Pretty Perfect Toy -- A Temptation Court Novel (Temptation Court, Book 2)

by Angel Payne

  “Okay—calm down.”

  “Shut. Up.” I wrench back, wiping where he tries gripping my shoulders. “You have not earned the right to tell me that, either. Just stick to the damn facts. Why is Cassian in danger, and what are you going to do about it?”

  Damon backs off. Not a reassurance, since he returns to the smug-as-smoke expression with each defined step. “You mean…what are we going to do about it?”

  Leaden gulp.

  Torn gut.

  Protesting senses.

  “Wh-what—do you—”

  “I’m going to get my little brother out of this, Mishella—but not without your help.”

  *

  Cassian

  “Hi, honey. I’m home.”

  Ella hops up from the chaise nestled in the curve of turret one, arms wide for me, face even more open. There are many awesome facets about falling in love with a girl from a society nearly sealed off from the world—one of them definitely being her ignorance of every inane modern cliché.

  “Hi, honey.” After giggling when using the word in return, she pops on tiptoes to kiss me. “So you are.”

  “And so you are. Wow.” I sweep her with a head-to-toe stare while the tips of our fingers remain clasped. “Heels…makeup…hair? Does that dress have…that tutu shit underneath it?”

  She laughs again, suffusing my senses with the music I’ve craved all day. After the disaster of a morning at the TV set with Chantal, then meetings with the legal and PR teams on next steps for handling it all, I took advantage of being at the office to actually work at the office. Lunch was eaten in, followed by ordering Rob to hold calls from everyone except Ella—who was the only person who didn’t call. Nearly seven hours later, she’s the only perfect medicine for my soul…the beauty for my beast.

  “The ‘tutu shit’ is called a crinoline.” She grins pertly, swaying like a bell to make the flowered frock move. “It makes the dress pretty.”

  “It makes the dress fluffy.” I wrap an arm around her waist, pulling her in for a more meaningful kiss. “You make the dress pretty.”

  “Why, thank you, Mr. Court.”

  “Most welcome, sorceress.”

  Her tickled smile turns my chest to six kinds of mush. Dear fuck, if the woman ever completely comprehends what she does to me…

  Especially in moments like this, when her fingers tug at the ends of my hair, coaxing me down to her for more kisses…

  Gladly, my beauty.

  There’s tongue involved this time, and I groan from the sizzling satisfaction of it. Goddamn, she tastes amazing…fruity tea, tangy toothpaste, desire-filled woman…how have I gone seven fucking hours without this? The answer doesn’t matter, because I waste no time making up for the loss, pulling on her, sucking on her, feasting on her, until we have to breathe through our noses and she clings to me harder just to stay standing. Yeah. Just the way I like it…

  Only with a growled effort do I finally force myself to stop—but not before I try to poke through the tutu shit with the fresh bulge in my crotch. “Shit,” I finally grumble. “We’d better stop before I can’t or won’t.”

  Her eyes drag open, entrancing me with their aqua lust. “And the problem with that would be…?”

  I chuckle. “That clearly, you want to go out?”

  Her head tilts. “Why would I want to do that? Prim made shrimp scampi.” She smiles, seductive and coy, as I follow the twirls of a curl newly tumbled into her cleavage. “And…I might have helped your maimanne make some lemon bars too.”

  I moan all over again. “That’s almost as delicious a thought…as this…” Let my finger trail lower, sliding under the edge of her bra…

  “Mmmm. I thought so.”

  She moves in closer, pushing herself beneath my hand. I fight my way back to rational thought, despite the perfect pucker of her areola and the erotic heat of her nipple. “But you’re all dressed up…” Something doesn’t make sense. As gorgeous as she is in designer finery, her preferred look behind closed doors is the way in which I most prefer her: messy bun, loose tank top, leggings or shorts requiring no underwear to get in my way… “Why isn’t it Batgirl PJs time?”

  I bought her the lounging set two weekends ago at a flea market. She’s been nearly inseparable with it since—only now, the mention of it makes little creases across her forehead. “Just not in a Gotham heroes mood tonight.”

