by Kira Blakely
As soon as Nolan leaves with his piece of cake, the easygoing cheer exits stage left.
Cas unbuttons his suit jacket and loosens his tie.
“Cake?” I offer.
He shakes his head, steering for the wet bar. He has a shot of vodka, and then another. Only then does he face me. Nudging his chin toward the bedroom, he says, “You go ahead and get some sleep. I have some work to do.”
Setting the plate down, I stare hard at Cas. “Is something wrong?”
Cas cocks his head. “Why would anything be wrong?”
I frown. It can’t bode well if he means to deflect me by lazily dodging my questions with questions of his own. Tuckered out from the day’s events, and prickling with anxiety again about my hasty decision to wed Cas, I run with his suggestion.
Sliding the bedroom doors closed, I stare at the solid, darkly lacquered wood, and press my palm against its cool smooth surface. Cas doesn’t rip open the doors though, and I’m left to force my feet from the bedroom’s entrance.
The California-sized king bed sits on a dais. I take the two steps up and crawl over the silk duvet. I have enough energy to slip off my flats. I’m under the covers, fully dressed, too weary to dig around my suitcase and change into my PJs.
Despite the chaotic state of my mind, I fall asleep. I know this when I startle awake, sitting upright. Someone’s knocking on the bedroom door. I’m thinking Cas wants to ensure I’m decent in here. But he doesn’t answer my calls to enter.
I have no clue what time it is. Cas keeps his bedroom dark, the shutters blocking out any natural light. Scrambling free of the bed covers, I smooth a hand over my hair and wipe any trails of drool from my mouth as I pad barefoot to answer the next rat-tat-tat.
It’s not Cas on the other side.
“Miss Jade Dunn?” this woman asks. She has her black hair tied back in a bun, away from her makeup-free face, and her polo shirt has the hotel’s logo emblazoned on it. Her nametag tells me she’s Irene, a masseuse. “I’m here for your massage.”
“Massage?” I repeat, confused.
Peeking around her, I note the living area and kitchen are empty of Cas’s presence. The room is much lighter…as if I’d slept through to the morning. My first concern is Cas though. “Where’s Cas—Mr. Felix?”
“Mr. Felix has stepped out, miss. He sent me up with your complimentary one-hour massage.”
“Oh,” is all I manage, hurt by the announcement. Recovering, I give her a smile. “What time is it?”
“It’s a little past ten, miss.”
“A.m.?”
She nods. “Yes, it’s morning.” She gestures to the massage table she’s set up in the living room. “Would you like your massage now, or do I return when it’s more convenient for you?”
So, Cas couldn’t stay with me, but he brought up a masseuse? I glance back to study the bed, realizing his side remains unrumpled and untouched. He never slept with me last night, and I’d been dead to the world, unaware of how far Cas kept me out of arm’s reach until now. Why marry me then, if he can’t stand to lie beside me?
I hold up a finger. “Can you give me a moment? I need to make a quick call first.”
Retreating to the bedroom door, I zip to fetch my purse off the top of my suitcase. My phone is filled with messages from friends, concerned because they’re used to my speedy replies. I send off reassuring texts first, warding off their frantic calls to police on a fruitless search for me.
It’s my great-uncle and aunt’s text that has me stammering. He must have had his son message me. They’re only asking after my health; I haven’t messaged them in a few days, and they’re accustomed to my more frequent reports.
After giving it quick thought, I send a message that doesn’t fill them in on my marital status update. This thing with Cas isn’t going to last long. I won’t be Mrs. Felix forever. No point in dragging my only real family into this.
Cas is a phase—one that’s keeping me alive right now.
Swallowing hard, I call Cas. After he fired me, I hadn’t bothered to delete his number from my phone.
He picks up on the first ring. “Jade.”
“You have my number still.” I toy with my dress’s lacy hem. “Where are you?”
“I’m in the building, working. Why? Do you need me to come up?” His voice takes on an urgent note. It’s faint, but I sense it. He’s concerned. I can’t help wondering if it’s for me, or because of a deeper, irrational responsibility he feels he owes me.
