Chapter 309: Bad decisions

Yuki’s mind froze for a single terrifying moment. She genuinely could not believe this impossible jerk had the staggering audacity to kiss her right now, of all times. His lips burned hot against hers, yet the kiss was not born of desperate violence or rough fury. It was unnervingly tender, as though he were deliberately taking his time to savour every drop of her taste.

She had a thousand bitter complaints locked behind her teeth, but every single word was completely swallowed by his mouth before it could even reach the tip of her tongue. He held her back firmly pinned against the cold stone pillar, his lips moving over hers with a slow hypnotic patience, sucking and nibbling at her lower lip until every ounce of self-preservation and protest in her body melted into the night air.

The nagging voice in the back of her head, the one that should have been screaming at her to stop and reminding her how wrong this was, vanished entirely.

Kaden kissed her until her head spun in dizzying circles and her hands fell completely limp by her sides. His large heavy hand cupped her waist, anchoring her in place against his soaked frame.

“Open your lips for me, Snow,” he murmured coaxingly between slow intoxicating kisses. His voice dropped into a raspy hypnotic hum.

It was almost darkly comical. He was politely asking her for formal permission to ruin her when he possessed the strength to pry her mouth open whenever he pleased. His sapphire eyes were hazy, swimming with alcohol and wild unhinged emotion, making her wonder if drinking had somehow accidentally given him basic manners.

Her chest heaving beneath her soaked silk gown, a defiant smirk touched her lips. She sneered against his mouth, whispering,

“Did you bother asking for permission when you kissed me by the river, Kaden?”

A faint wicked smile touched the corner of his lips. “Was that supposed to be a tacit approval, sweetheart?” he purred back.

Yuki scoffed, suddenly finding a fresh surge of adrenaline. She planted both palms against his chest and shoved hard, trying to push him away, but he did not budge so much as a single millimetre.

He caught her wrists effortlessly in one large hand. A low mocking laugh vibrated in his chest.

“Stop pretending like you actually want this to stop, Miyuki,” he murmured, his thumb stroking over her pulse point. “You didn’t even protest once when I first caught you.”

He reached up, using two calloused fingers to gently tilt her chin upward.

“Today is your special grand engagement day… and as you can clearly see, I actually grew up with proper manners,” Kaden drawled with a straight face. Kaden, of all arrogant men in the world, claiming to be a gentleman.

“Part those lips for me, Snow,” he whispered against her skin.

She held his blazing intoxicated gaze, her jaw locked. “And what if I refuse?” she challenged defiantly.

He lowered his face further. His heavy alcohol-laced breath fanned hotly across her flushed cheeks.

“That wasn’t a casual suggestion, Miyuki,” he murmured in a low dangerous register that moved straight down through her core and settled like a weight in her stomach.

Panic fluttered in her throat. She tried to shift her weight to slip away. Her waterlogged heavy clothes clung like a second skin to her trembling frame, and the biting cold night breeze raised instant goosebumps all over her arms. The only source of radiating warmth within a mile was his burning feverish skin, still giving off intense heat despite being completely drenched. Staying close to him felt like dancing on the edge of a loaded blade.

“Aren’t you even a little bit scared that Eloise or your brothers might walk out here and catch you?” she hissed, desperate to break the spell. Her fingers twitched against his chest as she said it, as if her body already knew the answer.

Kaden let out a low dark purr against her ear. “I wouldn’t be standing here right now if I gave a damn about who saw us.”

Yuki almost laughed at the sheer reckless insanity of it. Forcing down the violent trembling in her limbs, she hardened her voice and made it as firm as possible.

“Back away from me, Kaden. Right now. I have to go fix my dress and head back inside to my own engagement party.” His eyes flickered violently, turning a deeper feral shade of gold as a low rumbling growl vibrated deep within his chest.

“You still want to go back to him…?”

New goosebumps erupted across her skin as the chilling reality slowly set in. This was not the rational, calculated Kaden. Trying to reason with a wildly possessive drunken Lycan Alpha was entirely useless.

“Of course I have to go back, Kaden. What, did you honestly expect me to stay out here in the dark with you?” she snapped back with a sharp mocking edge. “Xavier is infinitely more of a man than you could ever hope to be… and for the record, he’s a much better kisser, too.”

“Liar,” Kaden cut her off instantly, his fingers digging sharply into the soft flesh of her hip. “You didn’t kiss him.”

Her breath caught violently in her throat. How the hell could he possibly know that? Yuki’s thoughts raced. Xavier genuinely had not kissed her on that stage. He had masterfully played the part, making it look utterly real to the hundreds of watching nobles below.

She could still vividly recall Xavier’s words when he had leaned in, whispering under the cover of the flashing lights.

“I wouldn’t dare kiss you unless you genuinely want me to, Yuki… but let’s at least give them a convincing show.”

They’d executed it with enough flawless acting to fool an entire stadium.

As if effortlessly reading every frantic thought echoing through her mind, Kaden replied with a slow dark grin.

“I can’t smell his scent or his breath mixed with yours,” he murmured smugly. “So stop lying to me, my dear little wolf. I don’t have an infinite amount of patience left.”

Before she could form a rebuttal, his teeth grazed softly over her lower lip. A sharp breathless gasp parted her lips, and Kaden ruthlessly seized the opening, claiming her mouth fully.

His mouth was scorching hot, tasting heavily of rich aged bourbon and pure untamed heat. The kiss began with a punishing intensity, his lips moulding over hers as his tongue swept inside, claiming every inch with fierce demanding hunger. The taste of the alcohol rolled over her tongue, heady and intoxicating, while Kaden let out a low ragged moan directly into her mouth. His head tipped as he deepened the angle, drinking in her helpless sounds.

The kiss rapidly escalated from aggressive to consuming. Her face burned from a sudden dizzying lack of oxygen, her lungs screaming for air. Yet despite the paralysing terror gripping her mind, her body reacted with a betrayal she could not stop. Deep between her thighs, her folds grew sticky with thick slick arousal, and that sweet scent of her desire began to thicken around them in the cold night air.

Her heart raced in a chaotic mix of raw fear and a dark illicit thrill. The risk of someone catching her scent out in the open made her pulse hammer wildly against her ribs.

“Kaden—” she struggled to choke out between breathless interruptions of the kiss, trying desperately to warn him that her arousal scent might draw attention, but her words were completely useless against his relentless mouth.

Finally, Kaden’s lips reluctantly left hers, trailing a hot wet path of frantic kisses down the sensitive skin of her jaw to her neck. He nipped sharply beneath her earlobe, his teeth grazing dangerously over the ultra-sensitive bundle of nerves just as a loud involuntary moan ripped from her throat.

Kaden froze, his mouth stopping mid-stroke against her skin.

‘Someone is close,’ his deep possessive thoughts cut straight through the mindlink into her consciousness. ‘ As much as I don’t care if someone sees us. I don’t like to be interrupted. ‘

Without breaking contact for a single microsecond, his arm banded around her waist, yanking her hard off the stone patio and shoving them both backwards through the heavy door of the auxiliary equipment room. He slammed it shut and locked it tight against the world.

And that was precisely how she had found herself trapped in this exact suffocating situation. Pinned against a cold metal door, Kaden’s scorching lips branding her skin while her core ached for a man who was not her fiancé.

Sorry for the late update. Work was super stressful today and I was having a bit of writer’s block