Chap 101: Damn His Stupid Hands!

Tee rubbed her finger around the rim of her empty coffee mug. Her other hand, elbow resting on the table, supported her jaw. She counted the minutes in blinks, waiting for Kie, who usually woke up second. For some reason, he was late—and she hadn’t gotten the kiss that had kept her mind awake all night. How dare he keep her waiting!

Kie walked through the archway into the kitchen, wearing a white shirt and sweatpants. Tee rose from her stool to meet him halfway.

"You're late," she said, pressing her forehead against his.

He moved his hands to her waist and then to her back. "You didn’t say a time, and I had to redo my hair—"

"Sshhh." She pressed a finger to his lips but didn’t kiss him. Footsteps approaching made her ears twitch, and she stepped back.

"Good morning!" Miko called with a wide smile before fully entering the kitchen. Her large brown eyes scanned the room before locking on Tee and Kie.

"Hey," Kie mumbled, half-awake.

Tee folded her arms. "Morning."

Miko turned to pour the coffee Tee had made.

Kie cupped Tee’s chin and turned her face back to him. "Where were we?"

"Let’s go by the pool—" she began, but his smooth touch cut her words short. Her mind emptied, focused only on kissing him.

Tee admitted Kie knew how to awaken her senses. She’d never felt so aware of every inch of her body as when he kissed her. The last one sent tingles through her all night.

"Morning, morning, morning," Zod said as he entered the kitchen.

Only Miko responded, and Zod looked around to see whose ears weren't working that day. His jaw dropped at the scene before him.

"Mother of all crap!" he blurted, stopping just before colliding with the center table.

Miko turned at his outburst, and Saeda came in, seeing Miko accidentally spray coffee from her mouth onto Zod. When Zod didn’t move, Saeda followed his gaze.

After glimpsing Kie and Tee’s intimate moment, every part of her face twitched in disturbance. She raised a hand to her eyes, but it didn’t block out the sucking sounds that made her shiver.

Though not as intense as the backward-tilt kiss Kie had given Tee, that one was longer and gentler. Every wall of ice she had built over the years to counter Jack’s burns shattered with each twist of his lips. She realized she had never had a kiss like that and wondered what else he could give her. She wrapped her arms around him, heartbeat echoing in her head.

The warm coffee that splashed on Zod finally broke his trance. He blinked slowly, squeezed the bridge of his nose, and realized the hot liquid dripping from his ears meant he wasn’t dreaming.

Saeda kept her head down as she walked over to the coffee maker. Seeing Miko still staring, she couldn’t understand. “How are you watching them? It’s gross.”

Miko’s brown eyes narrowed as she noticed Saeda. She nudged her arm with a grin. “This deserves a celebration.” She slammed the empty coffee mug on the table. “Let’s bake a cake.”

“We make cakes for everything,” Zod said, stopping his eye-rubbing and turning toward her.

“You’re right,” Miko said, hand at her chin. “Let’s make something new.”

“Remember, we have training, so nothing too heavy,” Saeda added in her monotone.

Tee’s arms around Kie didn’t stop pulling him closer, and he realized something. When a woman claimed she didn’t want affection, it meant she craved it. Whoever Tee’s first love was, he starved her.

A heavy heartbeat reminded him that Tee didn’t truly love him. He was just an appetizer to calm her hunger, just like the troopers at his MG. But he was determined to find the key to her heart, however long it took.

She wasn’t going to die on him, and the pain he feared most wouldn’t stop him from letting her in. His outside scars were fading, but she could heal the ones from loneliness on the inside—and he wanted to keep her. To get her to open up, he would have to show her the bad, the ugly, and the grotesque.

The aroma of something brought him back to the present. He pulled away from her. With space between their faces again, he said, “We should eat and get ready for training.” He gave her one last kiss and pinched her neck.

Tee’s arms no longer had his strong shoulders to cling to, and they fell to her sides. “Fine,” she said, moving away from the counter.

Zod figured he knew why Kie had bought those condoms at the Mart. Someone was planning to get freaky.

Breakfast was ready, and their teammates were already eating in the dining room. Kie and Tee filled their plates and joined them at the table. Tee barely lifted her fork when Zod pushed his chair back and jumped to his feet, glass cup in hand.

He held the cup toward the ceiling, speaking in an unnaturally deep voice. “Here’s a toast to our new lovebirds, Tee and Kie…”

Tee dropped her fork, unprepared for their reaction. She had planned to be done with Kie before anyone knew they were a thing. But she couldn’t end it. He was addictive.

Kie kept his half-opened eyes on Zod but didn’t stop chewing.

“…may you have a long and happy life together.”

Miko lifted her cup, her high-pitched voice and rapid speech making her words almost incomprehensible. She repeated it slowly.

“Oops, guess I’m a bit excited. Anyway, remember me if you ever need a nanny. I babysat my aunt’s baby once, and she said I was a professional.”

Whoever Kie’s future baby-mother would be, it wasn’t going to be Tee. Heck, she’d have to be crazy to keep thinking about the eight kids he said he wanted. She downed her fourth cup of coffee in one go, flushing the thoughts away.

The silence, pierced by the sensation of needles on Saeda’s forehead, reminded her that her voice was needed. She looked up at the four people in the room and raised her right thumb.

“Yeah. What they said. Can I eat now?”

They didn’t waste another second and did exactly that.

The Commander separated Tee from her teammates for training again. Kie got to blow her a kiss before the white doors shut, leaving him unseen.

