Fueled by Lust: Severus (Siren Publishing Classic)

by Celeste Prater

  “Trejani. Just letting you know that I will be running late tonight. No, I am not at home. Yes, Petrus attends my duty. I am at Cassie’s. It is the dishwasher. This is not funny, Trejani. Okay, maybe it is. Where is your Avelina? She sleeps? This is good.”

  Severus listened as Drusus spoke excitedly of Lina’s new car and how he could not wait to see her face when he presented it to her tonight. His mind drifted as he watched Cassie filling their glasses with ice and pouring bottled water pulled from the refrigerator. The sight was eerily domestic and comfortable. He could actually feel his muscles relaxing. He smiled at the sight of her slender, bare feet sporting purple toenails. She was just too damn cute.

  “I am sorry, what did you say, amici? You have? It is complete? That is wonderful! No, I will not say anything. It is her story to tell. I am happy for you, my friend.” Severus took the chilled water from Cassie’s hand and nodded his thanks, unable to stop himself from watching her rounded ass moving away from him. He smiled as she dug around in a drawer and pulled a hair clip from a balled mess he could not identify.

  She began pulling her hair back from her face in a messy, yet elegantly haphazard way. He admired the slender neck and wisps of hair caressing exquisite, golden skin while her long fingers deftly worked the clip into place. Her slender arms were surprisingly sculpted, yet still feminine while bunching and smoothing as she worked that silky hair into a twist. As she fought to keep the hair from slipping loose, her back arched and her pert breasts were moved to a tempting position. They jutted proudly from her chest and swayed with her movements. When his dick instantly lengthened and jumped decidedly against his zipper, he immediately pulled a throw pillow across his lap.

  “Of course, Trejani, I will be in as soon as I am done here. Okay. I will, amici.” Setting the phone aside, he opted to stay where he was, hoping his cock listened to his inner plea of down, boy. He had half a mind to pull his waistband out and pour the contents of his glass in just to teach the treacherous bastard a lesson.

  Well, was this not a surprise? It had been a long while, if ever, since his dick had stood attention at something as simple as the sight of a female tying back her hair. Usually, that finicky piece of meat would not rise to the occasion unless the female was hot and begging with her legs split in invitation, and sometimes that was just because it had wrested away his control and just wanted to feel some relief for once.

  Blinking several times, he shook his head at this turn of events. Hmmm…this was definitely new.

  * * * *

  Cassie felt Severus’s eyes boring a hole into her back as soon as she’d turned from handing him the water. She knew he was still sitting on the couch. His words sounded far away and low as he spoke to Drusus, but it still felt as if he was pressing tightly against her back. Flushed, she yanked open a drawer and fished around for something to tie back her hair. Her skin was prickling all over with heat radiating from every pore even though she distinctly heard the air conditioner humming outside the back window. When her hair finally complied and stayed in the clip, cool air bathed her sweat-beaded neck and provided some relief, but not much.

  Glancing to the side, she caught Severus running strong fingers through the thick mane of hair hanging to his shoulders. The phone was closed and laying on the couch beside him. He wasn’t looking at her, but at one of her pillows lying on his lap. She had time to admire him while he played Mexican-standoff with her newest needlepoint. He had gorgeous hair, very dark but not a true black. Natural highlights weaved throughout the strands, so perfectly disbursed a woman would hold a gun to her hairdresser’s head to get even close to that perfection. That great hair only added to the brilliant, hazel eyes sitting perfectly proportioned within his exceptionally handsome face. High cheekbones, a straight blade of a nose, and a strong jawline screamed masculine, I-fuck-like-a-god, virile man. He kept his body in excellent shape and looked like he could back up that claim. It was hard to look at him long enough to get a sense of every yummy portion, so she just refused to look.

