16. Let It Hurt
Let It Hurt
Kiri
The rush inside me has nowhere to go, so it gathers hot and hard in my throat as the bathroom door shuts behind her. I stand there like a complete fucking idiot, staring at the closed door, one hand still braced against the wall where I had her pinned. The wall feels warm beneath my palm.
That isn’t possible.
It’s plaster and paint, but my body is too confused to register the difference between reality and her memory.
All it seems to want to do is remind me of the impact when I pushed her against it, how she arched toward me instead of away.
The small, breathless sound she made when I grabbed her waist and dragged her against me. My body reacts all over again.
Fuck.
I snatch my hand off the wall.
What the hell did I just do?
My mouth is swollen and still tastes like her lip gloss. My neck is still alive where she found that spot—the one I’d been stupid enough to tell her about, back when there were screens and oceans between us and using any of those secrets had felt like pure fantasy.
She remembered.
I drag both hands through my hair, trying to fix it, then realize she had her fingers tangled in it and the thought makes heat travel through me.
I smooth it down, then mess it up again.
Tug my shirt away from my chest because her perfume is trapped in the fabric, rubbed in so aggressively that I could close my eyes and believe she was still pressed against me.
I shouldn’t, but I do, I let myself replay it.
Her finger against my chest, the challenge in her eyes. The moment she lifted off the wall toward me and whatever remained of my self-control simply ceased to exist.
I kissed her.
No, I fucking attacked her mouth like I’d been starving for it since the first message she ever sent me.
She kissed me back.
That's the part my brain really can’t get around. Natalia didn’t freeze or shove me away like I deserve. She didn’t laugh in my face and ask what the hell I thought I was doing. She grabbed me, pulled my hair.
Opened for me.
Melted against me like she’d been waiting for it too. The memory hits with enough force that I have to change my stance, grateful for the empty hallway, because if someone saw me now they'd definitely think I was about to fuck this wall. I force air into my lungs.
In.
Out.
Again.
It does nothing.
I don’t want to calm down, that’s the problem. I don’t want to scrub the taste of her from my mouth or straighten my clothes or walk back into that room and pretend the best thing that has happened to me in I-don't-know-how-long was a mistake.
I want to knock on the bathroom door and drag her back into the hallway. I need to hear that sound again.
Instead, I head for the dining room before somebody comes looking for us and finds me standing outside the women’s bathroom with my shirt wrinkled, my hair ruined, and every thought I’ve ever had about Natalia written plainly across my face.
The door slides open and noise crashes over me. Laughter, clinking glasses, and music threading beneath overlapping conversations. A room deep into sake and expensive food, everyone loose and happy.
Just play it cool. Everything's fine.
Absolutely nothing seismic just happened thirty feet away.
The sight of her lip gloss stain on her water glass stops me cold. All I can see is the shape of her body beneath that dress. The flash in her eyes before I kissed her.
Stop.
I move before anyone notices I’ve frozen, sliding into my seat beside Rithy and trying to arrange my face into something resembling a normal human expression.
Ronan looks at me.
“Bathroom line that bad?”
“Something like that,” I mutter.
My voice sounds rough. I clear my throat and immediately regret it because I can still feel Natalia’s mouth against my neck.
Rithy’s eyes lift. He doesn’t say anything, just tilts his head and studies me with a quiet focus. The focus of a man who has known me his entire life and recognizes the exact expression I wear after doing something catastrophically stupid. I give him one tiny shake of my head.
Drop it.
His gaze flicks to my mouth, my hair, my Adam's apple jumping as I swallow with nerves. Then the empty chair across the table.
Liv asks where Natalia went, casual and unconcerned. Signe says she’ll probably be back in a minute.
I reach for my sake and knock the glass with my fingers before managing to catch it.
Smooth. Real fucking smooth.
I throw back what’s left but the burn barely registers. My blood's already molten. My skin still remembers everywhere she touched me. My waist remembers the press of her hands and my scalp still tingles from her fingers twisting into my hair.
I shouldn’t have done that, I know I shouldn’t have.
But I’d do it again before she even finished saying my name.
Across the table, life keeps going with insulting normality while I sit there trying not to stare at an empty chair like a man awaiting sentencing.
Then Rafe glances at me. His gaze moves over me like he's taking inventory.