  There’s something off about that assertion, too—something I should dig deeper into—but dammit if the woman doesn’t peel every coherent thought from my mind with the flick of her tongue, sliding over my Adam’s apple, as she loosens my tie. Before I can stop her, the silk strip is gone and tossed to the floor, replaced by bolts of raw heat emanating from the spot where she nips, bites, and teases at my skin…

  “Ohhhh kay…” I conclude it with a hiss, as she dips fingers beneath my shirt…and rubs a thumb across my nipple. “What are you in…the mood…for?”

  “My own hero.” She lets the breath of it curl up the column of my neck—as she pinches harder at my flesh. I look down to watch the light gleam off her bracelet, raining across the V of my bared torso, as she does. The sight is so damn sublime. She is mine, just as much as I am hers. Only one element would make the snapshot complete.

  My ring on her finger.

  Christ.

  Am I out of my damn mind?

  And if I am, do I even want that mind back?

  Ella plucks back by an inch, far enough to yank up her head, her timing making me wonder if my spirit has betrayed me to her yet again. But that’s not it. There’s more in her eyes, across her face…a searching question of her own…a lunging of her soul for mine. A needy roll of her body against mine…

  A connection of her heart to mine, rendering us both mute in its inexplicable force. Caught, Immobilized. Breathless. Overwhelmed.

  “Dear God.” It finally chokes out of me.

  “By the Creator,” she practically gurgles in return.

  “What the hell are you doing to me?”

  I don’t expect the hard contortion of her face…the thick tears that brim in her eyes. But I don’t question them, either. I just…let them be. Kiss at them, reverent and grateful for them, as she finally husks out, “Just loving you, Cassian.” She presses back in, twining her arms around my neck. Tighter. Then even tighter. “Just let me do that, okay?”

  I nod, letting my nose bump hers in the doing. Letting my mouth find hers, and seal back over hers. Letting my tongue sink back against hers, plunging and wet and passionate. “You’re on, lady.”

  She smiles, sucking the breath from my body and injecting the blood into my dick, in the two seconds I allow before claiming her again. Our tongues swirl and dance as our mouths open and taste. Our hands explore and delve, enticing what arousal they can despite the maddening state of our clothes—too damn much—and the insane state of our lust—too damn hot—until I’ve pushed her against the chaise and suddenly flip her around, facing the thing.

  “Get on,” I instruct in a pair of terse growls. “Grab the headrest with both arms, then kneel with your ass facing me.”

  She is breathless and flushed, nodding before she obeys. As soon as she does, I center myself on the cushion behind her, and start to flip up those ridiculous tutu layers between my body and her heat. With every swipe of motion, I get a waft of her exotic perfume and her needy pussy, giving me hope that—

  “Yessss.” I snarl it in approval, beholding the creamy sight of her bare ass—and glistening sex. “You really did just want to stay in tonight, didn’t you?”

  An adorable giggle tumbles out of her—until my touch interrupts her seduction. “Well,” she rasps, “I told you…there is shrimp scampi.”

  “Which we could get during a night on the town too.”

  Her pout bleeds into her voice. “Oh, but then you would have underwear to deal with…”

  “Oh?” I don’t hold back on the sexual prowl of it, relishing how it leaves my lips, enters her ear, and res
onates through her body in wave after wave of enticed shivers. “Who says I’d have underwear to deal with, armeau? You?” I run my touch from the backs of her knees to the crack of her ass then back again. “If we went out and I told you to leave the panties at home, you’d fucking leave them at home.” With dual grips on her hips, I hitch her backward then up, rubbing her sex against my fly…spreading her intimate lips with my erection. “What do you say to that, Miss Santelle?”

  She shivers again. I’ve just hit a hundred of her erotic buttons at once, and we both rejoice in what it does to her sweet, wet pussy.

  “I—I say—” She stops, gasping hard, as I unbutton my pants…letting her feel every motion of it. “Yes,” she finally blurts. “Yes, Cassian…if—if you wanted me to leave the panties at home, I would.”

