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“Sorry,” he shrugs unsympathetically. “You claustrophobic?”

“Not particularly,” you reply. “I just…”

“Just don’t want to be stuck in here with me,” he nods flatly. “Copy that. No worries. We don’t need to talk.”

That… actually wasn’t what you were going to say, but you don’t immediately correct him. How pathetic would it be if Kai knew that being this close to him was exactly what you wanted?

“I think we should talk,” you venture. “I don’t like what’s going on here.”

“Just like you don’t like my meathead career?” he says.

“Is that what has you so pissed off?” you say. “Seriously?”

“I want an apology,” he says flatly.

At first, it’s on the tip of your tongue. Say you’re sorry, and this goes away. You don’t even have to mean it. Almost immediately, however, the rage rushes back in. Your cheeks flush.

“Why should I apologize?” you demand, “when you’re the one who started it?”

“Me?” Kai lowers himself onto the chair at the desk, carefully smoothing his pants across his thighs. He sounds incredulous. “I’m sorry, did I somehow space out the part where I insulted your job and had an unprovoked rager on you?”

“Maybe you missed the part where you beat the shit out of another player and compromised our image,” you suggest between gritted teeth.

“ Our image?” he repeats. “Oh, okay. So I’m so fully consumed by being Sterling Grayson’s boyfriend that I don’t even have the luxury of keeping my image separate? Everything I do has to be a reflection on you?”

“I didn’t say that!” you protest, not bothering to lower your volume. It’s not like there’s anyone around to hear you. “It’s reality, Kai, whether you like it or not.”

“Nobody thinks jack shit about you because I fucked up Tamatoa,” he says.

“You aren’t that important, Sterling. The world doesn’t actually revolve around you.

This kind of bullshit happens every other week in the Association.

People move on. Not everything that happens has to be viewed through the prism of how it relates to your brand .

” He spits that last word out like it’s poison on his tongue.

“Maybe I just personally don’t like the fact that my boyfriend is prone to random bursts of violence,” you say. “First GoGo in the locker room, and now Tamatoa? Maybe it’s scary having a partner who hulks out when he gets mad.”

“Oh, sure, now I’m a big, scary Black man,” he mutters, staring up at the ceiling. “You like violence fine when it gets you off.”

“Stop using that against me!” you shrill out. “If you had such a problem with it, you shouldn’t have done it. I asked if you were okay. I told you we didn’t have to do it. And what, now I’m being microaggressive? Are you fucking serious? This conversation is going nowhere. ”

“Because you think you’re too good to apologize to anybody,” he says coolly.

“I’m not apologizing for anything!” you shout. “You are unbelievable.”

“Then do us both a favor and shut up,” he suggests, crossing his ankles.

Your vision swims red with anger. Forget him hitting you, you wouldn’t mind slugging him.

The whole situation is unbearable: the close confines of the shed, the chilly night seeping into your clothes.

The air is thick with the scents of soil and eucalyptus—someone must have been working on a cutting—and the sound of a cricket somewhere in the gardens is the only respite from the silence.

Dust motes glimmer dully in the sparse silver light, illuminating the sharp corners of the table, the shelving, the desk.

“Make me,” you utter in a low voice.

“Excuse me?” he says.

“I didn’t stutter,” you say, the words feeling thick as they come up. “I said, make me .”

You knew he could move fast, but it still feels like a blur.

One minute, you’re across the shed from him, and the next, he’s got you back up against the work table, one hand on your jaw and the other pinning you in place.

He tilts your head back and kisses you, messy and hot and angry.

Your own palm stutters back in the dark to brace yourself.

It crosses your mind that you are wearing a snow-white tuxedo jacket, and that it’s going to be a lost cause after this, but you don’t give a single shit.

Kai’s mouth is perfect. You’re parting your lips and letting in inside, and his tongue is a welcome invasion, probing the sharp points of your incisors.

Your free hand, the one that isn’t making sure you don’t collapse backwards onto the table, reaches out and touches whatever parts of him you can reach.

The coarse stubble of his hair. The springy growth of his beard.

His shoulder, covered in the nubbly knit of his jacket, and the smooth, cool pearls at his throat.

When you get your fingers just underneath his collar, his pulse is jumping like a jackhammer.

