THIRTY-ONE
CAIDEN
It doesn’t take a genius to work out I’m not cooling off.
I’m angry in a way that I’ve never felt before, which is saying something, and right now I couldn’t care less who sees it.
If anything, I’m past ordinary anger and into that nastier stretch where everything gets under my skin, and everyone around me seems to be existing wrong.
I’m snapping at people who don’t deserve it and avoiding the ones who do. It’s easier to keep moving than it is to stop long enough to feel how trapped I am, how every choice lately seems to come with consequences I don’t get to pick.
Honestly, fuck everyone.
By the third day of it, Ari has clearly had enough.
I’ve been avoiding him like the plague ever since he warned me off seeing Niko.
He catches me in the corridor outside admin, his hand closing around my arm with enough force to leave no doubt this isn’t optional.
“Now,” he says sharply, already pulling me with him into his office.
I don’t argue. Arguing in the corridor gets attention, and attention is the last thing either of us needs. He marches me in, shuts the door behind us, then locks it.
That does nothing to improve my mood.
“What’s wrong with you?” he asks, turning to face me.
I laugh, but it comes out short and ugly. “Pick a category.”
“You’ve been hostile for days,” he says. “You’re snapping at everyone.”
“Congratulations,” I shoot back. “You noticed.”
He doesn’t rise to it, which is infuriating in itself. “This isn’t about me noticing you’re angry,” he says. “So, try again.”
I look past him at the wall while trying to step past him to get to the door and leave. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“You don’t get that option right now.”
I turn back fast. “Add that to the list of things I’m fucking sick of hearing.”
That gets a slight reaction out of him, not much, just a visible breath before he reins himself in again. “Is this about Mason?” he asks.
His name hits me like a shove to the chest that I’m not braced for, and just like that, I’m furious all over again. “Don’t bring him into this.”
“Why?” Ari presses, calm and relentless. “This isn’t just about Niko.”
“Stop,” I snap. “Just fucking—” I cut myself off hard. My fists are clenched at my sides, and the room feels smaller by the second.
Ari steps closer. “You’re furious. I get that,” he says. “But you’re taking it out on everyone and people are going to question why.”
“Maybe I don’t care.” My breathing is already uneven by the time the words fly out.
I take a deep breath. “I’m angry because Mason didn’t get help.
I tried to stop it, and it didn’t matter.
He’s still gone fuck knows where. Every time I think I’m doing the right thing, someone decides it’s suspicious, and I’m still standing there with my mouth shut pretending everything isn’t fucked.
” Ari says nothing. He lets me keep going.
“And I’m angry because I’m scared for you,” I tell him, “That I’ll get seen, get sloppy, and you’ll be the one who pays for it. ”
Ari breathes out slowly, and something in the set of his face changes. “Is that what this is?” he asks. “Fear.”
I scoff. “Don’t psychoanalyse me, Ari. I’m really not in the mood for it.”
He steps closer again, and his mouth curves, faintly amused. “You look like you want to hit something,” he says. “Or someone.”
“Don’t,” I warn.
He switches languages like he’s flicking a knife open. “Khochesh podrat’sya?” Do you want to fight? His voice drops lower into that filthy tone he uses to melt my brain. “Ili khochesh, chtoby ya prizhal tebya k stene—” Or do you want me to pin you to the wall—
My jaw clenches so hard it aches. “English, for fuck’s sake, Ari.”
He doesn’t even blink. “Khochesh’, ya vytrakhu iz tebya vsyu etu zlost’?” Do you want me to fuck all that anger out of you?
My hand slams into the wall beside his head before I can stop myself. “That’s not fair,” I snap. “You know exactly what that does to me.”
“Da,” he says calmly. “Imenno poetomu ya eto govoryu.” That’s exactly why I’m saying it, he says, softer, filthier.
I grab his jacket and drag him in close. “Do you think this is funny?”
“No,” he says, his breath warm against my mouth. “I think you’re wound so tight you’re going to tear yourself apart unless someone gives you another option.”
“And this is your solution,” I growl. “Poke me until I lose control?”
A slow, smug, filthy smile spreads across his face. “Mm,” he murmurs. “Not to lose control... redirect.”
His mouth brushes my ear. “Tak,” he whispers. “Ty budesh drat’sya so mnoy...” So, are you going to fight me... “Ili pozvolish mne sdelat tebe priyatno?” Or let me make you feel good?
I don’t catch every word, but I catch enough.
