Chapter Three
MISHELLA
My eyes itch. My back aches. The indents in my palms are likely permanent by now, considering the hours my fingernails have been digging into them. How many hours, I have no idea. At this point, time has been slammed into the same category as my physical comfort level. Irrelevant.
I sit in a stiff chair in Father’s study, scooted forward, hands tucked in my lap, knees at a ninety-degree angle. I focus on my toes, flat against the floor, peeking from beneath my sleep pants. Distractedly, I note how they have changed color through the hours, going bluish at the brink of dawn. Living in Sancti, the warmest part of Arcadia, still means ocean breezes that chill the air at night.
Winds capable of lifting Cassian’s hair off his high, straight forehead…
Of teasing that hair into his eyes, changing like ripples across a lagoon with his rising desire…
Of infusing wild new scent across his skin, so taut and tanned over all the hard ridges of his body…
“Salpu.”
Not even whispering the profanity against myself is effective against the relentless images of him. And maybe, as awful as the torture is, it is for the best. The pictures are all I will have now.
He is gone.
And I am a selfish salpu for lamenting the bizarre sense of loss in my heart, when so much more has walked out the door with him.
New memories assault, making me grimace. That moment, having let down my hair and climbed into bed, when the door of my chamber burst open…then my gape when Father filled the portal. Luckily, the curse I had prepared for Saynt was not yet at my lips. I had expected nobody else, since Mother retired to her own quarters after we bid good night to Father and Cassian, immediately following dinner. I had not diverted from acceptable decorum during the meal, despite the yearning to do exactly that—cheese soup, crème fraiche, and stuffed chicken breast gained new meaning when one dined across the table from Cassian Court’s intense gaze—but when Father stormed in, rage mottling his face, I discerned the awful truth before he spat it.
Did I not tell you, two damn days ago, not to throw yourself at the man like a common rospute? Do you know what you have done, Mishella? Do you know what you have ruined?
“Tell me again.” Mother’s mandate jerks me back to the present—though it is no less agonizing than the flashback. “Word for word, Fortin—what Court said before he left, and when.”
Father growls. “I do not fathom how this will—”
“Tell. Me. Again.”
“Woman.”
“Husband.” She jerks the edges of her dressing robe tighter. Firms her stance. She doesn’t need to say more. Even with a bare face and tangled hair, etched in the unforgiving gray of early morning, Selyna Santelle’s golden beauty arrests a whole room.
Suddenly—strangely—I feel sorry for her. Father and she are children of equally ambitious court schemers who married them off for political gain. For many years now, it has been plain that little connects them but a mutual drive for more. And, I suppose, Saynt and me. They love us, in their bizarre way—which might be the only way they know how.
“He is likely preparing his plane for takeoff as we speak,” she persists with the same steely calm. “So if I am to help with salvaging the damage,”—a glance in my direction gives chilling clarity about her definition of damage—“I must visualize it again. He said he was ‘unable’ to commit to the agreement ‘as is’?”
“Yes,” Father bites out.
“Not that he refused the terms outright?”
“He said what he said, Selyna. I did not have time to dally with semantics.”
Mother waves a hand like his snarl is a persistent fly. “But he took the time to issue the last of it? It was issued in the parlor, not tossed over his shoulder in the front drive, on his way out?”
Father expels a breath. Finally mutters, “Yes. In the parlor. After he turned down cigars, had one bite of the trifle, and excused himself to take a discreet shit.”
Mother cocks her head. “And you are certain that was it?”
“Certain what was what?”
“The shit. That was what he excused himself for?”
Exhaustion. Shock. Not the best combination for containing frantic laughter. A tight choke helps me at the last minute. Is there any ground forbidden in the path of their ambition?
Father’s loose shrug confirms the answer. “I gathered so,” he mutters. “I very well did not listen at the door, though he was gone long enough, so I assumed…”
He trails off with a tense scowl—though it has nothing to do with spying on Cassian’s bathroom business. Assumed. The word alone implies one of their cardinal sins, as bad as laziness or murder. In this case, it brings just as heinous an outcome—if I correctly interpret the messages beneath their extended, silent exchange…
What if he wasn’t spending the time on that private matter? What if he went to the bathroom for other reasons—such as the chance for second thoughts? Why has he backed out of signing the contract so suddenly?
