Kasien （Present） #2
Her fingers clutch my shoulders like she’s afraid I’ll disappear again. The kiss deepens, and she answers with that desperate kind of hunger that tastes like home and hell at once.
For a moment, there’s no past, no rules, no Lucien, just the raw, violent truth of what we are when we stop pretending we can survive without each other.
Her breath mixes with mine, uneven and hot, her lips chasing me every time I try to pull away, like she refuses to let me go this time. My hand slides up the back of her neck, fingers tangled in her hair, and I pull her closer until there’s not a single inch on our bodies not touching.
Every sound of the sea, every wave hitting the shore, fades out until there’s only her pulse crashing against mine.
I hate how good it feels. How right.
Like all the blood on my hands, all the years I’ve spent rotting from the inside, could vanish with one kiss.
She tilts her head and I lose control completely. The kiss turns deeper, rougher, like a fight neither of us wants to win. Her broken sounds get drowned in my mouth as I taste her fight for air.
And when she eventually pulls back, our foreheads still touching, I realize I can’t even breathe without her anymore. I don’t want to.
She looks up at me, lips swollen, eyes glassy like she’s seeing through every wall I ever built. And for the first time in years, I feel fully exposed—no armor, no mask, just me and the mess she always saw beneath it.
My thumb is tracing the edges of her jaw like I’m memorizing her again, in case I have to let her go.
If I were a better man, I’d stop. Push her away. Tell her to run before she forgets how dangerous this can get. But her mouth brushes mine once more, soft, barely there, and I know I’ve already lost. Because I’d rather burn alive with her than live one more day without this.
I bury my fingers in her ass, moving her slowly on me but not letting go of her lips.
She takes the pace, rocking her hips to meet my thrusts.
They get rougher with every move until I feel like I’m eating her alive.
I trail my tongue to her neck so I can hear all the raw sounds she makes as I fuck her to oblivion.
I suck on her skin, bite her, not able to control myself.
“Don’t disappear on me ever again,” she croaks out, her voice instantly sending me over the edge.
Her fingers tug at my hair as I spill inside her and her body starts trembling in my hands once more.
The air is filled with our mixed grunts and her head falls backward, her body suddenly limp in my arms, fighting for air. I let my head fall on hers and whisper to her ear, without thinking.
“You’re unreal, Kiara.” I’m catching my breath and sinking my fingers to her skin, afraid she’s not really here, afraid she’s just a hallucination. “Like the world tried to make something perfect and then dropped it into my hands just to see me ruin it.”
She looks at me, confusion and sadness in her eyes.
I grab her dress, slide it on her body, then her jacket hanging on the back of the bike, pulling it around her. She lets me dress her, but doesn’t move and doesn’t take her eyes off me.
It’s a chilly night, but her body is warm, almost burning and her cheeks are pink, eyes tired. I want to take her in a steam hot shower and fuck her again, pressed to the shower wall so hard she’ll have bathroom tile imprint on her ass.
“Take me to your bed tonight,” she whispers.
I stop mid-motion.
If I take her to my bed, we’ll never get out of that bed, and that sounds like a dream life to me.
But I just can’t have that.
Instead of answering, I lift her off the bike and gesture for her to get behind me.
We take off from the beach, the night dark, moonlight and city lights guiding us on the way to the manor. I grab her knee every now and then to warm it since I idiotically ripped off her thighs.
When we get to the manor, I slowly prepare myself for what’s about to come. I guide her with my hand on the small of her back to the lobby, squeezing my eyes shut from the repulsion to what I’m about to say.
“Go to your suite and take a warm bath, you’re frozen,” I force out with coldness.
She turns to me and grabs my face instantly.
“No, no, no. Kasien. Stop. Don’t do this.” Her chin is trembling, tears welling in her eyes.
I hold mine back.
“Are you absolutely delusional, Kiara? What do you expect from me? You are supposed to be dead, and I’m supposed to arrange that. Don’t you get it?” I unintentionally raise my voice.
She just shakes her head in defiance and the tears start to roll down her face.
I can’t do this.
“We can figure something out,” she forces out and gulps.
But my mind starts to fill with anger, and I can’t hold it back.
“What do you want from me? I have to kill people for a living, you know that, right?”
“I don’t care. I got you back, that’s all I care about,” she pauses to catch a breath, her sobs making it hard to talk.
