Naughty Little Gift -- A Temptation Court Novella (Temptation Court, Book 1)

by Angel Payne

  She whimpers. “Take it. Take me. Into the dark. All the way. Please…”

  I shove her panties farther aside. Notch my agonized crown against her tight cushions. “This isn’t going to be gentle.” It’s not an apology.

  “Thank the fucking Creator.”

  I lunge.

  She screams.

  We shake together, our bodies roaring in gratitude. I’m seated inside her, naked and pulsing, head to balls. Fucking heaven.

  My forehead falls to her collarbone. My hands force hers outward, stretching her…until she’s crushed against the seat beneath me.

  I pull out. Nearly all the way.

  Thrust in again, deeper than before.

  Again.

  Again.

  Scott keeps driving. Around us, the city thrums with horns and hawkers, sirens and shouts, rock music and rowdy madness—but in here, in the haven of our darkness, there is only the wet rhythm of our bodies, the climbing force of our passion…the precipice to which we climb, aching to fall over together once again…

  “Cassian. Oh…my. Cassian!”

  “I know, sweet armeau. I know.”

  “So…close. I…am…so close.”

  “Widen your knees. It’s going to spread everything for you.”

  I feel the exact moment she complies. Before she can even cry out, her walls clench in, surrounding me in the heated vise of her body. My dick answers with a swell of pressure, punching me deeper in, pulling me closer to the sublime end of my sanity. To make it better for us both, I add a subtle roll at the end of each thrust. If the seat is grinding her clit as I think it is, the effect on her arousal will be—

  “Cassian! Fuck!”

  Damn. Damn. That word, on her lips…even my hair follicles sizzle. I sink my teeth into her shoulder, and don’t relent one inch on driving hard into her sweet, tight body. “You like that, favori?”

  “Uh,” she gasps. “Uh-huh…”

  “Of course you do. My perfect girl.” I run my hands back up, cupping beneath her bodice. Pinch her nipples again, reveling in her throaty cry, before delving my hold back beneath the dress. My hands dive in, bracing her hips. My head fits against her neck. “My perfect girl, in the dark…where it’s filthy and hot, and my cock is buried so deep inside you…”

  She inhales, shaky and edgy. Exhales between her teeth, as her hands fist around the seat buckles. “Yes,” she pants. “Yes. More. Take me there. Take. Me. There.”

  And…that’s it. Her plea snicks open the lock on my remaining restraint. With a punishing pace, I fuck her body back onto mine. I ram forward with the same force, feeding her the dialogue she craves with equally nasty intensity.

  “The only place I’m taking you is under me, woman.”

  “Yes…”

  “Taking my cock…bare…hard…deep.”

  “Yes!”

  “Your cunt will keep taking it…and so will your clit.” The tiny tremors of her nub, now flicked by my balls, have not escaped my attention.

  “Yes, Cassian. Yes.”

  “Without barriers this time.”

  “None!”

  “Feel me filling you…invading you…making you hotter by the moment, until you think you can’t stand it anymore, and—”

  Her shriek finally breaks in. “I cannot! Creator help me—Cassian, please—I cannot take it anymore!”

  ELEVEN

  *

  Mishella

  “What?” His voice is rougher, harder, and more ruthless with lust than I have ever fathomed it could be. It terrifies me. It galvanizes me. “What can’t you take anymore, Ella? Tell. Me.”

  And as he finishes it with a sharp smack to my bottom…it soaks me.

  “W-waiting,” I finally stammer. “I cannot wait any longer!”

  “For what?”

  I should be wiser about this by now. Should have known he would get me to this precipice, only to make me beg for the final fall over the cliff.

  Because he knows I will adore him for every moment of it.

  I shove my mind through sexual smoke. Pull up the words he demands—the words I need—to take us both to the edge…

  “I cannot wait…” I frantically lick my lips. “To come. For you. Around you, Cassian.”

  A sound chugs from his chest, full of sensual approval. I swear I am glowing from it, though instantly he is all animal impatience again, prompting, “And what else?”

  “And…for you to come too,” I rasp.

  The husky approval again. Brighter glow.