No answers of logic or comfort come forth.
The only thing that has changed in the last four months, since Father and Cassian first communicated about this deal, has been—
Me.
I can peg the millisecond my parents reach the same conclusion. My head jerks down as theirs swing around, though that helps not in battling the weight of their scrutiny.
I want to cease breathing. Not an exaggeration. Every breath I take is a sharp slice between my ribs; like the air itself is contaminated by their disappointment—and disgust.
They know.
I have been circling the ugly words, unwilling to accept them, but now they sting as sharply as the cold on my feet, and throb as hard as the pain behind my eyes. I drop my gaze to the floor. Wish for a way of lasering an escape hole through the polished wood.
Am I supposed to say something now? What on Earth do they expect?
But I know the answer to that already.
It is me. I am the one who derailed it all. Who ruined any respect he had for our family by flirting with him, making stupid eyes at him. Letting him into my bedroom…and letting him do other things there.
And Creator help me, I liked it.
A lot.
And I made him like it.
At least I think I did.
Sweet Creator…did he like it? And why am I stopping to even wonder about it? Or to care?
But I do. If hell takes me for it, then so be it. My virginity is still pristine, and I shall never again see the man who tempted me to change that, so I cling to the memories of the feelings…all the passionate, exquisite perfection of those moments with him. It is shameless and selfish and for one sublime moment, I do not care. For a collection of perfect breaths, I am again simply a woman letting a man climb up her balcony then kiss her senseless…render her breathless…arouse her to that perfect place called mindless…
All too soon, it is over.
With the stiffness in Father’s shoulders, as he abruptly turns away.
With Mother’s censuring glance, before she rises like an empress. “What happened after that? When Court returned from the tuvalette?”
A blush attacks. The Arcadian word makes the subject sound prettier, though the gritty reality remains. And the guilt. Always the guilt. While I hate their bald zeal on so many levels, I crave their parental pride and approval. My flirtations with Cassian did go too far—perhaps the “romantic” breach into my room was even his way of testing my character—making my overnight moping about it even more pathetic. And how many times have I replayed his kiss in my mind, shamelessly using it to keep myself awake, while my parents watched their plans vanish like a sandcastle under a wave?
In Vy’s terms, I suck as a human being.
In Brooke’s terms, maybe you’ve earned the suckage, girlfriend.
Father gets up. Walks to his desk. Slumps into the chair behind it before drumming impatient fingers atop the unsigned contract in front of him. “He did not say much more than that,” he finally states. “‘Unable to commit.’ Those were his exact words. Then he said he would be ‘taking some matters into advisement’ and would ‘be in touch soon.’”
Not much is different than the first twelve times he has told it—but this time, the words click differently. I jerk up my head to look directly at him—a penance I have avoided for the last six hours. Crazily—perhaps insanely—it drives words to my lips too.
“‘Be in touch’,” I echo. “That is not a full no…right?”
Father does not answer. His features are fixed, frozen and dispassionate, as Mother answers me instead—by digging a scalding grip into my ear. I gasp in place of a scream. The woman has perfected ear twisting to such an art, Saynt still bears a tear at the back of his lobe from the day he skipped school as a boy.
“Stand. Up,” she seethes. “You know nothing of these matters, girl—and now you will admit that as you apologize to your father, who might be able to salvage the mess you have made of this.”
A thousand needles stab the backs of my eyes. I grit them back while trying to nod, but her fingers feel sewn to my flesh. Her grip is unyielding. And maybe it is what I need. Maybe I am just a stupid girl, playing with fire much too golden, beautiful, and hot for me to ever handle safely. Maybe, Creator help us, my lustful idiocy has not torched everything they have worked for. Maybe Father can fix it…if I get out of his way. If I am humble and prove it by being truly sorry.