“You don’t care? Are you fucking listening to yourself?” My voice is getting louder than I’d want it to.
“I’ve spent years digging into the most disgusting crime scenes, reading all the raw and gut-wrenching details about Vermilion, knowing you’re somewhere behind all of it. I had enough time to make my peace with what you’ve become, Kasien.”
Tears keep spilling down her chin. I want to kiss them away, but I just stand there instead, frozen.
“I’ve already seen the worst of you, six years ago. And I don’t care. You don’t scare me. And I won’t leave you again.”
She cries and runs her thumbs over my cheek, trying to make me look into her eyes, so I do. “I promise,” she adds.
I look away, a lump in my throat, I can’t get the words out. I need to say it, but my body isn’t letting me.
“If you ever disappear on me again, I will look for you—again,” she says firmly when she circles her fingers around my nape and guides me down so she can meet my lips.
The world narrows. No sound, no air, just the heat between us. Her lips touch mine, tasting of salt and heartbreak. Then the dam breaks. I grab the back of her neck, deepening the kiss until we’re both breathless, lost in the collision of everything we never said.
She’s kissing me like she’s trying to carve her name into my soul, like she’s terrified that if she stops, I’ll disappear.
My hand finds her jaw, thumb brushing the tears off her cheek, but she leans into the touch like she wants more of the pain, more of me.
Our lips part only to find each other again, harder this time, desperate, unsteady, a war between wanting and breaking.
Every time she exhales, it sounds like my name. Every time I breathe, it feels like surrender.
What’s done is done.
I have no plan.
I’m fucked anyway.
All the wheels in my head stopped since she came down those stairs behind me four hours ago. I’m all the way down and I can’t go back anymore.
When she whispers my name against my mouth, barely a sound, more like a prayer, I realize I’d do anything, just to feel her breathe like this again.
I don’t leave her lips for a second as I grab her under her knees and lift her into my arms. She instantly circles her legs around me, almost suffocating me.
I carry her to my wing, we burst through the door, not bothering with closing it and we collapse to my bed, Kiara now straddling me.
She pulls away to look at me, her lips swollen and cheeks red, her hair tousled. The room is lit up only by moonlight coming in through the tall French windows. It’s probably around three a.m. and the silver light is gliding over her olive skin like it’s worshipping her.
My fingers follow the lights, slowly sliding her dress up and over her head, revealing her beautiful body. My hands move over her skin—these ugly, ruined things that don’t deserve to feel something this pure.
Every scar on my palms feels louder now, every rough patch screaming against her softness. Her skin feels like something sacred, and I’m afraid to even breathe too close, afraid I’ll stain it just by existing near her.
She takes my hand—the same hand that’s taken lives—and guides it to her face.
Her eyes flutter shut as if the touch itself calms her, like she’s been waiting for it, like she missed it.
She leans her cheek into it, breathing me in.
I can feel her pulse under my fingertips, steady and real, and it hurts, her tenderness is like a blasphemy for me.
Is she really accepting me?
Me?
I imagined the moment six years ago, over and over, a version where she didn’t run away afraid of me.
I never thought it could become true.
I roll us over, hovering above her for a moment, memorizing the sight—her head sunk into my sheets, dark hair fanned out around us, her angelic body right under me.
Her hands slip beneath my shirt, fingers tracing my skin slowly, carefully. I close my eyes, letting it sink in, holding onto every touch. When she pushes the fabric up, I pull it off the rest of the way and lower myself back over her.
Her hands roam over my chest and shoulders, her thumbs brushing along my happy trail, and I’m already hard for her again.
I press soft kisses along her jaw, down her neck, taking my time, tasting her.
By the time I reach her bra, I slide a hand beneath her, unclasp it, and toss it aside without breaking the rhythm, inhaling her scent so obsessively so it burns itself in my nostrils and never leaves again.
My mouth trails all the way down to her core, biting her, fighting my teeth not to rip into her skin.
I want to fucking eat her. To sink my teeth into her flesh and drink her blood.
I pull back for a second, dragging in a breath, trying to steady myself. Then I lift her leg, pressing a kiss to her foot, letting my mouth trace its way slowly up her calf, her thigh, until the white lacy fabric is the only thing keeping me from eating her.
“I could spend hours re-memorizing every inch of you and it still wouldn’t be enough.”