  “Good girl,” I grate into her ear. “And…if I told you that the sight of your tits in this dress made my cock drip with wanting you…what would you do?”

  I watch her lush profile, tawny lashes closing against her dark pink cheeks. The wisp of a smile teases her lips. “I would…spill ice water down on my breasts,” she murmurs. “Not a whole glass; just enough to get down onto my nipples, and make them harder for you.”

  “Because they’d already be hard, from lusting after me too?”

  “Yes.” Her chest pumps, faster and faster, against the hand I work beneath her bodice, pinching hard at her stiff peaks. “Yes!”

  I pull my hand back. Yank it at my fly, then pull my cock free with it. “You know what that would make me say to you, don’t you?”

  “Tell me.” She pleads it as I shuttle my throbbing length past the cleft of her buttocks, notching the crown at her intimate slit.

  “I’d say you were my perfect little toy, begging me to play with you—at once. I’d pull your fingers to my lips across the table, and order you to go to the ladies’ room, and prepare yourself to be played with hard.” I tease my tip at her soaked pussy, having to clench my ass to keep from ramming all the way in. “Would you know what I meant by that, Ella?”

  Her whole body shakes beneath mine. Fucking…goddess. Sweet…toy. “Y-yes, Cassian. I would know what that meant.”

  “Then tell me.”

  “You would play with me…by fucking me.”

  I thrust deeper. But not all the way. “Like this? Or…deeper?”

  “Deeper. Oh…Cassian!” She rocks her hips back, fighting to get more of me. “Please!”

  “Harder?”

  “Yes! Harder…”

  “But you don’t have the say.” I feed her more of my length, but just for a second. Withdraw until I’m circling just the head in again, taunting her tunnel with my cock and the ridge of her clit with one finger. “You’re the toy. You’re played with. You’re fucked…as I please.”

  Another tremor overtakes her, all at once. I feel it overtake her, as she fights—and loses—the climax from rocking her into mindless, nearly babbling, bliss. “Yes!” she screams, before the streams of rambling Arcadian take over, mixed with tears that rock her more violently than the orgasm. “Yes, Cassian. Admak-tana, Cassian. Adsek-tana, Cassian. Désonnum. Rahmié, Cassian. Désonnum…désonnum…”

  Within minutes, I am coming as she does again, pumping her full of the completion I’ve needed all day, and blasting my psyche through the turret’s roof in the doing.

  But not all the way to the stratosphere.

  Even though she has just rocked my fucking world again, I cannot separate the celebration my body has just had from the unnerving translation my mind has made of her words…messengered on the notes of her tears, ripping into parts of me I cannot explain away to the simple flood of her post-orgasm emotion.

  I adore you, Cassian.

  I love you, Cassian.

  Have mercy on me, Cassian.

  I’m sorry. I’m sorry.

  The words taunt me, even throughout our pleasant dinner with Mom, Prim, and Hodge. Stab at me even while Ella and I have wine on the terrace afterward, and her stare fixes on points miles across the city, taking her attention along with it. Become full-blown concern, as her answers to my questions start to consist of one and two words—again, some even in Arcadian, and not even making sense after translation.

  Lost in translation.

  After the sex was done, it’s described the whole damn evening—

  And prompts the question that whispers from my lips, as I tenderly twirl a strand of her hair, watching her sleep through the deepest hours of the night.

  “What the hell happened to you today?”

  I pray—yeah, really pray—that tomorrow, an answer will come from her that makes sense. That the only thing remaining between us tomorrow night will once again be simple shafts of moonlight.

  But prayers haven’t exactly gotten me very far before.

  A recognition that prompts the final oath off my lips tonight.

  “Shit. Shit. Shit.”

  THIRTEEN

  *

  Mishella

  “Shit.”

  At first, I am answered only with a loud thwop from the vicinity of the bar in the main living room of the huge suite near the top of the Marriott Marquis. As I expect, Damon closes the refrigerator and turns, bearing a large can with what looks like green neon claw marks down its front.

