登入"Then don't stop," I said against his mouth.He didn't.He grabbed me by the waist and lifted me off the bed like I weighed nothing. My legs locked around him, my back hitting the wall hard enough to knock the air out of me. The plaster was cold against my skin, but he was so fucking hot inside me, still thick and slick from the last time he came. He didn't even bother repositioning—he just shoved his cock back into my cunt in one brutal thrust and I screamed, my head smacking against the wall."Fuck," I gasped.He didn't slow down. His hips slammed into mine, my ass bouncing off the wall with every thrust, the sound wet and obscene. His mouth found my neck, biting hard, sucking a mark into my skin."You feel that?" he said, his voice wrecked. "Feel how deep I am?"I couldn't answer. I could only nod, my nails digging into his shoulders, my legs squeezing his waist. He was so deep like this, the angle hitting something inside me that made my vision blur. His cock dragged against my
The bottle hit the floor and I couldn't move.Kai's hand was still at my waist and his breathing was loud in the quiet of the room and I was staring at the label on the floor.I just gave Kai Volkov an aphrodisiac."What do I do?" I wasn't talking to him. I wasn't talking to anyone. "What do I do, what do I do—"I grabbed the glass from his bedside table and ran to the bathroom and filled it and came back and threw it directly at his face.He inhaled sharply. Water ran down his jaw, his neck, soaked into his already half-open shirt. He looked at me with an expression I couldn't fully read because half of it was something that made my nervous system short-circuit entirely."Sorry," I said. "I'm sorry, I thought — I don't know what I thought—""It's fine." His voice was lower than usual. Rougher. He pressed the back of his hand to his jaw and exhaled slowly through his nose and I could see the effort it was taking him just to sit still. Sweat at his temple, at his throat. The hand on hi
~SLOANE~The last note fell and the room applauded and I stood there with tears running down my face and couldn't move.Daniel appeared at my side. "Sloane? Hey — what's wrong?" His hand touched my arm and I felt nothing except the lump sitting so heavy in my throat. "Sloane, talk to me. What happened?"I shook my head because it was all I had. I couldn't explain it, couldn't even begin to find the shape of words for it, so I just turned and walked and pushed through the nearest door and the cold night air hit me like a wall.My knees found the ground before I'd decided to sit.And then I just — broke. Completely. Coming from somewhere below your ribs and taking everything with it on the way out. My hands were pressed to my face and my shoulders were shaking and I was thinking about her hands. The way her fingers felt over mine on the keys, the way she'd hum slightly off-key and never notice or never care. He had listened. He had stood in that corridor and lis
Warmth. That was the first thing I noticed in the mirror — not the gown, not the silver, not the way the fabric caught the light. Just that I looked warm. My hands found the clasp without thinking. Elena had taught me months ago and apparently my fingers remembered even when my brain was elsewhere. The zip sat right, the side panel covered the rejection mark completely, and I stared at my neck for a long moment before I let myself look at the rest.Then I did, and I smiled. A real one.The Grand Hall was the kind of enormous that pressed against your chest when you walked in. Chandeliers hung from ceilings that seemed to dissolve into their own shadow, crystal throwing light across carved gold walls in patterns that shifted every time someone moved through them. It smelled like candle wax and white flowers, and the sound of it rose all the way up the staircase to where I stood and took one slow breath.Then I walked down.I felt the room notice before I saw it happen. Conversation
~SLOANE~Warmth.That was the first thing. Just warmth, everywhere, the kind that went all the way through instead of sitting on the surface and I wanted to stay near.I kept my eyes closed.My cheek was against something solid and warm and rising and falling slowly and I was wrapped in something that smelled like — him. Cold air and something that was just him, specifically him, and I had been cold for so long that the warmth felt like something I deserved to stay inside for a little while longer.Then reality arrived.My eyes snapped open.Cave ceiling. Kai's face, eyes closed, jaw relaxed, his arms around me and my cheek against his chest and his jacket wrapped around my entire body.WHAT THE HELL!I sat up and put both hands around his throat.His eyes opened slowly. Blinked and found my face.He looked completely unbothered by the hands around his neck which was somehow the most infuriating thing about this entire situation."You pervert," I said.His eyes snap
~KAI~I lost her in under four minutes.Four minutes of walking with my head somewhere it had no business being.Distraction, I'd called it, distraction, what was wrong with me? I looked up and the amber of her lantern was gone and the forest had swallowed her completely.I stood very still, closed my eyes and listened.Nothing. Just the trees doing what trees did at night and the sound of my own breathing and the absence of her footsteps which I had apparently been tracking without knowing I was tracking them.Sloane.I turned and walked fast and then faster and the forest was identical in every direction at night and I was running calculations — how far she'd walked, what direction, whether she'd gone left at the split or straight, and underneath the calculations something else was running that I didn't have clean language for.Fear.Real fear. I swept the lantern wider and caught it on the ground — a flash of red. I crouched.The ribbon. Lying on the leaves, pulled







