by Sable Sylvan
“Cheers,” said Cayenne, tapping her glass against Basil’s flute. “Alice, you were right. Working together…”
“…We got more done in two weeks than we could’ve in a summer spent apart,” said Basil.
“Thank you so much for giving us a chance to turn things around,” said Cayenne.
“Thanks for turning them around,” said Herb. “I’ve never seen such a crowded restaurant opening. Those people came hungry and left happy. That’s all we needed you two to do, and you did it. Part theme park, part strip club, all barbecue…it’s a combination that doesn’t seem like it makes sense, but those things are complementary, just like cayenne and garlic…and I suppose, Cayenne and Basil.”
Cayenne blushed. What the heck was her eldest brother-in-law insinuating? Alice winked at her, too. Cayenne took another sip at the flute of champagne and went back to toasting. Everyone toasted back and forth until they had to pour themselves more champagne, and Cayenne opted out of a second glass because she was tired. She headed upstairs after saying goodnight to everyone, but there was a second set of footsteps tracing her path.
Cayenne turned. Basil was there, at the bottom of the staircase. He had changed into normal clothes during closing to help clean up, and his white tailored shirt was rolled up to his elbows, stained up and down with hot sauce, stains that were like streaks of paint against a canvas…spicy paint against a canvas that was all too sweet.
“Hey, stranger,” said Basil, walking up to Cayenne.
“Hey,” said Cayenne softly. “Basil…thank you so much for making tonight a success.”
“We made tonight a success,” corrected Basil. “You…and me.”
Basil took Cayenne’s hand and for a second, she was shocked. His hands always surprised her. It wasn’t just the marks on his palms that marked him as a shifter. Every time he touched her, it was like she’d been burned by a stove that she couldn’t help but want to touch again, a burning sensation that felt good and right.
“Kai,” said Basil softly, pushing Cayenne’s hair off her shoulder as her ponytail holder had fallen out at the celebration party. “What was it you wanted to ask me that night?”
“I wanted…a goodnight kiss,” said Cayenne softly, looking up at Basil.
“Then I’m sorry this is over two weeks late,” said Basil, moving his arms to Cayenne’s waist. As Cayenne wrapped her arms around Basil’s shoulders, Basil leaned into the kiss and pressed his lips against Cayenne’s lips. A bolt of lightning, like a spark from Thor’s hammer, Mjölnir, pounding the Norwegian fjords into their chiseled sides, shocked Basil before their lips had quite touched, but it didn’t make him pull away. He kept pushing forward, meeting her soft lips with his and taking her lower lip into his mouth.
“Ahem,” came a voice.
The couple quickly pulled apart. A familiar face with gray hair and an arm full of towels was walking toward them.
“You know you have bedrooms, yes?” asked Lauren, who kept walking.
“Well…you heard the lady,” said Basil, and he reached down to pick Cayenne up.
Cayenne wrapped her arms around Basil. What the heck? Why was he carrying her…and why did she not actually give a darn whether or not he had a reason to be?
Basil opened the door to his room. Cayenne had never seen it before. She had never been invited in before. The room was not what Cayenne had expected. She had expected ornate furnishings, not items that looked like they were gathered from flea markets from around the world and reupholstered by hand. She didn’t expect a wall of pictures he’d taken and the places he’d been, nor did she expect travel posters on the other wall, the retro ones from the Age of Aviation.
“You like what you see?” asked Basil.
“Not yet,” said Cayenne. Basil put her down on his bed, and Cayenne reached up to undo Basil’s buttons.
“Stop,” said Basil.
“Stop?” asked Cayenne, pulling her hand away. “Why?”
“Cayenne…you know what will happen if we start this,” said Basil. “Are you ready for a new chapter to start in your life, a chapter that will either introduce me as your partner-in-crime for the rest of the story…or leave you looking for your prince in shining armor and more than ready to kiss a few frogs?”
“Basil, I want you,” said Cayenne. “I can’t promise that we’re fated mates, but…I’ve been keeping a secret from you. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you before, but I was planning on telling you tomorrow, after breakfast, just like that talk we had the night you saved me, the night we saved each other.”