  “Like this?” he encourages. “With my bare cock in your cunt?”

  Oh. My.

  This. Man.

  How does he do this? How does he know the exact angle for his mental scalpel, dipping it into the exact place in my psyche that holds my naughtiest triggers…my deepest arousals?

  And right now, does that answer even matter?

  “Yes.” I shove my hips back, grinding in time to the raw pace he sets. “Yes, Cassian…with your naked cock inside me.”

  “Right here? Fucking you in my back seat?”

  “Right here, Cassian. Right now. Here, in the back of your car.”

  “Spilling my hot, thick come inside you…as anyone on this street can hear you screaming because of it?”

  I cut into his last word by embodying it. My climax rips straight from my fantasies and rampages my body, tearing a shriek from my throat, and filling my sex with a storm. Within seconds, it spirals into a tempest. With a violent groan of his own, Cassian gives me the flood of his seed, relentless with his thrusts until we are both breathless, limp, and sated.

  Slowly, he relents his grip on my hips. Though I melt forward a little, he follows me down. With his body still locked inside mine, he trails kisses down then back up my shoulder. Continues around, to the dip between my shoulder blades. His breaths are long and lingering, turning my perspiration into tiny shivers. When they trickle the length of my body, my walls clench around him once more.

  “Christ.” He grits it before zigzagging the tip of a finger down my back, causing me to grip him harder. He reprises the word, harsher now.

  I cannot help a little laugh. Add a saucy glance over my shoulder. “It is your own fault.”

  “Yeah? You may just make it my ‘fault’ again.” His face, defined by taut arousal, is still an ideal pairing with his tuxedo. He was probably one of those children who play-acted James Bond for the martinis and the girls, not the bad guy butt kicking. “Holy fuck, woman. I’m half-hard again already.” When I tighten all my muscles again, deliberately this time, he delivers a sound slap to the cheek that didn’t get it the first time. I yelp. He purrs.

  “You are a beast,” I tease.

  “A beast who has to make an appearance at this goddamn gala. So tell your sweet body to let me go…please.”

  With as much care as we can give my gown, we slide away from each other. “At least the ball is at the library,” I offer, while he scoops a towel from the limo’s bar and helps clean me up. “I can sneak off and read while you hog-nog with your people.”

  “Hob-nob?” he prompts.

  “Hm. That too.”

  “Well, there’s only one ‘knob’ that concerns me.” His face contorts as he wraps a second towel around his sex—which backs up his honesty with its beautiful, half-erect state. “And yes, it misses you already.”

  “Well, I miss him.”

  He stills, towel still on his groin. “Him?”

  Quick shrug. “Well, of course. He is part of you, so…”

  “So is it just ‘him’?” His lips twist once more, as he tucks himself back in. “Or is there a proper name involved here? How about…Eugene? Or something more basic? Bill? Bob?”

  I hold up both hands. Return with a chuckle, “All right, now. There is such a thing as carrying things too far.”

  “We just fucked like animals from the Upper West Side to SoHo. How far would you consider too far?”

  I do not miss the tightened corners of his eyes, nor
the tension now twining his tone. Perhaps he already feels the difference in the air between us…how I have stuffed away my heart the same way he has pushed down his penis. Clinical? Yes. But survivable? That is the more important yes. Nothing has proved that more clearly than what has just happened between us—a joining that blazed my heart and soul more thoroughly than his essence seared my sex—making it doubly necessary to re-shield them both.

  Before he can take over any more of them…

  Before they swell too huge, even for the shields.

  I smooth my skirts. Pull some tissues from the built-in dispenser in the ledge behind the seat, dabbing at the lipstick that now must be all over my face. “I simply think that boundaries are a smart idea…in some circumstances.”

  Cassian stiffens. His gaze turns the shade and texture of jade. “In what circumstances?”

  I draw in a breath. You knew this might happen. Remember what you mentally rehearsed.

  I re-set my shoulders. Force my stare to align with his. Creator help me. A little of my resolve weakens. His eyes are still jade—but now cut into battle daggers. Comprehension has started to seep in.

