Page 225 of The Encore’s Crown

I roll my hips harder, grinding against him at the base of every thrust. His mouth opens against mine.

“Natalia.”

My name sounds wrecked. His hands spread over my ass, pulling me down as he drives deeper, filling me so completely that the pressure becomes almost unbearable. Then my body gives in. The orgasm tears through me with such force that the whole world seems to fracture around it. My muscles lock around him and light flashes behind my closed eyes, more brilliant than the sunset, more beautiful than anything I knew a body could feel.

Kiri groans into my mouth and thrusts into me once more, deep and shaking, as he comes with me. I cling to him, trembling, as his arms close around me, no longer demanding, only holding. The last light disappears behind the Pitons.

When I pull back far enough to find his eyes, his smile, all the things that steady me, he’s already looking right back at me.

And somehow, after the mountains, the sunset, the perfect sanctuary and everything my body has just survived, he's still the most beautiful thing here.

Afterward, we lie tangled beneath the sheet, watching the ceiling fan turn above us.

Neither of us speaks for a while. There's too much to take in. The open wall outlined in the dark shape of the Pitons beyond the sanctuary. The night air moving along our overheated skin. His hand resting against my stomach.

Kiri turns his head toward me.

“I want a picture of us.”

I blink. “Now?”

“Now.”

I look down at myself. “I’m naked.”

“I noticed.”

He grins while I drag the sheet around my chest and tuck it beneath my arms. Kiri shifts closer, still entirely unconcerned with his own lack of clothing, and holds his phone above us. Our faces fill the screen. My hair is a disaster. His is falling into his eyes as usual, maybe one day he'll get that hair cut he keeps talking about. We both look flushed, exhausted, and so stupidly happy that I almost don’t recognize us.

“Smile,” he says.

“I am smiling.”

“That’s your influencer smile.”

I turn and bite his shoulder just before he takes the picture. The camera catches me laughing against him and Kiri looking at me instead of the lens.

It’s perfect.

He lowers the phone and starts tapping at the screen. At first, I’m still floating too high to care. Then he keeps tapping.

And typing.

And scrolling.

An irritated knot forms in the middle of my chest. Of course, in the middle of the most romantic night of my life, Kiri Chhim has decided to become fascinated by his phone.

I lean closer. “Are you answering Ronan's unhinged texts right now?”

“No.”

“Because I will throw that fucking phone into the pool.”

“I believe you.”

He keeps typing.

“Kiri.”