Kai #2
Her breathing deepens again, the drug dragging her down, her body going heavier in my arms.
But her hand stays curled in my shirt.
And I stay perfectly still for a moment, letting myself feel that tiny desperate anchor.
“Yeah,” I murmur, voice vibrating against her skin, “I missed you too.”
Then I start walking again.
Slow.
Controlled.
Unhurried.
“This time,” I whisper, “I’m not letting you disappear.”
Her head falls against my neck.
Her breath warms my collarbone.
And I smile—feral, quiet, certain.
“She’s awake,” I murmur to the empty house. “She doesn’t know it yet.” A beat. “But she’s awake.”
I push her bedroom door open with my shoulder, slow and silent, like I’ve done it a thousand times in my head.
The room smells like her—not perfume, not lotion, but something warm and soft underneath it all.
The kind of scent that hits the back of my throat and lights every nerve that prison tried to freeze.
The kind of scent that makes me want to tear the whole fucking house apart.
Her bed is perfectly made.
Of course it is.
Noah probably straightens the sheets every morning like a ritual.
A little shrine to perfection.
I walk straight to it.
Her body sinks into the mattress as I lower her down—slow enough that her hair fans across the pillow in a spill of dark gold and chaos. Her hand still clutches my shirt for a second before sliding off, weak fingers catching on the fabric like she’s begging me not to leave.
I sit beside her, elbows on my knees, watching her chest rise and fall in shallow, drug-heavy breaths. She’s fighting the chemicals—her muscles twitching, her eyelids fluttering, her jaw tightening like she’s trying to drag herself to the surface.
Good girl.
Fight.
I brush my knuckles along her cheek, relishing the way she leans into the touch even while unconscious. Her lips part on a shaky breath, her lashes trembling.
“You should never look this helpless,” I whisper. “Not because of him. Never because of him.”
Her breath hitches.
I feel it like a pulse under my skin.
“You hear me?” My fingers slide down the line of her jaw, slow, reverent. “Only I get to see you like this.”
Her eyes crack open.
Barely.
Just a sliver.
Just enough.
Blue drowning in black, unfocused but locked on me like her instincts are pulling her toward something her body can’t hold upright.
Her lips move.
No sound.
Then a whisper, paper-thin:
“…Kai…”
Every muscle in my body pulls tight.
“Yeah,” I murmur, leaning closer until my breath brushes her mouth, “I’m right here.”
She tries to lift a hand toward my face.
It shakes.
Falls halfway.
But I catch it.
Her palm is warm, too warm, drug-warm.
Her fingers curl weakly around mine.
I fold her hand between both of mine, slow, deliberate.
“Do you know what you do to me, little sister?” My voice is low, steady, threaded with something dangerous. “Even half gone, you look straight at me. You reach for me. You say my name like it’s the only word you remember.”
Her brows pinch in confusion or effort or pain—I don’t know.
I don’t care.
I tuck her hand carefully against her chest and trail my fingers through her hair, brushing the stray curls from her forehead.
“You were screaming at trees for me hours ago,” I whisper into her hair. “Calling me a coward. Begging me to show myself.” I laugh quietly, the sound dark and soft. “Well. Here I am.”
Her eyes flutter again, sinking shut, then dragging open on pure instinct.
Her lips shape a broken half-word—
“…don’t… go…”
It hits me like a fist to the ribs. “I’m not going anywhere,” I murmur. “Not tonight. Not again.”
She exhales shakily, sinking deeper into the mattress, into the drug, into me. Her breathing is slow now—too slow. The chemicals are dragging her under harder, deeper.
Noah tried to make her pliant.
Docile.
Quiet.
And it fills my chest with something violent enough to break bone.
I lean in close, forehead brushing hers, voice dropping to a whisper that only someone inches away could hear.
“I’m going to kill him for this.” Her eyelids flutter.
“…Noah…” she breathes, barely.
