54. Nari
FIFTY-FOUR
NARI
They didn’t make it to the bed.
His quarters were four steps from the roof access—a door, a short hall—and she was kissing him while he walked them backward, her legs wrapped around his waist, his hands holding her up with the effortless strength she’d stopped marveling at and started relying on.
The door closed behind them. He turned. Her back hit wood and the impact sent a shock up her spine that mixed with the heat already building between them and the result was a sound she made into his mouth that was half gasp and half command.
“Here.” She pulled his shirt collar. “Right here. Don’t move.”
He braced one arm above her head. The other held her hip, thumb finding bare skin where her dress had ridden up.
His mouth left hers and tracked down her jaw, her neck, the curve of her shoulder where the mark lived.
He pressed his lips to it and the bond flared—hot, bright, a current between his body and hers that hummed in her teeth.
She yanked his shirt free. Buttons were a casualty. Neither of them looked down to assess the damage.
“Harder.” Her voice against his ear. Not a request. A direction, delivered with the same authority she brought to every recording session—words aimed and landed.
He obeyed. His hips pinned her to the door and the friction drew a sound from her throat that she would have been embarrassed by in any other context but this was Dojin and he was looking at her like her voice was the only music he’d ever needed and embarrassment was a luxury she couldn’t afford.
“Faster.”
He adjusted. Found the angle that made her head drop back against the wood and her nails dig into his shoulders hard enough to leave marks of her own.
“Right there—God, Dojin, right there—”
Her voice bounced off the walls of his quarters.
She was not quiet. She had never been quiet.
She filled every space she occupied, including this one, and he loved it—loved that the sound of her was as big and uncontainable as everything else about her.
The mark burned warm at her shoulder and his response poured through it: pride, hunger, the deep satisfaction of a man who had chosen well and knew it.
He leaned in. Mouth against her ear. Two syllables.
“Louder.”
She laughed. The laugh broke into a moan that broke into his name, full-throated, the pitch that filled studios and screening rooms and the hearts of people who loved her voice, and she came with his name still vibrating in her chest and his forehead dropped to her shoulder and the door shook in its frame.
The bees on the rooftop above them went very still. Then resumed buzzing. Concerned, perhaps, but ultimately nonjudgmental.
Round two was the bed.
Slower. She pushed him onto his back—hands flat on his chest, a shove that moved him because he let it—and straddled his hips.
He lay beneath her: enormous, bare, eyes half-lidded, watching her with his hands resting on her thighs.
Not guiding. Not directing. Letting her set the pace because this was the man who had learned that control was not the same as care, and care meant giving her the lead when she wanted it.
She rolled her hips. Took her time. Watched his jaw tighten, his fingers flex against her skin, the visible effort of a bear’s patience tested by the woman on top of him, moving deliberately slowly.
“You’re doing that on purpose.” His voice was wrecked. Gravel and need.
“I’m a performer. Everything I do is on purpose.” She leaned down. Bit his shoulder—the same spot where he’d marked her. “Turnabout.”
“You’re not a bear.”
“You sure? I can be pretty territorial.” She rolled her hips again and his hands tightened and the sound he made was caught somewhere between human and animal, a growl that traveled through her thighs and her belly and the mark at her shoulder that burned warm in response.
She rode him at her own pace. Set the rhythm.
Told him—told him, because she was Nari and she did not hide what she wanted, how it felt, that she loved him.
Her voice in his ear undid him completely.
She could see it: the moment his control frayed, his jaw tightening around whatever was left of his patience before it broke, his hands abandoning it and gripping her hips and pulling her down.
He flipped them. One motion—because he was a bear and patience had limits—and she was on her back, and he was above her, and the mark on her shoulder glowed where their skin touched.
Everything amplified. His pleasure layered on top of hers, doubled, feeding back in a loop that tightened with every movement.
She could hear his heartbeat—not with her ears but with the mark, as if her body had grown a second pulse.
He buried his face in her neck. Mouth on the mark.
Moved deep, deliberate, the rhythm building until she was gripping the sheets and gasping and the dual sensation—hers and his, tangled, cresting—sent her over the edge so hard her voice cracked on his name—loud and unrestrained, the sound that bounced off walls and rattled the bees and would absolutely be audible two floors below.
He followed. Body curved around hers, mouth gentle on the mark he’d made. Loud and messy and earned and perfect.
She was draped across his chest like a throw blanket with opinions. His fingers traced slow circles on her hip. His breathing had settled. The vibration in his chest had not—steady, deep, rumbling through her ribcage in a way that was either medically concerning or profoundly romantic.
“Dojin.”
“Hmm.”
“The sleuth definitely heard that.”
“The sleuth is two floors down.”
“I was very loud.”
“Bear hearing.”
“So they did hear.”
“Probably.”
“Are you embarrassed?”
“I’m proud.”
“That’s worse.”
“My mate is loud. I’m a bear. Bears show off.”
“You’re ridiculous.” She pressed her smile into his chest. He was doing the thing—the vibration—and neither of them mentioned it by name because naming it had become their longest-running argument and she intended to win it eventually but not tonight.
She traced a line from his collarbone to the center of his chest. “The sketches are extraordinary. You know that.”
“They’re rough.”
“Rough is where every great world starts. Grandpa’s first Celestial Ronin sketch was on the back of a grocery list. Suki still has it.
” She lifted her head. Rested her chin on his chest. “We’re going to build this.
And it’s going to be ours. Not mine. Not yours.
Not a Wixx legacy or a Keiser project. Ours. ”
He looked at her. The garden light through the window caught the amber in his eyes and for a moment, he was very still—not bear-still, not the stillness of a predator. Human-still. The stillness of a man hearing a word he hadn’t known he needed.
Ours.
He pulled her up. Kissed her. Long, unhurried, a kiss that tasted like honey and sweat and a future neither of them had planned but both of them wanted.
His phone buzzed on the nightstand. He ignored it. It buzzed again. And again.
Nari reached over him, grabbed the phone, and held it up.
Reo, to the group chat: She said yes. Rooftop shook. Bees confused. Everyone to the kitchen. There’s cake.
Below that, Takumi: I CALLED IT. I CALLED IT AT THE HONEYCOMB. NARI WIXX, YOU OWE ME AN APOLOGY AND A brIDESMAID POSITION.
Below that, Hana: The music for the floating islands sequence should use a theremin.
Below that, Colette: I’m making duck.
Below that, Priya: Please tell me this means more studio time. I need more studio time.
Below that, Stellan: a single bear emoji. No context. No explanation. Maximum impact.
Nari dropped the phone on the bed. Looked at Dojin. He was smiling—the second full, unguarded smile in a single night, which had to be a record for a man who’d spent thirty-six years rationing them.
“Every single person in this building heard that.”
“They’re bears. They heard. They approve.”
She stared at him. The sarcasm machine that powered her existence had, for the second time in recorded history, failed to produce output. She kissed him instead—because some words didn’t need to be spoken to fill a room.
The vibration in his chest intensified. The bees upstairs settled down. Somewhere two floors below, forty-three bears ate honey cake and pretended they hadn’t heard a thing.
All was well in the den.