He leans in, running his tongue over my lower lip, humming against it, causing the blood to rush to my dick.
I kiss him hard, like I’m trying to shut him up permanently, and the anger snaps the last bit of restraint clean in half.
He kisses me back, teeth catching my lower lip sharply enough to hurt and make a needy whimper tear out of me before I can stop it.
Ari smiles against my mouth, then bites my lip again, slower this time, meaner, like he’s checking how far he can push before I come undone. “There’s my detka,” he murmurs.
I make a noise that’s half groan, half growl, as my fingers dig into his back.
I need something solid to hold to keep me from falling apart.
Ari lets me, more than that, he encourages it, stepping in closer, pressing into me until there is nowhere left to put all that anger except into touching him.
“You’re a fucking prick,” I mutter, my breathing wrecked, my forehead brushing his.
Ari hums, smug as sin. “I know.” His hand slides under my shirt, another fists in my hair, and he drags me back into another mind-melting kiss. The kiss turns messier after that; it’s all teeth, anger, and frustration.
I exhale sharply through my nose when his hands yank my T-shirt off me with one brutal movement, and my body reacts, my cock twitching hard in my trousers at the roughness of it.
Before my brain can catch up in any useful way, his hands are all over me.
Rough — over my stomach, my ribs, my sides.
His fingers bite into my hips so hard that I know I’ll feel it tomorrow, and the thought only makes me harder.
“You want to act like a brat?” Ari growls, teeth grazing the skin below my ear. “Fine. But we finish this my way.”
My breath catches when he turns me and shoves me face down over the desk, my palms and chest hitting the wood. My trousers and boxers are dragged down hard. The cold of the room hits my arse, and my skin goes tight all over.
He kicks my feet wider with his boot, and I go without a fight because it’s been weeks since the last time, and I've been dying for this. Behind me, I hear his belt, then his zip, then I feel something cold drip in between my cheeks.
That nearly finishes me before he’s even touched me properly.
The first press of him against me is a shock every time; he’s thick, hot and unrelenting.
My body tightens on instinct. Ari doesn’t give me much time to sort myself out.
One hand fists in my hair and yanks my head back.
The other grips my hip hard and pins it to the desk, arching my back enough to make me gasp.
“I’ll ask you again, detka,” he says, voice low and vicious. “Do you want me to make you feel good?”
“Yes,” I whisper, already shaking.
“Yes, what?” he growls.
“Fuck— please.” He pushes forward in one punishing thrust that opens me in a single stroke and drags a noise out of me so rough it hardly sounds like mine.
He pulls back only far enough to do it again, the force of it making the desk jerk against the floor.
My vision goes a bit blurry when he finds exactly the right angle and keeps hitting it like he’s trying to break something open.
There’s no softness in it, no patience either. It’s anger, want, and passion, all of it shoved into the same space until I can’t tell which is which. The office fills with the sounds of it — skin, heavy breathing, the ugly little noises I can’t hold back once he gets properly into me.
Ari pants and grunts behind me, releasing my hip to cover my mouth, the other hand still in my hair, his breathing hot against my neck. Every thrust slams into me hard enough to make my arms shake; I’m barely holding myself up.
My cock is trapped between my body and the desk, the friction driving me mad in time with him, and I’m swearing steadily now under my breath, because it’s either that or beg, and I’m trying, however nobly, not to do that while I'm still angry.
As if Ari read my thoughts, his hand moves from my mouth and slides around my hip and closes around my cock.
He strokes me roughly and possessively, in sync with the thrusts, and the calluses on his palm drag over me in a way that makes my whole body jolt.
He bites down into my shoulder, sharp enough that I know there’ll be a mark, and that’s it.
After a few hard jerks from his hand, I come with a cry, I have absolutely no chance of swallowing, spilling over his hand and the desk, in one humiliatingly immediate rush.
Ari doesn’t stop. He fucks me through it, harder if anything, his own breathing going ragged now, and I can feel him getting close in the way his whole body changes — tighter, rougher, less controlled in the thrusting.
He buries himself right to the hilt with one last brutal snap of his hips, slaps a hand over his own mouth, and comes hard enough inside me that I automatically clench around him.
For a few minutes, neither of us moves or speaks. Then I try to say his name and only get halfway there before he turns my head enough to kiss me over my shoulder.
It’s different this time. It’s still deep, still filthy, but slower now, his mouth softening on mine in a way that makes something in my chest ache so badly I almost tell him to piss off out of self-defence.