Page 163 of Until We Burn
I lean into him, our noses brushing softly. “God, I missed you so much.”
His breath steadies. “Me too, princess.”
My fingers graze across his jaw. The warmth of his skin sinks into my cold fingers. Kai lets out a breath, his heartbeat slowing under my touch.
There’s so much racing through my head I don’t know what I want to say first.
“I want us to have cake with sparklers on it,”I blurt out.
Kai smiles through his confusion. His voice comes out as gently as the hand that smooths over my hair. “You’ve said a lot of crazy shit, Di, but I’m gonna need you to explain this one.”
I swallow hard, trying to grasp my thoughts in the middle of a raging storm. “I thought having everything go back to normal was what I wanted. But it’s been days of pretending and faking that I realized…I don’t want this life. I don’t want to take over the HMG. I’m still trying to understand which pieces of myself belong to my father and which belong to me, but I know for a fact that there’s a piece of myself that wants a life with you in it.”
Relief and surprise unfurls all over Kai’s face, and he glows with a light that makes him radiate like the sun itself.
“I want that, too, Di. Even if it’s impossible right now, I’ll always want it. I’ll always wantyou.” Kai hugs me tighter and cocks his head. “What do the cake and sparklers have to do with this, though?”
“Oh…” I blink.“Right.”
I tell him about the couple celebrating their anniversary and how much I want to be like them, even if I have to keep this relationship a secret for a while.
“That’s okay,” Kai assures. “I can wait.”
“I also don’t really know how to be in a relationship.” My brows cinch together. “I do need time to figure it out because I don’t want to do things the wrong way?—”
“You know there’s going to be two people in this relationship, right?” Kai arches his brow. “You won’t be figuring it out all by yourself?”
“I know…” I blush. “I’m still getting used to that part.”
Kai’s lips quirk up in a soft, teasing smile before he kisses my forehead. I close my eyes, feeling so safe and secure in my bones.
Kai doesn’t let me go. “I know you’re risking so much to do this. But I don’t care what I lose. You’re worth the fight, Di. Every single one. No matter how many fires we have to put out, I’ll be with you,” he swears, “until we burn.”
Tears prick my eyes. I hold his face between my hands, baffled and in awe of how the stars aligned and the universes collided so that we could find each other in the same lifetime.
“Until we burn.”
Kai kisses my nose and chuckles. “Happy birthday, by the way.”
Our lips brush together?—
Beep! Beep!
Stella rolls down her window and shouts, “Are we good? Can I go now?”
“Yes, you can!” I shout. “Thank you by the way!”
“Anything for love!” Stella rolls up her window. “See ya!”
Her headlights flash on before she speeds down the street.
Kai chuckles. He wraps his arm around my waist and nods at the door. “Come on, let’s get you inside.”
“The boys aren’t with you?”
“They went to a party to celebrate DHU’s latest win.”
“Why didn’t you go?”