It feels right, this simple acceptance of their truth…of my fate. Fighting it, doubting them…it has been exhilarating and exciting—and exhausting. Now a sad peace sets in, like a field mouse surrendering to a hawk’s grip, simply letting the end happen—
Until Maimanne jerks to a stop.
I save my ear by skidding short with her—or have my senses been my saviors, sizzling from the blast of new electricity on the air?
Oh…my.
Every neuron in my body is fried from it, letting the energy in—recognizing it at once.
Knowing him at once.
By the Creator.
He has returned.
But my joy is instantly shadowed—by mortification. Cassian Court has come back—to find me being led around by the ear, clad in nothing but my sleepwear. And there go any lingering thoughts for him, at least the good ones, about our passion last night…
Though all I behold on his face right now is—
Fury.
Taut, defined, and clear, all across his perfect, noble features—
And all directed at Mother.
“Let her go.”
I blink. Again. Yes, the words have emanated from him—inducing Maimanne’s incredulous sputter. Then her forced, tinkling laugh. “Ahhh, Mr. Court! What a delightful surprise. Did you have to let yourself in? I apologize; good help is so hard to find on this tiny island, and we were not aware you would be—”
“Mistress Santelle.” Every syllable is a scimitar, bleeding even her conjured civility from the air. “What wasn’t I clear about?”
He steps over, readjusting a black messenger bag over his right shoulder, making me wonder if there’s a gun stowed inside. He looks like a man intent on drawing a firearm—and using it.
I shiver, boldly afraid. Then gasp, blatantly stunned.
Dear Creator. Has the fear…aroused me?
Though Mother drops her hold, everything still feels surreal. Never has a man said such things on my behalf…been so enraged on my behalf. Or is that it at all? What in Creator’s name is going on? Cassian’s energy is so different now. While he has changed into more relaxed attire—a white cable-knit sweater and tailored khaki slacks—his demeanor is more high protocol than at any court event I have attended. And I have been to many.
The same curiosity governs Father’s face as he rises. “Cassian.” His extended hand is given a mechanical shake in return. “To what do we owe the pleasure of your return?”
One of Cassian’s tawny brows hikes up—which, of course, makes more of me quiver. Even the forbidden parts. “You weren’t expecting me to?”
“In a word,” Father rejoins, “no.”
Bizarrely, that nicks Cassian’s armor. He chuffs without humor. “Then you’ve misread the business, Fortin. In this case, luckily, it hasn’t cost you the business too.”
My jaw almost plummets. No one has ever dared this kind of thing with Father. Reproving Fortin Santelle like this, even disguised as “casual” conversation, would drop jaws up and down the halls of the palais. Father has even struck servants for less.
But the look on Cassian’s face…as if he is nearly enjoying this…
My nerve endings go icy. By the powers…I actually afraid for him.
Until a new recognition sets in.
Father cannot call on a single recourse against this man. Before him stands Cassian Court: an equal individual. A leader from the most cutthroat kingdom on Earth. New York City.
My lungs clutch. What will Paipanne say? Do?
“Ah. So we still have business?” His desperation is hidden beneath the diffidence, but Cassian sees through it…is utterly beautiful about it. I am only aware of movie stars through pictures Vylet brings up on her computer—when the Arcadian internet chooses to function—but I easily imagine the man as the chiseled star of a high-stakes spy thriller, detecting every weakness in his opponent in the space of a glance.
Cassian himself only fuels that vision—perhaps even enhances it, with a study of Father that reminds me of straight-from-the-mine emeralds. He is…breathtaking. “I said I needed to take advisement, not my complete leave.”
Father stiffens again. “You also said you could not sign the agreement.”
“I said I couldn’t sign that agreement.” Out from the messenger bag, in his impossibly long fingers, comes a sheaf of papers. “This one, I’ll sign.”
Mother snags the air with a caught breath. Father balances her, barely flinching. But his gaze goes to work, descending in another silent assessment of Cassian…searching for weakness. He will be out of luck. Cassian remains a perfect, unreadable wall: a hotter, steelier version of Jason Bourne, Jack Ryan, Ethan Hunt, and all their friends put together. He stands tall and determined, legs braced in a solid A, locking hands firmly as soon as Father takes the papers…appearing like he has all the time in the world to wait for feedback.
