by Angel Payne
His throat rumbles roughly as he slides even lower, palming my backside. “Well, this sure as hell isn’t the one for public consumption.”
I fight not to rub up against him. “For the lion’s eyes only.”
“Fucking right.”
I swallow hard. Force rational thought to return. “But as long as we have broached upon that subject…”
“Of your costume?” He swirls enticing circles across both my cheeks. “Or my eyes only on it? Or my fingers underneath it?”
“Of what I am wearing on top of it.”
“Huh?”
“T-tomorrow m-morning.” I forgive myself the stammering. Right now, with him stroking up the valley between my buttocks, it is a miracle I can think, let alone speak. “For the interview. With—with Chantal Dunne.”
His hand stops. His nose flares, Blows out a lengthy snort. “Even painkillers won’t make me amenable to the subject of her right now, armeau.”
I scoot my head back a little. Look up at him through my lashes—on purpose. “But you agreed to sit down with her, in front of the cameras, for me.” My hand lifts to thread adoring fingers through his hair. The stuff is so thick, it is still damp next to his scalp. “I am…beyond grateful, Cassian.”
He dips his forehead against mine. “For the light in those eyes, I’d give Chantal Dunne an interview on Mars.”
“The TGN studios are much closer,” I deadpan.
“Thank fuck, because my navy Tom Ford is going to be a sauna tomorrow.”
Puzzled frown. “So why are you wearing it?”
“Because it goes best with my cobalt tie, and that goes best with the dress you picked out.” He flashes a cockier version of the lip-tug grin. “Yeah, I spied on you picking it out in the other room before I showered.”
Groan.
I let out a real one while rolling to my back. Instead of shaking off his hold, the move just drags him up and over, until I am returning his probing stare with a glower. “‘Spied’ is right,” I accuse. “You were not supposed to—”
“Listen to everything you were muttering at the same time?”
At least the assertion unseats his grip on my ass, forcing his hand up to stop the face palm I prepare to indulge. I battle him with a not-so-ladylike grunt.
“I—I do not know what you—”
“Yes you do.” His voice is lenient but his grip is not, locking my arm into the pillow next to my head, his thumb digging into my palm. “Things like ‘what the hell was I thinking’ and ‘all these dresses make me look like a cow’ and ‘Cassian will have me on the next plane home after this’.” His thumb pinches deeper. “Sounding familiar, beautiful?”
At first, he receives only my peeved hiss. His face is like a lake from a European postcard: breathtaking and serene. Dammit.
“The idea was mine!” I debate. “You remember that, yes?”
“Of course I do.”
“So I had no bloody right to feel so nervous about it.” The past tense reference is useless. Just thinking about it now turns my stomach into an emulation of the designer fountain in the Court Towers lobby, with bile and nerves instead of chrome and water.
“Bullshit.” Cassian leans down, pinning me tighter with the pressure of his whole body. “You had every goddamn right. You still do.” Impales me with even deeper intensity in his gaze. “You think I was kidding when I called the idea crazy?” he charges. “Chantal Dunne is a hell’s hare in bunny’s clothing—fluffy on the outside, vicious on the inside. Think Barbie meets Maleficent, marinated in a subtle Nurse Ratched.”
“Huh?”
He snorts. “I have to stop picking spy thrillers on movie nights. But for now,”—he moves his hold to the side of my neck, brushing a thumb along my jaw—“I’m in this with you, Ella. All the way. Though the idea may be crazy, it’s also brilliant.” The kiss he presses is quick but intense, sending tingles down to my toes. “Now, we just need to make sure it’s really brilliant.”
I twist my head a little. Dip a frown. “‘Really brilliant’. I hope that comes with an instruction manual?”
“Not a word of one.” He releases a long breath. “But we’ll write it the best way possible. Together.”
I counter him with a deep inhalation. “All right.” Give him the steady trust of my gaze. “How do we start?”
“By recognizing where Chantal will start,” he asserts. “Beer pong or not, her staff has undoubtedly been ordered to do their homework on us.”