Cayenne took in a deep breath and then moved her hands to her top. She was still wearing the shirt she’d worn to help clean up the restaurant. She pulled the sleeve aside, and what Basil saw surprised him.
It was a peach, half of a peach, the way a peach would look if it had been cut in two and photographed. It had every color that belonged on a peach, from shades of peachy pink to yellow and orange and even purple…but something was missing.
“Where’s the peach pit?” asked Basil.
“I think you know where,” said Cayenne, reaching up to touch Basil’s mark with the tips of her fingers.
“It’s just a coincidence, right?” asked Basil.
“No frikkin’ way,” said Cayenne. “You’re a polar, but more importantly, you’re a shifter. You know that when Fate’s involved, coincidences go out the window.”
“Why do you have a peach tattoo?” asked Basil.
“I moved to Georgia for college, but I picked that college because it’s close to my grandma’s house,” explained Cayenne. “However…my first year, she insisted that I at least give living on campus a chance. Believe it or not, I didn’t want to. I was more like Addison, bookish and shy, back then. My grandma decided that we had to do something abso-frikkin’-lutely crazy to get me to feel that I could take on anything…and I have a fear of needles, so tattoos were the obvious choice.”
“You mean your grandma has the same tat?” asked Basil.
“Yeah, and my mom nearly had a heart attack,” said Cayenne. “My grandma and I even got the date of our tattoos written underneath the tats. If you do the math, you can see I was seventeen when I got the tat. Boy, was my mom mad.” Cayenne pulled the shirt down a little more, revealing the black script numbers underneath her tattoo.
Basil read the numbers and didn’t say a thing. He just looked and took a deep breath.
“What’s wrong?” asked Cayenne.
“I think I might be hallucinating,” said Basil. “Cayenne…the date you got your tattoo was the date I got my mate mark. That was my eighteenth birthday.”
“It was?” asked Cayenne. “Then Basil…you know I’m yours. Just claim me already.”
Chapter Nine
Basil put his leg between Cayenne’s thighs, and she instinctively rode his leg, rubbing her clit against his firm thigh while he felt her curves beneath his hands for the first time. Basil had fantasized about Cayenne’s body since he’d first laid eyes on her. Her curves felt even better than they did in his imagination, where they had either been too firm or too soft. In real life, they were just right.
“You like me?” asked Cayenne.
“Of course,” said Basil, brushing a hand against Cayenne’s upper thigh and sending a chill down his lover’s spine. “How couldn’t I adore this body? Bigger’s better, baby, and I’m a frikkin’ shifter. You’re practically petite compared to me…but as long as I get to feel those birthing hips and feeding tits of yours, I’ll let it slide.”
“Oh, you will, will you?” asked Cayenne, taking Basil’s face in hers and continuing to kiss him deeply, exploring his mouth with her tongue. She had wanted to wipe Basil’s smug grins off his face before, but she had never imagined that the only way to do that was to kiss him…which meant putting a smile on her face.
Cayenne hiked her leg up, pulling Basil closer so she could feel his firm body above hers. He was built like a brick firehouse, a brick firehouse that could pull off an Italian
designer suit, but a brick firehouse nonetheless. His broad, firm shoulders were bigger than those of any man she’d ever been with and did make her feel tiny underneath him. However, she wasn’t scared of Basil. She had never been. The only fear she’d had to conquer was her fear of feeling.
She couldn’t believe it. Basil, whose body she had had to force herself not to ogle, whose tousled boyish curly locks had always entranced her, whose attitude had simultaneously pissed her off and aroused her, was really on top of her and she was really in his room. He’d only ever been a room away, and just like the art studio, he’d practically always been there, waiting and ready.
“Am I making you get close, Kai?” whispered Basil huskily.
“I…I have to admit something,” said Cayenne shyly.
“What is it, my love?” asked Basil.
“I have some rather…unique tastes,” said Cayenne coyly.
“Unique? Care to share?” asked Basil. “Come on. Don’t make me beg for it.”
“It’s not you who I want to have beg if you catch my drift,” said Cayenne. “You see…I have a certain fantasy that I’ve always wanted to have fulfilled. We’re going for the whole fairytale romance thing. We might as well go all the way, take this as far as we can take it.”
