FORTY-ONE
KAITO
Dakota takes one step toward me but I don’t move. Then she takes another, but I keep my feet firmly planted where they are. When she stops next, she’s close enough that I can smell her under the blood and water and fear.
Wild honey. Rain. Faint now, but still there.
“You really won’t touch me unless I ask?”
“No.”
“That must be killing you,” she mutters.
My reply is out of my mouth before I can stop it. “You have no idea.”
Her mouth twitches, only a little. Then she lifts her hand and presses a single finger to the middle of my chest. Only the one. It shouldn’t feel like a knife, but it kind of does.
“Your heart is beating pretty fast,” she comments quietly.
“Mhm,” I agree.
“You look so calm, though.”
“I’m not.”
“Huh,” she breathes, then her finger drags down an inch.
My control tightens and she watches my face. Of course she does, because she’s looking for the cracks. The monster. The proof that wanting turns people into cages.
So I let her see the want. Not all of it, but enough, and her pupils blow out almost instantly.
“Take your shirt off,” she commands roughly.
It’s gone a moment later, not rushed or showy. I just pull it over my head and drop it next to the weapons. The movement tugs at the stitches along my side, and it catches Dakota’s eyes immediately.
“You’re still hurt.”
“Looks that way.”
“You should have reminded me,” she grumbles, eyeing my side like it’s done her a personal injustice.
“You’ve had enough on your plate,” I tell her, and her mouth tightens like she hates that answer.
That’s okay. She should hate it.
Her eyes roam over me and I stand perfectly still under her perusal. I let her look and I let her choose.
Dakota only looks for a handful of seconds before she steps closer and puts her palm flat against my stomach. The touch is cool from the sink, and I hold my breath. I don’t breathe for even a second.
“You’ve stopped breathing,” she points out, her lips tipping.
“I did notice,” I tell her, my breath knocking loose with the words.
She looks at my chest again, and whatever joke she might have blurted dies before it can reach her mouth. Her fingers slide higher, over my ribs, to the scars she’s seen before but never touched like this.
“What do you want to do?” she asks lowly.
The honest answer is a very long list, honestly. Some of it gentle, but most of it absolutely not gentle at all. So, I choose the cleanest answer to give to her. “I want to put my hands on you.”
“Where?”
“Waist. Hips. Back of your neck.”
Her breath catches. “Why there?”
“So I can feel if you want to move away,” I tell her honestly.
She stares at me for a weighted second, then she nods once. “Do it.”
I put my hands exactly where I said I wanted them.
Waist first.
Then hips.
Then one hand sliding up to the back of her neck, not gripping, just resting.
Her eyes close and a shiver runs through her.
“Too much?” I ask quietly.
“No,” she answers with the smallest shake of her head. Then her hand curls against my chest and she demands, “More.”
I step closer until her body brushes against mine, and she makes a sound under her breath. It’s not fear, not even close, and my jaw tightens. She hears it. Feels it. And then she kisses me.
It’s not gentle, because Dakota doesn’t know how to ask gently. She bites at my lip like she’s angry there’s an answer and she’s angrier that she even wants it. I take it and give it back, careful at first until she fists my hair and pulls.
“Don’t act breakable,” she says against my mouth.
“You first.”
She scrapes her teeth roughly over my lower lip again, and pain flares there. Need follows quickly after.
I back her up one step, then pause. Her eyes open and she glances behind her. The wall is right there, close but not touching her. I put both hands flat against it on either side of her head, no contact, just a cage shape without the cage, and I hear the way her breathing stutters.
“If this feels wrong, say it,” I tell her.
She lifts her chin. “It doesn’t.”
“Then if it starts to feel wrong, say it.”
“Kaito.”
“Say it,” I demand gently.
Her eyes spark. “I’ll say it.”
“Good.”
Then she grabs my belt and pulls me into her, right before she kisses me again. And this one is worse. No, it’s better. Maybe it’s both.
Her back collides with the wall because she pulls me there, and I still keep most of my weight off her. She notices, because of course she does. “You’re holding back.”
“Yeah.”
“Because of me?” she asks.
“No.”
Her eyes drop to my side where the stitches pull when I breathe too deeply. I know the exact moment she sees it.
“Because you’re hurt,” she says.
“It’s just an inconvenient blooper.”
“Kaito.”
“I can stop.”
“That’s not what I asked and you know it,” she almost snaps, that anger coming back.
It almost makes me smile.
Instead, I tell her, “No, I’m not holding back because I’m scared of you.”
