Chapter 18: King of Pride: Chapter 18

I didn’t remember what excuse I gave my friends for leaving early. I didn’t remember much at all, really, about how I ended up here with Kai at half past midnight, my heart in my throat and my body thrumming with nerves.

We were at the Barber, a bar that looked like, well, a barber shop, if barber shops served alcohol in faux shampoo bottles and employed DJs who looked like they could moonlight as models.

Unlike the chaos of Verve, this place screamed exclusivity. Engraved admission wristbands, sensual music, air redolent with the perfumes of the lucky few who knew this place existed. We were only a few blocks from the club, but it was like we were in a different world.

Anticipation fluttered beneath my skin as Kai and I passed through a velvet curtain separating the main floor from the VIP area. He was a good foot taller than me, yet our steps fell in perfect rhythm. Every once in a while, his shirtsleeve would graze my skin, or my hair would tickle his arm. Neither of us visibly reacted, but every little touch dripped into the tension already simmering around us.

.

Pressure ached between my legs. After last week, I had no doubt Kai was capable of quite a few ungentlemanly things. I both loved and hated how much the prospect turned me on.

My anticipation scattered into head-to-toe tingles when the curtain closed behind us, cocooning us in a room that looked like…another barbershop. Black-and-white checkered tiles covered the floor, and black-cushioned swivel seats anchored personal bar stations. Instead of brushes, hair dryers, and gels, the stations boasted glasses, garnishes, and alcohol.

The room was oddly empty, but my heart jerked in surprise when Kai walked over to a station and knocked on the mirror. It slid open, revealing a bartender in a bow tie. He handed Kai two bottles, and the mirror shut again.

I couldn’t decide whether the setup was incredibly cool or disturbingly creepy.

Kai’s gaze sparked with amusement at whatever he saw on my face. He handed me one of the bottles, which I accepted without a word.

We hadn’t spoken to each other since we left Verve, but instead of cooling my desire, the silence amplified it. Without conversation to distract me, my mind spun off into a dozen directions—toward the basement in Bushwick, where we’d kissed for the first time; the piano room at Valhalla, where he’d given me one of the best orgasms of my life; and the dance floor at Verve, where his appearance had skyrocketed my pulse more than I cared to admit.

I didn’t take my eyes off his as I tilted my head back and downed the drink. Kai’s expression seeped with lazy interest, but his gaze scorched like I was standing too close to a fire.

“What were you doing at Verve?” I finally spoke, my curiosity overtaking my fear of upsetting the delicate balance between us. “You don’t strike me as the clubbing type.”

Vivian had mentioned something about article research, which I didn’t believe for a second. Presidents of multibillion-dollar companies didn’t run around doing grunt work.

Kai observed me with those dark, knowing eyes. “Don’t ask questions you already know the answer to, Isabella.”

A shiver ghosted over my skin. God, the way he said my name was indecent, like a wicked lover stealing kisses in shadowed corners. Smooth silk layered over dark velvet. Deceptively proper yet dizzyingly sensual.

I’d told him to stop, but in truth, I was addicted to his voice, his touch, every single thing about him. And the way he looked at me made me think I wasn’t the only one spinning out of control.

“Come here.” The soft command skated down my spine.

My feet moved before my brain could protest. One step, two steps, three, until our bodies nearly touched. His body heat licked at my skin and singed the edges of my resistance.

“We shouldn’t be doing this,” I breathed. “It’s against Valhalla’s rules.”

That was what I kept telling myself. I clung to the rule the way a shipwreck survivor would cling to a piece of driftwood. It was my lifeline, the only thing keeping me from drowning beneath the ferocious waves of my desire. But the pull of the tide was too great, and I could already feel my arms fatiguing. One more undertow, and I was a goner.

“I know,” Kai said, as calmly as if we were strolling through Central Park. “I don’t give a damn about the rules.”

My heartbeat tripped. “That’s unlike you.” The words came out so fast they almost blended together, but I kept talking, afraid that if I stopped, I would drown. “I thought you worshiped rules like they’re your religion. It’s the British education, isn’t it? I bet Oxbridge is quite rigid when it comes to that type of thing. Don’t you—”

“Isabella.”

