Chapter 49
DIANA
I never thought I was capable of being so petty.
It’s ridiculous and absurd of me to act this way because there’s no proof that Kai is seeing anyone else. Except my judgment is clouded by the embarrassment and paranoia of possibly looking like a fool who thinks a boy like that would only have his attention on me.
Nearly every girl wants him. Why wouldn’t they?
Kai is gorgeous, kind, and hardworking, and it still baffles me that we’ve grown this close.
But there’s no way I’m the only girl on his mind.
Not when there’s so many other girls who don’t have controlling fathers and manipulative siblings who’ll put him through hell if they find out we’re sneaking around together.
I fidget against the leather chair as a group of girls wander up to Kai, Luke, and Rowan down at the bar.
So what if Kai hypothetically sees someone else? We’re just friends who occasionally have sex. It’s not my place to fume over who he decides to sleep with. But the rationality doesn’t sink in; it bends and warps into a jealousy that drowns out every ounce of reason.
Especially when I watch the girls fawn around him.
They’re dressed as angels, yet they act as unholy as demons. One of them nestles up to Kai. Her finger trails down his chest plate where black, embossed curlicues twine into brambles and roses. Jealousy pricks my heart.
I look away before I can see more.
“I need to use the washroom. I’ll be right back.”
“Alright!” Stella chirps.
I push out of my seat and storm towards the bathroom.
“āiyā!”
I clash into a big chest and stagger back. Hands grip my arms.
“Someone’s in a hurry.”
The pads of their fingers press into my skin, so strange and revolting, I shrug out of their touch and look up.
A tall guy stands in front of me in a silk purple shirt with the word ‘lust’ printed on his sleeve.
Lipstick stains pepper his bare chest. It’s baffling to me that anyone would want to go near him.
The bold, lecherous look he uses to eye me up and down is as sickening as the unkempt stumble on his face.
“Nice costume.” He smirks.
I scoff and cross my arms. “Do you have any idea who I’m dressed up as?”
“What happens if I get the answer right?” His hand draws down to tug lightly at the pomegranate beads on my dress. As he does, the strobe lights flash over a tattoo of a coiled snake sitting above the date 07.10.2019.
Realization hits me.
He’s a Lakefield Viper.
Nausea curdles in my gut as his hands dip down my hips and rove towards my ass.
Suddenly, Kai emerges from the stairs and rises behind the Viper.
“There you are.”
Kai bumps past the Viper to wrap his arms around my waist. Anger twists the details on his skull face paint, and his dark green eyes glow in threat. But he’s utterly gentle when he leans down to kiss my cheek.
“Sorry for taking so long, princess. The men’s room was down to only two stalls.”
“That’s alright.” I smile up at him with an irritated curve to my lips. “We were just having a lovely conversation.”
“Oh? Is that right?” Kai cocks his head. His gaze flicks up at the Viper and his smile stiffens. “I’m sorry for interrupting. I’ve always been told I have bad manners.”
“And yet you never do a thing to improve on it,” I quip.
Kai’s deep whisper tempts my urge to sin. “I thought you liked it when I misbehave.”
Desire curls through me, stoking the fire between my legs, and burning away all the pettiness and jealousy I had felt.
This is the power he holds over me, and I hate it as much as I love it.
Before I can answer, Kai turns his attention back to the Viper.
“Shouldn’t you be at the Lakefield party?”
The Viper tosses his head back and groans. “What’s with all this Vipers versus Griffins shit? You know we don’t bite.”
“No, but your team has always played dirty,” Kai accuses.
“Is that what you think we came here to do?”
“Why else would you want to be in the same room with us?”
The Viper grins at me with his lips slick from booze. “There’s things you have that we want.”
He attempts a step towards me. Kai shoves him back, pushing the Viper into the glass barricade.
“Put your hand on her again, and I’ll snap off every finger until you can barely hold your stick,” he snarls.
The Viper smiles slowly. Then he nods in satisfaction. Without another word, he simply backs away and treads down the stairs.