You rub the secret, soft skin there, and palm across the broad expanse of his chest.

He jerks your hand away.

“Stop touching me like that,” he mutters right into your mouth.

Seems a little ridiculous a protest when he’s got you nearly bent backwards by the heat of his body, but okay. Just to get him back, you bite his full lower lip. It makes him shudder and growl, and he grips your waist hard enough to be almost painful.

You’ve never been kissed in a way that feels like a fight.

Like cursing someone out while sharing their breath.

It’s weird being this way with Kai, but it’s also undeniably hot.

You’re fisting his tailored jacket at the lapel, and you keep pulling him closer, like you could complete one unbroken, charged circuit between his body and yours.

Against your belly, Kai is hard. Things somehow escalated from zero to sixty in no time flat.

Fuck, you’re both still fully clothed. In a garden shed.

Not speaking. What, exactly, is the end game here?

Kai answers the question for you when he abruptly pulls away.

The loss of his mouth somehow, improbably, makes it hard to breathe.

You’re panting, erect in your pants, your lips parted with his spit drying on them as you wonder what the fuck he’s doing.

He takes a few steps over to the desk, where the content of the first aid kit are disassembled on the surface.

Grabs a bottle of aloe vera gel that’s probably used for sunburns in the summertime.

You haven’t moved from where he left you, your feet rooted stupidly to the concrete floor.

He sets the gel down on the table and impersonally, quickly, flicks open the buttons on your jacket and vest, and unfastens your belt and pants.

Hooking his thumbs in your waistband, he pulls your pants and underwear down to your knees in one swift motion.

“Bend over,” he tells you.

You comply, trying to part the sides of your jacket so that it doesn’t end up completely covered in dirt. Behind you, you hear him fumble with his clothes and unzip his own pants.

You wonder if he’s going to fuck you. You aren’t prepared for him, and, if he does, it’s going to hurt.

Still, you don’t protest. A small, filthy, masochistic part of you knows that you will take whatever he gives you and roll around in it.

Let it cover you, turn you inside out, eat you alive. Whatever he wants.

The aloe is viscous and gluey between your asscheeks, not really the ideal slickness for lube.

Having obviously come to the same conclusion, Kai makes a deep, phlegmy hocking sound in his chest and spits a generous glob of saliva on his fingers.

This, he swirls into the gel, making it thinner and more slippery.

When the pads of his fingers ghost over your hole, you shiver and lay your cheek against the table, uncaring of the mess, trying to brace yourself for the pain.

He must have felt your body stiffen, because he pauses.

“Say no if you don’t want it,” he tells you, deadly serious. “Don’t know what kind of monster you think I am. You don’t need to do me any favors.”

You shake your head rapidly, then get it though your lust-addled brain that maybe you’re sending the wrong signal.

“Yes,” you breathe. “Please.”

His hands grip your hips. He pulls your cheeks apart, but he doesn’t try to fuck you.

Instead, he leans over and slides his cock up your crack, hot dogging it between your cheeks.

You don’t know whether to sigh in relief or cry in frustration.

Your whole body is wound tight as a clothesline.

Could possibly snap. The heat of his body feels glorious against the cold, and he covers you like a blanket, almost lifting the toes of your shiny shoes off the ground as he holds you in place.

The height difference is not ideal, but he’s making it work.

Kai has strong knees. He has strong everything , and feeling his body move against you in a pale imitation of sex feels empty.

All up against your ass, his cock is hard and hot.

He’s not moving a lot, because he’s going to slip out of place if he does, but there’s friction against your sensitive hole, and it makes you groan.

Kai’s breathing hard, panting harsh through his nose.

He’s palming your hips, though, his fingers curling in a way that’s distinctly at odds with his harsh words.

Your body is a live wire, your untouched cock throbbing.

You can’t see it with your face shoved against the table, but you can feel yourself leaking pre-cum.

It’s either ending up on your pants or on the floor.

You don’t care. His name is a lump in your throat, and you need to get it out.

“Kai,” you utter desperately.

He freezes. “Do you want me to stop?” he asks. Even as turned-on as he obviously is, he sounds anxious.

Him stopping is the last thing you want. “Please let me see you,” you beg, fully expecting him to refuse.