Chapter 27
chapter twenty-seven
Denali
Kai's words drive a stake through my soul and pin me to the corkboard like a butterfly specimen in a biology class. My wings, so long dormant, flutter to life as I struggle to sort out how I got here, and why I'm so stuck.
"What do you mean—I don't understand, Kai?"
In his grip, and my state of hiding, I can't see what his next move is, but I can feel it as he presses his lips to my pussy, right above my clit, holding me a little tighter like he's afraid I might run away.
"What I mean is, I want you, Denali Stone.
And not as an employee, either—though you are the best assistant I've ever had. "
Now I'm even more confused. "I don't—huh?"
No way does he mean what I think he means. What I wish he meant.
His hips shift as he pulls me up higher, so I'm forced to look at him. My eyes are still damp with unshed tears from my confession. I'm still shaking from the intensity of the feelings behind that story. My story. And yet—
"I'm trying to tell you that I'm in love with you, kara."
No. No fucking way.
"I'm obsessed," he continues, his eyes unyielding as he lays me down on the bed and leans over me, careful to give me an escape route if I need one.
The consideration, the gentleness with which he's handling this whole thing, it's too much.
"I've been obsessed with you for a while, and no other woman will do. "
"You're lying," I breathe, closing my eyes, putting my hands over my face to hide myself from the realization that I'm not alone in this longing, that he's right here with me. Trying and failing to make myself realize that this is just a huge misunderstanding.
"I've never been more honest than this in my life.
" He clears his throat, prying my hands away from my eyes so I can see the truth written in the lines of him.
It's in the way his eyes stay glued to mine, how he doesn't shift or flinch, or look for ways to minimize contact between us.
In fact, he's trying to get closer. And succeeding.
Never in my life have I considered myself a coward. But when faced with his deep, dark secret, when I'm forced to look the scary truth in the face, after everything I've been through tonight, all the brazen bravery that usually lurks beneath my surface is conveniently absent.
Still, it's hard to ignore a man who puts you on his bed and then nosedives in your pussy with a hedonistic grin and a confession that he's obsessed with you and no other woman will do.
My fingers curl in his hair as he nuzzles me through the briefs I borrowed from his wardrobe. And thanks to Kai and his eagerness, they're now drenched.
I've dreamed of this moment, wondered what it would feel like to be in this exact position. But now that I'm here, I don't know what to do. My brain is on autopilot, and failing to stay in a single lane on this highway of hotness.
"Kai," I breathe, my voice weak and shaky, "what are you—"
His eyes look up at me from where he's sprawled between my thighs, one calf hooked over his shoulder. His voice is raspy, thick with arousal. "I've imagined what it would be like to taste you since you wore that red pencil skirt to work your third day on the job."
My eyes widen. "That long?"
I can't believe it when he nods at me to confirm.
"That long." His hands skate up my legs, starting at my heel, moving up and over my ankle, taking their time to arrive at my thighs.
"You've intrigued me for so long, I can't remember when I stopped thinking of you as my assistant and started thinking of you as something just out of reach, something I wanted but couldn't have.
" Those gorgeous eyes of his, the same ones he turns on the cameras to melt hearts across the world, burn a hole straight to my soul.
"I'm tired of denying myself what I want. "
"Kai, I'm—I'm scared." I don't want to lose my job. But I do want him. There's no way I can have both. "What happens when we cross this line?"
His smile is lazy and sly as he leans over on one elbow and trails his fingers up and down the inside of my thigh, inching closer and closer to the edge of the borrowed briefs with every pass. "Well, you get laid. I get laid. We get laid together. For starters."
I swear, no matter how old or young, men are men, no matter what culture they come from.
"Practicing your dad jokes a little early in life, aren't you?" Still, my legs fall a little more open for him at his gentle nudging, those fingers still exploring, probing, seeking out the end goal at an unhurried pace.
"Fine, you want me to be serious?" He lifts himself up and abandons teasing me to block out the light in the room with his torso, bringing us face to face. "Let's get serious."