“Uh, no. I just wanted to…thank you.” I breathe the last part out, swallowing around the ball of anxiety in my throat.
There’s a long pause on his end. I draw the phone from my ear, confirming the call hasn’t ended. A second later, Cas says, “You’re welcome. Call me if you need me.”
I cancel the call first, my finger swiping the screen. We talked all of two minutes and all it’s done is leave me with more questions, an achy need between my legs and a panging loneliness in my heart.
A knock at the door reminds me I have a massage waiting.
“Coming,” I say to Irene when I swing the doors open. “Let me freshen up and change.”
She smiles. “I’ll be here, miss.”
I’m out of the large ensuite in record speed, eager to work out the knots in my shoulders. Yesterday had been a rollercoaster of emotions culminating in my marriage. As a result, I have some serious tension riding my shoulders and stiffening my limbs.
“Lie here, face down,” Irene instructs. She helps me adjust myself on the portable padded massage table.
I tuck my arms under my head, getting comfortable while I wait for her to knead the stress out of me. She starts by slicking my shoulders and back with warm oil. I sigh soon as her hands dig in and loosen the knots between my shoulder blades. She’s in front of me, pushing her thumbs down my spine.
“You’ve got a lot of tightness in the mid-back,” she says.
“What does that mean?”
“Sometimes we carry our past with us, and it builds on itself in our body.” Irene pauses, leaving me hanging for a while before she adds, “Our emotional baggage might not feel real…until it keels you off balance one day.”
“You’re getting all that from my back?” I’m skeptical, but the more I turn over what she’s told me, the more I wonder if Irene has another calling other than being a massage therapist. A psychic, perhaps?
“I’ll be using hot stones now.” Irene has worked my body thoroughly by the time she announces the next phase of my hour-long massage. I’ll have to kiss Cas after this. He’s had Irene melt the annoyance I held for him when I woke to find he hadn’t slept beside me—his new wife—and on our very first night together.
Irene has the variously-sized stones lining my spine and my legs.
“I’ll be back,” she says. “Don’t move and upset the hot stones.”
I wait…and wait, and wait. Propping up on my elbows, I swing my glance over my shoulder.
Because the space is open, I can see Irene has quietly exited the living room and kitchen. Frowning at the open doors of the bedroom, I get up—in spite of her instructions not to overturn the stones—and go in search of her. First setting them in the tray she’d lifted them from, I steer for the bedroom.
“Irene?” I don’t see her in the bedroom, and I glance at the closed bathroom door. My hand on the doorknob, I press my ear to the door and catch the sound of running water.
Realizing she’s in there, I hurry back to the massage table. I try but fail to replace all the stones, hoping she doesn’t notice some are missing from their original spots on my body. I hear her footsteps, and I tense, my face as warm as the therapeutic stones working their magic over me.
I hear her footsteps coming towards me, but she doesn’t speak. “Irene?” I say when I feel her presence at my side. I jolt as her hands touch my shoulders, but I immediately relax into her kneading touch, preparing to fall back into a meditative mush state.
I’m thinking of
how to thank Cas, and Irene’s hands move up to my neck. I picture my lips securing over the man who’s my husband, of my naked body riding over his, rocking us both into the blissful oblivion of countless orgasms. Irene presses harder, her fingers growing more aggressive.
By the time my eyes fly open, she’s full-on choking me.
I gasp and flail, my eyes probably bugging. She growls over me, grunting and straining, her hands closing over my windpipe tighter. I tear my hands up through the air, trying to reach her and failing. The bed rocks with my efforts. Then a light bulb goes off in my head and I sway faster; tipping the bed is my new goal.
Irene yelps when she loses her grip and careens with the bed, losing her balance. She shouldn’t have been leaning so close. We both go down in a loud crash.
I’m not pausing to catch my breath, my flight mode on overdrive. The overturned massage bed separating us, I scramble from her on my hands and knees, grabbing a hot stone to defend myself. I scream hoarsely, stopping short, and glancing back in horror. Irene’s nails have dragged over my calf, and they’ve drawn blood.
