Kai’s POV
The week-long cold treatment was worth it.
I think this with the part of my brain still capable of thought, the rest consumed by the reality of Skye beneath me on the living room couch—bare, trembling, her mouth open against my shoulder to muffle the sounds she's trying not to make.
I'd spent seven days practicing restraint, treating her with the polite distance of a stranger, and now she's arching into my touch with an abandon that feels like victory.
I don't know what changed. Only that she kissed me first, and now her skin is against mine and she's real in ways my imagination failed to capture.
The couch is too narrow, upholstered in fabric that scrapes my knees, but I don't care.
My hands find the hem of her shirt, and I pull it over her head with less grace than intended. Her hair falls across her face, and she laughs, breathless, as I brush it back.
Underneath, there is a simple black bra. Nothing lacy, nothing designed to seduce, and somehow that's even more devastating. This is just her.
"You're staring," she whispers.
"Yes," I breathe.
There is no point denying it. I am staring. My gaze traces the curve of her waist, the dip of her navel, the way her chest rises with each unsteady breath.
I reach behind her, fumbling with the clasp—I've done this a hundred times, why are my hands shaking?—and finally it gives. The straps slide down her shoulders, and I pull the fabric away slowly, letting the anticipation build.
The sight of her almost makes me lose my patience entirely. Breasts pale in the lamplight, nipples tightened from the cool air or my touch, the frantic rise and fall of her chest as she watches me watch her.
"God, Skye." The words come out reverent. "You're fucking beautiful. Do you know that? I've been imagining this for weeks and the reality is—" I shake my head. "You're everything I didn't prepare for."
Her cheeks flush deeper, and I realize she's not used to this—to being seen, to being wanted out loud. I file that away, another piece of the puzzle that is Skye Fraser.
Then she cups my face with both hands, her palms warm and slightly trembling against my jaw. She pulls me closer, her eyes finding mine in the half-dark.
Her thumb traces my cheekbone like she's mapping me the way I've been mapping her, and when she speaks, her voice is barely audible.
"Will you ever shut up?" she whispers.
I'd intended to go slow. To be careful, to ask permission at every threshold. But she pulls me down, her fingers urgent in my hair, and careful becomes impossible.
Her mouth finds mine, her tongue pushes past my lips, and she explores me like she's claiming territory—tracing the edge of my teeth, curling against my tongue, withdrawing just enough to make me chase her before plunging back deeper.
I groan into her, meet her thrust for thrust, and feel the last vestige of my control shatter when she bites my lower lip—hard enough to sting, gentle enough to beg for more.
"Kai." My name on her lips, half-warning, half-pleading. I don't know which she means, so I choose interpretation—slide my hand down her stomach, over the waistband of her leggings, and wait for her to stop me.
She doesn't. She lifts her hips, helping me peel the fabric away, and then she's bare beneath me and I'm drowning in the sight of her.
The sound she makes when I touch her, a sharp intake that she immediately tries to swallow, her teeth finding my shoulder to stifle herself.
I learn her by touch. The rhythm she responds to, the pressure that makes her hips jerk, the exact spot that has her fingers digging into my back.
She's wet, slick against my fingers, and the knowledge that I did this—that her arousal is for me, because of me—sends heat spiraling down my spine.
I still want to take my time, to catalogue every response, but she's urgent beneath me, rocking into my hand with increasing desperation.
"Please," she whispers, and I know what she's asking for but wait until she reaches for my jeans, her fingers fumbling with the button.
I help her, shove them down far enough to free myself.
She wraps her hand around me, and I feel her freeze—her fingers not quite meeting, her eyes widening in the lamplight before she schools her expression back to composure.
But I've seen it: the surprise, the quick calculation, the flash of uncertainty about whether she can take all of me. It makes me harder, knowing I've shaken her confidence, knowing she'll rise to meet it anyway.
She recovers quickly, her grip adjusting, her thumb tracing the sensitive ridge beneath the head with new caution, new curiosity.
She watches my face as she learns me—the angle that makes my jaw tighten, the pressure that draws a groan from my throat, the slow stroke that has my eyes rolling back.
When she finds the rhythm that unravels me, she tightens her grip and speeds her pace. I catch her wrist, breathing hard, and she makes a sound of protest—frustrated and hungry.
Protection.
The thought surfaces through the haze—I have a wallet, a condom, somewhere in the pile of clothes on the floor. I retrieve it with shaking hands, roll it on with her watching.
She's looking at me properly now, her gaze traveling down my chest, my stomach, settling with obvious attention on where I'm standing hard and thick against my own abdomen.
I see her throat work, her eyes widen slightly, and I don't try to hide it—let her look, let her see exactly what she's doing to me, what she's about to take.
I want her to feel this stretch, this overwhelming fullness, want to watch her composure crack completely when I'm inside her.
I take myself in hand and stroke once, slowly, watching her eyes follow the motion, and when I speak my voice is rough with the triumph of being wanted by her.
"Still sure?" I ask, though we both know the answer.
She lifts her hips in invitation, her eyes never leaving mine. I'm positioning myself, the head of me pressing against her, and the heat is overwhelming, almost painful in its intensity.
I enter slowly. Watch her face for discomfort, for regret, for any sign that this is a mistake. Her eyes flutter shut, her head falling back against the armrest, and she exhales in a long shuddering breath that I feel against my chest.
She's tight, gripping me with every increment I advance, and the restraint required not to thrust fully, immediately, costs me something in my spine.
"Move," she breathes, and I do, sinking into her like a key finding its lock.
I find a rhythm that makes her gasp, her hips rising to meet mine, the couch creaking beneath us in protest. The television plays forgotten in the background, its blue light flickering across her skin, turning her into something unreal and perfect.
I adjust my angle, shift my weight, and find the spot that makes her inhale sharply—there, right there—and keep hitting it with deliberate precision.
She's close.
I can feel it in the tension coiling through her, the way her nails score my back, the increasing desperation of her movements.
She's trying to stay quiet, I realize—biting her lip, turning her face into the cushion, her body trembling with the effort of suppression.
It makes me want to break that control, to find the exact combination of touch and pressure that will tear a sound from her, but I also find myself perversely pleased by her silence. By the private nature of what she's feeling, shared only with me.
I adjust again, slide my hand between us, and press my thumb where we're joined.
She comes apart. Her back arches off the couch, her mouth opening in a silent cry, her body gripping me in rhythmic pulses that threaten my own control.
She doesn't scream—I realize this with distant, surprised clarity, watching her face transform with pleasure that has no voice. Only gasping, trembling, her fingers white-knuckled in my hair as she rides through it.
I remember Tommy's voice, crude and speculative: Bet she's a screamer. I remember my own silence in response, the unwillingness to share even hypothetical details.
Now I know the truth, and the knowledge feels precious, classified—Skye Fraser comes silently, beautifully, with her eyes squeezed shut and her body betraying everything her voice won't.
I find it better than screaming. Better because it's a secret, because I discovered it, because there are still mysteries to solve. I haven't made her scream yet.
The thought becomes immediate ambition, a challenge accepted before I'm even finished—I want to learn her completely, to find every threshold, to be the one who finally breaks that silence.
But first, my own release is building, inevitable, drawn from me by the aftershocks still moving through her. I let go of my restraint, thrust deeper, and follow her over the edge with her name breaking across my lips.
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