  “In this circumstance,” I state, folding calm hands around the tissues. “Everything you said earlier, Cassian…it is true, of course. We enjoy a good connection. A blend of chemistry that is…very nice, and—”

  “Nice?” As his growl slams the air, his brows descend over his glare. “Fuck. Are you really doing this? Nice?”

  I toss the tissues aside. Recollect myself. I have vowed to remain clear about this, even if he cannot view the situation accurately. Not if we are both to emerge from this arrangement as sane entities. “We…enjoy each other,” I venture again. “In many ways.”

  He matches my determined inhalation. Wraps one hand around his knee, the other on the back of the seat. A posture of openness—

  and challenge.

  “Fair statement,” he replies. “And in many ways, correct.” His stare sobers. The car glides through a small dip and sways gently, becoming the expectant metronome to his follow-up. “But…?”

  “But…” I fill my lungs again. “I cannot keep ‘enjoying’ them as thoroughly as I have been. This is for the best, Cassian. I truly believe it, and need you to do so, as well.”

  *

  Cassian

  I don’t know whether to throw a punch through the back window, or just throw up. Neither option is comforting. Both are confusing as fuck.

  This isn’t the first time I’ve heard those words from a woman. If I had a dollar, right? It’s damn near the borderline of my norm. Cassian meets girl. Cassian screws girl. Cassian tells girl she gets the Court charm, the Cassian cock, and the designer-clad arm at a few parties. Even pillow talk is part of the package…perhaps a few jokes as bonus, if things are going well.

  No hearts. No flowers. And goddammit, no life story sharing.

  Which brings us, at some point, to here. A here I am just fine with. Perhaps, in many instances, am grateful for.

  But this time, the confines of this car—of this fucking life, and the price fate has demanded from me for it—render me nothing but gutted. Same effect, anyhow.

  I grit my teeth, pumping air like a bull as bile hollows my belly and self-disgust dices my intestines. I combat both by focusing on the floor near her feet. Minutes ago, my knees were planted there in order to pleasure her. I’m not above dropping there again, if I have to beg her.

  But I wonder if even that will make a difference.

  Her regal strength, one of the qualities that blew me away when first meeting her, is now my worst enemy. It retaliates from the depths of her eyes, dark and serious as a graveyard before dawn. In short, her resolve looks pretty fucking set.

  Dammit.

  Dammit.

  “All right.” Concealing the gravel from it is as hopeless as hiding bird crap on this car. Poetic fit, since my psyche is about the same texture. “I’d ask you to define ‘for the best’, but it looks like you’ve got that figured out too.”

  A heavy gulp moves down her throat. “I—I have to take care of my heart, Cassian.” For the first time since our bodies broke apart, her voice shakes. “I have not even been here a month, and I already feel it…”

  “You feel what, armeau?”

  Her gaze flares into a glare. Armeau. I’m exploiting her hesitation and we both know it.

  “Disappearing.”

  Hell. Her tactic is worse than mine. Honesty—as only she can use it against me. Like a laser wielded by a master surgeon, aimed right at my ugliest tumors…my deepest fear.

  A world without connection again.

  A world without her again.

  “It is disappearing, Cassian…into you.” Her hands rise, covering her whole face. The tips of her fingers turn white as she shakes her head, fighting the very words she’s just confessed. “But there is nothing there for it,” she rasps. “Nothing…except…”

  “Walls.” I take the responsibility of it from her. Let the word weigh my shoulders instead, praying like hell that somehow it will—

  what?

  Change anything?

  Because it doesn’t change a fucking thing.

  Her heart is still her heart—a gift too precious for my keeping.

  And mine is still mine—a mess too morbid for her to handle. For anyone to handle. So many have tried—Kate, Prim, and the countless others who thought they had “the right key” to me—but the truth is, only one person has even gotten close to that entrance. To breaking me open.

  Shattering me whole.

  And like an idiot, I reach again for her now.

  I thank God—and any other entity who cares to take credit—when she lets me pull her closer, fitting her cheek atop my heart, spreading her warmth over my whole body. And yes, enticing the twitch parade to carry on in my dick—though that need comes a very distant second to getting an answer to the question on my lips now.

