CHAPTER 133: CHOCOLATE OF TROUBLE

–Deanne–

Wally and Jane were already bustling in the kitchen, their movements a quiet symphony of clattering utensils and low chatter as breakfast came to life. I perched on a barstool by the counter, watching them with half a mind and half a soul elsewhere. The morning smelled of seared vegetables, steaming tea, and domestic normalcy—none of which matched the pulse already tapping at my temples.

Caine arrived like an uninvited sunrise—fresh from his bath, damp hair slicked back, aftershave clinging to his skin like a whispered sin. His arms slid around my waist, his lips brushed my cheek. The heat of him lingered longer than it should have, and for a fleeting second, my body betrayed me. That low, traitorous flutter in my abdomen? No. Not now. I have work. I have three hours before I’m due to be competent, not carnivorous.

"Join me," I told him flatly, not looking up as I stirred the tea in front of me. He grinned as if I had invited him into a secret conspiracy and took the stool beside me. Wally, the ever-efficient chef, served him breakfast with a flourish.

"This is new," Caine remarked, picking up his chopsticks.

"Yes," Wally replied with that hint of pride he always wears when educating us, "a traditional royal breakfast from the Joseon era in Korea."

I blinked, then nodded. Well, that explained the aroma—delicate yet rich, like history served on porcelain. Wally always had this knack for making food taste like a confession.

"So, you’ve been practicing," Caine teased.

"Yes," Wally grinned back. "I’m going to take a leave for a month—travel the world, refine my palate."

"Oh, we will miss you," I said, offering a polite smile that barely cracked the surface.

"Don’t worry, Jane cooks better than I do," he said.

"Oh, please, don’t flatter me too much," Jane chimed in, setting a tray—likely for Livana and Damon. Those two? They live like monarchs. Breakfast in bed, an empire built of rituals. And of course, her crazy husband hovering like a vulture in love.

Livana—she plays her blindness like a well-tuned instrument. Years since she lost her sight, yet she wears the act still, because plans like hers require patience stitched with deceit. I was there. Laura was there. Sophia, too. We all knew the choreography. Years ago, she told us to let Richard parade as her fiancé, to tolerate Carrie’s antics until the inevitable collapse. And oh, what a collapse it was.

I still wish I’d seen that engagement party live. The moment their infidelity was unveiled—Richard, Carrie, the whole sordid tableau exposed like a rotten fruit under glass. I would have laughed right into Casey’s powdered face—the so-called elegant woman who raised Carrie into the professional disappointment she is. Always the victim in her own narrative, always the whispering serpent. But that night? The audience feasted on her downfall. Gregory—Livana’s father—looked horrified. The grandparents were stone-faced, disappointment incarnate. The guests? Predators at a bleeding feast.

After breakfast, I slid the dishes into the washer with mechanical precision. Caine followed me like a shadow that refused to take a hint. I opened the fridge for something familiar, grounding—my eyes caught the dark chocolate. A square of comfort. I broke it, slipped a piece into my mouth. He was behind me before I could even close the door, his presence a warmth I didn’t ask for. I rolled my eyes, bit off another piece, and—why not—shared it with him.

"Good morning!" Laura’s voice chimed like an alarm I never set. I turned my head to find her standing there, smiling with that suspicious brightness that always precedes disaster.

"What are you eating?" she asked, eyeing the chocolate.

"Chocolate," I replied curtly, swallowing the last piece. "Oh, it’s gone," I added as I glanced at Caine, busy chewing like an accomplice.

"Okay..." Laura dragged the word, her eyes narrowing playfully as she turned to Wally. "So, before you leave, you’ll have to teach me how to cook something besides frozen ramen."

"Sure, Mrs. Blackwell," Wally said, and I left them to their morning theatrics, heading to my bedroom. Of course, Caine followed—like a loyal dog, or a very determined ghost.

"What?" I asked, irritation curling in my voice.

"Nothing," he laughed, hands sliding into his pockets. "I’ll check on the dogs. Catch you later, okay?"

I rolled my eyes. Always this clingy, always orbiting. What were we, really? Not lovers in the poetic sense—more like a ritual of bodies colliding when convenience met appetite. We had skipped the courting, the prelude, the tedious romance dance. Straight to the marrow of things. Straight to the sheets.

I folded my arms, a strange heat already stirring beneath my skin. That familiar surge—nipples tightening, breath turning heavier. My body was warning me of something, something chemical.

A knock at the door interrupted my search for clothes. I opened it to Laura’s grin.

"So, you ate the chocolate," she said, practically glowing.

"Yeah? Is it yours?" I shot back, one brow arching. "Stop grinning."

"No." She giggled. "It was from Kai. He proposed to Sophia last night—with aphrodisiac chocolate. They left it on the table, so I put it in the fridge."

I froze. My pulse kicked like a misfired engine. Oh, no. Not just blood rushing—blood demanding. I felt my heart in my fingertips, in my thighs.

"What?" I asked again, voice sharp enough to cut.

She giggled harder. "I can work on your behalf today. I mean, Caine ate it too. Look—Sophia and Kai have been going at it nonstop."

"Why did you put it in the fridge!" I hissed. Laura was a professional chaos theorist, and I, apparently, her favorite experiment.

She only laughed. "Well, I wanted to see who’d eat it. Besides, didn’t you read the label?" And just like that, she vanished down the hall.