It does not take nearly that long.
Less than a dozen seconds, to be exact.
Which has to be a record for transforming my father from practiced deal broker into stunned gaper.
“We discussed a loan of twenty million.”
“Correct,” Cassian replies.
“This offer is for twice that.”
“Also correct.”
Maimanne gasps again. I join her. Forty million dollars? Am I doing the math correctly? I cannot be certain, since every cell in my brain is short-circuited.
“And you cut the interest rate…in half.”
As Mother and I now struggle against fish gawks, Cassian’s face is unchanged. “Also correct,” he states.
“As well as a finder’s fee for any additional opportunities in Arcadia that arise within the next year.”
“Yes.”
I almost beg Mother to pinch my ear again—or anything else, to ensure this is not a dream. The only thing holding me back: the look on Father’s face. His gape is gone, replaced by a troubled scowl—shot at me then Cassian, in that order.
My heartbeat stutters all over again. By the powers, what have I done now? More precisely, what kind of concessions has Cassian demanded in return for this astounding new deal? The contract is practically Faustian—except the Devil looks like an angel, moves like a prize fighter, and enthralls like a wizard.
“All for this sole condition?” Father presses.
Mother practically leaps forward. “Accept it! Whatever it is, Fortin, say yes!”
Father looks at her for a long moment. Then once more at me, his gray gaze suddenly hazy—like that of a field mouse in a hawk’s talons.
“The acceptance is not mine to give.”
CASSIAN
“This is insanity.”
It’s the eighteenth time she’s blurted it. Yes, I’m counting—wondering if she’ll hit the internal estimation I set during the drive back over here, after having the new contract printed up in one of the palais offices. Somehow, Doyle found a security guard to open one of the rooms for us at four in the morning. Not that I’d ever planned on sleeping, after walking out of here consumed by the proposal now outlined in the pages in her hands.
Proposal.
That’s one way of putting it.
In the last half hour, she’s come up with quite a few more—though insanity is the favorite, as I’d predicted. Doyle—I make a mental note to give him a massive bonus, after the miracles he’s pulled to make this happen in less than six hours—clearly has some more for the list. His stare, filled with have-you-lost-it perplexity, burns from the shadows of the wingback in the corner. I don’t earn myself a reprieve by jerking my head, motioning him out the door—not the one beyond which the Santelles are waiting in suspicious silence. It’s the one opening onto a small patio with the morning sun now glittering in a small fountain flanked by padded chairs.
Doyle’s eyes narrow tighter.
I nod toward the patio again.
With a grunt, he rises. Fortin has all but ordered him to witness every second of my conversation with Mishella, but we’re not going to move past the next “this is insanity” at this rate. The dynamic in the room badly needs to change—and D has to know that too. On paper, the guy is my valet, but that bullshit flies as much as saying the same thing about Kato and the Green Hornet. Doyle and I finish thoughts, sentences, and cheeseburgers for each other. He’s the closest thing I have to a sibling. At least one who’s alive.
As soon as D steps outside, my theory proves out. A rush of relieved breath leaves Mishella.
Just as rapidly, she pulls one back in.
Wheels on me so fast, her loose hair tumbles over her shoulder—
And her breasts pucker beneath her pink sleep shirt.
She’s so fucking sexy, I can barely think.
But I must. Force myself to, with willpower I’m now grateful to have fortified over the years…the only thing riveting me in place as blood rushes to stupid places in my body.
“This is insanity!”
So much for theories.
“You must know that,” she continues, once more pacing the length of the room. “You—you have to know that.”
I can reply right away—I actually have known that since leaving this mansion the first time—but I don’t. Instead I lean against her father’s desk, bracing hands to the wood at my sides, giving her the full thrust of my gaze, the full recognition of my intent—
The full truth of my spirit.
“It feels more crazy to think of leaving without you.”
It’s a bomb drop even to me, but I don’t try to mitigate the blast. I don’t want to. The shrapnel cuts in, and I let it. I welcome the blood; the sensation that I’m watching my heart fall on the floor. For a second, I simply revel in watching it pump. For so many years, I’ve had my doubts.
