Authors: S.C. Stephens
Jessie had done all that she could to make her grandmother comfortable at the hospital; luckily, she’d only fractured her hip, and not broken it. Coming back into the room and seeing her fling from the previous night causally sitting with her grandmother had freaked her out. She was so sure he’d been stalking her. She’d heard of that happening with girls. Guys got obsessed and couldn’t let go. But the truth of who he was and why he’d been cuddling with a frail old woman was so much worse…
Watching Kai now, seeing the conflict swirling through his beautiful face, Jessie could still feel a trace of residual attraction. She couldn’t help it. He had perfect skin, a charming smile, amazing hair, and a sculpted physique. And then there were his eyes…so remarkable that she couldn’t even look at them anymore.
As if sensing her thoughts, Kai suddenly muttered, “I need a drink.”
Plagued by memories, Jessie frowned at him. “Isn’t that what got us into this mess in the first place?”
He ran a hand through his hair as he looked her over. “Do you want to go for a walk?”
Jessie nodded automatically, even though she wasn’t sure if that was what she wanted or not. A part of her wanted to go back to her grandmother’s room and hide under the blankets with her, like she used to when she was five. Another part of her still wanted to hide under the covers with Kai. She immediately hated that part of herself.
He started walking, not looking to see if she was following. Shaking her head, she hurried to catch up. Once she did, he glanced her way. “I can’t believe this. I just can’t believe this…” His hand touched his stomach again.
Jessie let out a shaky breath as his eyes flicked over her face. “I can’t either. I mean…what are the odds that we would…?” As they walked down the hall, nurses and patients scooting around them, Jessie truly debated that question. Of all the cities, of all the clubs, of all the nights she’d let herself go, she’d run into her cousin…who, until recently, had lived his entire life on an island she’d never even been to. Crazy. Irritated at the universe, she glared at him. “Why didn’t you recognize me? You knew I lived here?”
As they walked through a set of double doors into the main artery of the hospital, Kai’s expression turned incredulous. “I haven’t seen a picture of you in years. And the last one I did see, I think you were twelve.” He flung his hand out at her body. “You certainly didn’t look like this.” His eyes lingered on her hips for a moment, before quickly pulling away.
Jessie flushed and tried to shield herself as they walked down to the first floor. “Well, you could have recognized my name. I did give it to you.”
He stopped walking. “You’re joking, right?” She was about to speak when he added, “They all call you Jessica Marie. You introduced yourself as Jessie. How was I supposed to make
that
leap?”
Putting her hands on her hips, Jessie watched Kai’s face as he struggled to keep his gaze above her neck. Irritated at his very good point, she took a step toward him. “You’re the one who came here, a city where you knew I lived. You should have been looking out for me.”
With a tight jaw, he cocked his head and said, “I wasn’t expecting you to throw yourself at me.” Her eyes widened and as her mouth dropped open, she considered storming off. His next comment firmly ground her though. “Besides, Gran had nine kids, and they all had a crap load of kids. Do you have any idea how many cousins I have?”
Annoyed again at his good point, Jessie snapped, “Yes! I get the yearly Christmas letter too!”
Kai cringed, but recovered quickly. When he spoke again, irritation was thick in his voice too. “Why didn’t you recognize
my
name? How many Kais have you heard of around here?”
Jessie’s hands dropped to her side as she sputtered on something intelligent to say. He made a very good argument. Several of them. But she had thought he was still thousands of miles away. She hadn’t expected him to show up at April’s favorite club, looking all hot and lonely. Plus, she’d sort of forgotten his name…right after he’d said it.
Seeing that she was at a loss for words, Kai smirked. “You didn’t remember my name, did you?” Stepping back, Jessie tried to look defiant and offended. He saw right through it, and with amusement in his eyes, he crossed his arms over his chest. The movement reminded Jessie of his tattoo; horribly enough, she wanted to see it again. “Admit it. Immediately after you commented on my eyes, you forgot my name, didn’t you?”
Jessie really hated how that sounded. She was generally very good with names, but she’d had quite a few drinks at that point in the evening, and barely remembered. Although she thought she faintly recalled the stupid rhyme he was referring to. “I was a little…out of sorts.”
His crooked grin turned disturbingly sexy. “
You
were wasted.”
