1001 Dark Nights: Bundle Five

by Julie Kenner

  My abdomen clenches. My backside pinches in.

  Oh, dear Creator…

  Close.

  A few more. Please…

  Close.

  I am not even aware of the words spilling off my lips, until his growl interjects—and his head pulls up. “Not yet, armeau. Not…yet.”

  I whine, protesting and almost angry, reaching back to grab the pillows. There have to be a dozen of them on his big bed, and for a fleeting second, I wonder why I do not know the exact count. I have barely left these sheets for seventy-two hours. Surely there was time to count all his pillows at some point…

  But there was not. Not between sleeping and…things like this.

  Lots and lots and lots of this.

  The most perfect three days of my life.

  Consumed with giving myself to the most perfect man in the world.

  His body like a gold marble god, taut and defined as he rolls on a condom. His face lined with fierce passion, as he gazes over my spread nudity. His eyes, shimmering and sharp, as he scrapes fingernails down my thighs, to my knees…

  And slams my legs wide.

  “Keep them like that,” he orders. “The whole time I’m fucking you.” A moment later, he prompts, “What do you say to that?”

  “Y-yes, Cassian.”

  He knows I’ll barely get it out. He knows what his rougher, filthier side does to me. How all his dirty words affect me, incinerating the bonds of propriety that have been the hallmarks of my existence for so long. With the words, he gives me no choice about leaving them behind…about becoming his perfect little investment.

  And I do feel perfect.

  Adored.

  Desired.

  Worthy.

  His face tightens as he positions himself at my entrance. His body is hard…everywhere. I raise my arms, anxious to learn its formidable landscape once more, but he growls, “No. Leave them where they are. Grip the pillows. It lifts your luscious tits…so perfectly.” He sucks and bites one then the other, still taunting my entrance with his cock. “You like that, don’t you? When I make your nipples erect like this? When you know exactly what it does to my dick?”

  I struggle for breath. “Oh…y-yes, Cassian.”

  “And does it make you hot too, little Ella?”

  “Yes, Cassian.”

  “Does it make your tunnel wet? Turn you into my horny, sweet sorceress, ready to be fucked?”

  “Yes, Cassian.”

  He lifts back up. Digs his hands into my hips, pulling my body another inch around his, opening the view to his heated gaze—and mine. The sight of his shaft, absorbed into the softness of my core, is as mesmerizing as the rest of him. Muscles straining. Power coiling. Passion building. He is beautiful, rippled…stunning.

  “Then use the words.” He intensifies his grip along with the dictate. “Tell me what you want…with the words I want.”

  I swallow hard. There will be no getting away with a gentle morning screw. This explosion is going to be nuclear…for both of us.

  “Take me,” I rasp. “Please…deep inside…with your cock. Take your payment back from my body, until I cannot see straight. Until I scream from being filled by you—”

  Then I do scream, as he plows me hard and hot. No inch of my sex is left wanting. He handles me like a piece of clay, subjected to the pound of his ruthless hammer. In a sense, I am. Less than a week after even meeting the man, I am a being recreated…an artwork unveiled with every slice of his chisel…

  Then shattered.

  Blown apart into a thousand pieces of being, of feeling, of frantic, perfect fulfillment…

  “Take it.”

  “Yes, Cassian.”

  “All of my cock.”

  “Yes, Cassian.”

  “In your perfect cunt.”

  “Yes…yes…yes!” The pieces of me explode into dust. “Cassian!” I am nothing but sensation, climaxing hard, senses rejoicing as he dissolves with me, coming deep inside me.

  And for the fiftieth time in the last week, I wonder if I truly will ever be the same.

  Or if I want to be.

  Before I can delve into the morose possibilities for answers to that, Cassian’s phone vibrates on the nightstand—for the twentieth time this morning. He groans. I giggle.

  “I knew I’d regret telling the world I’m back on the grid.”

  “I think our jerk is up, Mr. Court.”

  For some reason, that quirks his lips. “Jig.”

  “Now?” I glance down. At the moment, dancing in any form is rather out of the question.