My posture. My hair. The death grip I have on my glass.
Then his eyes shift to Natalia’s empty chair.
Back to me.
His jaw tightens by half a millimeter.
Fantastic. Exactly what I need. Rafe figuring it out before I’ve even managed to get my breathing under control. I grab the menu and pretend to study the dessert options. Matcha something, black sesame something else. I read the same line four times and absorb none of it.
Act normal.
Act like I didn’t just cross the line we drew for a reason, pretend my body isn’t still reacting to the memory of her against me beneath a table full of people who would have several strong opinions about it.
Thank God for tablecloths. This is going to be the longest dinner of my life.
Natalia's still missing. A minute passes, maybe two.
Long enough for panic to start replacing the heat.
Does she regret it? Maybe the minute that door closed, she looked at herself in the mirror and realized what a mistake I am.
What if she’s wiping my mouth from hers, furious that I took the bait, pissed that I touched her after I was the one who insisted we could only be friends.
Maybe she’s crying. No. Natalia would rather chew through drywall than cry where someone might catch her, especially over me. Unless today—
Fuck.
Today.
Piotr.
The anniversary.
Guilt slides cold beneath all that heat. What the hell is wrong with me? I kissed her on the worst day of her year. I let jealousy turn me stupid, then shoved her against a wall and kissed her like what I wanted mattered more than anything else she was carrying.
Did she want it?
Yes. I know she did.
I know what I felt. The way she pulled me closer wasn’t confusion.
The sound she made wasn’t anger. But wanting a kiss for thirty wild seconds doesn’t mean she wants everything that comes after it.
It doesn’t mean she wants me near her grief.
It doesn’t mean she wants me at all once she has room to think.
My chest tightens. She might just be flustered or staring at her swollen mouth with that crooked little smile, replaying the moment I—
Nope. Not again.
Not with half the table looking at me like I’ve developed an extra head and Rafe quietly preparing to beat me to death with a sake bottle.
Mina tilts her head. “You all right? You look… tense.”
“Jet lag,” I say quickly. “Japan hates me.”
Ronan snorts. “Japan loves you. This is your highest popularity demographic according to Elise. All the girls here think he’s the hottest.”
Normally I’d tell him to shut the fuck up. Tonight, I barely hear him. Signe’s gaze lingers on Natalia’s empty chair before sliding to me. Her eyes narrow slightly, thoughtful rather than suspicious, like she’s noticing the shape of the absence instead of listening to the joke.
I take a drink of water. It tastes like cardiac arrest. Rafe leans back in his chair, casual in that very particular way he gets when he’s anything but.
“So,” he says lightly, tapping one finger against the stem of his glass. “How long before we send out a search party for Nat?”
He asks it like he already knows exactly what happened and wants to see whether I’m stupid enough to give anything away, any little tell.
The room doesn’t go silent, exactly. It thins. Conversations soften around the edges. Liv pauses with her hand around the sake bottle. Ronan stops tapping against the table. Even Kasia looks up.
My heart slams to a stop.
And then Natalia slips back in like nothing happened. Her timing is so perfect it has to be either divine intervention or pure chaos magic.
“Kiri passed me coming out of the bathroom,” she says breezily, sliding into her seat. “Took awhile to maneuver around him. Kurwa, everything in Japan is tiny and he’s built like he’s two sizes too big for the entire country. Someone should tell him to stop working out before he visits.”
The table erupts with relieved laughter. Ronan snorts so hard he nearly chokes. Even Rafe’s mouth gives way to a smile, the suspicion in the room breaking apart beneath her perfect delivery and my shoulders loosen by a fraction.
Her cover is flawless. Protective without looking protective. Casual enough to save both of us without giving anyone a reason to wonder why we need saving.
She still hasn’t looked at me.
Liv flicks her napkin in my direction. “Maybe stop doing pull-ups on the hotel doorframes, then.”
“You’re lucky one hasn’t snapped and sent you flying,” Ronan adds. “You’d break your fucking back.”
Signe arches a brow, eyes passing briefly between Natalia and me. “A tragic way to go. Very undignified.”
“Hazards of being jacked,” I mutter, flexing my shoulders because apparently my mouth continues operating even when my brain has fully abandoned me.
A few people laugh.
Natalia finally looks over.