“Why do I have the feeling you have a very specific fantasy in mind?” asked Basil.
“Maybe it’d be easier if I showed you what I want,” said Cayenne, running her hands over Basil’s chest. That mark on his chest had scared her the first time she’d seen it, even though the mark itself was not scary. What had made her afraid was the potential of Basil not being ‘the one,’ but they had a connection on every level: mental, emotional, physical…so the only question left was, was she his fated mate?
Cayenne got up off the bed, taking Basil by the hand and leading him through the studio to her room. The feminine room was done up with ivory and peach pink as the two basic colors, with rose gold accents. It looked like something out of a fashion magazine for Southern gals. Cayenne led Basil to the end of her bed, to a large white chest with copper-colored latches.
“Would you mind?” asked Cayenne, sitting on the bed.
“Not at all,” said Basil. He opened the trunk and what he saw inside shocked him.
Whips. Chains. Handcuffs. Some things Basil didn’t even recognize from porn or the few times he’d gone to a sex shop with his friends. There was no denying that the usually modest Cayenne had another darker side to her, darker like dark chocolate, like sex in the dark, like the dark black tone of the leather restraints and silk ropes inside the chest.
“You’re not the only one with a secret chest,” said Cayenne.
“Ha-ha,” said Basil. “You want me to dominate you, I’m guessing?”
“Ooh, you guessed correctly,” said Cayenne. “But don’t get too cocky, Basil. I want you to do something really wicked for me…if you can handle it.”
“What is it?” asked Basil.
“I want to do tantric BDSM with you,” said Cayenne. “Blindfold me. Gag me. Bind me. Then, use my body however you want. The one caveat? You can’t enter me…I mean, you can, but I want you to make me beg for it. I want you to keep me on the edge of orgasm, on the cliff of climax, and keep me there, for as long as you can…before you ravish me and make me explode around you.”
“Any special toys in mind?” asked Basil.
“The blindfold, the gag, the black silk rope,” said Cayenne, and Basil passed those toys to her for her to place on the bed. “And…the Wartenberg wheel, the Ben Wa balls, and the violet wand.”
“The what now?” asked Basil.
Cayenne got up off the bed and tousled Basil’s hair.
“How interesting,” said Cayenne. “I guess I’m going to have to teach my big, bad bear a lesson…if he’s going to be able to teach me one.”
Cayenne pulled out what looked like a medical instrument. It was a silver implement with a spiky wheel on the end. Cayenne carefully spun it, and the wheel looked like a little circular saw. Basil’s eyes widened. Did Cayenne want him to use that on her?
“What, you’ve never seen one of these before?” asked Cayenne. “We must watch some very, very different dirty movies. At least now, I won’t have to play with my toys all by myself. Give me your arm. This won’t hurt. I just need to show you how to use it, so you don’t hurt me.”
Basil offered his arm. Cayenne ran the little wheel on his arm, gently, and the feeling of the small spikes sent a shiver up his spine.
“Use it gently,” said Cayenne. “Tenderly. You’re not trying to cut me up like a steak, right? Because that’d be too kinky for our first time. I am a romantic, after all. This is the Wartenberg wheel. You use it to tease me, physically, on the skin. Don’t use this on my downstairs parts. If you wanna smash my honeypot, use your dick instead.”
Cayenne put the wheel down and held the Ben Wa balls.
“I can’t give you a demonstration of this,” said Cayenne. “Just…put them inside me, and I’ll know what to do.” She passed Basil the two silvery balls which made bell-like noises as he handled them.
“Finally, there’s the violet wand,” said Cayenne. She took out a silver case that had foam inserts, the kind of case that would usually be used to transport weaponry, and pulled out what looked like a weird vibrator. She attached it to a battery pack and turned it on.
“This might be too much for you to handle,” said Cayenne.
“I can take it,” said Basil, sticking out his arm.
“Okay, but don’t freak out,” said Cayenne. “You’re gonna feel a little shock.”
A shock? Before Basil could comprehend what that meant, he was shocked on the arm by the wand, which went from a regular glass rod to a purplish pink glowing tube that looked like it was filled with neon or some other gas.