  He explains only by popping a quick kiss to my forehead, before reaching for the device with a brisk swipe. “Rob. Good morning.”

  Between getting his hands on–and in—me, the man has at least divulged that “Rob” is short for Robin, who, in an even more confusing twist, is a young man in his first job out of college. From what I can tell, Rob is succeeding. In the last seventy-two hours, Cassian has entrusted him with everything from changing security passwords—a weekly ritual at Court Enterprises—to things a little more personal, like scheduling a physician appointment for his boss today.

  That being known, Cassian still earns a new dose of my amazement with the tone, as if he’s standing in a board room instead of prone in bed, still buried inside me. “Better, thanks,” he continues. “Scheduling that fast turn-around for the Arcadia trip was probably too aggressive. I’m current on emails and the latest reports though,”—he shrugs at my when-did-that-happen gawk—“and I’ll be coming in today. That face-to-face with Flynn Whelan is too important. Have his people confirmed for lunch? Good. Make sure the catering team brings up that Italian water he likes. Any other notable calls?”

  It sounds like Rob hesitates, but delivers the reply in a businesslike tone. Cassian matches the timbre—on the surface. Beyond the new shutters over his expression, I see the same discomfort that first stopped Rob—though he quickly cloaks it. I am not sure whether to be relieved or angry. The resulting confusion makes me restless. I shift, pull away, and leave for the bathroom—as if the sliding wood door can keep out the river stone perfection of his voice, smoothness and power beneath each baritone syllable.

  “No. You responded as you should have, Rob. She’s been fishing for a definitive on the Literacy Ball for a few months. Jumping up the chain and turning in the RSVP herself…well, I’ll applaud her for the guts, if not the intelligence.” Heavy huff, through a definitive pause. “Call Yolanda Wood at the Literacy Guild. Clarify my RSVP is for two, but I’ll phone myself with my guest’s name by EOB today. It will definitely not be Amelie Hampton’s.”

  I finish my business, debating whether to follow my original plan and start the shower, or find a journal and note the name Amelie Hampton. The knot in my belly supports the latter. It is not simply the stress she has brought to Cassian—whoever she is—though that is a start. It is the discomfiting questions now raised in my heart—and the anger that rises in their wake.

  Did you think he was living a monk’s life before you arrived?

  Did you think because he moved you into his bedroom, he planned on keeping himself out of others?

  Did you think he doesn’t have a hundred other “Amelie Hamptons” across this city? This country?

  I shake my head, forcing the funk away. With a short huff, crank on the shower. Climb in under the wonderfully hot spray, deliberately turning from the granite seat upon which my backside has been planted numerous times over the last few days—for the most erotic of reasons. Right now, it is best to deal strictly with the steam from the water instead of those salacious visions—and how many women from Cassian’s past share the exact same memories.

  Too late.

  As he enters the bathroom, clearly finished with Rob, it is too easy to imagine him walking in on another girl, in another time, and tossing his condom in the trash with the same laser accuracy. It is even more effortless to think of him turning and peering through the stall glass, the same dimpled smirk on his
face…with the same dreamy follow-through.

  “Why’d you start in there without me?”

  Oh, yes. All the others have surely felt just like this as well—body newly tingling, senses freshly awakened, tongue perfectly tied—as he plants those long fingers against his corded hips, purposefully pulling attention to that magnificent appendage at their juncture…

  I. Will. Not. Look. I. Will. Not. Look.

  I steal a small glance. Just one. Dear sweet Creator, why did you build him with such magnificence? Especially there?

  I manage to hitch a little shrug. Whether it hits the mark on the nonchalance I am aiming for is hard to discern—especially because his face has transformed to the opposite. I avoid that new intensity to explain, “You…sounded busy. I did not want to be…”

  I let it trail off as he enters the stall, seeming to do so in one masterful sweep. I am sure he opened the glass door, even stepped over the tile lip at the shower’s edge, but those sort of movements always seem to simply flow into the powerful prose of his body…

  And now the unblinking force of his stare.

