Day 9
Despite the tropical humidity outside, the estate was kept at a borderline-frosty temperature with a top-of-the-line cooling system that possibly cost more than the country's GDP to run.
Kiara liked playing with matches. She'd always courted trouble, flirted with the rules, and relished making authority figures squirm. Her report cards and parent-teacher interviews were full of delicately worded sentiments like: "Kiara is exceptionally bright, but she lacks discipline." As if lacking discipline in the capitalist school system that churned out blind followers was something she should work on?
Rafe was a kind of trouble she hadn't explored yet. That interested her. There was kinetic potential between them. It was sick; she loved how she could make him compliant, submissive. He would do whatever she asked. It was something she may want to circle back to in therapy, should her parents ever get their wish.
They'd both stilled in the bed minutes, maybe hours ago. There was no concept of time in this room.
Kiara had turned over on her side, legs drawn up. When she rolled over, wordless, Rafe took that as his dismissal of his services for the evening. He rolled over to the other side, facing away from her, to mirror her. By now, his chest was steadily rising and falling with the heaviness of sleep. Kiara's eyes flickered over him. She kind of hated that he was wearing a shirt this time. It must have caused some sort of chemical - or maybe biological? - reaction in her, to touch his bare skin. It felt like the most natural thing in the world, for them to be like this.
Something was definitely fucked in her brain.
But this was not the time or place for soul-searching. No, Kiara would leave that to her mom and her Goop-ified friends.
Feeling more wired than ever, Kiara slid across the empty space between them to rest against Rafe's back. His hands were tucked under the pillow, cupping the side of his face. It still freaked her out to see him sleeping. Surely, he just needed to power down for the evening and get recharged at a Tesla charging station?
I don't know why I feel nervous, Kie chided herself. Her nose scrunched involuntarily. It's not like he can ignore me in the halls at school tomorrow. Because there was no school tomorrow or the next day or - Shut up, please, Kie thought. This thing with Rafe was supposed to silence her thoughts. Make time pass. If she couldn't make the days bearable, at least she could have this release at night.
Kie nestled her chin into the broad expanse of his shoulder. Her face was so close to his. "Rafe?" She snuggled in closer to the warmth of his body. They fit well together. It was easy to be with him. It wasn't like that with-
Stop.
"Rafe, are you awake?" Kiara's voice pitched a bit louder this time. It was stupid. He obviously wasn't awake. And, all priors considered, it wasn't impossible he would strangle her for waking him up. That was probably his body's first instinct, to wrap his ungodly large hands around her neck and-
Rafe nuzzled into the side of her face. His body shifted, half-asleep, so that he was facing her. One of his arms came to fan out across the side of her waist.
"Good," Kiara breathed back. She moved until she was half-seated. Rafe's eyes were still heavy with the pull of sleep, moving behind his eyelids. Kie couldn't help it. She wondered what dream of his was stealing his attention. She didn't have much experience with this, beyond the realm of making out. Her single foray into sexual escapades had been, well, lackluster was a word that applied.
Now that she was more upright, Kie gently pulled her soft taupe-colored crop top off, leaving her clad in a pair of boxer-style sleep shorts and a lace bralette that would've given Rafe a few things to dream about, had he been awake.
A line of worry marked Kie's brow. She was bothering him. She should just give up this act; it wasn't working anyways. Unlike her, Rafe was actually experienced. In a normal week, he probably was responsible for providing half of the senior girls from the Kook academy with Plan B. There wasn't anything he hadn't seen before, nothing he hadn't done. With someone else.
Kiara let herself lay back on the bed. Errant curls draped over Rafe's shoulder. She rolled back on her side, her seduction plan shelved.
Sleep, possibly fueled by Rafe-related annoyance, finally came.
Day 10
Slants of light shifted in from the large window. It was early. The sun was just beginning to rise.
Rafe was also just becoming aware of certain other events of the evening. When he slept with Kie, somehow, he was able to have that life-altering, restful sleep that had evaded him for so long. It was like she was a melatonin gummy. He slept like how he remembered he did when he and Sarah were young, and they'd been out on the water all day. He'd just barely make it into bed, and he would be fast asleep, the moment his head touched the pillow. Kiara had this effect of rewinding time, of undoing past mistakes. Rafe shifted his weight, so he was on his other side, the one facing her. He hated how far apart they found themselves at night. He imagined it was Kiara pushing him off. There was no way he could percieve he didn't want to be as close as physically possible to her, even when he wasn't conscious.
Eyes still heavy, he was comforted by the fact that Kie was still there. He felt her soft shape, filling the space beside him. Her weirdly cold feet trailed up his calves. "Morning," he whispered into her coconut-and-citrus-scented head of curls.
Rafe was close behind her now. His eyes began to blink open, and he took in the miles of brown skin beside him. At some point in the night, possibly due to an angelic intervention, Kiara had taken off her shirt. Most of her back and the lean muscles there were exposed, save for a small lacy band across the middle. Rafe's pointer finger and thumb played with the material idly. He wanted to ask a million questions that probably didn't need to be asked. The first thought (stupid, definitely not): did she do this for him? She wanted him to see more of her body? The second: did she get hot during the night?
Kiara was now fidgeting around, coming to the end of her sleep. He was braced for the expected cold shoulder. Rafe drew his fingers back, although he couldn't fight pulling her in against him, and how his hands settled around her hips.
Immediately, she pushed herself back against him. His cock twitched. Rafe swallowed hard, his desire and all the base urges he'd been suppressing were on high alert. He wasn't used to this slow exploration with a girl. He hadn't ever wanted to just kiss someone, at least not since puberty.
"Finally, you're awake," Kiara said, still not turning to face him. Her voice was softer and a little raspy. He'd never heard her morning voice before. Rafe thought he wanted to drink it.
"Finally?" he repeated.
Kiara's smaller hand moved to ghost over Rafe's larger one, where it sat, hooked over her hip. "There's nowhere else you wanna touch?" Kie's sexy morning voice taunting him seemed to do more for his libido than the top five categories on PornHub. He felt like he could shatter; one small move from Kie and Rafe was pretty sure he would have his most humiliating sexual experience this side of losing his virginity. His hand went to adjust himself through his boxers, not in response to her words, but just out of pure need.
"That's not what I meant, Rafe," Kie replied, teasing.
"Kie, I haven't- in a while, I don't-" Rafe stuttered in response, palming himself. There was so little space between them.
Kie turned herself around, so she was facing him. While her lace bralette possibly covered more than some of her more notorious bikinis, the situation of her, being in bed with him, in her underwear, felt infinitely sexier than seeing her at the beach. No one else got to see her like this. Rafe's tongue darted out. He felt like he'd been born to have sex with her. Was that dramatic? Possibly.
"Fuck, Kie. You're gonna kill me."
Looking up at him from under her lashes, Kiara moved so she had a leg draped over him, pulling them together. She could feel how hard he was, what she was doing to him. She liked that no matter what experiences he'd had before, she still had some power over him.
Kiara's hands fluttered behind her back, and she hooked the tiny slip of lace up over her shoulders. If freshman year Kiara could only see her now: topless, in bed, with Rafe Cameron, who was looking at her like her nipples were dessert at a Michelin-starred restaurant and he was still extremely unsatisfied after the entree.
