Chapter 32
Haven
“Fuck…just…just a little more, please,” I breathe. My hands twist in the sheets, my thighs shivering and my back arching as I desperately chase something that keeps slipping away.
Kai’s tongue is relentless. Soft, then firm. Slow circles that make my toes curl, then quick flicks that have me gasping. He’s been down there for what feels like an eternity, and I’m so close I can almost taste it—
“You like that?” he murmurs against me, and the vibration sends a jolt through my clit.
“Yeah. Yeah, fuck, just like that,” I say, mentally begging him to shut the hell up.
It’s been like this since he started. I’m almost there, so fucking close, then he’ll hesitate and fucking talk.
Which instantly shatters the illusion of Bastian between my legs, or him and Kai alternating—or any of the fucked up fantasies that have been playing through my mind since Kai came down my throat earlier.
Kai pulls back slightly, his finger still pumping in and out of my pussy.
“Want me to go harder?”
I know he’s probably just giving his jaw a break, but just like that, the orgasm I’d been building toward evaporates, leaving me frustrated and bordering on a scream.
“You were doing fine,” I manage, my voice strained. “Just keep going.”
He does. Kai’s nothing if not determined. But the magic is gone now, and we both know it. I can feel it in the way his rhythm falters, the way his hands grip my thighs a little too tight, like he’s trying to hold on to something that’s already slipped away.
Bastian would never ask if it was okay.
The thought surfaces unbidden, and I shove it down so hard I nearly choke.
No. I’m not doing that again. We’re here, in our bed, in our space, and this is about me and Kai. Just me and Kai.
I close my eyes and try to focus on the sensations he’s forcing from my body. The wet heat of his mouth. The scratch of his stubble against my inner thighs. The soft sounds he makes, like he’s enjoying this as much as I should be.
It’s good. It’s objectively technically good.
So why can’t I just fucking come?
We’re trying so hard to be enough for each other…but we keep failing.
That’s what this is, really. Kai’s mouth on me, my hands in his hair, both of us pretending that last night didn’t happen.
That we didn’t show up drunk at Bastian’s door.
That he didn’t drive us home without asking for anything in return.
That we didn’t fuck each other senseless afterward while we were both thinking about him.
We’re trying.
It’s not working.
Kai’s voice is muffled. “Stop tensing up, Heavenly.”
“Sorry. Sorry, I’m just—“ I blow out a breath. “It’s the weed. We shouldn’t have smoked. It’s fucking with me.”
It’s not the weed.
“You want me to stop?”
Yes.
“Maybe…maybe we can try something else?”
He crawls up my body, settling beside me on the mattress. His chin is wet, his lips swollen, and there’s a crease between his eyebrows that tells me he’s trying not to take this personally.
I wouldn’t even blame him.
It took him less than five minutes to come when I sucked him off. He just…closed his eyes, grabbed my hair in his fist, and fucking came down my throat.
He made it look so easy, I’m kinda pissed.
“It’s not you,” I say, hating how unconfident I sound. “I promise it’s not you.”
“Then what is it?”
I snuggle against him, refusing to answer.
How the hell can I? He doesn’t want to know that I keep picturing someone else’s hands on me. Or hearing someone else’s voice in my ear, telling me what a good girl I am, demanding that I come for him.
Kai rolls onto his back, scrubbing his hands over his face.
Last night was supposed to fix things. We got my car back. We proved we could stand up to Bastian’s without falling apart. Then we came home and fucked like our lives depended on it.
But even then—even with Kai inside me, his mouth on my neck, my nails in his shoulders—I couldn’t stop thinking about him.
The way he looked in those sweatpants. The dark circles under his eyes. The roughness in his voice when he said, “Get inside.”
The way he drove us home without being the predator we both expected him to be.
Because that’s what we both wanted.
“Hey.” Kai’s voice pulls me back to the here and now. He’s propped up on one elbow, watching me with an expression I can’t read. “I have something for you.”
“You do?”
He reaches over to the nightstand, pulling open the drawer. When his hand emerges, it’s holding a velvet box.
Blood sings in my ears as I stare at it.
No. He can’t possibly—
He cracks the box open and takes out my butterfly necklace.
“Oh my God.” I sit up, reaching for it. “I thought I lost it!”
He drapes it over my palm, the delicate chain pooling in my hand. It feels different. Looks different.
“I was going to give it to you last night, but then we got drunk, and then we went to Rooke’s, and…”
He trails off. Thankfully.
I turn the pendant over in my fingers. “It’s…Kai, it’s not the same—“
“I know!” he says with a grin. “It’s like a hundred times better.” He shoves into a sit, voice rising with excitement. “That’s a platinum chain, and he redid the whole thing in white gold. Those are real sapphires!”