Saeda got her separate space to practice aura sensing. Within minutes of being left alone, her power skyrocketed. She shut her eyes and could see everything else as energy signatures, but a bad feeling nagged her. Why did it feel on and off? What interference could it be?

The Commander led Tee to the bright yellow fields again. He couldn’t understand the wide smile that never left her face. While leaving her at the Vortex, he activated the powerful laser drone camouflaged in the sky. The tingles on Tee’s head wiped the smile away. Within moments, the smell of grass hit her nose as she rolled through it.

After training, only one thing was on Tee’s mind. She skipped her usual short nap and bandaged her wounds. Through her room’s glass window, rain fell like needles on the Primus grounds, ruining her plan to return to the fields. But that didn’t stop her from looking for Kie.

He was on the couch in the telegram emitter room, reading. She didn’t need to foresee the screen to know it was DGS again. Only the page numbers caught her eye. Those kinds of stories weren’t her cup of tea. He must have been reading from aggregator sites. The restricted wifi didn’t allow purchases, and he hadn’t run out of things to read.

The dim light inside reminded her of the storm outside, and she wished it were cold. It would give her a reason to need a cuddle. She tried anyway, sitting close enough to brush arms with Kie. When his eyes didn’t lift from the tab, a flicker of disappointment passed over her smile. Did he not see her?

She tilted her head onto his shoulder, staring at nothing. Then came movement. He held the tab with one hand and wrapped the other around her, pulling her closer. Warm, fuzzy feelings stretched a smile across her face, and she blinked twice, wondering if it was real. Why hadn’t Jack treated her that way? She buried her head in Kie’s shirt to hide her tears.

“Are we having another therapy session?” Kie asked, his eyes shifting side to side while still on the tab.

Tee spoke into his shirt. “No… Cooper. No talking.” She pulled her legs up and rested them on his thigh.

Kie closed the tab and set it aside. He lifted his feet onto the glass table and leaned closer.

When Tee felt a kiss on her head, she shut her eyes to savor the moment. No one had ever made her feel so intensely. Jack had only let her get that close when he wanted to get laid. Never had she felt so cared for—and she liked it.

But she didn’t care about Kie. She was only fulfilling her own needs. Plus, she still hadn’t gotten any ammo from him, and it would take more time. Maybe another week, a month…? She smiled.

They both fell asleep on the couch, and Zod, Miko, and Saeda decided not to wake them. They missed dinner and slept deep into the night. Tee’s stomach growled, echoing in her head, and the second heartbeat coming from her moving pillow felt odd. She snapped her eyes open, glanced at the other couches in the dim room, and realized she had fallen asleep on Kie.

She tilted her head up and kissed him on the cheek facing her. His eyes cracked open, and she pursed her lips. It was so much easier to kiss him than Jack. It would be a shame if she mutated right then and died without experiencing the finest things in life. She hadn’t thought of a relationship after Jack, and she needed to make use of that limited opportunity.

She moved her lips to Kie’s ear and whispered, “Why don’t we do something exciting?”

His brows knitted, recalling hearing those same words from the girls at his Mid-Guard. He opened his eyes wide. “Like what?”

“We’re alone,” she said. “Now is a good time to get to know each other better. Ruin me.”

Kie turned his head away and let out a puff of laughter. He crossed one leg over the other on the glass table. “No.”

Tee blinked and pulled her chin in, leaning back. She hadn’t expected that response.

Kie added, “We’re going to be together for a long time. If we start too early, we’ll get tired of each other.”

“Tsk, you won’t get tired of me,” she said, emphasizing the word me.

Kie shut his eyes and turned his head the other way. Tee felt continuing that conversation would be like talking to a brick wall. The information she’d gotten about his parents had already proven that.

“Fine. I won’t force you.”

She leaned closer until she smelled his faint cologne lingering on his neck. It smelled good. She wondered how she hadn’t noticed it before.

“What cologne are you wearing?” she asked, moving her nose closer.

“None,” he said.

Tee hadn’t expected him to answer. Since she wasn’t sleepy, she decided to keep the conversation going. Maybe she could get something out of him.

“Weird name to call a cologne,” she teased.

Kie smiled as he felt her breath tickle his neck. “I’m not wearing cologne. Now quit it,” he said, putting on a serious face while pretending to sleep.

“Are you telling me your skin is what smells so good?” she asked, knitting her brows.

His arms were hidden by the long sleeves of his buttoned-up shirt. His neck and head were the only exposed skin near her. The closer she got, the stronger and more enticing the scent became.

Was he lying about not wearing cologne? She licked his neck, tasting the sweetest meat ever. Another growl from her stomach reached her head.

Kie felt a sudden tightening in his pants and knew his body was reacting. He didn’t notice when her eyes went black and her teeth elongated as she opened her mouth to bite his neck.

“One time won’t hurt,” he said.

“Auch!”

A sharp pinch on her back pulled her out of the trance. She blinked twice, trying to unsee the veins pulsing with blood inside Kie’s neck. As her teeth sank back into her gums, a memory of the dark energy blast flashed by her head.

Tee slipped from Kie’s arms before he could pull her closer. When he felt her weight lift completely, he leaned up and looked at her, eyes wide.

“Are you alright?” He removed his legs from the glass table and brushed his bangs from his eyes. “You look terrified, and I haven’t even started yet.”

Tee clenched her shirt at her stomach as another painful growl echoed. She avoided his gaze and stepped back. “I just realized how late it is. I need to get to bed. Night!” Then she rushed off.

Kie stared at the empty glass table in the dark. He shouldn’t have pinched her so hard. Damn his stupid hands!