33
KAI
FLASHBACK
I drove to her through the rain. The storm. Everything. I didn't think. Didn't hesitate. Didn't care about anything but getting to her.
Her eyes were red when I arrived. Mascara ruined. Cheeks wet. Her boyfriend broke up with her. That idiot. That blind, stupid, worthless idiot. Who gives up a girl like her?
Jade is everything. Sexy. Beautiful. Wild. Untamed. Being with her means you're special. Chosen. Alive. And he threw her away.
She was quiet the whole drive. Jade is never quiet. That's how I knew how deep it cut. She deserves the world. A man who would burn it down for her. A man who would kill for her. A man who would die for her. I wanted to find that boyfriend. Find him and make him pay for every tear on her face.
I drove like a madman. The storm couldn't stop me. Nothing could. We couldn't go home. The roads were closing. So I took her to my uncle's old cabin. The one he left me. The one I'd never taken anyone to. Not even Selena.
We got inside and she broke. Crying. Real crying. The kind that comes from somewhere deep. I'd never seen this side of her. Soft. Broken. Mine.
I pulled her into my arms. Held her tight.
"He said I was too wild," she said, her voice cracking. "His family wants him with someone who could be wife material. I'm not wife material, Kai."
I looked at her. Really looked. "He's insane," I said, my voice low and fierce. "Any man would be lucky to call you his wife. Any man would be lucky to breathe the same air as you."
She cried harder. "I wasn't even in love with him. But it hurts. Those words hurt. I'll never be the one they choose to stay with. I'll always be the party girl. The escape. The hotel, not the home."
Something snapped inside me. I grabbed her face and made her look at me. "You are home."
She tried to look away. I didn't let her. "Listen to me. You are not just home. You are the whole goddamn world. And I know it sounds crazy. I know this is fast. I don't care."
My voice was shaking now. "You are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen. The funniest. The wildest. And that wildness? That's not a flaw. That's everything. That's what makes you you. That's what makes me—" I stopped. Swallowed. "That's what makes me fucking love you."
She stared at me.
"Before you, I didn't know girls like you existed. I didn't know I could feel like this. You're in my head every second. Every night. Every time I close my eyes. I think about you. I dream about you. I ache for you."
Tears were running down my face now. I didn't care. "I'd burn this whole world down for you, Jade. I'd give up everything. My life. My future. Anything. All you have to do is ask."
"Kai—"
"It hurts me when you hurt. It physically hurts. Right here." I pressed her hand to my chest. "I love you. I love you so much it's destroying me. I've never felt this way. I've never pictured waking up next to someone. Calling them mine. Calling them my wife."
I laughed through the tears. "I want that with you. I want to give you babies. Our babies. If that hasn't been clear."
She laughed. Cried. Both. I touched her face. Soft. Reverent.
"What about Selena?" she whispered.
I pressed my forehead to hers. "I don't care. I don't care about anything. Just you. Only you. Always you."
I kissed her forehead. Her cheeks. Her closed eyes. We breathed each other in. Shared the same air. Became the same person. I touched her lips. Lightly. Asking.
She kissed me. Slow at first. Then hungry. Desperate. Ours.
Her dress fell. Her bra followed.
I watched it drop to the floor.
God.
This was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen.
I cried at the sight of her.
Her breasts. Full. Perfect. I touched them. Kissed them. Worshiped them.
She gasped. Arched into me. Her fingers tangled in my hair, pulling me closer.
Her underwear fell away.
My hands everywhere. Claiming. Taking. Mine.
"You're so wet for me already, baby."
I carried her to the bed.
Laid her down. Looked at her.
"You're mine now." My voice was rough. Possessive. "No one else touches you. No one else looks at you. No one else even breathes near you. Understand?"
She nodded. Eyes wild.
"Say it."
"I'm yours."
"Again."
"Yours, Kai. Only yours."
"Again."
"Yours."
I kissed her. Deep. Demanding. My tongue slid against hers, tasting her, claiming her. She moaned into my mouth, her fingers twisting in my hair, pulling me impossibly closer.
I entered her slow. Deep. Everything.
Her head fell back. A broken moan escaped her lips—low, desperate, beautiful. I swallowed it with another kiss, felt her tremble beneath me.
My hands everywhere. Her hips. Her hair. Her heart. I gripped her thigh, hooked it over my arm, pushed deeper.
She gasped. Her nails dug into my back.
"Kai—"
"Say it again."
"Kai. Kai. Kai."
Her moans grew louder. Wetter. My name on her lips like a prayer.
I thrust deeper. Slower. Then faster. She met every movement, hips rising to take all of me. The sounds—god, the sounds. Wet skin. Ragged breaths. Her whimpers. My groans.
I kissed down her body. Tasted the salt on her skin. Felt her shudder.
Back up. Mouth on hers. Teeth. Tongue. Claiming.
"I want to feel you break."
She did.
Her body tensed. Arched. She cried out my name as she came undone beneath me, shaking, trembling, mine.
I followed right after. Buried my face in her neck. Groaned against her skin as I spilled into her.