I’m braced for the twentieth reference to lunacy but she turns instead, brow tightly knitted. In a rasp, she asks, “Why?”
I quirk a small smile. “After the last two days, do you really have to ask? Wait.” I push up, a move easily carrying me into the steps remaining between us. “After last night, do you have to ask?”
She tilts her head up. I’m certain she must hear the thunder in my chest, now so close to her stunning face, as I take in her flash of joy. She hasn’t just remembered what happened in her bedroom. She’s relived it as many times as I have.
Which doubles my confusion about the new mask she slams down over that bliss. “Cassian—”
“Ella.” Yes, I use the name intentionally. With just as much purpose, grip her by both elbows. I don’t shirk the hold, even when she stiffens against it.
“Why do you insist on calling me that?”
“Why do you insist on pretending you don’t like it?” When she relents, just for a moment, I seize the chance to move an inch closer. Nearly fitting our bodies against each other… “Why do you insist on acting like you’re not pleased with my revised proposal to your father?”
“Proposal.” She twists both arms free, stumbling back. “That is what you have titled it?” The arms fold back in. She spits a bitter laugh. “And I thought Arcadia had been missing out on so many miracles of the modern world. But if buying a human being is still simply relegated to a piece of paper—”
Okay, slow down.” I half-expected her to go here. I didn’t expect the vehemence with which she’d do it—or the pain in her eyes as she did. “Nobody is getting ‘bought,’ Mishella.”
“Right,” she retorts. “Désonnum. So sorry. My big bad. You do not wish to purchase; you simply want to rent.”
“What?” I want to be angry but shock makes that impossible. “Where do you get—”
“Six months.” She sweeps a hand toward the contract. “I have that correct, yes? Is it not all completely spelled out in your pretty papers? You agree to invest forty million dollars in Arcadian entities recommended by my father, in exchange for getting to have me on call to you for the next six months.”
A band of pain clamps my head. I step back before snarling, “Not on call.” It’s no less crude than her inflection.
“Oh?” One of her hands hitches to a hip. “What, then? Forty million dollars’ worth of companionship? A ‘plus one’ for social affairs? A movie buddy? A dog trainer?”
One side of my mouth kicks up again. “You want a dog?”
Her eyes widen. I swear that inside, she’s just regressed to the age of six. “Do—do you have one?”
“I can get you one.”
The six year-old disappears. The woman is back, head tilting, going for what she perceives to be cynicism. “Cassian, are you seriously saying you expect me to return to New York with you…and not fuck you?”
Well, hell.
I’d anticipated that question too—hello, obvious—just not those words for it. And those words, flowing in her musical voice…what they instantly do to me…
Damn. Damn.
Everything in my body tightens. The skin around my cock does not get a free pass. The fucker just got charged double fare, and he’s not happy about it. The insult to the injury: that tiny tick of her auburn eyebrows, which might as well be fist pumps in some unseen boxing match to which she’s challenged me.
Okay, sweetheart. You take that victory dance. I’ll wait riiiight here.
I’ve never looked forward more to surging off the ropes.
And I do.
One unwavering step—two—then I’m right back next to her, screwing propriety, manners, and personal space, molding our bodies exactly as they’d been in the recesses of her bedroom. Just as intoxicating as those shadows is the Arcadian morning sun, surrounding us…warming her lips for a kiss I long to brand on her, into her, through her. But I don’t. I lean until only the tips of our mouths touch, enlivening those areas so exposed yet so erotic, making us breathe together—me out, her in, then reversed—until she shudders harder than the motes in the rays around us.
“Mishella.”
Her eyes drag open. Just a little. “Hmmm?” Then pop wide, as I drop both hands around her ass. Wider as I jerk her body tighter against mine.
“You’re not going to fuck me in New York.”
“I—” For a moment, before she attempts to hide it, she looks dejected. “I’m not?”
“I’m going to fuck you.”
She swallows. “Oh.” Pulls in trembling air. “Um…oh.”
