by Alexis Hall
A pause.
Then Caspian murmured something, his tone politely encouraging, and the conversation resumed. It should have been more incongruous: him dealing with whatever he was dealing with, while I was shuddering helplessly on his cock. But it was the same thing, really, wasn’t it—utter command of his universe, from the financial empire he ruled to the lover panting and writhing on his desk.
I honestly thought he’d be at his most remote. I didn’t know how else he could be responding with such ease and precision in a language that wasn’t even his own. But then he glanced down at me and I didn’t think I’d ever seen him quite that out of control, with his hair sweat-heavy over his brow and his cheeks all sex-flushed with heat and exhilaration. His eyes were bright with cruelty but there was something softer too. Something heartbreakingly innocent. Joy, maybe?
It was a good job I was gagged.
I mean, I could probably avoid having a screaming orgasm while he was on speakerphone with Tokyo, but no power on earth would have stopped me blurting out I love you. I kissed his hand instead and he smiled at me, this perfect, film-star smile.
Then he started, as if maybe—just maybe—he’d lost track of the discussion the teeniest tiniest bit. Thankfully, he couldn’t see me smirking under his palm. He said something fairly sharp in response to whatever the other man was telling him and reached into the interior pocket of his jacket, pulling out a fountain pen of such sleek, gold-edged simplicity it was must have been worth more than my family’s house.
Twisting off the lid with a practiced motion, he brought the nib to the planes of my abdomen and scribbled something across my skin. I squinted down my own body trying to see. Numbers? A series of numbers.
It was a weird sensation—a little bit scratchy, a little bit tickly, not really pleasure, not quite pain—but, oh God, the ownership in it. The casual way he marked me and claimed me, turned me into his personal Google keep.
And oh fuck…fuck I was going to lose it completely.
He must have realized. Probably he couldn’t have failed to, given my curling toes and the straining muscles in my thighs, the noises he was almost managing to contain in his hand. A few more notes I could barely keep still for and a hasty—I assumed—goodbye. And the line went dead with the sweetest click I’d ever heard in my life.
The moment my mouth was free, I let out this…mortifying banshee wail of sex need. Caspian’s pen clacked against the desk. And then he was fucking me, fucking me hard enough to rattle the glass and judder my bones, and it was perfect, the pleasure as inexorable as the hammering of his cock against my prostate, coiling so tight inside me it was like being strangled. In a good way. Maybe. I wasn’t sure.
I sucked in a sobbing breath. “Ohgodcaspianpleaseohgodplease.” Fuck knew what I was begging for. More. Less. The luxurious liberty of begging itself, I didn’t know. I didn’t care.
Just…
“Caspian.”
Tears leaked from the corners of my eyes. Moisture pooled on my stomach from my cock. I was starting to slide on the desk, driven back with every harsh shove into me. The scent of us—sex and sweat and the last honeyed base notes of Caspian’s cologne—hung heavy in the air. And the sounds we made together had turned ugly: the wet slap of skin and the squelch of lube, his ragged breaths and my frantic cries.
But it was all beautiful somehow.
The reality of sex. Rough and raw and glorious.
And when he finally wrapped a hand around my cock, I came hard and instantly, relief pushing me over the edge and then almost into unconsciousness with the baseball bat of orgasm.
Breath-snatching. Heart-bursting. Like thunder inside me.
Wracking me from fingers to toes. To the ends of my fucking hair.
Muscles just…weren’t happening anymore. My hands dropped, my legs fell, curling around Caspian. But he was probably too far gone to notice. He half collapsed on top of me, his face pressed against my neck, and came too, almost silently, in great body-shaking heaves.
I forced my arms into action and got them round him.
Held him tight.
A stolen embrace when he was closest, and most lost, to me.
I was utterly sex-dazed but it wasn’t an ideal situation for a languorous afterglow. Caspian was heavy and the glass was hard and my arse had that wet, well-fucked feeling that made me slightly self-conscious about the mess I might be making on his desk.
