Taivon: Book Three of the Cantrell Brothers Series

Chapter Sixteen

Taivon felt his face turn beet red. He looked away and set the Rubik's cube down onto the table, a loud, plastic clack against the tiled mosaic of their table. He shouldn't be scared, but this was serious. There was a fine line between respect and shy to the point of being unattractive, and he didn't know how to not cross it.

She looked at him with heat in her eyes and a smile on her face, one of those real bright grins that told him she wanted something. That something was him. The thought made his head spin, because he wanted her, too. He liked kissing her. He'd probably like more than just kissing, too, but he needed to be prepared. Taivon wasn't prepared.

He let out a nervous laugh. “Oh, well...That's n-nice.”

He wanted to smack himself in the face, but he had no idea what else to say in response to something like that. Alix was a little minx. She was saying what she thought, which he found different. He was used to blushes, light suggestions that came from time, and being the leader. This wasn't like those other times.

“Well,” Alix said, standing up from the table with a raised brow, “you gonna drive or not?”

“Yes, ma'am.”

He gave her his keys and took their empty cups up to the counter. After thanking the man, Taivon put a tip into the jar and walked outside. Rain immediately hit his face, sort of heavy but not enough to cool down the heat in his body or stain on his cheeks.

Taking a deep breath, he got into the car. Alix was waiting in the passenger seat, a little antsy but confident. She twirled his keys in her finger and hummed something underneath her breath. Leaning over, he grabbed the keys from her long fingers and started the ignition.

She latched onto his hand, thumbs brushing his knuckles again and again. Cool drops of rain trailed down from his hair and down his face. Some got stuck in his eyelashes, but he blinked them away and focused on breathing and keeping his heart rate at a not pounding rhythm.

Nothing was said between them, but he wouldn't have been able to, anyway. With one hand in hers and the other on the wheel, he had no way to get to the picture. His words would come out as more than a train wreck, and he'd just be one step closer to messing this up.

When he had the car parked, Taivon tensed. He gripped her hand more tightly, and his breath came out harsh. He was dying for her to kiss him. Dying for her hands to hold – even protect – him from everything.

“You don't have to come in, if you don't want,” she said.

“No,” he told her, a bit too quickly. “I do. I'm just...I don't wanna mess up.”

“I don't see how you can mess up.” Alix turned and cradled his face in her hands, forcing him to look into her eyes. “We'll just play a game o' Scrabble, like at the cafe. Spend a little more time together.”

“But...” Taivon licked his lips, begging for her taste, but also needing to take things slow, if only for his own sanity. “I thought you wanted to, to kiss me.”

“I do.”

The next thing he felt were her lips on his. He closed his eyes automatically but remained still. It was only a quickly peck and connection of lips, but it heated his body up to the point of his head almost spinning.

“But,” she said, smiling, “I also wanna play some Scrabble. Ya know, relieve some of that tension.”

He let out a deep breath. “What tension?”

She unbuckled her seat belt but then moved her hands to his shoulders, fingers digging into the muscle there. He almost hissed as her fingers delved into the rigid muscle of his shoulders. Definitely tension. It was probably clearer to her than to him.