“Don’t say his name,” I murmur. “Not while you’re like this. Not while you’re in my hands.”
She makes a soft, confused noise, turning her face toward me, seeking something she’s too drugged to name.
I stroke her cheek with my thumb.
She stirs.
Barely.
Just a soft shift of her hips against the sheets, her breath catching like her body is remembering something her mind can’t reach through the fog.
My eyes narrow, pulse tightening under my skin.
She shouldn’t be waking yet.
Noah drugged her hard enough to fell a grown man.
But she’s fighting it.
Of course she is.
Scarlett never stayed down when someone tried to break her.
Her fingers twitch, brushing my thigh again—not deliberate, not controlled, but warm enough to make every muscle in me go electric.
Then her head turns toward me, slow, heavy, dragging through the haze.
“Kai…”
Not a question.
Not a fear.
A want.
Her lips are parted, breath shallow, eyes half-lidded as she blinks at me like she’s seeing only shapes and shadows, but she feels me.
She feels me.
My hands clench on my knees to keep from touching her more than I already am.
“Easy,” I murmur, leaning closer, breath brushing her cheek. “You’re not awake.”
She inhales sharply—like just hearing my voice sends something hot and instinctive through her.
Her fingers slide up again, this time across my wrist, weak and trembling and desperate.
I freeze.
Her hand curls around me—barely a grip, more like a plea.
I swallow hard.
“Scarlett,” I whisper, voice breaking through the edges, “you don’t know what you’re doing.”
But she does.
Not consciously.
Not logically.
But her body knows me like it knows air, like it knows gravity.
Her thighs shift slightly under the blanket, a soft restless motion she probably isn’t even aware of. Her head tips toward me, lips brushing my forearm in a ghosted, accidental touch that feels like a match struck against bone.
My breath comes out low and rough.
She whispers again, softer, slurred, broken:
“…don’t… stop…”
My head drops forward, forehead nearly touching hers.
“Fuck,” I breathe, voice shaking with restraint. “You’re killing me.”
She moves again—slow, instinctive, seeking heat, seeking something she can’t name.
Her fingers trail up my arm, clumsy, drugged, but intentional enough that my heart slams against my ribs.
Her body leans toward mine, cheek brushing my chest, breath warm through my shirt.
Every inch of me pulls tight.
“Scarlett,” I whisper, teeth clenched, “I want you. God, I want you so fucking bad.”
She mumbles something I can’t make out, I pull her closer and her breath hits my ear, “your not real. You always come to me when I’m at my worst. You always leave me with your ghost.” She’s still limp but her words crack me open.
“Fuck, Scar…don’t fucking say shit like that to me. Not after what you did. You left me to fucking rot. You forgot me.”
She shakes her head. “No. I—I never—forgot.”
I can’t fucking do this. I can’t fucking be here, not like this. I wanted….fuck. I don’t know what I wanted but it wasn’t this.
Not this Scarlett. Not this helpless fucking soft….No, she doesn’t get to be soft. Not after what she did, she ripped away everything we had with her fucking lies and now she’s laying there like she didn’t rip my fucking heart out and start a new fucking life without me.
“Your not real. Your not real. Your not real.” She repeats like a mantra and it should amuse me but it doesn’t it fucking pisses me off.
Not real? I am more real than this fake fucking life she has convinced herself she belongs in, she doesn’t fucking belong here. Not with him. I slide my fingers in my hair pulling at the strands until the pain pulses through my skull.
I should leave. That’s what a gentleman would do.
It’s a good fucking job I’m not a gentleman.
She’s still fucking saying it, her voice is like a fucking echo that I can’t get out. I want to scream at her to shut up. She left me to rot and now she’s calling to me like I am her everything. She forgot about me and now she’s chanting that I am not real. Fuck.
I walk over to her slower than I want to, she’s still lying there chanting the same fucking sentence. “Scar.” She shakes her head. “Scarlett, listen to me. I am real.”
“No—no your not. Your in my head.”