“You’d better rescue your notes,” I mumbled, “because I’m seriously—oh fuck.” Whatever he’d written was nothing but sweaty, pale-blue smears. “I’m really sorry. Was…was it important?”
“Yes.” A pause. “Which is why I memorized what I needed.”
I’d been so ready to feel awful that I ended up giggling instead. “And then wrote on me anyway?”
“I’m afraid”—he looked almost abashed—“I wasn’t thinking all that clearly.”
“It’s okay. It was superhot.”
His fingers followed my tattoo over my hip. “But I know I wanted to claim a little piece of you.”
“You can claim all of me.”
“My beautiful Arden.” He smiled at me, but there was something almost sad about it, his hands soft on my body. “In some ways, you are unconquerable. And I wouldn’t have it otherwise.”
“Write on me again?” I wriggled enticingly…if somewhat stickily.
“Write what?”
“Anything you like. How about Caspian + Arden 4 Eva in a big heart?”
That earned me an exasperated look.
I prodded him with my foot. “Please? It doesn’t even have to be romantic.”
“I’m not literary like you.”
“You mean you’ve never stumbled across some words arranged into an order you quite liked? Ever?”
“It’s not that.” He picked the pen back up and absently fiddled with it, twisting its lid round and round between his fingers. “I’m afraid I find it rather exposing.”
“Caspian, I came to your office practically naked.”
“Yes, but you chose to do that.”
Oh fuck. He had a point. I was being super pushy—and one person’s risky titillation was another person’s excruciating nightmare. “I’m sorry. Ignore me. You don’t have to.”
He leaned down—smooshing our too-hot bodies together in a way that was only okay because we’d just had the best sex ever—and kissed me. “No, I’ll do it. I just need to think what to write.”
“But I don’t want you to do something that makes you uncomfortable.”
“You do many uncomfortable things for me.”
I blushed, very aware I was sort of…dripping on his desk. “They’re things I like doing, though.”
“And, in return, there are ways I’m willing to be uncomfortable for you.”
He slid the lid off the pen, found a bit of me he liked that wasn’t too sweaty, and began to write. I couldn’t see much except his head bent over me. But that just made me feel what he was doing all the more intensely. The sharp-delicate pressure made my toes curl. And imagine what it might be like if it was a blade he held.
“What does it say?” I asked when he was done—since all I could make out was a ribbon of blue across my hip and stomach.
He gave me an unreadable smile. “You’ll have to wait and see.”
That was when I realized I’d spent so long sweating the arriving part of this little escapade that I hadn’t given any thought at all to the leaving. The idea of pulling my gorgeous new coat over my seriously sexed body and limping wetly into a taxi was one gazillion percent the wrong uncomfortable. Did Caspian keep spare clothes in his office? It was a posh building—maybe there would be an onsite employee gym, or something, with a shower I could use.
“What’s wrong? Did I hurt you?” Caspian pulled away abruptly. But since, not so very long ago, he would have taken me being post-coitally tense as an invitation to run like hell, this was definitely progress.
I sat up gingerly, pressing my knees together a
nd folding my hands over my dick, in what was a pretty belated act of modesty. “No. Not at all. Just, err, fretting about logistics.”
“Logistics?”
“Yeah. I need to get back somehow.”
Caspian was silent for a long moment. Apart from the fact there was come and ink on his shirt from where our bodies had pressed against each other, he looked…well…almost put-together. Whereas I was wrecked from eyes to arse.
Then he leaned in and brushed back a lock of hair that had gone off on a frolic of its own when I’d been too busy having sex to keep it under control. “Don’t worry about that. You can stay with me.”
“Are you sure?” I asked, with fucking extraordinary nonchalance.
From the look on his face, I didn’t think he was all that sure, but he nodded anyway. And, dammit, I would take it.