I forced a swallow down my throat. “Yes?”

“Shut up and let me kiss you.”

And there was an undertow.

I didn’t have time to think. One minute, I was standing; the next, Kai had crushed his mouth to mine, and my bones dissolved with such embarrassing speed I would’ve melted to the floor had he not been holding me up.

Our kiss in Brooklyn had been a sweet, tentative surprise. This one was deliberate, delivered with such aching, targeted precision that it obliterated all my defenses in one fell swoop.

The hand fisting my air. The sensual firmness of his mouth. The dizzying heat and scent of him.

Every weakness of mine, plundered and stroked into submission.

My head grew light, and I didn’t resist when Kai maneuvered us to a chair. Part of me noted we were still in public, despite the empty room, and someone could come in at any second, but that hardly seemed important when he was fisting my hair like that and tugging on my bottom lip just so.

Every shiver melted into the next until I was racked with one long, ceaseless shudder of pleasure.

Then he pulled back, and I inhaled a shallow breath before I found myself on his lap. I didn’t know how we ended up in that position, but I wasn’t complaining. Not when his mouth scored a fiery path down the side of my neck and his arousal pressed flush against my back, driving the oxygen out of my lungs again.

I ground against him, chasing the orgasm that shimmered on the horizon like a mirage. Close enough to touch, but too far to claim.

“Spread your legs for me, love.” Kai’s murmur dripped honey into my veins.

.

I obliged. Pressure built between my legs as his hand trailed lazily up my inner thigh until they reached my soaked thong. The force of my need squeezed a low, embarrassing whine from my throat. He’d barely touched me, and I was already a mess.

“Just like that.” He coaxed the straps off my shoulders with his other hand and gently tugged my dress down. I wasn’t wearing a bra, and every brush of air against my tight, sensitized nipples sent an answering jolt to my core. I squirmed, desperate for more friction, but I couldn’t get enough leverage in my position. “Let me feel how wet you are.”

He pushed my underwear to the side.

“Kai.” I gasped when he pushed two fingers inside me. Sweat beaded on my forehead at the agonizingly sweet stretch. “We can’t…” My sentence evaporated when he palmed my breast and squeezed. He rubbed a thumb over my nipple while his fingers delved deeper.

My head fell back even as lust and caution warred for dominance. Nothing except a velvet curtain separated us from the rest of the bar. Someone only had to push the drape aside to get a wanton view of me sitting half-naked in Kai’s lap, dress pushed to my waist, legs spread and skin flushed while he played me like a toy.

“Someone will hear.” A humiliating whimper clawed through the air when he buried his fingers to the hilt and pressed a thumb against my swollen clit.

Tiny bursts of fireworks erupted beneath my skin. Low, rhythmic bass saturated the air, but my heart pounded so loud I was sure people could hear it from across the island.

“No, they won’t.” Kai sounded maddeningly calm, like he was dissecting an academic text instead of finger fucking me in semi-public. “Do you want to know why?”

I shook my head. My teeth dug into my bottom lip with such force the taste of copper spilled over my tongue.

“Because you’re not going to come,” he said softly. He pinched my nipple, hard, in warning emphasis. Twin streaks of pleasure and pain forced another whimper from my throat. Arousal dripped down my thighs and onto his expensive, perfectly pressed pants. “That would be highly inappropriate, considering we’re in public.”

The velvet curtain rustled. A stranger’s laugh coasted perilously close to where we sat, but I couldn’t bring myself to care.

My entire body thrummed with need. I was ravenous with it, hungry and hollow for something only Kai could give.

It went beyond the physical. I’d had sex with other men before, but I’d never like this. Like I would die if I didn’t have him inside me soon.

“Please.” The word splintered on a broken moan when he dragged his thumb over my clit.

Slow. Firm. Utterly exquisite in its torture.

I tried to twist around to face him, but he locked an arm around my waist and caged me in place.

“I didn’t say you could turn around.” His mouth returned to my neck. The words inked into my skin with each featherlight kiss.