  “You did not want to be what?”

  His tone, just as unflinching, pulses more parts of me to life again. But we are discussing his conversation with Rob, and recalling that brings back composure. At least a little. “In the way,” I supply. “Or interfering…with…important subjects.”

  A worm on a hook would be more graceful. I am certain my face flushes, beyond what color the steam has already brought. The man is no bloody help, tilting my face up with a finger then softly but thoroughly kissing me. Before I can help it, my arms twine around his neck, my body molds against every gloriously hard inch of him—only when I expect him to swoop in with the full force of his lust, he steps back. Then again. Literally looks down to make sure his lengthening sex is not touching me in any way, before finally speaking again.

  “Let’s make something clear.” He jogs his head in the direction of the bedroom. “That is all the ‘interference.’ That’s all the ‘getting in the way’ crap. This,”—he traces a finger in the air between our chests—“and this,”—then between our foreheads—“is the ‘important subject’ you need to be worrying about.”

  I only swallow hard. There is nothing to say. And everything. And I am more flummoxed than ever.

  “Mishella.”

  “What?”

  “Look at me.” His stare awaits, ready with forest darkness. “Yeah. I thought so.”

  “Thought so…what?”

  “You don’t believe me.”

  “Because I do not have to.” I grab his hands. “Cassian, you had a life before I arrived. And you shall have one after I leave—”

  “So you’re already that anxious to go?” The forests flare with angry fires. I try to understand—anger is fear’s child, so what is he afraid of?—but cannot surpass my own uncertainty to see it. I am thousands of miles from home, in a land where even the stupid light switches are new to me, and he is playing at the jilted insecurity?

  “Are you truly asking that?” I seethe. “After the last three days? After I gave you my virginity?”

  “Which I paid for,” he retorts, “as you cannot seem to stop reminding me.”

  “Because it is the truth!”

  “Because that ‘truth’ is your safety.”

  He does not stop at the accusation. Uses his body as judge and juror, convicting me with the physical lunge that not only closes the gap between us, but flattens me against the shower’s granite wall. His body, tightening and flexing, is now a hard, imposing intruder. His shoulders bunch, ropes of muscles playing against his wet flesh, as he meshes our fingers against the granite.

  “Look at me,” he growls again. “Look. At. Me.” When I do, he lowers his face until I can see my reflection in the beads of water down his straight nose, along his clenched jaw. “You don’t get to be safe here, Ella. Neither of us does. We can keep talking about the money, keep pretending it’s the chasm that’s protecting our castles—or we can just admit the truth.” His hands screw tighter into mine. His body pushes harder…so much bigger… “I’m in the fucking chasm, woman—and I’m careening. Tumbling. Every moment I’m with you, next to you, inside you, it gets deeper. Darker. There’s no bottom in sight—nor do I want there to be.”

  I work to get air. Very little comes. My balance tilts. My senses swim. He is the only anchor; my new reality. I whimper, lost in the force of his rough words…the magic. Wanting to believe magic really exists…

  but…

  “Wh-what about…her?”

  His gaze glitters. He shakes his head, confused. “Her who?”

  Before the answer is even out, I feel like a petty salpu. “Amelie,” I clarify, feeling as if I must. “Hampton. Remember? The woman who responds on your behalf to social engagements?”

  “Because she was torqued at me for going to Arcadia without her. Because she also doesn’t know how to express herself like, let’s say, a mature adult.” He pulls away. His shoulders dip as if a weight has been slung across them. “And also, because I’ve let her get away with it before.” Measured huff. “Look…I won’t lie to you, Ella. I’ve let several women get away with it before—because I haven’t really cared before.”

  My turn for the irked exhalation finally comes. “So…what does that mean…”

  …for me.

  I let the words remain implied. He is not a stupid man. He shows me so by settling his gaze firmly back into mine. “It means that I care now.” He lets go of my hands, closing them both in to frame my face. “That I’m not going to that goddamn event with anyone on my arm but the most beautiful woman in New York.” His dimples reappear, deep as craters, as I crunch a questioning frown. “You, my pahaleur armeau.”

