Chapter 29

Love can alter the fabric of the universe, my heart.

—Iosef Luna to his only daughter, Kaia (4)

KAIA KNEW EXACTLY what she should do: walk away right this moment. Bowen Knight might be a man of honor according to every instinct she possessed, but he was still going to wound her unbearably.

Be safe, Kaia, whispered the scared child inside her. Push him away.

But the thing was, whether she did or not, Bowen’s path was set. The compound would be injected into his brain twice more and the dice would be rolled. The five percent chance wouldn’t alter whether or not she surrendered to the craving low in her body, the ache deep in her heart.

All that would change was her level of pain.

She slipped her hand into his and closed her fingers around his palm.

His own fingers wrapping warm and strong over hers, he walked with her in silence. She saw more than one pair of eyes widen at the sight of their linked hands, several mouths purse tight, but no one called out and none of those Hugo had trusted with his thoughts attempted to get in her way.

She opaqued the window into the black the instant they were in the privacy of her room, then went and sat down in the chair in front of the white writing desk with curved legs that also functioned as her vanity. Pulling open one small desk drawer, she got out a brush and a jar of leave-in deep conditioning treatment.

The mirror she’d mounted on the opposite wall, its silvery surface surrounded by white curlicues, reflected back her stark eyes. But behind her, Bowen’s face as he lifted up her hair to run it through his fingers, it held devotion.

Her hands fisted on her thighs.

She wanted to disbelieve what she saw, wanted to tell herself it was all happening too fast to be real. Hugo would be horrified; he’d probably say Bowen had created an illusion and Kaia had fallen for it. But Kaia knew. The creature inside her skin knew. Bowen Knight was no black villain and this was a beautiful and terrifying and once-in-a-lifetime thing.

Not a thing you chose. A thing that chose you.

Unable to look that truth too deeply in the eye, she opened the jar. “Work this through my hair,” she said in a husky voice. “It’ll make it easier to smooth out the tangles.”

Bowen began the task, his every action intent. It made her want to smile. She had the foolish thought that he’d probably build a crib or plan a family outing with that same military attention to detail.

She let the thought pass before it could lodge in her throat and, picking up the phone she’d left on one side of the writing desk, sent a message through to her scheduled kitchen team. “Tacos for dinner,” she told Bo afterward, her eyes meeting his in the mirror. “My crew can handle that on their own.” Kaia always taught each team one dish they could create from scratch and without her oversight.

Bo’s hand paused in the act of working in the conditioner. “We have time, then.”

Such an paradoxical statement. “Yes,” she said. “Today, we have time.”

The familiar scent of coconut oil fused with tiare flowers rose into the air as Bowen continued to work the conditioner into her hair, and in her mind ran the ghost of a sand-covered little girl kissed by tropical sunlight. She watched him in the mirror, watched the fierce concentration with which he did the task and thought she could become very used to being the nucleus of Bowen Knight’s attention.

The security chief of the Human Alliance would have endless calls on his time, of that she had no doubt. But Kaia also knew that were she his, she’d have direct access to him anytime she wished. Bowen Knight wasn’t the kind of man to push aside his promises or discount the bonds he’d forged: he would love with the same intense concentration he did everything else.

“Is that enough?”

Kaia nodded and closed the lid on the jar before she gave him the brush. His fingers grazed her own as he took it and her stomach clenched, a tight curl of sensation.

Holding her gaze in the mirror, he bent down to press a kiss to the curve of her neck. She shivered, raised her hand to run her fingertips over his cheek and jaw. “Your lip.”

“Magic ointment. Can barely feel it.” His breath whispered over her skin like a warm wind shaped for her alone.

She could see his lips in the mirror and the swelling was gone, the cut barely visible. “All right,” she said with a smile that came from the wild heart of her. “In that case, you’re permitted to use your mouth.”

His smile was so bright and so young that she knew without asking that this was a smile only she would ever see. It was too innocent for the security chief or the older brother or the trusted son. Too vulnerable for the world.

As if his shell had cracked, allowing her a glimpse of the naked core of this man.

“Tell me if I tug too hard,” he said before beginning to run the brush through her hair.

He almost immediately hit a snag. Stopping at once, he began to work to loosen it up with far more patience than Kaia; where she would have hit at the knot impatiently, he unraveled it with a care that caused no tension on her scalp.

“I used to braid Lily’s hair when she was small,” he said unexpectedly.

“My cousin Edison did it for me.” Kaia smiled. “Your sister’s hair was probably less trouble than mine.” She loved her hair, but a tiny part of her could still be jealous of the heavy silk of Lily’s, so slick that it would fall smoothly back in place no matter how turbulent the wind.

“To brush, sure,” Bowen confirmed. “But man, it was like the strands were coated in silicone—or possessed little devil minds of their own. Every time I tried to fix a braid, it’d fall apart.” He shook his head. “The only good thing was that it’d make her laugh when I tried not to swear.”

Kaia’s thoughts rolled back in time. “Before I came to live with my aunt and uncle, my mama helped me wash and oil my hair, and my papa used to do my braids.” Maybe if she’d grown into a teenager with her parents, she’d have started calling them Mom and Dad, but she’d lost them as a young girl and they were frozen in time as Mama and Papa.

Two brilliant young people whose lights had burned incandescent in their souls. They’d wanted to change the world, share that light, and they’d brought up their daughter to believe in hope, in passion, in the power of love to alter a universe.

But then the very world they’d loved had snuffed out their lights and Kaia had lost her way in fear. Shame might’ve twisted her up at the choices she’d made except that her parents had left her with a gift neither time nor death could erase, a promise that “We will love you, no matter what. Always, Kaia. Always.”

