Page 63 of The Encore’s Crown

He kisses the same place harder. “You're the one who showed up here.”

“To yell at you.”

“Basically naked?”

“I'm not naked.”

His hand slides beneath my oversized sweatshirt, spanning the bare skin at my waist. Then he travels higher, moving along my curves until he brushes the tip of my nipple beneath it, then back again. The heat of his palm finally gripping my breast destroys the last of my argument. I pull the sweatshirt over my head and throw it somewhere behind him. Kiri freezes, then his gaze drops. The look on his face turns into something darker, intense enough to make me forget how to breathe.

“You’re fucking devastating.” His eyes lift to mine. “You're the most beautiful thing I've ever been allowed to touch.”

He steps between my knees, his mouth finding mine again, harder than before. I pull at his sweatpants but he catches my wrists, pinning them gently against the desk, kissing me until my attempt is forgotten.

“Control freak,” I whisper.

“Impatient.”

“Are you some kind of Dom?”

His smile brushes my mouth.

“Are you some kind of brat?”

Then he lifts me again and the desk disappears beneath me. The bed catches my back a second later, bouncing under the force of him coming down over me. We shed the rest of our clothes like snakes. His sweatpants are kicked away as he drags my shorts down and tosses them somewhere near the foot of the bed, watching my face the whole time as I bite my lip. The last scraps of fabric become obstacles we remove with impatient hands, neither of us willing to stop kissing long enough to do it gracefully.

Kiri covers me with his body. It's heavy and hot and everything I've imagined. His hard length presses against me until my legs open around him without thought. He settles between them, and the sensation of him there, separated from me by almost nothing, pulls a helpless sound from my throat. My hands move over his back, feeling muscle shift beneath hot skin. His shoulders. The long line of his spine. The scars I can feel but can't see in the dim light. I move beneath him, opening myself, pulling him closer. His whole body tenses and just as he's about to finally give in to what we both want so badly, he stops. I make a sound of pure frustration.

“You can't be serious.” It comes out as a pout and then I instantly regret how pathetic it sounds.

He kisses my jaw.

"Kiri…" It's a plea but he ignores it as his kisses move along my body. Next it's my throat, then my collarbone.

He starts moving down my body and the realization reaches me slowly. My breath catches at the thought. He presses a kiss low on my stomach then looks up at me. His hair is already wrecked from my hands, mouth pink and angry, eyes almost black in the dim room.

“You spent all day teasing me,” he whispers against my skin.

“You deserved it.” The words come out more breath than sound.

Another kiss along my hip.

“So now it’s my turn.”

The first touch of his mouth against me steals every clever response I have. My back arches from the mattress. Kiri’s hands close around my thighs, holding me open without force, just certainty. His mouth and tongue move with the same terrible patience he used the first night, slow enough to make every nerve feel exposed. I grip the sheets. His eyes lift to me, watching while he does it. There's nothing unsure in the way he looks at me. Only Kiri, learning me with that burning focus, reading every movement like my body is another instrument and he refuses to miss a single change in rhythm. My hands find his hair again. He groans softly against me, and the vibration sends heat tearing through my entire body.

“Oh God, fuck—”

The words break apart in my mouth. He takes his time, attentive to everything, every small motion. As soon as I start to find a rhythm, he changes it. Each time I think I know what’s coming, he adjusts the pressure just enough to leave me chasing him. I pull harder at his hair and his grip tightens on my thighs. He doesn’t stop.

“Y-you’re evil.”

His answer is another slow, devastating sweep of his tongue. My head falls back. The bed moves beneath me with every restless roll of my hips. I can hear my own breathing, embarrassingly loud in the quiet room, but I don’t try to hide it. He wanted to hear me and I let him. Every gasp and curse. Every single broken version of his name. His patience begins to fracture when my body does. I feel it in the way his hands grip me, in the rough sound he makes when I pull him closer instead of away. The pressure builds until there's nowhere left inside me for anger, grief, pride, or thought. Only him and the perfect, unbearable attention of his mouth. The way he always holds me steady while everything else comes apart.

“Kiri, I'm—”

He knows and his hand slides over my stomach, keeping me grounded as the tension snaps. The release crashes through me so hard my entire body lifts from the bed. My fingers grasp at his hair so tightly I'm sure I've ripped some out. His name leaves me louder than I mean it to, and he stays with me through every shaking breath, refusing to let me retreat from any of it. When I finally collapse, I’m a puddle, in every possible way. Kiri presses one last kiss to the inside of my thigh. He climbs back over me, settling at my side, swiping stray hairs away from my face. I stare at him through the haze, trying to remember why I came here beyond the fact that he is the most infuriating man alive.

His mouth and chin are wet with me. That's so embarrassing it makes me want to die. His hair is destroyed but he looks so damn pleased with himself.