We stayed like that. Shaking together. Breathing together. Whole.
The phone buzzed on the nightstand.
Girlfriend.
Jade's hand shot out. Answered. Put it on speaker. Placed it on my chest. Finger to her lips.
"Hello? Finally! Are you okay?" Selena's voice. Small. Worried. "The weather channel said there were trees down on your road."
I was inside Jade. Still. We hadn't moved since the call connected.
"Yeah. I'm… I'm fine. Made it to the cabin."
"You sound strange. Out of breath."
Jade moved.
A slow clench. A rolling shift of her hips. My breath hitched. I slapped a hand over my mouth. She smiled. Silent. Predatory.
"Just… building a fire. It's cold."
"I was so worried. I've been calling. You're not alone, are you?"
Her hands traced down my chest. Nails light as whispers. Teasing. Her hips moved. Lazy. Torturous.
"No. I'm… alone."
Lie.
She leaned down. Took my lower lip between her teeth. Sucked slowly. Released with a wet pop. A small sound escaped me.
"What was that?"
"Nothing. The… the fire popped."
"It doesn't sound like you're alone."
Her rhythm changed. Deliberate. Deep. Grinding
She watched me fall apart.
"I… I have to go. The signal's—"
She lowered her mouth to my ear.
"Don't you dare hang up on her." Hot whisper. Silent command. "Be a good boyfriend."
She bit my earlobe.
I cried out.
Silence on the phone.
"Who is with you?" Selena's voice. Cold. Small. Broken.
I couldn't speak. Trembling on the edge.
Jade smiled. Victor's smile. Increased her pace.
"Please…"
"Is it her? Tell me it's not her!"
I couldn't hold back.
The orgasm ripped through me. Violent. Silent. Shuddering.
I turned my head into the pillow. Muffled the groan.
But the shaking. The gasps. All transmitted.
A distant wail of pain. Then nothing.
The line went dead.
Jade climbed off me. Took the phone from my limp hand. Ended the call.
She looked down at me. Spent. Ruined.
She'd used my body to break her cousin's heart.
Without making a sound.
She wiped a tear from her cheek.
"Now you're free."
The silence in the cabin was louder than the storm had been. I was still shaking from the climax she'd ripped from me, a puppet whose strings she'd gleefully pulled.
She smiled down at me, a victor catching her breath.
"See? Now you're—"
I moved.
Not the languid, spent collapse she expected. A surge of raw, retaliatory power.
I flipped her onto her back so fast the breath left her lungs. Before her smile could fade, I was on her. Over her. My weight pinning her. My eyes no longer glazed with pleasure, but dark with a terrifying, focused intensity.
"You think you won?"
I didn't wait for an answer. My mouth crashed down on hers. Not a kiss. A reclamation. I kissed her like I was trying to drink the smugness from her soul. When I pulled back, her lips were swollen.
"You used my body to hurt her." My voice was a low, ragged scrape. "That makes it mine again."
I took it back.
I used my hands, my mouth, my body not to join with her, but to conduct her.
I knew her now. Knew the exact flutter of her pulse when she was close. The hitch in her breath that was a plea.
I exploited every secret she'd given me.
I brought her to the very edge. Her back arched. A wild cry tore from her throat.
I stopped.
Went still. Watched the desperate, confused agony on her face.
"Who owns this?" I growled, hand splayed over her trembling stomach.
"You!" A sob.
"Again."
"You!"
"Again."
"YOU!"
Each denied peak was a brick in the wall of my control. She became a writhing, pleading thing. Her wildness turned against her. A wildfire I now contained and directed.
The fierce queen was gone. In her place was a creature of pure, aching need.
That I had created.
When I finally, mercifully, let her fall over the edge, it was with my name on her lips. Not a cry of triumph. A surrender so complete it sounded like breaking.
I followed her into the abyss. My own release a deep, shuddering groan of finality against her neck.
But I wasn't done.
Even as our bodies calmed, I shifted her. Pulled her into my lap. Her back to my chest. My arms a vise around her. Still inside her.
I began to move again. Slow. Deep. Inescapable.
"I can't… please, no more…" A weak, broken whisper.
My lips at her ear. Voice thick with a love that felt like hate.
"You wanted wild. You wanted to be the only one who could take me. So take me. Take all of me. Until there's nothing left of you but the feeling of me."
This final time was not for passion. It was for branding.
Slow. Grinding. Profound. A physical imprinting.
She was so over-sensitized. So utterly spent.
When it was finally, truly over, she was limp in my arms. A shuddering shell.
I held her as she cried. My own face grim in the dawn light.
I had not pushed her away.
I had pulled her so far inside the hurricane of my possession that she might never find her way out.
I destroyed her not by leaving.
But by making her my permanent, ruined sanctuary.
And she smiled. That wild smile.
"Again?" she whispered.
And I knew then. She was wild. Completely, impossibly, perfectly wild. And she was mine.
For the first time in years, I felt alive. And it was because of her. The wild one. The one who didn't play by rules. The one who made me forget there were rules at all.