The quiet in the kitchen fractured the moment the words left Zade's mouth.
Rai felt the rigid tension radiating off the body pressed behind him, a desperate, fragile kind of heat that seemed on the verge of catching fire.
He hesitated for only a fraction of a second, his fingers lingering over the cold steel of the kitchen knife on the counter, before slowly shifting himself..
He turned around.
The second Rai faced him, Zade didn't wait. He closed the remaining distance with a brutal, clumsy intensity, leaning down and slamming his lips against Rai's.
It wasn't soft ; it was a suffocating collision. Zade grabbed the back of Rai's neck, his fingers tangling tightly into Rai's still-damp hair, pulling him in so hard their teeth clacked together.
The kiss was aggressive, messy, and choked with all the bitter, unexpressed rage Zade had been holding inside.