I dart around to confront Kai. I don’t care how turned on I am right now. It’s irritating how he had the audacity to blow off our phone call, go quiet for days, and suddenly feel threatened that another guy is putting his hands on me.
“I thought you had someplace to be,” I snap.
Kai glares at me, refusing to loosen his grip. “Did you think I’d stand there and let some fucker touch you?”
“Why do you care, Kai? I’m not yours to protect and defend.”
“Di, what the hell is going on?” Frustration bleeds through his voice. “You know you can talk to me when something is wrong.”
“Can I really?” I challenge. “Do you think the girl that had her hands on you will let you step away long enough?”
“I pushed her hand away and told her to stop,” he seethes. “You know I wouldn’t let another girl touch me like that.”
God, I know I’m overreacting. I’m angrier at myself than I am at him.
I shouldn’t care that Kai missed our phone call.
I shouldn’t care that he’s being so secretive.
The lines around being friends with benefits might be slightly blurred, but the fact remains the same: we aren’t in a relationship and Kai doesn’t owe me every facet of his life.
“I shouldn’t…” The words falter on my tongue. I gently push myself out of Kai’s arms. “I'm sorry. I’m just—”
“No.” Kai pulls me closer. His hand wraps around the back of my neck, tilting my face up to look up at him. Red neon lights surround him like glowing hellfire. “Run your mouth, princess. I don’t care. Tell me what’s wrong.”
All around us, Tate McRae’s airy voice sings about greed, desire, and ruin.
My fingers curl into the front of his shirt, as I brace myself to stay steady and focused on what I feel. On what I can control.
“I feel like you’re keeping secrets from me, and I think it has something to do with why you canceled the phone call on Tuesday night.” Embarrassment makes my eyes drop to my feet. “Look, Kai…if you want to do this with someone else when I’m not free to come over, you can just tell me.”
Kai’s voice drops a depth lower. “You really think I’d blow you off to be with someone else?”
“I’m not na?ve about the number of girls who want your time.”
“That’s it.” Kai lifts my chin, forcing me to look at him again. This time, he shows no patience. “Take out your phone and tell Stella you’re going to be busy for the next ten minutes.”
My pussy throbs in answer, my heart stuttering in consequence.
“You know the rules,” I warn. “We have sex for stress relief only.”
“I am stressed,” he snaps.
“And what is exactly stressing you out?”
Kai’s eyes darken on me. “I’m looking at it.”
He kisses me, hard and hungry.
The music falls to a slow, hazy, trap beat. Doja Cat’s voice reverberates through the dark room.
I melt into him, the graze of Kai’s tongue across mine raises the heat, burning and radiating up my whole body.
It’s been days since we’ve talked and touched, I didn’t realize how starved I’ve become.
Kai pulls away just enough to back us towards a corner with a door. It unlocks and dusty air gives way behind me. Kai shuts the door, making a switch flick on. The corners of the room light up with red LED lights that cast a fiery haze across the walls.
The room is a long, narrow storage closet. Shelves of party decorations surround us, and a single ladder, with its legs spread apart, props against the wall.
Kai lifts me onto one of the ladder steps. His hands curl around my hips before he kisses my neck. I moan and gasp.
“S-Stella…” My fingers tremble as they fumble for my phone. “I n-need to—I need to text Stella.”
“You do that.”
Kai lifts up my chin. He angles his head and licks the line of my neck before kissing the place where his tongue had stopped. My eyes flutter. My head drops back against the ladder step.
Hurry, Diana! Send that damn text now!
I quickly tap through my phone.
Kai smirks against my skin. “I’m halfway down your body, princess. Might wanna send that message soon.”
He kisses down my chest, his calloused hands grazing under the slit in my dress to tug at the hem of my underwear.
Reaching Stella’s number, I quickly type the message with one hand while the other tangles into Kai’s hair. The thorns and soft curls sink into my fingers, pleasure and pain colliding.