I stare at the sleek, gleaming piece of jewelry.
It’s fucking stunning.
And I absolutely hate it.
It’s a gift you give a high-maintenance girlfriend at your five-year anniversary or some shit. It’s not the dollar-store knick-knack Kai kept for years, with the letter he never sent. The one where he was still the same boy I fell in love with in the woods.
“This must have cost a fortune,” I rasp.
“That’s what credit cards are for.”
“You shouldn’t have,” I try again.
But he’s not fucking getting it. He just keeps staring at me, a silly, hopeful smile on his lips that makes my chest ache.
“You deserve the best, Heavenly. Not some fake piece of crap. Did you see the sapphires?” He rubs a thumb over the glittering blue stones set in the wings of the butterfly. “They’re like your eyes.”
They’re so fucking not.
One day I’ll tell him that.
One day, when I’m braver and he’s readier to hear it, I’ll explain that the cheap one was priceless.
But not today.
Today he’s too happy, and I’m too much of a coward.
“Here.” He gestures for me to turn around. “Let me.”
I gather my hair, holding it up while he fastens the clasp at the nape of my neck. His fingers brush my skin, feather-light, and I shiver.
“There.” His lips press against my shoulder. “Perfect. Just like you.”
I can’t face him, so I keep my back turned while I drag the pendant along the chain. It doesn’t even feel like the other one did. It’s heavier, smoother.
God, I fucking hate it so much…but I don’t dare say a word, because that would mean shattering the joy on his face. So I reach behind me, grabbing his hand and dragging it between my legs. Forcing his fingers inside me and rubbing my clit so hard it hurts.
It doesn’t take long for him to pull me onto his lap and thrust inside me. I don’t stop him—I welcome the distraction. Because the last thing I want to do is replay our childhood games right now.
I might just start crying.
I’m almost about to come when my phone buzzes on the nightstand.
I jolt at the sound, and then again when Kai’s notification sound chimes.
“Leave it,” Kai mumbles into my hair.
“We both got a message,” I say, already reaching for my phone.
Kai makes an unhappy sound when I fall back against him, phone in my hand.
My heart stutters when I see the notification from VibeFeed.
@inherentvice sent a voice message.
“What?” Kai peers over my shoulder, and I don’t try to hide my screen.
“It’s…Bastian.”
“I can see that. Just fucking delete it.”
“It’s a voice note.”
“So?” he snaps.
“He’s never sent a voice note before.”
When Kai says nothing, I glance up at him. He’s staring at the phone like he’s considering smashing it against the wall.
“Don’t,” he warns quietly, eyes flicking to me. “Whatever he’s selling, we’re not buying.”
“What if something’s wrong?”
“Not our problem.”
But he doesn’t sound sure.
He doesn’t sound sure at all.
“Let’s just listen to it. If it’s his usual psycho bullshit, I’ll delete it. Promise.”
Kai’s jaw works. I can see him fighting with himself—the part that wants to protect me warring with the part that I’m sure is just as desperate to hear Bastian’s voice again as I am.
“Fine,” he finally says, pressing his lips to my naked shoulder with a huff of warm breath against my skin.
I tap the notification and press play on the voice note inside the app.
For a moment, there’s nothing.
Then a breath.
Then—
“I shouldn’t be sending this.”
Bastian’s voice is all wrong. It’s him, but it’s not. It’s hoarse, shaky, like he’s unraveling.
“You’ve made it clear you want space, and I’ve been trying—Christ! I’ve been trying to give you that. But I can’t anymore. I just…I can’t.”
Kai’s hand fumbles against mine until we’re holding each other tight enough to bruise.
Bastian lets out a mangled sound that could have been a sob or a laugh.
“I’m supposed to be saying something clever. Something that’ll make you two come running back to me. But I don’t…I don’t know what I’m doing anymore.”
Another pause. When he speaks again, his voice is quieter.
“I’m tired of…of always being the monster.”
Bastian laughs again, and this time it’s truly a laugh. If a little manic.
“Haven—” His voice cracks on my name, and dear God, suddenly I can’t breathe. Even Kai’s grip flinches at the tortured sound in Bastian’s voice.
“D’you remember what you told me the first day we met? About the cats, and the ladders, and the witch?”
Kai huffs against my shoulder, and I lean my head against his, my eyes sliding closed. I’m so tempted to stop the recording…but I can’t keep lying to Kai about Bastian or about how I feel about him. About them both. If Bastian’s about to reveal something awful about me, then so be it.
I deserve it.
“I laughed it off. But I know what you’ve been going through…because a witch cursed me a long, long time ago too.”
My stomach flips over.