Page 197 of The Encore’s Crown

Natalia stares at me. At first, I think I’ve broken something. Then she kisses me.

Hard.

My hand slides into her hair as her mouth opens over mine. The stillness that followed us home catches fire so quickly it almost hurts, the way it burns from inside and spreads through every vein. She moves against me, and a broken sound catches in my throat. Almost a whimper as her nails drag down the side of my neck and over my chest. Every nerve in my body wakes up at once. I pull her closer, needing more of her weight, more of her mouth, more proof that she’s still here after seeing everything I wanted to keep hidden.

When we finally break apart, both of us are breathing hard. Her lips hover over mine.

“Kiri.”

The way she says my name now is different. She isn’t trying to bring me back.

She’s claiming me.

Her hips press again, and whatever control I have left starts ripping apart. Her breath catches against my mouth.

“I love you too.”

All I can do is stare at her. All the fear that’s been sitting inside me for months; the years between us, Rafe, Kasia, the band, my father, every ugly thing I came from, finally loses its grip.

There’s no barrier left. No reason to hold back.

I roll her beneath me and settle between her thighs in one fluid motion before I drag myself slowly through the heat between her legs, once, then again, and we both get caught in the movement. Her hips lift after me on instinct, chasing the pressure, and the sound she makes nearly strips me of all my willpower.

“Fuck,” I breathe, feeling just how wet she already is for me.

Her eyes find mine, dark and wanting, and I hold them as I finally press into her. I watch every flicker cross her face as I sink deeper, the teasing giving way to something fuller, until there’s nowhere left to go.

The gasp that leaves us both with the next thrust feels like the first breath of a new life we’re finally taking for ourselves.

Chapter 67

James & Chenda

Kiri

The phone starts ringing. At first, I think it belongs to a dream. Natalia is warm against my side, her face tucked into my shoulder. The room is dark.

The ringing stops.

Then starts again.

I reach blindly across the nightstand until my hand closes around the phone. Unknown number. Seattle area code.

I almost silence it but something makes me answer.

“Hello?”

“Am I speaking with Jacob Drysdale?”

It takes me a second to recognize the name. The one my father gave me. The one I stopped using as soon as I left home, shedding it along with his surname and every other piece of him I could scrape off.

The woman’s voice is calm in the careful way people sound when something is very wrong.

I sit up and Natalia stirs beside me.

“Yes.”

“This is Harborview Medical Center. Your mother has been brought into our emergency department in critical condition.”