Wildblood

Chapter 51

51

Miya

Miya awoke cocooned in Kai’s warmth. A feather-like touch trailed down her spine, the movement languid and gentle—the calm before the storm. Gasping through gritted teeth, Kai’s body tensed as consciousness brought with it all the weight of reality, and he fisted the back of Miya’s shirt. Only the sound of their breathing filled the silence until finally, his hold on her slackened.

Miya arched her neck, peeking up at him. “Are you okay?”

The days had been filled with lit fuses in a mountain of long-buried memories, bound to erupt eventually. The debris was inescapable, thrusting Miya into Kai’s nightmares unbidden. But this time, he’d called to her, invited her in. He trusted her, finally letting her into the dark crevices he guarded with sharpened claws and bloodied fangs.

“I’m fine,” he replied, his voice sounding like it’d been raked over coals. His fingertips danced across her shoulder blades, up her neck, combing through her dark brown tresses.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Miya too felt the aftereffects of the shadows he harbored. She’d come face to face with the history that’d cultivated him, but she’d grown bolder in confronting what couldn’t be seen—only felt.

“Later.”

Protest bubbled up, her desire for closure bumping up against his deflection. “I?—”

Kai didn’t let her finish. He crashed his mouth to hers before she could get the words out—a firmer refusal, a deferral in favor of more fervent things. Things that were difficult to thwart when they were both so raw. She ran her fingers through his disheveled hair, sweat beading the ends of his bristle-like strands.

“Kai…” she tried again, his breath glancing off her face.

He silenced her with a torrid stare, his eyes sparking red when a passing pair of headlights lit up the room. “Shut up,” he said—a quiet desperation, “and let me have this.” His hand clasped her hip, slipped under her shirt, singed her skin. He was like fire incarnate, pure heat and hunger that knew nothing of restraint or moderation. And right now, he didn’t need words. He needed reprieve.

Miya swallowed her reply and put her mouth to better use. Her back arched when he cupped her breast, calloused palms roaming over her as though for the first time. A strangled sound left him as he yanked off her shirt. The hard plane of his torso moved over her, and his elbows caged her in when she hauled him close. If there was anything they both lamented about the dreamscape, it was the absence of pure physicality. Things were still felt and tasted, but it wasn’t the same. Miya understood the ethereal plane, but Kai preferred this one. He’d shown her everything he could through the Dreamwalker’s lens, but his world was one of the senses, and he demanded she meet him there.

One arm wound around his neck, and the other dipped lower, fingers prying at his waistband until he kicked off his pants. When he broke away, his thumb dragged across her cheek, snagging her bottom lip, and the other pulled her underwear aside to graze over her vulva. His mouth seared a path over her collar bone, between her breasts, then lower.

Kai spread her legs, his every stroke unhurried, torturous. Miya buried her fingers in his thick hair and tugged, reaping a throaty growl that turned muffled when he finally lost himself between her thighs. Her knees hooked over his shoulders, tattered gasps becoming moans as a familiar tension coiled in her core. When she began to crest, he looked up her body and met her gaze.

“Not yet,” he answered her questioning glance, then rose to his knees. “Not unless you want to come for me twice.”

She didn’t have it in her—not tonight. Not after traversing his memories, feeling everything he’d felt. She just wanted to be close. Her legs encircled his waist, and she dragged him forward. As he fell into her, Miya pressed herself to his chest, every groove and line of his body etching into her skin. Contact. Reassurance. A way to say what couldn’t be spoken. Words were imperfect, incomplete.

His mouth was on hers again, teeth catching lips, his tongue rough against her own. Her hips churned to his rhythm, the feel of him inside her as intoxicating as his taste. Kai cursed under his breath, a harsh whisper in her ear. His fingers curled into the sheets as Miya dug her nails into his shoulder, release a promise at the edge of his touch.

Being unraveled was hardly a gentle thing. It was a violent sort of pleasure, an unmooring that flayed you open, stripped you down to your barest parts. How many times had Kai watched her come undone? How many nights had they spent tangled up in one another, drawing out that moment of surrender as though it were the simplest thing in the world? Love and sex were disparate worlds, but entangled bodies sometimes revealed more than lofty proclamations. All Miya had to do was listen.

Kai eased himself down on top of her when that moment ended. He groaned into the pillow, his palm skimming the length of her body. “I needed that,” he said through a heavy exhale, then rolled onto his back and draped an arm over his abdomen.

Miya tucked her feet under the tousled blankets and smiled, her pulse still thrumming. “Your steely self-control really fooled me.”

He shot her a withering look. “You dig up repressed memories like they’re buried treasure, Lambchop.”

“Hope we struck the motherload.”

“Judging by the post-traumatic nightmare fucking, I’d say you exhumed at least a few gold nuggets.”

Miya couldn’t suppress the snort that slipped out. “Did you just whip up a double entendre about your dead relatives?”

“What can I say”—Kai shrugged—“humor helps me cope.”

Shuffling closer, she thumped her head onto his shoulder. “Did you ever meet your grandparents?”

He shook his head, absently lifting his arm for her. “They died before I was born. Bad health, I think. Most of my mom’s side got split up, being Tatar and all that.”

Ethnic cleansing fractured families for generations, possibly forever. “What about your dad’s parents? They were just Russian, right?”

“Well, they weren’t shipped off to any gulags, so I always assumed so.” He squinted at the ceiling, then grunted. “I think they kicked the bucket pretty young too. My parents were alone, and that made it easier to leave.”

Miya balked at the idiom. So irreverent , she thought, then jabbed him in the ribs.

He twitched and glanced down at her with a dark chuckle. He knew what he’d done. “On that topic,” he began, “are you going to tell Caelan, or will I?”

Miya blinked, confusion pulling her mouth into a frown. “Tell her what?”

Kai flashed her a wolfish grin, chillingly nonchalant as he said, “That you killed her favorite woodland shit disturber.”

Realization sank in like a boulder plummeting to the bottom of a lake. The leshy . Whining behind pursed lips, Miya trundled into Kai as he cackled.

He patted her on the back. “Tag team it is.”