My breath stalled. “Do people always do what you say?”

I felt him smile against the curve of my shoulder. “Yes.”

The simple response shouldn’t have been so hot, but fuck, it was. And I was tired of waiting.

I finally gathered enough strength to pull his arm from my waist. He let me; I wasn’t naive enough to think I could’ve bested him if he’d tried.

With one smooth twist, I straddled his lap. My bare breasts brushed the soft white cotton of his dress shirt.

Kai’s breathing was steady, his expression placid, but his eyes blazed with so much intensity it threatened to consume us whole.

Not so unaffected after all.

The knowledge gave me the confidence to forge ahead. “Funny. I’m also used to people doing what I say.”

Amusement leaked into his gaze. “Are you going to order me to do something, Isabella?”

“Yes.” I leaned forward, pressing my breasts against his chest. His amusement vanished, leaving pools of darkness in their wake. “Fuck me.”

A beat passed.

Kai didn’t move.

Lines of tension corded his jaw and neck, but he remained deathly still when I reached up to take off his glasses.

I wanted to see him without any extra barriers between us.

I dropped the glasses on the counter behind me with a soft clatter.

It was a tiny sound, but it finally triggered a reaction.

Kai stood so abruptly I almost fell off his lap. He swallowed my gasp with a punishing kiss, and every thought blinked out of existence.

Hands. Lips. Teeth.

I couldn’t tell where his ended and mine began. It didn’t matter. All that mattered was . The taste and feel of him, headier and more potent than any drug.

My arms wound around his neck, and he hiked my legs around his waist as he pushed me up against the nearby wall.

His earlier precision hung in tatters around us. This was pure, unadulterated lust, and there was no room for anything as neat as rational thought.

Kai kissed his way to my chest, his mouth a hot brand against my skin. A shudder rolled through me when he took a nipple in his mouth, licking and tugging and teasing until I was close to shattering.

His hands gripped my hips with bruising force; my teeth sank into the curve between his neck and shoulder with desperate want. We were sweat and heat and wild abandon, and I never wanted it to end.

He removed one of his hands from my hip. I dimly heard the metal rasp of a zipper, followed by the crinkle of foil.

The hot, hard head of his cock nudged against my pussy. I shifted my hips with a pleading whine, but he didn’t , dammit.

“Look at me,” Kai said roughly.

I tipped my chin down and blinked the haze from my eyes. Shock and something more primal speared through me.

Lust had stripped away Kai’s refined veneer. It carved harsh lines in his face, tautening the sculpted planes of his cheekbones and turning his eyes into pools of black.

I hardly recognized him, yet the heavy, insistent ache between my thighs responded to this version of him with reckless abandon.

Desire melded our gazes together as he pushed inside me, inch by torturous inch. It felt unbearably intimate, but I didn’t look away until he bottomed out and my eyes instinctively shut with a gasp.

Pain prickled at me, followed by a white-hot burst of pleasure. I’d had toys to keep me company the past two years, but none of them had been so big or buried so deep. The unrelenting stretch drove the oxygen from my lungs, and my body involuntarily bucked and twisted as I struggled to accommodate him.

“Please.” I wasn’t sure whether I was begging him to stop or make me come. Both. Neither. It didn’t matter. All I knew was I craved something only he could give, and I desperately hoped he could figure it out on his own because I couldn’t so much as remember my name right now.

Kai gripped my thighs to hold me in place while he withdrew. Slowly, until just the tip of his cock was inside me. Then he thrust back in. Deeper. Faster. Harder.

Any remaining coherence shattered as he fucked me against the wall with so much force it rattled my bones. Everything blurred. My nails dug into his shoulders as squeals and whimpers poured out of me, mingling with his grunts and the deep, rhythmic bass of the music.

My entire body was on sensory overload. No matter how much I took, it wasn’t enough.

.

Kai’s teeth grazed against my neck. “Still think I’m boring?” His taunt whispered into my ear in time with a particularly savage thrust.