  Ever since she’d laid eyes on him outside her door the day he and Drusus had come by looking for Lina, she knew he was too much for her, too damn fine-looking, and too confident to settle for her uneducated, orphaned ass. Granted, he was one tough-looking son of a bitch and rocked the shit out of a pair of faded jeans, yet he could dress like a Fortune 500 CEO and had the demeanor to pull it off. He wore his regal confidence like a second skin, as if born into it. He was surprisingly easy to talk to. Hell, he had spoken more words to her in the last four encounters they’d had than Marcus had attempted in the last two weeks. She could listen to him talk for hours. Just thinking about that prominent accent wrapping around familiar words caused her to shiver.

  Despite the eye-and-ear-candy benefit, she knew the only reason he came around to help was due to Lina. She wasn’t oblivious. As soon as he overheard a conversation between her and Lina about something else breaking, hanging, or stalling in her home, he would immediately volunteer to help. It was easy to figure out why. Lina had told her he was the high guard to a prince and she just happened to be the girlfriend dating that particular member of a royal family—one plus one, duh! He probably had a thousand different things he could be doing, yet here he sat.

  She had been trying over the past week to scare him off, doing her good deed to save the poor guy from wasting precious minutes of his life. She thought that harassing him about his name, as instigated by Lina’s reveal of the Steven story, would do the trick, but all that got her was up close and personal with that hard body. She wasn’t going to forget that little bump-and-grind in the elevator. He had smelled absolutely freaking wonderful. It was either an expensive cologne with an overlay of musky, heated skin or his natural scent. Just that small amount of nuzzle he’d given her with his lips and she had almost come on that hard thigh nudged up between her legs. She couldn’t even imagine what it would be like to have him fully naked against her, his lips moving across hers, their tongues lashing in frantic battle…oh hell no! Not going there, never going to happen. Shit! Dirty laundry, going to the dentist, scrubbing the toilet…image, please be gone before I do something stupid!

  Feeling like a total glutton for punishment, Cassie continued to watch as he looked at the water glass, back to the pillow, and then back to the glass before finally deciding to chug the remainder of the water. She thought for sure he would get up, but no, he just sat there and stared at that god damn pillow as if it had pissed him off or something. Whatever. Who knew a man’s mind?

  To think that she had at one time thought Marcus a god among men made her want to hurl. Either she was losing her touch on reading people, or Marcus had been that good at deception. It didn’t matter. She wasn’t giving that player another chance to beat the shit out of her heart. In fact, that traumatized muscle sat wrapped up tight enough to make Fort Knox proud.

  Unlike Marcus, Severus appeared innately honorable. This crazy, excruciatingly beautiful man was in her home, sitting on her couch, and sharing a few minutes of his life. Well, she hoped her perceptions were still somewhat reliable. She didn’t think she was imagining the contained anger as Marcus acted the fool. Severus could have stayed in the house and kept out of it, but he was a protector by profession. That was just the way he rolled, and she just happened to be the one in his path at the moment. He was completely out of her league. She didn’t delude herself to that fact. She would never dare to bring her benched heart out to play in the big leagues. He would slice and dice it like a sous chef just by kindly turning her away.

  God help her if he ever showed the slightest bit of interest because she knew for a fact she would be pulled into the masculine suck-zone spiraling around his body. She’d be snapped into the vortex and spit out the other side, just as inept at stopping the inevitable as her mom. When his eyes flipped up to hers, she held his gaze for a few beats before deciding she needed to get him focused on something else besides her startled face.

  “Hey, you gonna sit there all
night or do I have to start flipping through the big book for Plumbers ‘R’ Us?” At his bark of laughter, she grinned as wide as she could and tore her eyes away from his. Plopping down next to the broken appliance, she crossed her legs and picked up several of his tools. “Just tell me what you need and I’ll assist.”

  She tried not to watch him pull that big body up from the couch or his graceful approach, but she just couldn’t seem to tear her eyes away. The bunching muscles in his forearms as he pushed from the couch, wide shoulders blocking the view of the living room, faded jeans hanging low on narrow hips, and the flexing of prominent thigh muscles as he knelt beside her left her breathless. His deep, sexy voice only added to her heart palpitations.

