Chapter Seven
MISHELLA
Curious.
Even thousands of miles from home, midnight feels exactly the same.
The sounds are different: a wilderness bustling with cars and trains and people instead of wind and waves and birds. The smells are different too: steam and steel and the foods of a thousand cultures, instead of the island aroma that has always brought reminders of only one thing: the water. This is not a complaint; I love the sea; it is the Creator’s perpetual gift to Arcadia—but it has always, simply, been there. Then again the next day. And the next. And the next.
This island…is a new world every other minute, even at midnight. Beyond the turret’s windows, I watch it all: the people bustling, the horns honking, the trains whooshing, the sirens screaming. The chaos seems to mesh, becoming a peace of its own. A manmade ocean.
It is the respite I need.
The synergy giving me shelter from thoughts that will not stop taunting.
From the memories…
Of that conversation.
The one I was not supposed to overhear. Cassian and Prim, hiding themselves in the pantry off the kitchen after dinner, clearly thinking I was still enraptured by all the technical doo-dads of the living room. Granted, the temptation was certainly there—so many wonderments to play with, hidden cleverly by the wood, glass, and leather décor—but manners are always more important than amusement, so I got up to help clear the table.
Only to wish I had not.
“What the hell were you thinking, Cassian?”
“Prim—”
“Wait. Wrong question. You’re always thinking. Just which head was it with this time?”
“Goddammit. This is about more than that.”
“And you don’t think I’m afraid of that too?”
“Now what are you about?”
“Oh God, Cas. Have you thrown up the blinders that high—or do you see it and just choose to ignore it?”
“I’m not ‘ignoring’ a fucking thing!”
“Of course not. Which is why you flew that girl home from the middle of the Mediterranean, then moved her right into the master with you. Let me guess. She was wasting away in the cinders somewhere, and Prince Charming had to ride in with the magic slipper. Wait; no. Perhaps she was a wilting flower, ready to bloom. Eliza Doolittle, filthy island style. Enter Professor fucking Higgins, ready to make that rain in Spain fall mainly on the plain.”
“Yeah. Right. That’s it exactly.”
“Are…are you laughing about this? Why the hell are you laughing?”
“Because you’re not making any sense.”
“I’m making perfect sense. Dear God, more sense than I want to make. She doesn’t just punch one button for you, does she? She punches both. That’s why you didn’t come home with just the T-shirt.”
“The…what?”
“You went to the island. Banged the local wahine. You should’ve come home with the damn T-shirt. Instead, you came home with the girl. God. You are such a moron.”
“Dammit, Prim. Keep it down. And for the record, I didn’t bang her.”
“You mean you haven’t yet. I’ll take that lovely silence as a yes. And after you do, what do you think will happen? That she’ll happily hop on a plane back home, without asking for a cent in ‘compensation for services rendered?’”
“It’s not like that, either.”
“So you are compensating her?”
“All right. This conversation is over.”
I did not linger to confirm if it really was or not. Had the damage not already been done? That answer vibrates throughout the clamp remaining on my chest—that has been there ever since making my excuses from staying for Prim’s “famous tiramisu” to retire early, feigning exhaustion from our traveling.
At least it bought me time to prepare for bed—in all the awkward senses of the word—for my first night in a man’s bed. It did not halt my mind from racing with every possible, horrible, incredible scenario that might come. Would he seduce me gently? Taunt me with another version of what he did to me on the plane? Or simply launch into bed and fuck me wildly?
Oh. Yes. Option number three…please?
A brutal breath sucks through my lips. A flush invades my neck and breasts. Heat surges between my thighs. Even my mouth aches, craving the dominance of his once more…as it has since the moment that he finally did come to bed…
Then, after but a few minutes, fell into a drained slumber.