His lips descend on mine, and fuck, it's everything I've been led by the tabloids and fantasizing of fans to imagine it to be.
It's slow, unhurried, as he takes his time to stake his claim and show me just what he wants—my surrender.
And damn it all if those soft lips and probing tongue don't have me unfurling the white flag already. And I'm still wearing clothes.
His clothes.
When he pulls back, Kai nips the edge of my bottom lip, licking the wound as soon as he makes it. There's a groan that slips free of his throat that mirrors how I feel inside, filled with yearning and an ache.
"Tell me you don't want this and I'll stop right now," he insists, his words breathless. "But please don't lie to me. To yourself. I want the truth."
"I–" I open my mouth to admit it, but it's hard, and the words don't come out right. "I can't."
"Stop worrying about everything outside of this room, and tell me what your heart wants, Denali," he demands as his mouth moves down my jaw, seeking out the hollow of my collarbone, which he fills with his tongue and teeth and lips.
"Don't deny yourself what you want just because you're scared, kara. "
"Why do you call me that?" I ask suddenly, wanting to know. "Kara."
"Let me show you how to fly, and I'll tell you after," he promises, his eyes flashing with a low burning warmth. "I promise."
Kai kisses like he's got all day—he does, but that's not the point.
The way he soothes my worries and fears is like nothing I've ever experienced with a man before.
The second my fear rises back to the surface, he chases it away with his lips, tongue, teeth, until all I can think about is him.
Those hands tug at the waistband of my—his—briefs on my waist, and all I'd have to do now is lift my hips and he could have me out of them.
So I do.
The groan of appreciation that leaves him as he bares me to his gaze is nothing short of ego-stroking.
"God, you're beautiful," he whispers in awe, brows in his hairline as his gaze rakes over me, top to toes, and then back again. "I can't wait to be inside of you."
"Me either," I whisper, blushing when I realize he can hear me. "Do you still have some of those condoms I brought you last week?"
He stops planting kisses along my torso to stare at me in stunned shock. "That was a fifty pack, Denali."
I quirk a brow right back at him. "And?"
"Of fucking course I have some left. I'm not a degenerate."
Yeah, I couldn't get it up for her.
She was no you.
I'm reminded of his words as he snakes across my torso and pulls a box out of the end table by his bed. It's still got the plastic wrap around it.
"You haven't even used one?" Should I be worried about diseases?
"No point in using one when you can't stay hard enough to use the damn thing," he grumbles. "I'm not having that problem now, though. In case you were wondering."
As if to prove it, he flexes his hips like I've seen him do on stage a million and one times already in the short few months I've worked for him. And sure enough, there's a steel rod pressing insistently against the seam of his fly.
"Fuck," I whimper, legs spreading to cradle his hips against mine, "do that again."
"Why don't I do you one better, and do it without any clothes on?
" He's already shimmying out of his pants, his expensive satin top following shortly after, and I've suddenly got a new appreciation for his workout regimen when I spot the way his muscles ripple and shift as he kicks them off the end of the bed and reaches for the condom I've got in my hands.
It occurs to me, in some distant part of my brain, that he was going commando under those fancy duds at the gala all night, and I don't know if I'll ever have the courage to ask him if he prefers to free ball it, but damn, I wish I did.
"Lift your arms, kara, so I can get you out of this shirt and really look at you. "
There was never a chance that I wouldn't follow his every order.
I'm so good at it at work, it's no surprise he can get me to do his bidding in his bed, too.
But here, instead of working for pay, I'm here purely as half of a whole who wants nothing more than to enjoy the body and presence of the other.
There's no boss, no assistant, it's just me, Denali Stone, and him, Kai Kobayashi, two people in—in love.
"Hurry," I whine as he pulls the last of the clothing off my body and throws it on the floor to join his pants, "I need you."
"Oh, kara, I'm right there with you," he growls, slipping the condom on his length as he slides into place at the juncture of my thighs. "Hold onto me, and don't let go."