Her hands returned to her hips. “And you were supposed to be on a tiny island in the middle of nowhere, not in my backyard.” She let out a defeated sigh. “Yes, I didn’t remember your name. But Grams didn’t know exactly when you were coming, and I wasn’t expecting to come across you at a club in my city.”
He only stared at her with his eyebrow still cocked. How damn attractive that was made Jessie inwardly swoon, even as her stomach churned. With a groan, she grudgingly added, “Yes, I was wasted, okay. I’ve been having a bad streak lately.” A bad streak that had somehow shifted into an
atrocious
streak.
Relaxing his arms, Kai started walking down the hallway again. Stopping at a vending machine, he plopped in some quarters, and they watched in silence as the machine spit out some black liquid that vaguely resembled coffee. When it shut off, Kai handed her the cup and put in some more quarters. Jessie found her eyes straying to his hips, and her mind flashed back to memories she really shouldn’t be revisiting. When he turned to face her, Jessie was still staring at his hips. She flushed and swiftly raised her eyes to his. Being caught staring at her cousin’s privates was not helping the situation any.
Giving her a sympathetic expression, Kai indicated a door leading to an outdoor courtyard. Jessie turned, grateful for the excuse to stop looking at him for a moment. She inhaled a deep breath as she stepped into the refreshing, cool air. Gray, heavy clouds trudged across the sky, but it was wasn’t pouring yet. The benches spaced along the pathway were wet with small puddles of rain from last night’s storm. It had been absolutely dumping when she’d left Kai’s apartment. The entire ride home she’d wished she was still at his place, wrapped in his sheets with his warm body next to hers. Now, as he stood beside her, his arm brushing against hers, she was torn between still wanting that scenario, and being revolted by it.
With his head down, Kai nodded over to a bench quaintly nestled under a tall tree. Its leaves having long ago fallen to the ground, the bare branches stretched up into the sky like skeletal fingers. The hospital had placed the bench at the very edge of the cracked concrete, and the berm directly behind it was bursting with clumps of green shrubbery. Jessie imagined that in the spring, it was probably beautiful out here. Maybe that helped ease the mind of frazzled family members, waiting on the outcome of their loved ones’ surgeries. She wished it had the same effect on her current condition; her mind was spinning in endless circles.
Kai wiped the droplets off the bench with his free hand, the extra water dripping from his skin. He sat on the edge and brushed the residual moisture on his thigh before motioning for her to sit beside him. She exhaled softly as she sat; their hips just touched on the small seat.
Kai flicked a glance at her then took a sip of his drink. Jessie did the same. As the warm coffee soothed her throat, the feeling of horror in her stomach started to shift into something tragic. She could like this man. A lot. Her night with him had been amazing. But, even if they were the exact perfect match, and last night had been some fated meeting to bring them together, it couldn’t happen. They were related. They shared the same gene pool. Being with him in that way was wrong, taboo. Her friends would be disgusted. Her family would disown her…and him. They’d lose everyone. And she wasn’t sure, but there were probably laws somewhere, preventing and punishing the very thing that they’d done last night. Marriage was certainly out. As were children. That thought made her stomach roil again. God, no, their genes were too similar to ever risk children.
She sputtered on the sip of coffee she’d just taken, and her hand flew to her aching gut. She’d suddenly remembered the forgotten condom in her purse last night. While she was still on the pill and pregnancy wasn’t an issue, it brought that
This is too gross to be true
feeling right back to her.
Kai stopped drinking and stared at her as she choked on her awful vending machine coffee. “What?” he whispered.
With tears of frustration and revulsion in her eyes, she immediately told him, “A part of you is still inside me.” Embarrassment hit her after she said it, but it
was
what was churning her stomach at the moment. He had released inside of her. A part of her cousin was currently swimming through her body. Oh God…
Kai’s face turned so pale, Jessie thought he might be light-headed. Closing his marvelous eyes, he inhaled a long breath. “Jesus…” Without opening his eyes, he whispered, “Could you get pregnant?”
She shook her head, but he couldn’t see it, since his eyes were still shut. So he would know they were okay in that sense, she verbally added, “No, I take the pill, but it’s still grossing me out.”
Kai finally peeked his eyes opened and looked at her. “I’m so sorry. I don’t usually… Things like last night aren’t common for me. But, we didn’t know, Jessie. We didn’t know.”
With a heavy exhale, Jessie let her hand drop to her lap. “Things like that don’t happen to me either. I just… You were so…” She swallowed and shook her head. “This is so messed up.”