Gettisg railedd. Ouf in 10.
I press send. The phone clatters out of my hand as Kai brings his mouth to my pussy. Pleasure unravels inside of me, hot and electrifying. My head tosses back. I grip the sides of the ladder. My legs spread apart, curling over Kai’s shoulders as he eats me out on his knees.
The hard bass in the music makes the room shudder. It reverberates through me, heightening and building the pleasure that makes my head empty.
“I’ve missed this,” I gasp. “I’ve missed this so much.”
Kai sucks my clit, making my legs tremble. My hand sinks into his hair and pushes him closer.
“Be a good whore and ride my face.” Muffled desperation tears through his voice as he begs into my pussy. “Make a mess all over me, princess.”
His fingers dig into my thigh as his head bobs, his jaw working hard and fast to make me come. A delicious ache plumes deep from my bones. I keep rocking my hips until I finish with a back arching cry.
“Kai!”
My pussy drips, yet Kai laps up and sucks every last drop. My head slumps against the ladder. My brain is empty. My vision is hazy. Still, I want more.
“I need you to fuck me, Kai.”
“I love when you beg for me like that.”
Kai unbuckles his pants. The clink of metal and the slash of leather ripping away unsteadies my breath. My arms and my legs wind around him as Kai grips my hips.
“Just because I wasn’t clear the first time. This—” Kai thrusts his cock into me, pushing a small cry out of my throat. “Is yours. It belongs to you and only you.” His lips brush over mine, still wet with my orgasm. “These lips are yours to kiss and come on. Am I clear?”
“Y-Yes,” I whisper.
Unbridled desire burns in his green eyes.
Kai presses our foreheads together. “You own every part of me, princess.”
Those are the last words I comprehend before all my thoughts shatter into oblivion.
This isn’t stress relief anymore.
He thrusts hard and fast, possession burns through his touch, every thrust punctured with a promise, a vow that no one else will have him the way I do.
I remember how friend felt too weak of a word to describe what Kai feels like to me.
But now, as we beg and moan for each other, only one word comes to mind.
Mine.
I hold Kai’s face between my hands and kiss him. He moans into my mouth. Our kiss grows sloppier and bumpier.
“You’re mine,” I gasp. “All. Mine, Kai.”
A relieved gasp breaks from him.
“Now you’re getting it.”
He rails me harder. My chest bounces at every thrust and my heels dig into the muscles flexing on his back. The flickering strobe lights from the dance floor seep underneath the door. Anyone can walk in right now and see us fucking shamelessly in the red light.
But god, I don’t care.
I just want to come on Kai’s cock again and again.
I wonder if this is what Persephone felt like when she was stolen away to the underworld. I wonder if she felt this addicting, forbidden thrill of being taken by Hades’ desire, undone by his vice, and revived under his touch.
My orgasm rises, pulsing and aching, before it erupts inside of me.
“Kai!”
“That’s it,” he coaxes. Kai kisses my forehead, my nose, my lips as his thrusts slow down. He draws out every last drawl of pleasure reverberating through my body. “Give me all of it. There you go.”
When the pleasure peters out of me, it leaves my head hazy and empty. Kai and I drop against each other with all our carefully crafted rules shattered at our feet.
You’re mine. All mine.
What the hell have I done?
Kai sighs. His hand cups my cheek, before his thumb brushes back and forth across my skin.
“You’re the one I want.” Kai’s voice comes out so hoarse and raw with desire. “I’d raise hell if you asked me to. Do you understand?”
He doesn’t just want the sex. He wants me, too.
Relief and fear swallow me up until I feel like I’m sinking in the clarity of what we’ve just done.
My lips part, hesitation in my voice. “I—”
There’s a buzz in his pocket, making us break away. Kai pulls out his phone. His face pales in dread.
“Merde.”
“What? What’s wrong?”
I impatiently snatch the phone from Kai’s hand and read the text.
WALLACE
Sophia and her friends are here. They’re in a group with three other Vipers.