  For the first time in my life, I roll my eyes at a man.

  Partly because he deserves it.

  Partly because I know I can.

  Mostly because it feels so, so good.

  In return, his own eyes go dark with sage smoke. “Christ. Did you roll your eyes at me?” When I do it again, the desire takes over the rest of his face—and his cock slots against my most sensitive tissues, zinging heat to every nerve ending in my body. “You know what I want to do with that expression, don’t you, young lady?”

  The grate in his tone brings me more boldness. I toss a flirty glance up, tugging at my lip with my teeth—and his erection with my fingers. He hisses. I clutch harder. By the Creator, I love touching him. Everywhere—but especially here. Feeling him pulse beneath my palm. Watching his jaw clench. Savoring the power that I, for once, have over him…

  “Hmmm,” I murmur. “I…have no idea. Maybe it is best that you show me, Mr. Court?”

  His throat vibrates with a low, snarly sound. “Maybe it’s best that I do.”

  My breath clutches. Holds. I hope, perhaps too desperately, for my backside and the shower seat to become best friends again. Instead, Cassian shifts his hold to my shoulders, urging me down. The action is too brusque to let me trail him with kisses, but I am able to take a tactile exploration. My hand travels the hills of his abdomen, glides into the indent of his hip, savors the perfect plateaus of his thighs. “Beautiful,” I rasp. “You are…so beautiful, Cassian.”

  He lifts his hands, burying them in the wet tangles of my hair, as I kneel before him. With his hold digging into my scalp, he grates, “Then wrap your beauty around me.”

  I cannot refuse. I do not want to. In my most illicit dreams I have already imagined doing this for him…and for me. Taking over him like this, hoping I can enthrall his body as he does mine…I am flushed all over, intoxicated and afire…all my senses swirl, aroused and alive.

  “Fuck.” His groan is as tight as the sinew of his legs, clenching as I grasp them, pushing him deeper inside me. His flesh, musky and wet, pushes at the confines of my mouth. So huge. So delicious. His hands brace the back of my head, soon setting a pace for each new lunge over his pulsing length. “Beautiful…favori…take me…
take me…”

  His words are like the steam, curling around us, dissolving my thoughts into nothing more than particles on the air. I’ve evaporated, now just a swirl myself, my actions completely controlled by his passion…his will.

  “Touch yourself, Ella. Stroke your clit.”

  I obey at once. Release a moan around his girth.

  “Touch me with your other hand. Around my balls. Yes. Like that.”

  I moan louder. So does he. He rams into my mouth at a quicker pace. The sac beneath my hand throbs and writhes. His cock grows, testing the limits of my throat.

  Faster.

  Hotter.

  Sucking.

  Stroking.

  Climbing.

  Coming.

  As the zenith hits my pussy, I scream—welcoming the ropes of cream he gives my throat. I drink burst after burst of his perfect completion…his beautiful passion. And embrace all the beauty he sees in me too…

  And am glad the water cascading down our bodies can mask the sheen of my tears, born of an exquisite, inescapable realization.

  In being owned by him…

  I have been set truly free.

  Leaving only one insane dilemma.

  How will I ever set him free now?

  CASSIAN

  I have to turn from Ella while buttoning up my shirt.

  First, the sight of her in the chair next to the window, dressed in nothing but my bathrobe, is too fucking tempting. She’s only five feet from the bed I yearn to throw her back onto, keeping her captive for three more days.

  Second—my fingers are shaking.

  Trembling.

  Me.

  Like a fucking cat in the rain.

  And I never want it to end.

  The same way I never wanted to leave that bed. Or the shower—dear fuck, that shower—or the magical wrap of her arms, her eyes, her body.

  How the hell am I ever going to set her free?

  Because in another five months and three weeks, she’ll be properly purged, man. Spoiled and fucked into perfect oblivion. With any luck, she’ll even be like all the rest: another Amelie, ready to stomp all over your space with the social engagements, the photo ops…perhaps even the pre-business trip hissy fits…