She stares at me, then lifts her chin higher. Not empty now, not gone, but very present. Demanding. Choosing.
I let my restraint morph into something else, and my hands leave the wall to grip her hips hard, exactly where she told me I could. I pull her into me and kiss her until her breath shatters against my mouth.
She moans and the sound shoots straight through me.
I turn us before she can be pinned too long, walking her backward toward the center of the mat instead of keeping her against the wall. She follows willingly, her fingers working at my belt, still not fully steady.
I keep my hands planted on her hips and let her fight with the buckle. I let her decide whether she wants this enough to keep going.
When it finally relents, her breath leaves her in a sharp little sound. Her eyes lift to mine and I see the fear that’s still there. But under it, there’s so much want.
Clear.
Chosen.
Mine to answer, but not mine to take.
I undo the clasp of her bra only after she gives me the go-ahead, and she watches me the whole time. When it falls, she raises her chin as if she’s expecting the look to hurt.
It does, but not in the way she thinks. It’s not because of the blood or the bruises. It’s because she’s standing in front of me asking to be seen, and I have wanted her for long enough that it feels like something cracks open in my ribs.
“You’re doing the face again,” she mutters.
“What face?”
“The intense one.”
“I think that’s just my face,” I tell her.
Her mouth opens, and then it closes. This time, she doesn’t even try to make the joke that balances on the tip of her tongue. Instead, she reaches for me and I go willingly, bending slightly so I can reach her breasts.
I kiss one with blood still smudged on my lips and she curses under her breath. Her knees bend and I manage to catch her by the hips.
“Still with me?”
“Yeah.”
“Good.”
I lower to my knees in front of her, and the move pulls at my side, sharp enough to make my breath catch before I can bury it. Dakota feels it through my hands on her, and her fingers tighten in my hair. “Kaito.”
I look up, finding her breathing hard with wide eyes that aren’t out of fear. She’s just overwhelmed. But even the good kind of overwhelmed can turn bad if it’s ignored.
“Tell me no, and I’ll stand right back up,” I swear.
Her gaze drops briefly to my side.
Then back to my face.
“You tell me if it hurts too much.”
“I will.”
“Actually tell me,” she presses, fingers clenching around my hair once more.
“I’ll tell you.”
Her fingers flex once, then she says, “Don’t stand up.”
So I don’t. Instead, I pull her closer and press my mouth to her stomach first. Then her hip.
Then the pale patches scattered across her lower belly.
I do not make it soft, and I don’t make it into some kind of worship.
I make it clear to her that I want this.
That I choose this. Her. And I’m not scared of the body that dragged blood into the room with her.
Dakota’s hand shakes in my hair and when I look up again, her eyes are wet. I do not mention it, though. I don’t need to. Instead, I go to work on opening her pants. The sound of the button coming free is almost inaudible in the large space around us, but her breathing isn’t.
Dragging the zipper down slowly, I watch her face for every single change. She watches my hands and her throat moves once. Then her fingers tighten in my hair hard enough to hurt.
I like the pain, though. That’s nothing new for me, but I simply decide to ignore just how much I like it coming from Dakota.
Her pants slide lower over her hips inch by inch, revealing more skin, more bruises, and more places where blood dried in streaks across her thighs. My hands stay steady, but my mouth absolutely doesn’t.
I kiss the skin just above the edge of her underwear and her stomach tenses.
“Kaito.”
“Yeah?”
“I want you.”
The words slam into both of us hard. Dakota looks stunned by the words that just slipped out of her mouth, so I wait. I let her decide if she wants them back. But she doesn’t. Because her jaw tightens before she repeats herself with more confidence. “I want you.”
I press my forehead to her stomach once.
Just once. Then I help her step out of her pants.
Her knee is still banged up, bruised to hell and looking like it needs as much rest as the entire world.
There are bruises over her thigh and more blood than I even want to acknowledge, but I stamp it into my brain instead of turning the moment all weird and clinical.
Not yet, anyway. She needs her body back before anyone else starts trying to observe it.
I hook one of her legs over my shoulder only when she pushes her fingers deeper into my hair and drags me closer. Her breath punches out when my mouth touches her through the thin fabric, her hips jerking before she freezes.
I grip one thigh and look up. “Move if you want.”
“I don’t know what I want.”
“Sure you do.”
Her glare is immediate, but she answers anyway. “I want you to keep going.”
So I do. I pull the fabric of her underwear aside and put my mouth on her properly.