“My father was a lyricist by training and inclination, but he also loved to create other forms of art,” she told Bowen as echoes of her father’s voice filled her head. “It was never enough for him to do a simple braid. He’d do hundreds of fine braids, or a big braid across my head like an ancient queen, or a bun with a braid around it.”

“I’m starting to feel braid envy.” Light words, but his eyes were gentle in the mirror. “He’s gone?”

“They’re both gone.” It was so hard to say that even now, admit it. “I wouldn’t let my aunt or anyone else touch my hair for months after I lost my parents. I washed it and brushed it as well as I could, but I still looked half-feral.”

Bowen bent to press a kiss to her temple. “A little warrior princess.”

The bloom of warmth inside her was nothing erotic and devastatingly intimate. “I finally went up to Edison one day, brush in hand.” She laughed softly at the memory of the look on his face. “He was fifteen and had Atalina for a sister—she’s had a no-fuss bob since the day she got a voice and could make her wishes known. He had no idea what to do.”

“But he did it.”

“Yes.” Because that was what brothers did and Edison was her brother, no matter their official relationship. “He slowly got better at it and these days he tells me it helped with his hand-eye coordination.”

Bowen hit another snag, worked at it. “This beautiful hair, I dream about it.”

The deep rumble of his voice shivered through her, her breasts swelling under the airy fabric of the cover-up. But she didn’t rush him, the pleasure she received from watching him behind her, his chiseled face set in focused lines, a deeply visceral thing.

And though she had childhood memories of her father brushing her hair, that sepia-toned memory faded under the reality of today.

That had been a childhood sweetness.

This was a very adult moment, honey richness in her blood. “Bowen?”

“Hmm.”

“Give me your arm.”

Halting his smooth strokes, he stretched forward his left arm. When she put her fingers on his skin and pressed down on the muscle trainers, he gave her a curious half smile. “Testing my muscles? Trust me, I have enough to brush your hair.”

“Does it hurt if I apply pressure?”

“The bugs?” He withdrew his arm and continued with her hair. “I barely remember they’re there. Things are fucking incredible.”

His brush stopped partway. His eyes blazed at her in the mirror. “You thinking about putting pressure on my skin?”

Her own eyes dark pools of fire, Kaia said, “I think the knots are out.”

“But if I don’t dry it, it’ll get messed up when I do this.” Fisting one hand in her hair, he leaned down to kiss her neck again. It was hot and wet, the slight pull on her scalp an exquisite spice to the mix of sensation.

She twisted around and wove her own fingers into his hair, her mouth meeting his in a kiss that devoured. Kaia didn’t know who was the hunter and who the prey; the reins passed from one to the other breath by breath. Bowen slid his free hand to her throat as she bit down softly, so softly on his lower lip, a caress of teeth that came from her other side.

She wasn’t aware of rising, but she gasped a breath into the kiss when their bodies came into heated contact. His hard and lean. Hers softer and curvier. Every cell in her body sighed. Sliding her arms around his neck, she tried to get even closer, her tongue licking his and her breasts crushed against the plane of his chest.

He ran his hands down her back, gripping her hips to hold her so tight not even a molecule of air could get between them. It was only Kaia and Bowen in the here and the now. A man and a woman.

A desperate hunger in her, she tore at his shirt.

Bowen didn’t break the kiss, but he raised his hands between them and began to unbutton it. His knuckles brushed her breasts with every move until she couldn’t take the excruciating sensation of fabric tugging over needy flesh. Wrenching back, she put her hands at the bottom of her cover-up and pulled it off.

“Fuck.” Bowen halted with his shirt partly open, the pale brown of his skin exposed in a triangle against the white of his shirt.

He came at her the next moment, his mouth voracious and his hands possessive.

She was still trying to tear open his shirt, but his kiss was driving her mad and she couldn’t focus.

When the mattress hit her back, Bowen’s weight coming down on her, she wrapped her legs around him and ran her hands down his chest. The muscle trainers broke the smoothness of his skin, but she could feel the heated life of him and that was all that mattered.

He stroked her with a roughness that betrayed his own desperation, his mouth demanding kiss after kiss. Breathless, aching, she finally managed to undo the last two buttons on his shirt and shove it off. He helped her get rid of it. “Kaia. Siren. Mine.” Harsh, hot breaths against her ear before he kissed his way down her throat, his hand plumping her breast.

Dipping his head without warning, he sucked her nipple into his mouth.

Kaia arched on a moan so deep it was nearly silent. Pulling at his hair, she said, “Bowen, I want skin.” She pressed an openmouthed kiss to his shoulder, tasted salt from his swim. “Bowen.” It was an order this time, imperious and wanting and on the edge of madness.

He kissed his way back to her mouth. “You are so fucking beautiful.” A hard kiss before he pulled back just long enough to kick off his board shorts. His shoes were already long gone.

She entangled herself around him the instant he returned, this human who burned with life, his inner light so hot it scalded.

When he reached down to see if she was ready, she said, “Yes.” Another kiss. “I want you.”

Shuddering, he stroked her with his fingers regardless, that fierce concentration on his face that she’d already started to adore.

Her body was his, melting on his fingers. She orgasmed on a silent scream, her inner muscles clenching in hard pulses. She was yet humming from it, her blood as thick as lava, when he began to push into her. And the hum deep inside her began again, building and building with each rigid inch.

Their eyes met, held.

What passed between them was an unspoken and heartbreaking promise that resonated in the air, held them locked in time as they swam in a sea that belonged to them alone.