In her head, I almost laugh. Well, well, well, little sister if I knew I had this much of an effect on your pretty little head I would have broken your perfect little lie sooner.
Her eyes are closed now, I watch as her chest rises and falls, her bare skin glows under the warm lights, she sighs and I think she’s finally gone to sleep until she utters the words that crack my heart in two. “Kai.”
I’m right here. I’m right fucking here.
I grip her ankles as I move across her body, sliding my fingers down her face. “Fuck, I shouldn’t touch you. You feel like four years haven’t passed. You feel like mine.” I whisper in her ear.
Her eyes flutter open and she mumbles something I don’t quite catch. My fingers slide from her face to her chest. God I’ve fucking missed this. No, no, no she left me alone.
“I shouldn’t fucking want you.” I grit out. “Oh god, but I fucking do, Scar, I fucking want you so bad.”
My hands crawl up her thigh, fuck, why does she feel so good. She sighs, she fucking sighs and I lose my fucking mind.
My fingers trace further up lazily, just to tease her. That’s all I’m going to do…but my fingers hit bare flesh.
Fuck.
“Scar, your fucking dripping and bare.” I gasp. “Fuck.”
I slide between her legs and she spreads them for me. Good fucking girl.
My tongue traces her thighs and she shudders in response, I wrap my lips across her inner thigh finally tasting skin, skin that used to fucking burn for me and fuck me she tastes the same. I suck as hard as I can and she moans, fucking moans.
My tongue traces the length of her thigh until I find her glistening dripping pussy just waiting for me, like its fucking welcoming me home.
“Open up for me, baby, let me taste your fucking lies on my tongue.” Her eyes are still closed but she’s fucking aware , her hips lift and her legs spread wider.
My tongue hits her pussy and the moan that falls from her lips nearly fucking undoes me.
Her fingers shakily find their way to my head and when she tugs my hair with her gasps on her lips I push my face into her pussy, her hand holds me there.
My tongue slides across her pussy lips, sucking and tasting every inch of her fucking lies.
“Kai,” she gasps, she knows its me. She fucking knows. I slide my tongue up to her clit sucking her into my mouth and sliding three fingers deep into her dripping pussy.
“Don’t…don’t stop.” She cries.
I pump my fingers deep inside of her, curling just right, feeling her grip my fingers like she used to grip my cock and tasting every lie she told over the last four years.
Her thighs are shaking beneath me, i run my tongue up and down the length of her pussy like I can lick away the last four years, she screams and digs her fingers in my skull.
“Come on, little sister, cum all over my fucking fingers. Drown me, I want to taste you, baby.”
“God…it’s not real…it’s not real.” She cries.
“Cry your pretty little lies into my mouth, little sister.”
I grip her ass raising her pussy flush against my mouth, ignoring her screams that its too much, I want every fucking drop and I am not stopping until she gives me every last fucking drop.
My tongue roughly explores her pussy finding her open and swollen, I glide my tongue inside her, flicking until a scream erupts from her throat and she trembles beneath me, catching all her desire into my mouth and swallowing down ever last fucking drop.
“Fuck. You still taste so fucking good, baby.” I smile as I raise my head and see her laying there, breathless.
I lean over looking at her beautiful, lying fucking face and her eyes flutter open, she sees me, fuck, she finally sees me and the look she gives me fucking tears me apart.
I brush my lips against her softly at first, taking her lip between my teeth I bite hard until I taste copper and she gasps into my fucking mouth she fucking gasps, pressing my lips hard against her I drown in her taste.
“Kai.” She gasps like its a question to an answer she didn’t want.
“Shh little sister, go back to sleep. You will see me real soon.”
I watch the confusion on her face but her eyes are slipping again and turning away from her breaks my heart but its not time yet, she doesn’t deserve me coming back easily, she fucking broke me and she’s going to taste exactly what it feels like to fucking drown while holding a heart that doesn’t belong to you anymore.