Chapter 175: Angry Kisses
Kira shoved against his chest with both hands, but he might as well have been carved from stone.
Derek barely shifted. He simply lifted one hand and planted it flat against the door above her head, trapping her there in the cage of his body, his amber eyes burning with a mixture of fury and something far more dangerous.
"Answer me," he demanded.
Kira let out a chuckle. It was a broken, watery thing, and she blinked as fresh tears slid down her cheeks and dripped off her jaw.
"How can you stand there and demand that from me," she said, her voice trembling with fury and hurt all tangled together, "when you’ve never once given me a reason to?"
"A reason?" Derek’s laugh was cold and short.
But underneath that cold sound, something far less controlled was happening to him.
This woman had wounded him more deeply than he cared to admit, struck him in a place he had spent eight years walling off, and all he could think about...goddess help him, was how badly he wanted to lean down and kiss every one of those tears from her face.
The pull of her was driving him to the edge of his own sanity. The smell of her, the heat of her, the stubborn, glassy defiance in her eyes. It made him want to do something reckless.
"Fuck you, Kira," he bit out.
Before she could respond, he leaned down and crushed his mouth to hers in a furious kiss.
For a single stunned second, Kira went rigid against him, her brain scrambling to catch up to what was happening.
Then it landed, and her chest twisted. This was not a tender kiss. This was not soft, or loving, or anything she had felt from him before. This was a statement. This was a man staking a claim and making a point, all anger and possession and bruised pride.
She found her strength and shoved him off her, hard.
His eyes narrowed dangerously.
"You can’t even stand me now?" he said, low and cutting. "Is that it? You truly prefer the losers and the goofballs? A man like Brian—"
Kira’s hand flew up to strike him again.
But he caught her wrist mid-air this time. In one swift move he shoved her back against the door, snatched her other wrist as well, and pinned both her hands high above her head, holding them there easily in one of his.
She was completely helpless, trapped by his strength and the intensity of his gaze.
Her whole body was shaking now, sobs breaking loose that she could no longer hold back, racking through her in waves she could not control.
"I hate you," she whispered.
Derek went very still. His eyes bored into hers.
"Say that again," he dared her, his voice rough and low. "Look me in the eyes, Kira, and say it again."
Kira did not.
She could not. She only twisted against his grip, turning her face away from his, choking out, "Let me go. Let me go, Derek."
"How can you see any reason," he ground out, ignoring the plea entirely, "when every time we get close, the only thing on your mind is when this charade of a marriage will finally be over? Is that all this has ever been to you? A performance? Some cheap little act?"
"Yes!" Kira screamed it, thrashing against him, the word ripping out of her raw and furious. "Yes, everything is a performance to me! What else am I supposed to think, Derek?!"
"You stubborn, infuriating woman." His voice cracked somewhere in the middle of it. "You drive me completely out of my mind."
And then, for a long moment, neither of them moved.
They simply stared at one another, suspended there against the door. Kira’s chest heaved against his, her breath coming in ragged gulps, her face streaked and wet.
Derek’s narrowed eyes held hers, a storm of emotions swirling in their amber depths — anger, hurt, desire, and something deeper.
Slowly, the fight drained out of her. Her struggling stopped. Her body went still beneath his hands, and she looked up at him through the blur of her tears, and when she spoke again her voice had gone quiet. So quiet it nearly undid him completely.
"What do you actually want from me, Derek?" she asked. "Not from the contract. From me." Her voice wavered. "What do you want?"
Derek froze.
The question caught him completely off guard, slid clean past every defence he had, and lodged somewhere he was not ready to examine. He stared down at her, his mind reeling.
How could he tell her the truth now? How could he say it, here, like this, with the whole storm of the night still crashing around them, when he did not even know where her own heart lay?
I can’t tell you the truth yet, Kira, he thought, holding her gaze. Not until I know. Not until I’m certain you won’t take it and use it to gut me.
He had to know where she stood first. He had to.
"Why can’t you see this marriage as something more than a contract?" he asked instead, his voice quieter now, the anger bleeding out of it.
"Why is that so impossible for you? Can’t you see it? Can’t you see that I like you a lot?"
Kira blinked up at him, thrown.
"Then why," she whispered, "did you tell me I wasn’t your type?"
"You actually believed that?" Derek searched her face, almost incredulous.
"You sat there last night and called our entire marriage a performance to my face, you told me your loyalty would never be mine. You gave me no choice but to bite back. What was I supposed to do?"
Kira let out a small, disbelieving laugh. "How could you possibly get angry at me for calling this exactly what it is? What did you expect from me, Derek? That I’d somehow read your mind? That I’d believe you meant something you never once said out loud?"
He had no answer to that. Because she was right, and he knew it.
"Then let’s stop pretending," he said softly. "Both of us. Right now."
He lifted his free hand, brushed his finger gently beneath her chin, tilting her face up to his. And then he leaned down and kissed her again.
This time it was nothing like before.
This time it was soft. Slow. An apology and a confession all at once, pressed against her mouth where the words would not come.
I’ll tell you everything, Kira, he promised silently, his lips moving against hers. Soon. The moment you’re back from the Queen’s Conference. I swear it.
Kira’s body melted against his. A low, helpless sound escaped her, and the last of her resistance dissolved completely.
Derek released her wrists from where he had pinned them above her head. The instant her hands were free, she brought them down and wound her arms around his neck, pulling him closer, kissing him back with everything she had been holding in.
He bent, gripped the backs of her thighs, and lifted her clean off the ground. She wrapped her legs around his waist on instinct, and he pressed her into the door, and the two of them devoured each other like they were starving, like all the anger had only ever been hunger wearing a different face.
His hands slid up her back and found the zip of the dress she had changed into. He drew it down slowly, giving her every chance to stop him. She did not.
She shifted in his arms and let him peel the fabric away, sliding her own arms free of the sleeves until the dress fell loose and there was nothing left between them above the waist but the thin lace of her bra.
She pulled back slightly, clutching his face between her palms. Her eyes, still glassy with tears, met his with surprising steadiness.
"Derek," she said, and her voice was fierce and certain and trembling all at once. "I could never betray you. Not in this lifetime. Not in any of them."
For a moment, he just stared at her. Then, a smile, slow and real, the kind that reached all the way up into his amber eyes and lit them from the inside.
"I know," he said quietly.
And he leaned in, took her lips once more, and carried her toward the bed.
