I scoff, though it’s not all that convincing in its disbelief. “You didn’thaveto. You just let me believe exactly what you wanted me to.”
He lifts a brow. “Pardon me, did I ever explicitly say otherwise? That you were right in your assumptions?” he says mildly. “No? Then I suppose we were both enjoying the same fiction.”
I feel heat rise in my chest. “Oh, don’t do that—”
“But you looked so radiant believing it,” he cuts in, gently. “I thought it would be rude to correct you.”
My stomach turns. “Was I ever more than that? More than a way to get what you wanted?” I ask finally.
Because you were to me. You were so much more than that.
For a second, he just looks at me. Really looks. And I hate that I still want the answer to be yes. I hate that it still matters.
I hate that Icare.
About him.
Kai steps forward. I don’t move.
He lifts one hand and brushes his knuckles gently, too gently, along my cheek. His thumb hovers near my freckles, tracing them. “My sweet, darlingSoreya,” he says, and his voice is soft, almost tender. “You were the last thing I expected to want at all.”
My breath hitches.
And despite everything… every reason not to, every warning screaming in my bones, my cheeks heat anyway.
Because no one’s ever looked at me like this. Or said my name the way he does. No one’s ever said anything like that to me with such certainty.
I hate how easily he does this to me. How easily he managed to leave a mark on my heart. On every crevice of my mind.
But that’s the thing about Kai Oren Steele. He always manages to leave a mark, whether he intended to or not.
I suppose jagged things will do that.
His thumb lingers near the corner of my mouth. I don’t even know when I leaned in. But I feel the moment I do.
He notices, too. His eyes drop, just for a second, to my lips.
And suddenly, I’m furious.
Not at him.
At me. Atthis.
Because how can I still want him to kiss me when I don’t even know what I am to him?
I pull back, just enough to breathe, just enough to think. But it doesn’t matter because he pulls me back anyway. Before I can think or flinch or even move, he kisses me. Right on the mouth.
It lasts just a moment. A whisper of contact. A ghost of a kiss.
It’s not much, but it’s everything at the same time. It’s soft, almost reverent.
By the time I react, it’s over, and he’s already pulled back. I blink up at him, lips parted, breath caught somewhere between my chest and my throat.
And that’s when I see his hand.
His knuckles are split open. Not badly, but enough for blood to bead along the ridge of his skin, to smear faintly against the side of my face where he touched me.
I blink down at them.