I roll my hips, making sure the layers of our clothes don’t cushion the erect enforcer of my meaning. Complete backfire. My dick rails it at me, screaming to be set free in the hot, soft valley between her lush thighs. Somehow, I’m still able to get words out. Hoarsely.
“You know what else?”
“Wh-what else, Cassian?”
“You’re going to beg me for it.”
Bigger gape. So goddamn captivating. I could get lost in every facet of her huge sapphire eyes. “I’m—oh.”
Her helpless rasp warms my neck. The heat from it reverberates, echoing along my muscles and tendons, my blood vessels and skin cells, an assault of demand to give her a preview of exactly what I’m talking about. But another element shimmers in her breath…and now in the gaze she lifts at me.
She’s still afraid.
And I refuse to push her…until she’s afraid of only the good things.
With gritted effort, I loosen my hold and step away. My hand finds one of hers. I lead her over to the wingback Doyle was moping from. She looks much better in the thing, the golden tumble of her hair contrasted by the dark leather. Her posture is pristine, though her gaze doesn’t miss an inch of my actions. Christ, she’s beautiful. My misplaced Cinderella, complete with the princess pink PJs.
“All right,” I state, hunkering before her. “Perhaps we should step back.”
Her stare clouds. “But you just made me sit.”
I quell a chuckle through supreme effort. Lift an indulgent smile—not an effort at all. “Just an American expression, favori.”
The Arcadian endearment is clearly a surprise—but her small smile confirms it’s a pleasant one. “What does it mean?”
“That we should look at this with the body parts above our necks.”
She flushes. “A wise idea.” Nods. “And a good term. I shall have to journal it.”
More of my chest warms. Her journals—one of the first things that fascinated me about her, after recovering from the blow of her beauty—are so much a part of her, it’s strange seeing her without one. She keeps them about everything, as if afraid facts will slip into nothingness if she doesn’t harness them on paper.
Or maybe they’re tangible proof that she controls something in her world.
I tuck away the observation—and my anger from it—to the Deal With This Later file. Just like the surges I battled during dinner last night, when once more she was spoken to like a dog to be curbed, the emotion has no place or use here. Instead I focus on the gentle trust in her grip, while softly prompting, “You remember the most important point, don’t you?”
She nods like a child pulling up multiplication tables. “There are three signature lines on the new contract. Yours, Father’s, and mine. The contract is not valid without my agreement.”
“Which means what?”
“Which means the ultimate choice about this is mine.”
“Good.”
My voice is serrated and I don’t hide it. God help me, even her earnestness is a turn-on. I’m a bastard for fantasizing about what it could be when used for carnal purposes, but my guilt is balanced by conviction. She’s the pure air my life has needed for so long. The fresh start I didn’t even know I craved, until two days ago.
“What else?” I manage to continue. She fidgets a little. Then more. How the hell has a woman with such light been forced to hide it so thoroughly? “Ella, it’s all right. It’s just us. I’m listening.”
I’ll always listen.
“This—this is not you ‘buying’ me,” she finally mumbles.
I let my hands slip free. Lean back on my haunches, sensing she needs the distance. “But you don’t believe that.”
Her lips purse. “It is a non-negotiable part of the contract, Cassian. What would you have me believe?”
I firm my own features. It’s the hardest goddamn thing to do around her, screwing on my “business” brain, but I cinch the fucker tight and go on, “Because your father would be open to considering the courtship of an American otherwise?”
“You underestimate my father’s open-mindedness when money is part of the equation.”
“I don’t underestimate it one bit. But for all intents and purposes, at least in his eyes, I’ll be carrying you off then ruining you.” I have to force the next words out. “Making your involvement an ‘option’ gives him an opening for sneaky bullshit. I wouldn’t put it past him to double-dip on this opportunity.”
Her nose crinkles. “I do not understand. Double…dip?”
“He’ll take my money, but still sell off your greatest asset to some horny Arcadian courtier who’s stupid enough to believe some made-up line about your absence, like you’ve been on the other side of the island on a ‘research trip’ for Brooke.” I raise both brows. “There are men that gullible in the Arcadian court, Ella. If I can discern that after two days here—”
“I know, I know.” Her eyes squeeze shut. “Your assessment is—” A wince takes over. “Correct,” she finally concludes. “You are…correct.”