My belly floods with fresh anxiety. Brims over, sluicing a chill through my bloodstream. “H-homework? About what?”
His touch still reassures, but his brow furrows. “I don’t know yet. Doyle and his team are doing what they can to find out, but we likely won’t know everything she’s got until we’re face-to-face with her on set tomorrow.”
The chill becomes ice. “Everything she—” I push against him. “Cassian.” Sit straight up, clutching a hand over the wild pounding of my heart. “Do you think she will find out…about the real terms of the contract?”
He pushes up. Then a little more. The sheet obeys gravity—and the thirst of my gaze—to slide away from the crests of his chest and the ladder of his abs, puddling between his thighs like a loincloth on an Italian statue of gold marble.
“Not if the people who know about it value their relationships with us—or their status at Arcadian court.” His commitment to every word is engraved across the solemn angles of his face. I nod, believing him. Nobody on the short list of insiders about the contract terms, Mother and Father included, has any reason to spill the sordid fine print about our agreement. At least I hope…
“Ella.” He cups a hand around my shoulder. I look up, already craving the look on his face—the one saying he has listened to every thought in my head, and now has the perfect answer for them. “It’s going to be okay.”
“You do not know that for sure!”
“I don’t,” he concedes. “But I do know she has no reason to even look there. That’s not what she’s after.”
“Then…what is she after?”
His reaction is not what I first expect. The little jog of his head and the sly smile on his face are such a switch from his earnest scowl, I wonder if my mind has gotten looped instead of his—especially when he moves with such startling speed, my yelp of surprise springs from it.
And then…arousal.
A lot of it.
By the Creator.
I have heard it said that fear and lust balance on the same razor’s edge, but never believed it…not until now. Not until, in the space of three seconds, I am pulled from shivering in a sheet to falling against sculpted muscle, my nipples mashed to golden pecs, my hips held by forceful fingers, my thighs spread—
And fitted around the most glorious erection Cassian has ever had.
He pulls me closer with an effortless tug, calling to all my feminine instincts. I feel so small in his arms, though our new positioning places me slightly higher than him. The angle gives me a chance to explore the beauty of his upturned face—and enjoy the fit of his arousal, moistening my panties as he punches against my sensitized cleft.
Ohhhh…my.
How are we doing this? Why are we doing this? There are pressing things we must discuss. What were those things? I will remember…in a moment. I have to remember…
Cassian pushes his face up another inch. The edges of his lips curve, once more all Italian artwork god come to life, before he scrapes the curve of my chin with the edges of his teeth. Rasping quivers. Heated vibrations. Melting limbs. Oh, Creator help me…
What on Earth did we need to talk about?
He finally speaks again, lips still along my skin. “I have an interesting idea about your answer.”
“Oh, dear.” I half-laugh it, letting the sound husk from my throat. “You and me and our interesting ideas…”
“I think you’ll like this one.”
I run my hands up his arms. Over the bulges of his shoulders. Plunge them into
his hair, savoring the thick softness between my fingers. “I certainly like how it has started.”
His hands roam up my spine. The gauze of his bandage adds extra abrasion, making me writhe from the vibrations. “Why don’t we figure out what she’s after?” He answers my shot of a quizzical stare by deepening the smile. “All by ourselves. Right here. Right now.”
I study him harder. Bring fingers down, stroking across the proud planes of his temples. “Hmmm. Your proposal is certainly interesting so far, Mr. Court.”
His head tilts, lending him a smug air—a tactic I imagine him using on business partners in the boardroom. And why not? It is sure as hell working on me. My senses revel in him. My body tightens and pulses and aches for him.
“I’m very happy to hear that, Miss Santelle.” His fingertips dance down the dip of my spine. Tease at the back of my panties. “Do you prefer Miss Santelle? Or may I call you Mishella?”
I rock backward by a little. “Excuse me?”
He dips his head the other direction. The boardroom rogue is still having his fun. “Well, which is it?” he charges. “Chantal will ask, you know.”
