Page 43 of The Encore’s Crown

I set an alarm on my watch for four a.m. Enough time to make sure she sleeps. Enough time to slip out before anyone wakes up and makes this into something messier or harder to hide. Her breathing settles but mine doesn’t. I close my eyes, just for a moment, letting myself just be here. Here, with her asleep in my arms and my heart beating so hard it feels like it’s trying to join hers.

I wake up to her mouth on my throat.

Chapter 19

Except You

Kiri

This isn't the clumsy Natalia reaching for my belt from last night with hands that couldn’t quite decide where they wanted to land. Her lips press to the pulse beneath my jaw, checking whether I’m still here. Whether I stayed like I promised.

“Nat,” I breathe.

I’m barely awake, but my body doesn’t need the extra time. It recognizes her before my mind catches up, the weight of her against my side, her knee nudging between mine, the heat of her breath moving over my skin. She kisses the same place again, then lower. My hand tightens in the sheet.

Fuck.

Her leg slides over mine, claiming space until half her body is draped over me. She's warm and pliant from sleep, but there's nothing sleepy about the way her fingers move over my chest. She traces the lines of the ink peeking out above my shirt, following shapes through touch she can’t see in the dark.

I turn my head toward her. The room is washed in the faint blue-grey that comes before dawn. Enough light to catch the pale fall of her hair around her face before she lifts her head just enough to look at me. Her eyes are glassy but focused, pupils blown wide, her lips swollen and pink from kisses I think I must have been asleep for, pressing them against my stubble.

“I’m not drunk anymore,” she whispers.

The slurred words are gone, now they're clear as anything she’s ever said to me. The woman who could barely walk in a straight line last night is a memory. This Natalia knows who's in her bed and exactly what she’s doing to me. I catch her wrist before her hand can travel any lower.

“Hey.” My voice comes out rougher than I intend. “Slow down.”

“I know what I'm doing.”

Her chin lifts when she says it, daring me to argue. I keep my fingers around her wrist, thumb resting over the quick beat of her heart.

“Really? What's that?”

Her confidence wavers but only for a second. Then she leans closer until her nose brushes mine.

“Trying to feel something.” My grip loosens.

She watches my face, all that bravado thinning enough for me to see what’s underneath it. The grief from earlier, her frustration mixed with some restless need to crawl out of her own head and into anything that doesn’t hurt. I know it too well.

For a second, every nameless bed flashes through my head. Hotel rooms and back seats. Bodies I barely remembered by morning. The same pattern dressed up as freedom, over and over, find someone, lose myself, leave before they can see the scar underneath it.

“Nothing gets through,” she says quietly. “Except you.”

She kisses me before I can decide what comes after, what I might've said. I make the mistake of kissing her back. The sound she makes is pure torture, reminding me of all the noises I could bring out of her. Her hand slips free of mine and slides around the back of my neck. She pulls me closer, mouth opening beneath me, breath spilling into mine and I go helpless in her hands.

I taste the faint trace of alcohol still lingering on her tongue. Her body presses into mine and every part of me answers. She's always known how to get a reaction out of me, even when this was just online, it’s one of her favorite things in the world. Her mouth curves against mine.

“Don’t do that,” I mutter.

“Do what?”

“Act like you've won. I can feel you smiling.”

“Maybe you’re just imagining it, friend.”

I catch her lower lip between my teeth and nip her gently. The cocky smile disappears. Her breath catches, and her fingers tighten at my neck as I soothe the bite with my tongue. The tiny shift of her hips against mine sends heat cutting straight through me. She feels that too. The laugh she lets out is unsteady.

Her hand moves over my chest, slower now. She drags her fingertips over my ribs, down the center of my stomach, learning every place that tightens beneath her touch. I let her explore longer than I should. She studies me while she does it and there's nothing shy about it. She pays attention to each movement, like every change in my breathing tells her something she needs to know. When her palm finally settles along the length of me, feeling just how hard I am for her, the last haze of sleep leaves my body.