All Chapters of Cracking His Code: Chapter 161 - Chapter 170

KirI find Dom in the courtyard.She’s smoking. She quit three years ago, but she picked the habit back up after the yacht and hasn't dropped it since. We’ve all taken a silent vote not to bring it up. As far as coping mechanisms go it’s not the absolute worst. She’s an adult. She knows the health risks. I’m not about to preach at her. She watches me with narrowed eyes as I make my way over to her, as if she’s expecting a lecture."You have your I need to talk to you face on.""I am going to postpone proposing."She looks at me like I’ve grown an extra head."You're what? Are you fucking crazy? Why?""He has had two parents drop into his life in the past two days. A father he never knew existed. And you should have seen him after he talked to this mother. He was completely wrecked. I do not want to overwhelm him. He is-""He’s fine. He’s been harassing me in the kitchen for an hour, demanding hints about his Christmas present. Does that sound like a man in crisis?""It sounds lik

KirWe leave the team at midnight.They've been drinking by the fire for hours, after toasting to us several times. Oliver is glowing brighter than the Christmas lights, but I can feel him getting tired. He's been on the floor between my knees since we came back into the front room, my hand in his hair, his cheek against the inside of my thigh. He hasn’t let go of my hand once. He keeps turning the ring on his finger with his thumb, slowly, like he's checking it's still there. He’s done it perhaps two hundred times and each time I melt.The next time I catch him doing it, I lean down and put my mouth at his ear."Come upstairs with me.""Hm?""Upstairs. Now, lyubov."He looks up. His face is pink from the fire and his eyes are still a little wet at the corners and his hair is a mess from being touched by me all evening. The ring catches the light when he lifts that hand to take my free one."Are we going to sleep?"There is no part of him that actually believes we’re going stra

OliverI wake up with my mouth against Kir's collarbone and a problem in my nether regions.The problem isn't a problem in the strictest sense of the word. I've woken up obscenely turned on by the man I'm pressed against, while he has the audacity to be deeply asleep.I'm doing the slow grinding work of pretending to be still asleep myself while my hips give me away every fifteen seconds against the warm hard line of his thigh.It's twenty past nine. We've slept absurdly late. The team will be downstairs being insufferable about us. I don’t care. I'm not getting out of this bed. The radiator is doing its thing in the corner. Kir is doing his thing in his sleep, which is to be very still and very warm and very, very there.I lift my head to look at him.He's properly asleep. Mouth a little open. Lashes fanned. There's a bruise blooming where I bit him last night, just above his shoulder. I'm very proud of it. I want him to have one for every one of mine, and I want to look at each

DomFour days.That's how long they've been upstairs. Four solid days, only emerging for food, which Oba started carrying up on trays on the third day because the alternative was letting them come downstairs and contaminate the rest of us with their faces. Oliver's face is the worst. He has the face of a man who's been thoroughly worshipped for ninety-six hours and is not above mentioning it. We have asked him, collectively and individually, to stop having that face. Of course he’s refused.They come down for breakfast on the fifth morning.Oliver is wearing one of Kir's jumpers. Far too big, sleeves shoved up but refusing to stay there, and the platinum band at his throat catches the kitchen light every time he turns his head. Kir is behind him with one hand at the small of his back, as if he can’t bear to not be touching him.Both of them have the worn-out look of men who have slept maybe six hours total since the proposal and don't intend to rectify it any time soon.Tariq i

KirI keep him at my feet for an hour.By the time I stand him up he’s stopped flinching when someone passes too close. He’s stopped tracking the room with the small involuntary movements of his shoulders. He’s gone where I want him to go. His pupils, when I tip his chin up and look at him, have eaten almost all of the blue, and his mouth has gone soft and slightly slack, and when I drop my thumb against his lower lip he opens it without thinking. I push my thumb between his teeth. He closes his lips around it and sucks, once, slow."Up, lyubov. Go to the platform at the center of the room. We are not done."He rises and I have to take his elbow to keep him from stumbling.The natural grace he usually displays is subsumed by the dreamy passivity he’s currently floating in.The chaise is on a low raised dais near the centre of the main floor. Dark leather, one end raised like a fainting couch. The platform sits, by design, where everyone in the room can see it without having to l