Comprehension teases like the flick of a match. I let it spark the edges of my own lips. “Ah…yes. She probably will.”
“And…?”
I lean back in, looping my arms around his neck. Engage his gaze from just inches away, playfully nibbling on his bottom lip. “I prefer to be called ‘sweet armeau.’ Or ‘my precious Ella.’”
His gaze narrows. “Anyone in that studio calls you either, they’ll be visiting our friend Yago in the ER.”
I am tempted toward a feminine preen. Funnel it into a feigned gasp of scandal, while lifting an invisible microphone between us. “Hmmm. This is quite an interesting side to you, Mr. Court.” I jab the “microphone” toward him, adopting my best Chantal Dunne face, with wide eyes and overly pouting lips. “Normally, you take up pen and ledger for your battles. Care to comment for our viewers about accessing your inner warrior?”
He chuckles. Jabs his head up to bite into the flesh between my thumb and forefinger. “Warrior?” Soothes the damage with a seductive lick. “Why stop there, Chantal? Why not go with…caveman?”
“Hmmm.” I barely maintain the teasing guise, especially as he loops that talented tongue between the bases of all my fingers. “Primeval over medieval. That is…an interesting choice.”
He lifts a sultry stare through his gold lashes. “I like to eat what I hunt.”
I swallow hard. My womb clenches. My breasts pebble. “Freshly…plucked?”
“Sure. That’s good.” He tugs on my hand. Kisses over my palm and onto my wrist, never setting me free from his tiger-bright stare. “But I prefer it finely prepared too. Heated up…to the perfect texture…”
My breath speeds up, slicing in and out, as he slides his mouth up, to the inside of my elbow. Still I manage to chide, “Mr. Court, I think you are trying to distract me.”
He works his way up to my shoulder. Suckles the curve of my skin. Fires up every nerve in my body. “From what?”
I frantically lick my lips. “I—I have a job to do…”
“So do I.” His voice is more fire, descending to the upper swell of my breast. “Yet here I am,”—the blaze spreads, as he explores beneath the cup with the tip of his tongue—“agreeing to answer any question you want to ask.” He glances up, just once, before pushing back the lace-trimmed fabric. “And consider anything else you’d like to…present.”
A long, high sigh swirls up my throat. Rasps out as he closes his Da Vinci lips over my aching nipple, swiftly turning it into a stiff red erection. “Cassian.”
“Hmmm?” Damn him. Still smooth and cool as marble.
“This—this is not—”
“The hottest sight I’ve ever seen?” He pushes aside the cup over my other breast. “The most magnificent pair of breasts in this whole city, pushed up and waiting for me to pleasure them?” He flashes a savoring grin, before securing his teeth over that dusky nipple. “I beg to differ, armeau.”
A miracle, this strength I suddenly gain to press my lips into a chastising line. “We must prepare for tomorrow!”
He soothes the burn from his bite with a lavish lick. My opposite breast gets more attention from the fingers extending out of his bandage, twisting my hard peak to bring just the perfect pinch of pain. “Prepare away, sorceress. Don’t let me stop you.”
“Wéchant brutan.”
“Now you really can’t let me stop you.” He growls it into the valley between my throbbing swells. I let out a tight huff. Dammit. This man and his penchant for my language. I cannot even cap it with an insult, because he likes those more.
“It means you really are a wicked beast.”
“Not sure Chantal’s team will uncover that one.”
“Perhaps it shall be my little gift to her cause.”
“And perhaps I’ll spill my own secrets during the interview.” He skates his touch back down by way of my ribs, riding the line between tickling and arousing, until bracing the small of my back with his bandaged hand while sliding beneath my panties with his other. “Like how I fantasized about touching you like this, damn near from the moment we met.”