  “Hand me the wrench. I need to loosen the spray arm to get a look inside.”

  When he started twisting the bolts, her glass of water became her best friend or she would have done something stupid like squeezing his bicep to see if it really was as hard as it looked, or maybe licking that trail of sweat rolling down the side of his neck. She wondered if he would take offense if she ran her hand over that breathtaking, sculpted ass. She swallowed hard at the thought. When his deep, booming laughter filled the small room, her gut clenched. Oh shit! Did she just say that out loud? No, she was sure she hadn’t. Oh, someone please shoot me dead right now. She closed her eyes and prayed to hear gunfire.

  Chapter 4

  After a few beats of silence, Cassie cut her eyes over to gauge his reaction. Her brows drew together at the sight of him holding the spray arm up in front of her face.

  “Cassie, you do understand the difference between a dishwasher and a washing machine, right?” He was watching her expectantly.

  Confused, she just stared at him until he waggled the spray arm again and something green caught her eye.

  “What’s that?”

  Grin firmly set on his face, he lowered himself next to her and began pulling green material from the bottom of the spray arm. “This, my lovely girl, appears to be the same color of your other drying cloth, so it is safe to assume this must be the mate.”

  Taking the shredded bit of material from his fingers, Cassie felt a slight flush wash over her face. “Well, hell! I’ve been looking for this damn thing all week. Go figure.”

  Severus’s deep belly laugh was contagious. They both kept laughing even as he reattached the spray arm and loaded the dishwasher. They finally got their act together long enough to squirt the soap and hit the start button. After a while, she realized they were both standing silently side by side in front of the dishwasher, eyes glued to it as if it would do some type of appliance magic like belting out a tune of, “Here Comes the Rain,” or some such shit. When the subtle whooshing sound of the spray arm performing an uninterrupted pirouette in the guts of the beast hit their ears, they both turned and grinned at each other like they’d just cured cancer. For a few moments they stood unmoving and gazed into each other’s eyes until the grins left their faces and an awkward silence filled the space between them like an overfilled balloon. When his gaze fell to her lips, she realized she had just run her tongue across the lower one. Feeling like seven kinds of fool for sending the universal signal that she wanted to be kissed, she swiveled away and willed her voice to sound like nothing had passed between them. Nope, just another day rockin’ it at Cassie’s house of busted stuff.

  “Hey, you hungry? I could order something.” Wincing, and grateful that her back was too him, she realized too late she had put him in an awkward position, yet again. She wanted to kick her own ass at the sound of her weak, almost pleading voice. “It’s okay if you have to go or something. I’m sure you have other things to do than hang around here. No worries.”

  “I would love that. Yes, I would love that very much.”

  Turning around, she saw a genuine smile on his face. He didn’t look like he was being held hostage, nor did he follow it up with a “but” and end it with “I’ll call you.” He was looking her dead in the eye and freaking smiling.

  As if sensing her shock, he turned away and opened the refrigerator. Sweet. It gave her just enough time to wrangle an illusion of composure.

  Grabbing two bottles, he handed one over and started opening the other. “So, how about Chinese?” As soon as he locked eyes with hers, his brows drew together. “What is wrong? You are frowning. It is just a suggestion. Whatever you like. You decide.”

  She waved her hand in the air, batting away his words. “No, Chinese is good. I’m just kinda freaked that you even mentioned it. Most guys cringe when I say Chinese, like it’s laced with estrogen or something.” His deep chuckle pleased her ears, bringing her shoulders down a few notches.

  “Nonsense! It is a wonderful food. I have grown very fond of it. I have found one place that delivers fresh and it is always hot.” Rattling off a phone number, he gestured to her phone. “The number six. Double order of sesame seed chicken with no seeds, and noodles instead of rice.”

  Cassie dialed the number without having to ask him to repeat since this was the exact restaurant she called every other Thursday. And if that hadn’t freaked her out enough, it was also the exact order. After placing two of the same, except hers as a single serving, she hung up and just stared at him. Out of every restaurant in the entire city of Austin, how had they both become addicted to the same mom-and-pop? What was the cosmos trying to tell her? Or was she grasping at wisps and trying to pretend they were solid?