Looking pensive, Kai ran his thumb around the edge of his coffee cup. Jessie tried to block out the knowledge of the other places that thumb had been recently. Staring down at the thick, blackness inside his cup, he again said, “We didn’t know.”
They sat in silence for a few moments, and then he lifted his gaze. “You know, it’s not all that crazy.” He shrugged at seeing Jessie’s confused expression. “In some cultures, cousins are arranged to be married. Didn’t Jerry Lee Lewis marry his cousin?”
She wrinkled her nose. “We have the
same
last name. Sorry, that doesn’t make me feel any better. And Jerry Lee Lewis? Ew.”
Kai laughed, just once, and then released another melancholy breath. “I’m just trying to make this not seem so…”
“Awful,” Jessie whispered.
He shook his head, his eyes trailing over her face. “Yeah, awful.”
They finished their bland cups of coffee, and then Jessie started picking at her cup. Not sure what to feel right now, she alternated between disgust, sadness, desire, and curiosity. Feeling that the last emotion was the one she could entertain the most at the moment, she looked over to see Kai also tearing apart his cup. Their similar habit made her smile. “So…Hawaii? I hear it’s nice.”
“Yeah, it can be,” he said with a smile.
Jessie shook her head, trying not to notice the charm in his boyish grin. “I can’t imagine why you’d come to Colorado. If I lived in paradise, I’d never leave.”
His smile widened as he leaned back on the bench. “Well, once you’ve gone through a couple rainy seasons, you get a different opinion of island life.” He shrugged. “I guess you just get used to the beauty, once you’ve lived in it your whole life.
Jessie bit her lip, and for just a second she let herself think that she would never get used to
his
island beauty. Shaking her head to clear the troubling thought, she said, “Well, I’ve always wanted to go there.” She laughed. “I used to try and get my parents to visit yours every summer when I was younger. I wanted to learn how to surf so badly. I used to practice on the lawn.”
Kai laughed, but abruptly stopped when what she’d said sunk in. Parents. Family. Cousins. Jessie would have given anything to visit Kai as a kid, and that made everything they’d done last night seem that much weirder. Jessie cleared her throat. Would every topic be awkward? “Well, I hope you’re not too disappointed, living here.”
Kai stared at her in silence for a few seconds. When he spoke again, his voice was soft and full of meaning. “So far, it’s been pretty incredible.” He reached up and tucked a loose curl behind her ear. A lump formed in Jessie’s throat, and her eyes began to glisten as the back of his knuckle lingered on her cheek. Why did she have to be related to him?
Dropping his hand from her skin, Kai returned his gaze to his coffee. Surprisingly, Jessie instantly missed the contact. Voice soft, he told her, “Maybe it’s because I grew up on a beach, but I’ve always wanted to ski.” He looked up at her, and Jessie had to blink several times to clear her eyes. “Maybe you could teach me?”
She wasn’t sure how she would be able to handle spending that much intimate time with him, but she nodded anyway. They were family, and it was the least she could do for him. “Yeah, of course.” Another moment of silence passed between them, but there was a comfortable companionship in the silence this time. If they weren’t who they were, their personalities would have been very well matched; they probably would have made an amazing couple. But as fate would have it, they
were
who they were, and any companionship between them had to be purely platonic.
Grumbling in her head over how unfair the universe was, Jessie crumpled the empty cup in her hand. “What do we do now, Kai?”
He reached over for her ruined cup. “We go see how our grandmother is doing. I continue getting my place together, and getting ready for my new job. And you…you go back to your life.” He gave her a serious look. “And we forget this ever happened, and never tell
anyone
about it.”
Jessie’s eyes misted again. He made it sound so easy, but she knew it wasn’t. “Yeah…no one.” There was no one she could tell anyway. Or no one she
wanted
to tell at any rate.
Kai’s gaze flicked over her face as he nodded. His eyes locked on hers, and he leaned in slightly. Jessie leaned in as well. Without even thinking about it, they had considerably closed the distance between their faces, and Jessie found herself lost in the perfect ocean of his eyes. Kai leaned in just a fraction more, and her lips parted as her breath increased; her heart started pounding. Even knowing what she did, her body still reacted to him. Biting her lip, she struggled to remember that he was family, and this was wrong. Very, very wrong. Kai paused, and his eyes narrowed, like he was struggling to remember that too.