  “Aha.” He flashes a fast version of his smug smirk. “So the lady does like a little swearing.”

  I fling back a glower. “The lady hates swearing. But she hates lying to the man she loves even more, especially for ten days straight.”

  And yes, I am counting every single hour, minute, and second of them. But if even half the evidence displayed in this room is right, my choice to help Damon with this happy-happy-joy-joy ruse will have been worth it. More than worth it.

  I will have helped him save Cassian’s life.

  Even staring at all of this—the bank transactions, financial records, travel documents, and grainy photos, connected by string on six huge billboards—makes it easier to deal with the terse text he has just sent. It is his tenth one today, and I am certain a healthy handful more shall follow before we see each—when I will regale him with a review of the play I did not see this afternoon, added to the mountain of other lies from the last week and a half.

  Damon’s gaze falls to my phone as he takes a long swig from the can. “Can’t you just tell him you’ve taken up yoga lessons or something?”

  “In the heart of the theater district?” I motion toward the bustle of Broadway and 45th, far below. “And how is that any different than lying to him about a theater outing?”

  He drops the smirk into a contemplative shrug. “Easier, I guess. Fewer variables.”

  “Says the guy with fourteen years of experience at the art.” My skin feels like thumb tacks as soon as the words are out. Though Damon hides it better, I have a feeling his does too. “Désonnum,” I instantly mutter. “That was cruel.”

  He spurts out a harsh laugh. “Beg your pardon, Mistress Santelle, but gros de grawl.”

  Double-take. Literally. “Excuse me?”

  He sips again on his green claw drink. “You know what it means.”

  “Of course I know what it means.” It is only that the Arcadian version of bullshit is the last thing I expected from his insolent lips. “How do you—and why, with me—”

  “Because you don’t have a cruel bone in your body.” He means it as fact; his gaze conveys as much—but I feel a blush suffusing my face exactly like the late afternoon sun washing over the digital billboards outside. “My boy wonder of a little bro certainly found himself a female of quality.”

  “Well…merderim,” I finally mutter.

  “You’re welcome,” he answers.

  Curious glance. “Just learning Arcadian in your spare time, hmmm?”

  “As a matter of fact, yes.” His face sobers as he gazes over the boards. “If getting to Cas through you didn’t work, I had to be prepared to go to the island to stop this disaster he’s walking into.” He lifts his h
ead a little, presenting a profile that halts me—not for the first time—with its similarities to his brother. There is no mistaking the proud Court forehead, the stubborn jawline, and the long, noble line of that nose. “But with the intel you’ve been able to sneak out of the office at Temptation, and some of the things you’ve overheard and reported back, we’re gathering such a mountain of evidence, there’ll be nobody willing to let these ‘contractors’ act on their behalf overseas.”

  “Even Cassian.”

  “Especially Cassian.” He inhales through his nose. “We just have to make sure we bury the real evidence—deep. Make it look like these guys simply have shoddy workmanship and late completion dates, instead of ties to an international terrorist like Rune Kavill.”

  I yank in a breath too—shakier than his. “Rune Kavill.” My rasp is just as rickety. It is a name I never expected to utter again, after the filthy bonsun messed with my land by backing Arcadian anti-government radicals, then kidnapping my friend and boss, Brooke Cimarron. The vermin was stopped by a small special ops team led by Prince Samsyn but Kavill escaped during the scuffle—only to turn up again now, as the international terrorist disguised behind a contracting firm Cassian has signed for new projects on Arcadia.

  “The asshole’s good.” Damon concedes it from tight lips, pacing to the next bulletin board. “We’ve had to follow back the trail from here to Istanbul and back again. Covering it quietly won’t be easy but we’re almost there.”

  Another shiver conquers me. From the dark daggers in his eyes and the fresh clench of his jaw, I can already interpret the extent of his meaning. Covering it quietly means the use of silencers, pillows, and shadow accounts of their own, not simply pushing mute buttons and freezing bank accounts. It will be messy.…but lives will be saved.

  Especially Cassian’s.

  I just have to keep telling myself that.