“Here.” He took off his shirt and wrapped it round me. It was warm from him and smelled of him—quite pungently of him, actually, considering what we’d just been doing—and, being ridiculously expensive, it was soft and smooth against my still over-sensitive skin. Of course it was way too big for me, brushing my stocking tops, but I was totally okay with that. It felt like being in Caspian’s arms.
Once I was only partially indecent, he helped me down off the desk. We stared a moment at the imprints we’d left on the glass: smudges of heat and sweat and other fluids.
He didn’t quite facepalm but his palm hovered perilously close to his face. “What in God’s name was I thinking? This was so unprofessional.”
It seemed sensible to brace myself for a cavalcade of regret. I hung my head. “Sorry.”
“Don’t be silly, Arden. I was as responsible for it as you.”
“But I turned up in a…a…” I made an awkward gesture. “…provocative way.”
“Yes, and I chose to respond by fucking you on my desk. Which I enjoyed very much.”
“Really?” I shot him a silly, happy smile. “You aren’t freaking out?”
“No.”
“It was still bad of me, though. You should, y’know, probably spank me later.”
He laughed and pulled me unexpectedly into something I could only call a hug. Squeezed me so tightly, so desperately, I nearly ran out of breath. “Oh Arden, you’re incorrigible.”
I nodded into his chest.
“Please, never stop.”
“No intention of it,” I mumbled. Though what I was thinking was: please never stop holding me like this.
Of course he did. And if he hadn’t, it would have been awkward, what us having to eat and go to the toilet and have separate lives and things. But I could have taken a little bit more of being hugged like that.
A lot more, to be honest.
Chapter 11
Once we were untangled, he led me over to a different lift. The doors were so discreet I hadn’t even noticed them the last time I’d been here. And tonight I’d been a bit busy for sightseeing. I was just staring blankly, but the pressure of his hand at the small of my back propelled me forward.
“Make yourself at home,” he told me. “I need to clean up and finish my work. But I’ll be with you as soon as I can.”
It took a moment or two for the implication of his words to sink in. “Wait, you live here?”
“I have several houses. This is one of the places I stay when I need to.” Since I was still nonfunctional, he pressed the button for me. “See you soon.”
A few seconds later, I was blundering into his apartment. Or rather “one of the places he stayed in.” While it had clearly been decorated in a no-expense-spared way Caspian favored, it was nowhere near as opulent as One Hyde Park. In fact, in billionaire terms, it was positively monkish.
No personal touches, but I hadn’t really expected it. The austerity, if nothing else, was Caspian: the emphasis on smooth wood and polished stone, the slightly overwhelming sense of space created by the high ceilings and the triple aspect windows. The Sahara noir marble floors—beautiful though they were—were slippery and chill beneath my feet. Which meant my most overriding impression of Caspian’s penthouse was that it needed a goddamn rug or two.
I penguin-shuffled into the bathroom, which was yet more marble, relieved, if you could call it that, by granite and gold, and reluctantly divested myself of Caspian’s shirt. Then tried to figure what he’d written. Which wasn’t actually that straightforward since it was either upside-down (if I used my eyes) or back-to-front (if I used a mirror).
In the end I took a photo with my phone. I was trying to get a good angle on the words, but it turned out to be a pretty good angle on me. I’d twisted round to expose the writing, so my body was all sleek curves and sharp edges. And for once my bony bits and squeezy bits were working in harmony instead of contriving to make me look like a knobbly gazelle. My leg was conveniently in the way of my junk so it wasn’t porny—more suggestive with the laddered thigh highs, the smudgy bruise shadows on my flanks and the vulnerable ridges of my clavicles. This was so getting a grainy filter and going on Instagram.
I zoomed in so I could see what Caspian had written. It was two lines, curling neatly over my hip a bit like my tattoo: what will the creature made all of seadrift do on the dry sand of daylight; what will the mind do, each morning, waking?
Well. So much for an Oxford education. I had no idea what it was from. I could have googled it, of course, but that would’ve felt like cheating. I touched the loops where the ink was already blurring. Kind of a shame to wash it off straightaway. Except Caspian would be along at some point and I didn’t want to greet him smelling like the bargain basement option at a bordello.