White-hot sensation ripped through me. Tears leaked from my eyes, and I bucked like an unbroken filly, wild and out of control. Heart pounding, fingers clawing, mouth falling open in a reckless cry that abruptly cut off when he slammed his hand over my mouth. The muffled remnants of my scream leaked around his palm.

“Shh.” Kai’s voice was soft, almost gentle in contrast with the merciless way he fucked. “We don’t want someone to come in and see your sweet little pussy getting wrecked by my cock, do we?”

The unexpectedly vulgar words, delivered in such an aristocratic accent, tipped me over the edge.

“God, .”

My orgasm tore through me, unfolding in wave after wave of mindless, toe-curling pleasure. The world blanked in one suspended, breathless moment before I crashed back into reality.

The smooth, deep thrusts grew erratic. His breath hissed between his teeth, and I clung to him, too dazed to do anything more than hold on when he finally came with a loud groan.

Our chests heaved as we held each other in the comedown. If it weren’t for the wall braced against my back, we might’ve both collapsed to the floor.

. I tried to speak, but my vocal cords wouldn’t work. I was too exhausted and satiated.

Eventually, our heartbeats returned to normal. Kai withdrew and gently set me on my feet before disposing of his condom and straightening our clothing.

“You know…” He smoothed my dress back down over my thighs with a thoughtful expression. “This might be the longest I’ve heard you go without talking.”

His chest rumbled with laughter when I snapped out of my sex-induced trance and gave him a mock glare.

“Don’t act so smug,” I said. “It’s simply the result of having sex for the first time in two years. You’re not the sex god you think you are.”

It was a blatant lie, but I couldn’t let his ego inflate any further lest he float off into space.

where would I get my orgasms?

“Interesting.” Kai retrieved his glasses from the bar station and put them on. “That’s not what you said when you were coming all over my cock.”

Heat scorched my cheeks even as my stomach tingled at his words. “You’re insufferable.” I flicked a wary glance at the exit. “We’re lucky no one saw us.”

The possibility of getting caught had added an undeniable thrill, but getting caught would’ve been disastrous.

“They wouldn’t have. Security knows not to let anyone back here until I give them the signal,” he said with a shrug. “Five hundred dollars goes a long way toward motivation.”

My jaw unhinged. “You had someone standing guard the entire time?” And he’d led me to believe we were one drunken partygoer away from flashing the entire club. Unbelievable.

“Of course. I couldn’t very well have someone walking in on us.”

“Because photos of the Young heir engaging in carnal activities at a bar would put his CEO candidacy at risk.”

“No. Because if anyone saw you like that, I’d have to kill them.” He said it so simply, so casually, it took a moment for the words to sink in.

Once they did, the air vanished from my lungs.

It suddenly hit me that I’d had sex with . In the back of a bar, no less. If anyone told me I’d be in this situation mere weeks ago, I would’ve laughed in their face.

Now my man ban lay in pieces at our feet, and I was in danger of getting caught in the post-sex trap, a.k.a. reading more into the situation than what was there.

Old Isabella would’ve gone along with it and taken whatever scraps she could get. Sometimes, ignorance was bliss, especially when you were young, inexperienced, and desperate for love or some approximation thereof.

But I’d walked that road, and it’d led me somewhere I never wanted to visit again. So even though I hated being the person who initiated serious talks right after sex, I cut straight to the point. Our relationship was too complicated to let things linger without clearing the air.

“So what happens next?” My heart pounded so hard it almost bruised.

A quizzical line formed between Kai’s brows.

“This.” I gestured between us. “Us. What are we doing?”

“Recovering from excellent orgasms, I presume.”

The full weight of disappointment anchored my stomach. “You’re too smart to play dumb,” I said, hurt by his cavalier attitude.

I’d broken a years-long vow to myself for him, and he couldn’t take me seriously enough for one meaningful conversation.

Kai’s smile gradually dissolved. His eyes searched my face; whatever he saw made him wince.

“You’re right. I’m sorry,” he said quietly. “But I thought you knew.”

This time, I was the confused one. “Knew what?”

“That there’s no going back after this.” His admission was a warm breath on my skin. “You should’ve never let me take you, Isabella. Because now that I have, I won’t be able to let you go.”