“Okay, what the heck,” said Basil, rubbing his arm. He looked. No damage seemed to be done.
“Everyone has their kink,” said Cayenne. “This too much for you?”
“No…but I’m worried it’s too much for you,” admitted Basil.
“Trust me, it’s not,” said Cayenne. “If I grab your right thigh, it’s too much, okay?”
“Okay,” said Basil. “Where should I use it?”
“Anywhere but my face,” said Cayenne. “Any other questions?”
“Just one,” said Basil. “Why the heck aren’t we naked? Strip. Now.”
Basil sat down on the bed and Cayenne got up. She put on a little show for Basil as she took her top off, lowered her jeans, and took off her lingerie. Basil was unbuttoning himself while he watched her until he was left naked on the edge of the bed, his cock erect, and ready to enter her.
Cayenne sat in Basil’s lap, careful not to let his cock inside of her.
“You are a tease,” whispered Basil, as he rocked Cayenne and her curves on his lap using one arm, the other arm stabilizing the pair on the bed.
“Then you’re going to have to punish me,” said Cayenne. “Make me feel what you’re feeling, master. Make me into your sex doll.”
“Master, eh?” said Basil. “I could get used to that.”
Basil suddenly turned Cayenne, so she was standing on the floor but facing away from him.
“Arms, behind your back,” ordered Basil. He tied up Cayenne’s arms firmly in a way that only restricted her range of motion, so she could still squeeze him if she needed him to stop. Then, he carefully put the ball-gag on her, added the blindfold, and took her by the hand.
Basil started a slow dance with Cayenne in a circle, his arms around her waist, her hands tied behind her back, but this wasn’t just a romantic act. If it was sensory deprivation she wanted, well, he’d give it to her in a way she could never have done on her own. Once he was sure Cayenne was disoriented but not dizzy, Basil lifted her up again and sat down on the bed, with Cayenne in his lap. He arranged her so she could grab his thigh if need be and spread her legs. It was time to show Cayenne that when it came to treating her like a sex t
oy, he wasn’t just playing around.
Basil had Cayenne lick his fingers while he kissed her neck. Then he moved his fingers to the spot between her legs and started to gently stroke her. He was intentionally not bringing her to orgasm as quickly as possible. After all, that’s what Cayenne wanted, right? Basil’s bear roared and told him to take Cayenne all the way to home plate and give her an orgasm that would’ve knocked her socks off…if she’d been wearing any. Basil told the bear to hush. The first mating was important, and it was especially important for a shifter to make the first mating a magical experience for their fated mate.
Basil ran his fingers in circles around Cayenne’s clit and felt her squirm underneath him. He kept her legs open and took those heavy balls that she’d taught him about and used them to rub at her clit. The metal balls were cold and sent a shiver down Cayenne’s spine. She instinctively moved away from the metal balls, and Basil made sure to keep watch for any sign she wanted out, but she didn’t grab his thigh. She bucked her hips forward, toward Basil and the Ben Wa balls, but Basil pulled it away.
“Uh-uh,” said Basil. “You made your bed, now sleep in it, princess…”
Basil let the last of his words linger as a heat on the back of Cayenne’s neck as he pressed the balls on her slit, up and down, but never quite popping them inside of her.
Cayenne couldn’t believe it. Her wildest fantasy was coming true…like, scarily accurate true. She hadn’t expected Basil to have that much self-control, and the fact he hadn’t entered her, even though he was the one who could call the shots in that regard, surprised her. After all, she could feel his erection against the small of her back, every so often brushing against her hands. Finally, when Basil popped the balls inside of her, she felt filled but not yet satisfied.
Basil’s firm body rubbed against hers, and with every rub, his shaft moved back and forth, like a hypnotist’s pendulum. Cayenne had seen his cock when they’d stripped down, but she hadn’t done anything with it yet…but that didn’t mean that she wasn’t fantasizing about it. With every motion of the balls moving back and forth in her honeypot, she wished that the inward rolling motions were his thrusts and every outward roll of the metal balls was his reluctant pulls out, only performed so he could thrust right back into her.