I force myself to keep moving. “Help!” I holler, coughing and managing to stand on my shaky legs.
Irene lunges at me, slamming me to the couch, her hands aiming for my throat again.
She has no clue I’m armed this go around. I raise my hand, palm the hot stone, and send a prayer heavenward. Slamming my hand down as hard as I can, I conk Irene over the side of her head. Her eyes go wide and then they slam shut, her body slackening.
I shove her off me, and she thuds onto the floor, moaning senselessly. She’s listless but alive, and I don’t stick around to wait for her to wake up. I hurry for the door and suddenly realize I’m only in my panties. I backtrack for the towel I’d dropped in my haste to escape her.
Running blindly down the hall to the elevator, I don’t make it far. Someone grabs me from behind and I close my eyes and scream and struggle, and flail and fight. Irene won’t kill me! She won’t!
“Jade! Easy!” Nolan’s face comes into view. He’s spun me around, revealing himself to be my captor. No, my savior. I hug him, desperately clinging to him.
“Don’t let her get me!” I cry.
“Who?!” Nolan peels me off, gripping my shoulders and looking over his. “Who’s after you? Are they in your room?” He has lost all the sweet, easygoing humor from last night’s hasty wedding ceremony. “Jade, stay here.”
“No!” I scream, struggling to cling to him. I need an anchor. I didn’t want him to leave me. Irene could get me out here—anybody could. So many people have tried to hurt me in less than twenty-four hours. I can’t believe it’s a horrible coincidence anymore. I’m living with a target on my back, and I’m scared as hell.
I hug Nolan, and he stands there, his downturned brows and mouth hanging heavy with his helplessness. Then he massages my back, drawing me closer.
“You’re all right now, Jade. No one’s going to hurt you.”
But they will. It’s on the tip of my tongue to argue with him, but my sobs overtake me. It’s how Cas finds us in the hall, two security guards flanking him.
“What the hell is going on here?”
CHAPTER EIGHT
Cas
“What the hell happened?” It seems to be the only question I’m capable of asking when I draw Jade from Nolan and sweep her into my arms. I carry my towel-clad bride to the bedroom, but I can’t extricate her from me. She clings to the lapels of my suit jacket, her eyes wide and fearful.
“No,” she says hoarsely when I try to pry her fingers off.
God knows I want nothing more than to wrap us both under the covers, wait out the trembling to ebb from her body, to forget this scare. But I also need to ensure she’s safe. And I can’t do that if I’m here with her.
I silence Jade’s whimpers with my mouth.
Nolan coughs somewhere. He’ll leave us; he’ll understand. Sometimes words aren’t enough to convey what you want to say. I’m telling Jade she’s got me in this kiss. I won’t let anything come between us—even death.
I hold her, peppering her mouth with distracting kisses until she’s putty in my hands. Licking my fingers, I skim my hand up her soft, supple thigh and slip it under her towel. My fingers trace the line of her panties. I wriggle a finger past her underwear, the heat from her core coaxing me closer.
I groan when I discover how pointless my effort to lube her for penetration is. She’s soaking wet from the kisses alone.
Oh Jade…
I’ve thought of nothing but this moment all night and most of the morning.
It was pure torture being so close to her and not being able to take her as I wanted. I figured she could stand without me fucking her senseless, and opening a Pandora’s box while I was at it. She needed rest after her crazed day, and I needed—well, what I wanted was off the table, sleeping off her burdens, and so I had left Jade with guards to go into work early.
Now I have her coming apart on my fingers. It’s even better than the fantasies I’ve entertained for the last two months.
“Jade,” I grunt her name against her lips before claiming their smooth, slick sweetness again.
Plunging my fingers into her depths, I curl my two digits and knead her pussy’s clenching walls. I break the suction of our mouths and touch her forehead with my own, staring into her eyes, watching them darken with her lust, her dusky rose lips part with her panting moans for more. I hook my fingers to tap her G-spot.
“Cas, uuhh-ah!”