"Laura!" I shouted after her, uselessly. I was still seething when Caine came back, breathless, as though the universe had decided this day needed more irony.

"I have to talk to you," he said, pushing the door closed behind him, locking it with unnecessary finality.

"I already messaged Damon that I am—" I stopped, clenching my teeth. "No. Get out."

"Wait." He raised his hands. "We ate the chocolate. It had an aphrodisiac."

"I’m aware." I pinched the bridge of my nose. "Why is it always the kitchen?"

His face twisted in horror. "Laura?"

"Yes. Laura." I headed for the bathroom. "I need a cold shower. Leave."

But before I could reach the door, his arms wrapped around me, warm, insistent. He lifted me—not roughly, but with a suddenness that stole my balance—and laid me back on the bed. He dropped to one knee, as though this was some tragic opera and he the devoted villain.

"Please," he said, voice low, eyes flicking over me, "let me make love to you."

I stared. The audacity. "The actual fuck?"

"Laura’s game isn’t our fault. We’re both—" his jaw flexed—"affected. And I want to drown in you."

I sighed, exasperated enough to call for reinforcements. I dialed Livana. It rang. She answered with that calm, deadly lilt.

"Hello, Deanne."

"Your deranged sister put that chocolate in the fridge."

"Hmm?" Confusion in her tone.

"That chocolate was Kai’s proposal gift for Sophia. It triggers—" I lowered my voice, "sexual appetite."

There was a pause, then a cascade of laughter, her and Damon both howling on the other end.

"Okay," she said between giggles. "Enjoy your day off. Pump those muscles. Make some babies."

"No," I muttered, hanging up.

I placed my bare foot over his shoulder—slowly, deliberately. His breath hitched, fingers curling around my ankle like he’d been waiting his whole life to hold that exact inch of me. He kissed it. Once. Twice. The air between us tightened.

"Get the condoms," I said, my voice cutting through the tension like a blade wrapped in velvet.

His grin widened, that maddening mix of boyish and predatory. Music swelled from the speaker as he dimmed the curtains, shutting the world out. Drawers opened. Latex rustled. The room felt smaller, the air thicker, the line between irritation and desire thinner than silk.

And just like that, the morning was no longer about breakfast.

–Sophia–

I should say I was well-rested a few days ago—sleeping like a cat in a sunbeam, curled and content. But now? Kai and I hadn’t seen the shadow of sleep all night. He was relentless, like a storm that kept crashing against the shore, wave after wave, until the sand didn’t remember stillness. I had never unraveled so many times in a single stretch of darkness. The room bore the evidence: tangled sheets, scattered clothes, the air heavy with heat and echoes.

His arm was draped over me now, heavy as a velvet curtain, his lips resting idly at my neck as if claiming it. His breath warmed my skin in a lazy rhythm. Three hours of stolen sleep did little to quiet the hunger that still lived in me. It was a low, persistent ache—like an ember that refused to die out.

"Kai," I murmured, tracing my fingers along his forearm. "Kai, got more condoms?"

A soft groan. "Sorry," he rasped, voice still thick from sleep. "I ran out."

"Shit." I whispered the word like a prayer to an empty church. I slipped from his weight, padded to the mini fridge, and grabbed a bottle of water. The cold slid down my throat, a poor substitute for the heat that kept pulsing through me.

Before I could even take a full step back, his hand hooked around my wrist, and I found myself once again colliding with his chest, bare and solid. He grinned—lazy, knowing. His hands mapped the lines of my body as if reacquainting themselves with a territory they already owned.

His mouth found my skin again—lower this time, bolder. A low sigh escaped me before I could cage it. There’s something about the way he tasted me: like a starving man savoring the first bite after famine. It was intoxicating. I swore I could feel his hunger through the air between us.

"Withdraw, okay," I whispered, though my body already betrayed me by arching toward him.

His breath ghosted against my ear. "I can’t promise that," he murmured, and for a heartbeat, I believed him—not because of recklessness, but because desire had its own gravity, and we were already falling.

He lifted me as if I weighed nothing more than a sigh, pressed me against the wall where the paint still smelled faintly new, and kissed me again—this time with the urgency of someone trying to erase the line between want and need.

The room was a furnace of breath and heartbeat, of low sounds that filled the silence better than words. His hands roamed like cartographers of sin; mine answered like territory welcoming invasion. This—this rhythm, this surrender and claiming—it was a thrill that no mission, no dangerous fieldwork, no whispered promise of risk could compete with.

My phone buzzed violently on the nightstand, a snake in the grass. I glanced at it, lips parted, breath uneven. He stilled, just enough for me to wriggle out a hand and answer.

"Hello," I managed, voice trying to wear the mask of composure while my pulse drummed betrayal.

"Where are you?" Livana’s voice, sharp as always.

"Ro—Room," I bit my lip, fighting the sound that wanted to follow.

"I need you this afternoon. I’ve got a project for you."

"Oh...kay..."

"You sound... strange."

I muffled a sound against my palm and tossed the phone aside. "Okay, bye," I rushed, hanging up before the truth leaked out.

Kai’s eyes gleamed with a kind of triumph, the predator knowing his prey was already willing. He moved with renewed purpose, and I answered in kind. The rest was a blur of heat and whispered names, of wanting too much and getting it anyway.

When it ended—if you could call that end—my body trembled, fragments of myself scattered like glass across the bed.

"Damn it, Kai," I breathed, though there was no anger left in it, only the heavy sweetness of surrender.