass because I liked how squishy it felt under my boots." He laughs and I beam at the sound. "Jo would get worried that I was gonna catch a cold, but sometimes I could convince her to join in. Joshua was always pissed because I'd track mud back into the house, even though magic could clean it up in literally a second. And anyway, that only made me do it even more."

"A troublemaker since childhood," I remark. "Makes sense."

He smirks. "As opposed to the rule-following goody two shoes I'm sure you were, yup."

"Hey!" I protest. "I could've been a rebel, living on the wild side. You didn't know me."

"Charlie, the fact that you just said living on the wild side non-ironically tells me all I need to know."

The halfhearted scowl I muster only triggers his contagious chortling and he presses his lips to my forehead. I smile at the soothing contact and reach down to tug the blanket over the both of us. Snuggling deep into his chest, I rest my temple against his shoulder and place my hand over his heart to feel it thumping at a fixed rhythm.

"Are you really okay?" I whisper and his chest vibrates in a low hum, his hand traveling into my hair to rub the back of my head in slow, relaxing motions.

"I will be as long as you stay in bed with me," he answers and I exhale through a laugh.

"I'm not going anywhere." I pause. "For about thirty minutes."