  “Why are you looking at me like that, Cassie? Tell me.”

  She was surprised to see a slight flush pass over his face. Was he embarrassed? He grew even redder as he glanced down to his boots.

  “I know. I know. Drusus looks at me the same way when I order in that manner. Why would I order a sesame seed dinner but not want the sesame? I just do not like those pesky aberrations. They are always getting into places they have no business.”

  Cassie couldn’t help the laughter that escaped her lips and promptly brought his attention back to her. This just kept getting better and better. She had found a kindred spirit.

  “I know! Right? You heard my order. Same as yours. I don’t like spending more time removing dinner from my teeth than it took for me to eat it in the first place.” She noticed his color had returned to normal and he was nodding in agreement. “You think you get strange looks? Try ordering a cheeseburger and hold the onions, then immediately ask for onion-rings instead of fries. You’d think I asked them to kill their dog or something.” God, she loved to hear his laugh. His response just sealed the deal on their common ground.

  “Everyone should know they taste better fried than raw. How rude!” As their laughter died down and their eyes searched frantically around the room for something to land on besides each other, he began gathering his tools. “I will put these away and be right back.”

  He was out the door with the black duffel before she could respond. Opening the refrigerator, she was praying for a miracle that the fridge-fairies had presented her with something to drink other than water, but no such luck. She grabbed two more bottles just as Severus wandered back into the kitchen. Handing him one, she sat down at the kitchen table. Using her foot, she pushed at the chair across from her, toe tapping it for good measure.

  “Sit. We got about fifteen minutes to fill, so I might as well start by apologizing.” At his confused look, she elaborated.

  “You’ve been over to my home four times now. Have fixed all sorts of crap around here, for free I might add, and I haven’t even asked where you’re from.”

  When he started a subtle squirm in his chair, she wanted to laugh at the instinct men had to immediately bolt when you asked something of them other than the name of their favorite sports team or how much they could bench press.

  “No worries, big boy. I don’t like spilling anything too personal either, so I’ll keep this simple.” She grinned at his obvious relief. “Okay, I know you and Drusus are from Greece. Lina said you both came here five years ago as tourists, got lost, ended up in Au
stin, some guy named Daniel introduced you to the fine art of dance and you’ve been here ever since. Lina said that Drusus is some type of royalty and you’re his head bodyguard. She already met his dad, but his mom passed away. So, that just leaves me wondering if you have any family. Mom, dad, sisters, brothers…you know, the kind you have to spend holidays with whether you like them or not?” She pulled her eyebrows up in question when he just narrowed his eyes and leaned back in the chair.

  “Lina has told you much. Is that all she has said?”

  Cassie’s inner intrigue button clicked and she leaned forward. “In a nutshell, yes. Is there something else you got to say?” She enjoyed the little growl that rumbled from his chest. She loved pushing his buttons and watching him try to sort out his “guy” emotions.

  “I do not know what this nutshell is but will assume it means you have told me all you know.” At her quick nod, he leaned back even farther and crossed his big legs at the ankle and his arms over his chest. Exhibiting all the signs of a complete male lockdown, she was surprised when he began to speak.

  “My father still lives. I see him from time to time, but not as much as he wishes.” He hesitated for a few beats and continued. “My mother and sister passed shortly before we left Insed…Greece. I have a few cousins about, but we are not close.”

  Insed? Wonder if that’s the town he’s from. I’ll have to look that up. “I’m sorry, Severus, about your mom and sister. My mother is dead, too. I didn’t have any brothers or sisters, so I can’t really speak on that subject. The closest I have to a sister is Lina, but I’m sure you’ve sensed that.” She paused, hoping he would volunteer any other information, but he just looked at her as if waiting for the next shoe to drop. He won the chicken battle, and she scrambled to fill the conversation dead zone.