He had one of those walk-in shower room type things, with about eighty multidirectional settings for water to blast you unpleasantly in the face. When I found one that wasn’t overwhelmingly painful and hitting the right parts of my body, I had a hasty wash and enjoyed unparalleled views of the London skyline. It felt weird to be soaping my bits and staring at the dome of St Paul’s but…that was my life now.
Curtains, I was starting to realize, were a poor people invention. If you were rich enough, you just got to move the world out of your way.
As I dried off, I fretted slightly about Caspian being witness to the carnage that was my hair post-shower. But then I remembered I’d vomited on his feet, shown him my arsehole, and begged him, on several occasions, to spank me. So probably he could cope with my duckish floof.
There was, however, still no sign of him, which left me at a loss. He’d said I should make myself comfortable, but I wasn’t sure where to start because everything was showroom perfect. And showroom anonymous. I only managed to figure out which bedroom was his because there were suits in the wardrobe. And it felt all kinds of creepy having to look.
I did have a little wander, in case I’d missed where Caspian really lived. But no: all I found was a series of empty, pristine rooms, and a door I couldn’t open.
Which was weird, right? Edging into super weird.
Because why was it there? What was behind it? And who the fuck did that? It wasn’t even like he’d known I was coming, and thought to himself, Better secure my priceless collection of Fabergé eggs before Arden accidentally breaks them.
It was just there. A locked room permanently in his apartment.
I mean, was Caspian a vampire, and this was where he chained up his blood-doll? Or was he your regular, common or garden kidnapper? Maybe he was a masked vigilante and this was where he kept his cape? Or he was one of those conspiracy theorist types and the walls would be covered in maps and newspaper clippings, connected by bits of string.
Or probably it was a room he happened to have that happened to be inaccessible. And I was massively overreacting. After all, he didn’t owe me unfettered access to his past, his heart, or the place where he lived. I wasn’t Judith, running about Duke Bluebeard’s castle, believing love was the answer to every question, and the key to every lock.
Well, apart from the bit where I was ransacking Caspian’s apartment.
/>
Literally looking for a key to a lock.
So I could open a door that was at least eighty percent metaphor at this point.
In any case, I was foiled. And trying to bash my way in cop-show style didn’t work either. It just hurt my shoulder. Hurt my shoulder quite a lot, actually.
So I retreated to what I’d concluded was the master bedroom, and slipped under the cool, crisp covers of the huge and ridiculously comfortable bed. Gazed out of the unavoidable windows.
How did Caspian feel as he lay here? Masterful? Like a corporate emperor?
Me, I felt small. Squashed by the vastness of things. And haunted by a room I couldn’t get into.
I was so sick of crashing against all the stuff I didn’t know about Caspian Hart. Of feeling that however close I got to him there was always another barrier. Secrets he’d never tell me. Parts of him I couldn’t reach.
And that…honestly, it sucked. Because all I wanted was to throw wide the chambers of his heart and fill them full of light.
Oh fuck.
I was totally Judith.
Except my Duke would barely let me through the front door. Let alone into his torture chamber or near his lake of tears.
Rolling over, I intended to put my head under the pillow but then I spotted a book on the floor, partly hidden by the spill of the bedclothes. It was a battered paperback, with a pulpy cartoonish cover and big bright lettering that proclaimed it: Downbelow Station.
It was so much the last thing I would’ve expected that I found myself wondering—in what was, admittedly, a slightly messed-up way—if another lover had left it.
Picking it up, I peeked inside. What I think they always called a bold hand in Victorian novels had written To Arthur, with love, L in the front. Neither the name nor the initial seemed connected to Caspian in any way. Which meant I knew even less about him than I thought. Or he’d picked it up in a charity shop one day. Or it wasn’t his at all and the maid—of course he had a maid—had dropped it.