Chapter 32 Kai
Kai sees him on the security camera feed. A hulking, frantic shape on the front step of his building.
The figure is pacing, running his hands through his hair, checking his phone, pacing again. Even through the grainy black-and-white footage, Kai recognizes the particular brand of barely-contained chaos.
His heart doesn’t just leap into his throat, it performs an entire Olympic gymnastics routine.
Nazar Rykov. Here. In Toronto. At his building. At almost one in the morning.
Kai’s thumb hovers over the intercom button. He should let him stand there. Should ignore this. Should maintain the careful distance he’s spent weeks constructing brick by agonizing brick.
But the alternative—the sound of Rykov breaking down his front door, which looks entirely possible based on his body language—is a level of drama even Kai isn’t prepared to deal with. He doesn’t need to add property damage to the list.
He buzzes him in.
The sound of the door unlocking echoes through the intercom, and he watches Nazar disappear from the camera frame.
Kai has maybe forty-five seconds before he reaches the seventeenth floor. Forty-five seconds to prepare himself for whatever confrontation is about to happen.
He adjusts his sunglasses. Celine, oversized, the kind that could hide a whole face. And positions himself in the hallway. Casual. Unbothered. Like he’s not currently having a minor cardiac event.
The elevator dings.
Nazar bursts into the corridor like he’s been shot from a cannon. His hair is disheveled, his jacket half-zipped, his sport bag slung over one shoulder. He looks like he dressed in the dark and then ran several miles. He probably did.
He stops when he sees Kai. Just stops dead, ten feet away, and stares.
Kai watches his jaw clench so hard he’s genuinely afraid it might crack. The muscle jumps beneath his stubble, his dark eyes tracking over Kai’s face with an intensity that makes Kai’s carefully constructed defenses feel paper-thin.
“You know,” Kai says, his voice falling into that lazy, infuriating drawl he uses when he’s terrified, “it’s considered polite to give a person some warning before you show up at their home. You know, a text. A call. I believe it’s called good manners. You might have heard of the concept.”
Nazar doesn’t respond. Just stalks forward with that predatory stride he has, eating up the distance between them in four steps.
He crowds Kai against the wall, his presence filling all the available space.
Oh God.
“Did he do it?” The words come out raw, barely controlled. There’s a violent undercurrent in his voice that sends an involuntary shiver down Kai’s spine.
“Did who do what?” Kai’s going for confused innocence. It’s not his best work.
“Take off the fucking glasses.”
Kai lets out a weary sigh—the kind he’s perfected over years of dealing with people who think they’re entitled to parts of him he hasn’t offered.
“Oh, that. Speaking of which, could you be a dear and run out to Shoppers Drug Mart? I need concealer. Heavy coverage, full opacity. MAC makes a good one, though Fenty’s is better for my undertone.
If you hurry, the paparazzi across the street might still be able to get a shot of you.
Won’t that be fun for both our publicists? ”
“I don’t give a shit if they take my picture.”
“Is that so?” Kai tilts his head, a gesture he knows makes him look insufferable. “How noble. Very martyr-complex of you. I’m swooning.”
“Kai.” Nazar’s voice drops to that low, dangerous register. “I swear to God, if you don’t tell me who hit you right now, I will not be responsible for the consequences. It was that guy, wasn’t it? Rey?”
The genuine, murderous fury in his eyes — the way his hands are clenched into fists at his sides, the tension radiating off him — is so startling that Kai’s carefully constructed facade develops significant structural cracks.
This is someone barely holding themselves back from committing violence on his behalf.
No one has ever looked at him like this. Like hurting Kai is a personal offense that demands retribution.
Kai turns and walks into the living room before he does something stupid like cry.
“No,” he says, his voice coming out flat despite his best efforts.
“It wasn’t Rey. It doesn’t matter. It’ll be gone in a few days.
Bruises heal. It’s fine. And for the record, I don’t sleep with Rey.
I don’t date him either. In case you were wondering. ”
He sinks onto the sofa and gestures vaguely at the cushion beside him.
Nazar follows, moving like he’s approaching something that might bolt.
He sits, and Kai can feel the heat radiating off him, can hear his breathing—too fast, too shallow. His body is tense.
Kai can feel his pulse in his throat. He’s acutely aware of how close Nazar is, how the cushions dip slightly toward him, creating a gravitational pull Kai has to actively resist.
He holds his breath as Nazar reaches out — slowly, gently, like Kai might shatter — and lifts the sunglasses from his face.