Another gasp. Everything under his fingers pulses. Flutters. Zings with a thousand points of feeling and life. “You—you would not dare.” Because then the cameras would show everything on my face too. That I longed for the same thing that very night…
“Oh yeah?” He strokes in, past the flesh that shields my most tender button, flaring my desire in all the right places. He knows me… “Try me.” Rolls his thumb, stirring my lust, spinning my mind. “Dear Christ Ella, please try me. Make me declare to the world how I dreamed of what your body would feel like, smell like, taste like. How I went back to my suite in the Palais after that reception and didn’t leave the shower for nearly an hour. Then the next morning, too…and that night. I thought of you, over and over again, making myself come with thoughts of touching you…fucking you. Those next two days were sheer hell, wondering if I’d see you again—and dreading it. Knowing that the second I did, those fantasies would return, twice as hot as before. That I’d be rock hard for you all over again.” With a gritted sound, he pulls his fingers away. Shoves the panel of my panties aside, so his bare flesh can rub into my slit instead. “Just like this. Exactly like this.”
“Cassian.” I shake and throb, mashing myself tighter against him. I am a ball of need, desperate for the purchase of all his rock-hard sinew and relentless force, thinking how correct he is about his first assertion. Caveman, not warrior. Chivalry and heraldry be damned. I need his possession, his hunger…his primeval lust—and all the things it draws out in me as response. Wild things. Hot things. All the aching, animal needs of the woman who imagines we are on a bed of pelts in some Paleolithic cave, the storm drenching a dirt jungle outside instead of an urban one.
“You wanted me too,” he growls. “Didn’t you?” He rolls his hips, making me feel every angle of his length…taunting my shivering pearl with his engorged crown. The heat of his pre-ejaculate blends with my aroused cream, swirling an aphrodisiac scent between our slick bodies. “I saw it on your face, favori…every time we saw each other again. In the way your eyes changed, turning from daylight to midnight…so goddamn beautiful…”
I grip into the flexed tension of his shoulders. Fit my face into the muscled column of his neck. “And I saw it on your face. The tension in your jaw. The way the very air changed around you…”
“Because it did. The way I wanted you…the intensity it reached…it was a fucking cosmic shift.” His chest churns with a harsh breath. “Christ, Ella. It still is.” He grips me harder. Dictates the rhythm of our bodies, making my slit ride his shaft at a torturously slow pace. But I do not fight him. The effort would get me nowhere. I concentrate instead on the power beneath his movements…the strength, like twisted steel, of his solid will, his corded body. I let it flow through me too, the physical high
becoming a spiritual rush, rocketing my mind and soul as it twists into every fiber of my clenching, convulsing sex. “You change my atmosphere, sorceress. You are my atmosphere.”
His words pull tears to my eyes. Bring my face around so I can suck in breaths that are filled with his too. We gasp and hover and tease, the inches between our mouths like the anticipation between our bodies. I am heavy against him…around him. Mewling as he lifts me a little higher, working the edges of my entrance against his hot tip. Gasping as he teases back, shuttling through my wet folds instead. Dear powers that be, how can he keep doing this? Where is his self-control coming from? When the man is determined, even horse-strength painkillers cannot keep him down. Literally.
I angle back a little. Splay fingers through his stubble, bracing the elegant line of his cheek before rasping, “I love you so much, Cassian.”
His smile transforms into something different. An expression I cannot identify, nor remember ever seeing on his face before. It is…vehement. Almost violent. It terrifies me. Penetrates me.
Right before his body does.
I cry out, stretched and blazed and full of him. Every nerve of my intimate channel is turned into throbbing, thundering sensation—then dissolved into nothing, as he pierces more than just my sex. He permeates my being. Ravages every inhibition and fear, splitting me open, burned alive from the inside out.
“Faisi vive Créacu!”
“Ella. Fuck.”
“Yes.” It is all I can blurt in English now, unable to wrap my mind around the extra step of translation. I let the stream of Arcadian come, gasping words both flirty and filthy against his lips as he digs fingers into my waist, forcing my flesh to take more of his. He is so deep. So huge. So hot and perfect inside me. “Yes!”
“Maybe this is the secret I’ll spill to Chantal tomorrow.” His gaze is as sultry as his voice. “You think I should tell everyone how wet this cunt gets for me? How tight these walls grip my cock, milking the come straight up from my balls?”