  “So…what happens now, Ella?”

  She shifts, nuzzling closer. Good sign?

  “Are you asking if I want to go home?”

  Bad sign.

  “Yeah.” I practically choke on the syllable. “Yeah, I guess that’s what I am asking.”

  I remember something about her taking special courses on Arcadia, about courtly arts and practices. Undoubtedly, the fine skill of torture was in that mix. Her silence is nothing less.

  “I do not want to go home, Cassian.”

  I breathe in, claiming back the year she’s just stripped out of me. “Thank you.” It needs to be said. Perhaps more than once. Maybe from that position I was contemplating, at her feet.

  “But I need to move into one of the guest rooms.”

  “Sure.” It spews too quickly and too eagerly, and I don’t give a flying shit. I make a mental note to text Hodge and direct him to clutter up the two guest rooms farthest from the master, forcing her into the third. “Yeah. Okay.”

  “And we make dates to see each other,” she goes on. “Real ones, where we go out in public and I get to meet your friends. What?” She knuckles me curiously in the ribs, responding to my snort. “You do have friends?”

  “I suppose.” I don’t have the heart to tell her my closest “buddy” is Doyle, whose idea of stimulating conversation is four grunts, two beers, and a good Knicks game.

  “Well, we can start with Kate. Is she dating anyone?”

  “I don’t know.” Which is usually the case—which, for the first time, comes as truly troubling.

  “We can figure it out.” The woman in my arms shifts back to central focus. I curl in my fingers, making light circles on her creamy shoulder, enjoying the musical cadence of her voice…rejoicing in the fact that it’s not leaving me anytime soon. “The important thing is, we get away from Temptation, so we are not always…well…tempted.”

  Light chuckle. A gentle kiss into her hair. “Why, Miss Santelle, whatever do you mean?”

  “Says the man with a woodshed poking my thigh?”

>   I laugh harder. Much harder. “You mean some wood?”

  “Hm. That too.”

  TWELVE

  *

  Mishella

  “Mishella?”

  I hear Scott’s concerned prompt, backed by the rush of traffic along 5th Avenue behind us, but cannot answer. My jaw has dropped on one of the most stunned gapes of my life.

  “Armeau?” Cassian now, his body large and close, one hand curving around my elbow, his cedar scent a perfect blend with the grass, trees, and spring flowers abounding through Bryant Park. I now remember Brooke gushing about this place, once she learned that the Literacy Ball would be held at the big library here. Before her family went into hiding on Arcadia, when she was just a young senator’s daughter, she attended something called Fashion Week. The event was a bore, she claimed, but the magnificence of Bryant Park was a win.

  Now I understand why.

  “Ella.”

  The urgency in his voice finally causes me to turn. I do not hide my continuing shock—as if that is even possible. “Cassian…”

  His mouth hitches up at one end. “What, beautiful?”

  “We are in the wrong place.” I blurt it despite the small throng of other partygoers, strolling along the wide pathways and majestic steps of the soaring Beaux-Arts building before us.

  Scott steps forward, darting a worried look. “This thing is at the Library?” he queries Cassian. “Right?”

  “But this is not a library.”

  “Huh?”

  “It is a palace!”

  Though Scott relaxes, his posture takes on a shrug. “No better place for books then, yeah?”

  I absorb that with a wider smile. “Cassian?”

  “Yes, armeau?”

  “Give Scott a raise.”

  The young man breaks into a chuckle. “I think I’m going to like having her around, Mr. Court.”

  Cassian loops an arm around my waist, tugging me tightly. “Me too, Scott. Me too.”

  The Schwarzman building is more breathtaking on the inside. We enter Astor Hall by descending wide stone steps flanked by balustrades worthy of a Parisian palace, their fancy scrolls and swirls matching archways down the length of the room, all supporting a soaring, ornate ceiling. Similar carvings adorn the stone bases of multiple candelabra, all at least twenty feet high, lending a romantic glow along with colored lighting, purple and orange and amber, around the room’s perimeter. From some hidden location, a string ensemble plays classic pieces.