More than she wants me to be. The slew of truths has stabbed her, as I knew it would—but this is why I’ve ordered her parents from the room. If they were still here, she wouldn’t feel safe to speak this honestly. “My ‘greatest asset’,” she finally echoes, blinking at me with aching eyes. “Is that what you are after too, then? Have all the shops on Fifth Avenue run out of shiny virgins, that you have seized the chance to snap one up as a souvenir from Arcadia?”
Her defiance marks each word but she ends with a ragged inhalation—already expecting my righteous fury. Silly, sad, heartbreaking woman. If she only knew that righteous and I have never claimed to remotely know each other—such an abiding truth, her question was one of my first considerations when drafting the new contract.
Battling the urge to yank her close, I settle for locking her in by leveling our gazes. “Ella, if I’d met you here as a hooker in the Sancti marketplace, it wouldn’t have mattered.” I stop for a second, considering that. “Though I’d likely be on my knees in your pimp’s living room instead of here…”
“Having an easier time of it.”
We laugh at her finishing my thought. We sigh because that feels as natural—and as exhilarating, and as intense—as the rest of what has happened between us. We sober because the enormity of it hits again too. The mutual recognition that if this is what everything feels like after two days, I shouldn’t be pushing fate’s favor by forging a contract for six months.
Six months.
Not. Nearly. Enough.
I shove aside the sentimental bullshit. It’s enough, you mooning ass. Long enough to get my fill of her, but not so long that I tire of her. More importantly, not long enough for her to start tugging at the threads…asking all the wrong questions…
The threads don’t get tugged.
The secrets don’t get revealed.
It’s for the best, no matter how hard she gets my cock or complete she makes my spirit. In the tapestry of her life, I’ll become just a thread as well. The way it should be. The lover who took her virginity, but gave her a bigger gift in return.
Her freedom.
And there’s the ultimate ace card in my deck.
The one element she cannot obtain on her own…just six months within her grasp. I watch her start to understand it, her eyes eagerly glittering, even before I speak again.
“Now tell me the third stipulation, Ella. I need to know you understand it.”
She responds inside a beat. Imagine that.
“After six months, I shall return to Arcadia. My job as Brooke’s secran will be returned to me…and I shall be free to wed a man of my choosing, for whatever reasons I deem acceptable.” An incredulous smile flows over her lips. “Even for love.”
“Yeah. Even for love.”
I fight to ignore how good it feels to hear her say it.
And how fucked-up it feels to force my lips around the same words.
And how confusing it is to watch shadows invade her gaze again.
“Of course…I can also choose not to marry at all.” She pulls a corner of her lip under her teeth. Toys with the rivets in the chair’s arm. “Perhaps…simply…take a string of lovers.”
I don’t miss how she finishes it. Her surreptitious glance, darted through her tawny lashes, is a cock-grabbing mixture of question and flirtation. Why deny her the show she’s looking for? The instant strain through my whole body. The leap of peeved color up my neck, into my face.
She releases her lip—but instantly wets it. Blinks heavily, clearly perplexed again. Goddammit. My jealousy is actually turning her on, and she doesn’t even realize it. The little sorceress has bewitched herself.
Maybe she needs a jolt of clarification. Maybe we both do.
Torch to my kerosene.
I surge forward, slamming into her, submerging us in the depth of the chair, mashing our mouths in a burst of passion and heat. Not waiting for permission, I lunge my tongue inside too. Mate it with hers in complete, carnal intent. There’s no ambiguity; she knows what I’m thinking: if she signs that contract, the next six months are going to be about purging this from both our systems, in whatever ways it takes. Whatever the fuck this is…
Right now, I don’t want to explore the options around that answer.
Right now, I push my knees apart, opening a space for myself between her legs. Our crotches slide and thrust; even through our clothes, the fit is perfect.
Right now is for ensuring she receives one message only—with complete clarity.
“Ella…”
“H-huh?”
“Why don’t we focus on you enjoying your first lover?”