Chapter 17 Kaia #5
Her climax hits fast.
Evie goes rigid for a second before she shudders hard, breath breaking into a series of shaky sounds as she comes.
I slow my hand, letting her ride it out.
Then I shift.
I don't know if Evie has ever scissored before, but I'm desperate for that closeness.
Evie lets out a small protest when I move, but it turns into another soft sound when I slide my body down and tangle our legs together.
Our hips line up. The moment our sexes press together, the friction makes both of us inhale sharply.
Evie grips my thigh, pulling me closer, angling her hips to increase the contact.
Electricity shoots down my spine.
For a second we both freeze, eyes meeting, like she's realizing too that this is the first time we’ve ever been this close. No distance. No stage lights. No years between us. And definitely no panties.
Just skin and delicious heat.
I move first. A slow roll of my hips, tentative, testing the friction between us. The warmth there is dizzying, the sensation sending a shiver all the way up my spine.
Evie gasps.
“Kaia—”
Her voice breaks on my name, and I grab her hip to steady us as we start moving together. The slick heat between us makes every glide slow and dragging and impossibly good.
My thoughts start dissolving almost immediately.
My lips part. My breathing turns ragged.
The sounds in the room are wet and desperate—skin sliding against skin, our uneven breaths, the little whimpers I can’t quite hold back.
Sweat gathers in the hollow of Evie’s throat, lewdly sliding slowly between her breasts.
Fuck.
I grind down harder.
Evie meets me thrust for thrust, hips lifting, chasing the pressure the same way I am. The tension in my stomach tightens with every desperate movement. I shift slightly, just enough that my clit presses directly against hers.
We both cry out at the same time.
“Right there,” Evie gasps, gripping my hips. “Don’t stop.”
I dig my nails into her hip.
I have absolutely no intention of stopping.
Our pace picks up, desperate now, chasing the building pressure that’s swallowing every other thought.
My head falls back. “I’m so close.”
The rhythm turns sloppy, frantic. And then the tension snaps.
The release hits like a sudden burst of light—sharp and bright and impossible to hold back. Somewhere in the blur of it I feel Evie’s body tense beneath me too, her breath catching as she shudders through her own wave of release.
For a few seconds the world disappears.
When it returns, we’re still tangled together—breathing hard, foreheads nearly touching, both of us a little stunned by what just happened. And by the quiet realization that we’re not pretending anymore.
For a few seconds neither of us moves. Our bodies are still pressed together, breaths uneven, hearts pounding hard enough that I can feel Evie’s through the place where our chests touch.
Then the tension drains out of both of us at once.
I collapse forward with a quiet laugh, my forehead falling against her shoulder. Evie exhales beneath me, one arm sliding instinctively around my back as if catching me there.
“Wow,” she murmurs, voice hoarse.
“Yeah,” I breathe, the word muffled against her skin.
We’re tangled in sheets and limbs, the room warm and dim, the air carrying the soft salt smell of sweat and the lingering electricity of everything that just happened.
I roll onto my side beside her, pulling her with me. The mattress dips as we settle together, legs still loosely tangled.
For a moment we just look at each other.
Evie’s hair is a mess across the pillow. Her lips are swollen from kissing, and there’s still color high in her cheeks that makes something warm bloom in my chest.
God, she’s beautiful.
She notices the way I’m staring and lets out a small, real laugh. “What?”
There it is. The match in the dark room.
It’s quieter now. Softer than I remember…
Still enough to light everything up anyway.
“Nothing,” I say softly.
I reach out and tuck a piece of hair behind her ear. My fingers linger there, brushing the line of her jaw.
“I missed you,” I say quietly.
Evie’s expression shifts. “I missed you too."
The silence that follows isn’t uncomfortable. It’s soft, almost fragile, like we’re both aware we’re standing in the middle of something new and trying not to scare it away.
Evie pulls the blanket up over us, then tugs me closer until my head rests against her chest. Her hand slips into my hair automatically, fingers combing through it. The rhythm of it makes my eyes heavy almost immediately.
“Kaia,” she murmurs after a moment.
“Mm?”
“You okay?”
I smile against her skin.
“More than okay.”
Another quiet stretch of time passes. I can hear the slow steady beat of her heart beneath my ear, feel the rise and fall of her breathing.
The words come out again before I can reign them in. “I love you.”
Evie’s hand stills for just a second in my hair. Silent in return. For a moment, an old instinct flares up, a mix of panic and pride, the one that used to make me reach for the nearest exit when something mattered too much.
But Evie doesn’t pull away. Her arm tightens around me and pulls me closer.
And that’s enough.
Maybe it has to be enough, after the way I turned wanting her into something I swallowed down until it was just ache. I don’t get to demand words from her when I spent years offering her none. I don’t get to rush her into softness when I taught her that softness with me could be punished…
So I stay. I breathe with her. I listen to her heart like it’s a metronome recalibrating my whole body.
There are so many versions of love I used to believe in, but this is the one that feels like truth: Her chin on my head. Her hand in my hair. The quiet weight of her choosing to hold me when she could have let me go.
If she never says it back, I’ll still know what this is.
If it takes her weeks, months, years—if she needs to build the word from scratch because I smashed the old one—I can wait.
Evie is not a crowd I can move with a hook and a bridge.
She’s a person who learned how to survive after I broke both our hearts.
And now she’s letting me be here anyway.
My throat tightens with gratitude so deep it hurts. I press my mouth to her shoulder again, one soft kiss, a vow I don’t say out loud.
I’m here.
I’m staying.
And I’m going to earn every quiet second she gives me.
The room grows quieter.
Our breathing evens out. The warmth between us sinks deeper into the mattress, into the soft tangle of blankets and limbs. Evie’s thumb traces absent shapes against my shoulder as sleep begins to creep in around the edges of my thoughts.
The last thing I register is the way she presses a gentle kiss into my hair.
And how she doesn’t let go of me when we both drift off.