I glance toward the closed bedroom doors. Nolan’s work. My friend knows me too well. Still, I’d rather Jade reserve her cries of pleasure for me alone. I’m an insatiable bastard, and I won’t share her with anyone.
Kissing a trail down her jaw to her neck, I pause to suckle her pulse point before grazing, nipping, and licking my way down to her heaving chest. I tug at the towel, freeing it off her breasts.
She moans when I dive in for a taste of one of her tight nipples. I flap my rough tongue over the errant nub, grinning around a mouthful of her breast when she gasps and whines, wriggling in my hold.
Jade’s hands spear into my hair, and I’m glad I grew it out. It curls to my shoulders now, and I love it when she tugs at me by the roots, the pull-and-push building in us both. Though my cock rests under her wiggling ass unfulfilled, I’m sated so long as she’s happy.
And Jade’s happy noises are not to be missed. Too bad I’ll be hoarding them all for myself.
“Uhhh, Cas, I—m-more. Ah!” She rocks her hips, grinding up to meet my fingers. She’s rolling to her own sparking orgasm; I’m just adding the fuel by teasing over her perineum from the inside. My thumb flicks over her clit at the same time, my mouth switching to sloppily suck at her neglected nipple.
“Yes,” she breathes, her thighs closing in on my hand, my fingers nice and snug in her hot squeeze of a cunt. “Cas, oh, aaah, yessss!” I rip my lips from her juicy tit, securing them over her mouth, drowning her wail as her pussy spasms on my digits.
I finger her through the orgasm, prolonging it. By the end of it, I want her toes curled, her body sagging, and her mind blanking with nothing but me occupying her thoughts. I want her thinking about anything but whatever went down here in my absence.
Lifting my head, I give her a chance to breathe. Slipping my fingers free from their cozy seat, I raise them to my mouth.
“Cas…” Jade smiles sleepily at me, her head resting on my shoulder, her eyes drooping closed.
Licking my lips in anticipation of her sweet juices, I suck my fingers clean, letting her have a taste for herself. Jade’s eyes fly open and she moans into me. My tongue sweeps through her mouth, tangling with hers, the duel ending in my favor. I smack her mouth one last time for good measure.
I cradle her then, watch her eyes close again, her breathing even, her beautifully sculpted features relax with sleep. Careful not to wake her, I maneuver Jade under the covers. I leave her to recover from whatever horror she witnessed.
“She said someone was chasing her. A woman.” Nolan’s face is grim as he takes in the scene. The suite’s living area is trashed, to put it lightly. An overturned massage table and the toolkit provided to all of our masseuses in the hotel’s luxury day spa is the focal point of the mess. There’s blood too.
I frown, glancing sharply over my shoulder at the closed bedroom doors. “Jade’s asleep, but I’d like you to call Dr. Martin. Tell her it’s an emergency.” If there’s even a chance Jade’s been hurt, I want a doctor here to help patch her up.
Nolan claps my shoulder. “I’ll have security clean this up to keep it discreet. Between Isaiah and me, we’ll find whoever did this.”
“Leave this between us,” I say, aware of Nolan’s widening eyes.
He recovers from the surprise, his face back to its drawn worry. “I’ll be back with Dr. Martin then. In the meantime, do you and Jade want to move to another suite? I’m sure I can have one prepared for you.”
I shake my head. Loosening my tie, I slip it off and fling it onto the sofa. Plopping down, I rest my elbows on my thighs, my hands locked together over my mouth. I stare pensively at the destruction in the middle of my living area.
Nolan’s gone when I look up. I instinctively draw back the sleeve of my suit jacket and dress shirt only to recall I don’t carry the wristwatch on my person anymore. I haven’t since Jade tried to steal it.
“Fuck,” I growl, the built-up frustration boiling now. I need to cool off. Stat.
Relying on my phone instead, I’m not too happy to see I’ve zoned out for nearly half an hour. I begin to clean up, the security guards knocking for entrance not long after. I answer the door, and see them through, helping them sweep up the mess. Together we get the room returned to its original state.
By the time Dr. Martin comes up with Nolan two hours later, the room looks as if a bomb had never gone off at all.