The movement is so tender it makes Kai’s chest ache.
He wants to look away, to close his eyes, to be anywhere but here having this moment witnessed. But he forces himself to stay still, to let Nazar see.
Nazar inhales sharply through his nose, the sound harsh in the quiet apartment. His gaze is fixed on the bruise.
His father’s signet ring had caught him perfectly, the heavy gold leaving an imprint Kai can still feel when he touches his cheekbone.
Then Nazar leans in and kisses him.
Not the mouth. The bruise itself. A barely-there press of lips against damaged skin, so gentle it’s almost reverent.
And it’s the thing that finally, completely undoes him.
Everything goes haywire. All the careful control Kai’s been maintaining, it all collapses.
His hands are in Nazar’s hair before he consciously decides to move, fingers tangling in the too-long strands that need cutting.
Nazar’s mouth finds his—properly this time—and they’re kissing like drowning people finally breaking surface.
All the fear and rage and loneliness Kai’s been carrying crystallizes into focused need. He needs this. Needs Nazar. Needs to feel something that isn’t fear or calculation or the hollowed-out numbness that’s been his constant companion.
Nazar pushes him back against the cushions, and Kai goes willingly. His legs wrap around Nazar’s waist automatically, pulling him closer, grinding against him in a mindless, friction-fueled rhythm that’s more instinct than thought.
It’s raw. Desperate. Not nearly enough.
His brain supplies unhelpful observations even as his body takes over: This is a terrible idea. You’re supposed to be maintaining distance. This defeats the entire purpose. You’re putting him in danger.
He tells his brain to shut the fuck up.
“Nazar, please,” he whispers.
Nazar shoves him onto his hands and knees on the sofa and yanks down his joggers and briefs in one impatient motion.
There’s no prep, no lube, no careful consideration. Just Nazar’s hand gripping his hip and then he’s pushing in, one hard, desperate thrust.
“Baby,” Nazar whispers, kissing the sensitive skin on his neck.
It’s a fire that consumes them both.
Nazar holds him tightly, one arm wrapped around his chest, the other gripping his hip.
Nazar fucks him with an intensity that feels almost feral. Like he’s trying to physically prove something. Like he’s claiming something he’s afraid of losing.
Kai drops his head forward, his hair falling in his eyes, sounds escaping him that he’d be embarrassed about under any other circumstances. High, breathy moans that don’t sound like him at all.
The vulnerability of it—of being taken like this, of needing it this badly—leaves him feeling stripped bare in ways that have nothing to do with missing clothes.
Before Nazar comes, he buries his face in the curve of Kai’s neck, that place he’s always seemed fixated on, and just breathes him in. The simple, animalistic act of inhaling Kai’s scent feels like possession.
And Kai comes apart.
A series of thin, drawn-out whimpers spilling from his lips as he spills against the fabric of the sofa. The sound of his own desperation leaves him feeling like he has no skin at all.
They collapse onto the cushions in a tangled, panting heap. Kai’s brain comes back online slowly, reality filtering back in through the post-orgasmic haze.
His face is pressed into the cushion. Nazar’s weight is heavy on his back, their breathing slowly syncing. He can feel the rapid hammer of Nazar’s heartbeat against his spine.
“Fuck.” Nazar’s voice is wrecked, dejected, raw in a way Kai’s never heard before. “I couldn’t hold back. Baby, I couldn’t. Every time with you, I just—I need it. Need you. I’m sorry. I should have been more careful. Are you—did I hurt you?”
The apology is so unexpected that Kai feels something crack in his chest. Some protective layer he didn’t know he was still maintaining.
“It’s okay,” he hears himself say. The words are soft, automatic. A reassurance he’s not sure is true but gives anyway. “I’m okay. It’s fine.”
It’s not fine. Nothing about this situation is fine. But his body is still humming with endorphins and his brain hasn’t fully rebooted and Nazar is warm against him and for just this moment, Kai lets himself have it.
He deserves at least a few moments of happiness.
“Kai.” Nazar shifts, turning his head on the cushion so they’re face to face at an awkward angle.
His dark eyes are serious, searching. “Talk to me. I have to be in fucking Boston at three o’clock tomorrow for a game.
I chartered a jet to get here. I’m not leaving until I understand what’s happening. ”
He chartered a jet. Spent probably fifty thousand dollars to fly commercial aviation’s equivalent of a private Uber. For Kai.
The thing is, Rykov is absurdly frugal… like, to a comedy level.