After that, as Brooke would say, my choice of action was a no-brainer. The second his breaths evened into deep sleep, I was out of bed, into my slippers, and headed for this exact spot. The turret is my favorite part of his tour from earlier, perhaps because he’s restored it to its art deco grandeur rather than installing the high-gloss look prevailing over the rest of the building’s interior. Granted, the first three floors of the place are satellite offices for Court Corporation, modern by necessity—but the other areas feel “off” to me, as if the design is a deliberate attempt to shut out the past.
More disturbingly, especially after my accidental eavesdrop on Cassian and Prim’s argument, I sense there is actually a past to shut out.
The recognition brings a heavy sigh.
“I’d offer a penny for those thoughts, but it sounds like they’re worth a dollar.”
The commentary from a few feet back, roughened by recent sleep, is a surprise because it is not a surprise. The air I breathe in for the sigh is the same air that shifts, making room for his presence. Just like it did in the palais back on Arcadia…and has ever since.
Only all those times, I was not trying to inhale around a vice in my chest.
I do not turn, not wanting Cassian to see my grimace. Idiot. Why should he not see it…and know the conflict weighing on me? Prim made no secret of hers.
“I…could not sleep. Time difference, I suppose.” Or the hundred ways I keep wondering why Prim’s input is such a priority to you.
“Is that all? Just the jet lag?” He stretches on the floor next to me, leaning on an elbow as opposed to my stomach-down recline. The reading chaise behind us is comfortable enough, but being closer to the city’s energy is a better fit for my spirit tonight. He sees that too. I discern it in the forests of his eyes.
Does he see the rest of my thoughts?
His query has not made that clear. I worry that he does…and that he does not.
“You must be just as thrown out of your kilt as me,” I finally offer—to be met by a chuckle that should not be as sexy as it is.
“Off kilter?” he offers. “Though I’m not opposed to kilts or taking them off, if that’s the request.” He sobers a little while tugging at his hair, which tumbles lushly into his eyes. “Scottish is somewhere in my mutt mix, which is why my hair turns a little red in the sun…or so Mom tells me.”
“Your Maimanne?” This new revelation tempers my jealousy about Prim—for the moment. “Are you two close?”
A smile remains on his face but changes. Softens. “Yeah. You could say that.”
“Why?” I return. “Why…could I say that?”
His smile evaporates. “We’ve been through a lot together. A lot.” His shoulders stiffen. “Perhaps it’s best we leave it there.”
“Of course.” I swivel my head, resting it atop my hands, again attempting to put aside the petty hurt in my heart. “You have others to confide in, after all.”
So much for attempting—or even kidding myself that I did. But the dig is vague. He has as much right to toss it aside as I did to make it. If he does, then at least I know exactly where I stand. If he does not—
He definitely does not.
Bracing a hand around the back of my neck, he jerks my stare back up to him. The gesture is an unsettling mix of command and calm—reminding me all too clearly of how he took over things in my bedroom, back on Arcadia. Was that just two nights ago? Only a heartbeat has passed since then, right?
No.
A forever has passed.
“You heard,” he grates. “Didn’t you? Prim and me. In the pantry.” He shakes his head. Gets down a leaden swallow. “Never mind. I know you did. I felt you there. Standing at the sink.”
Forget about unsettled. I am suddenly frightened—gripped by spectral shivers, such as the ones I have known while working late in the palais and glimpsing the building’s famous ghosts in my periphery. Only now, the otherworld does not hide in the shadows. It is here, in the air between us…in the dazzle of emeralds in Cassian’s eyes, in the promise of fire in his touch…in the confirmation that he knows me, senses me, feels me just as I do him.
In the magic of us.
“Prim is a good friend, Ella. Nothing more.”
But you have history with her. A lot of it.
I cannot bring myself to utter it. “She has the right to feel…what she feels.”
He grunts. Retorts through his teeth, “The fuck she does.”
“She cares about you. It is a glaring truth, Cassian, from the first second she gazes upon you.” I curl a hand against his cheek, as if I can actually soothe his ire. “I do not blame her.”
He presses his hand over mine. Runs it down to my elbow with nearly punishing pressure. “I don’t want to talk about her right now.”
“But…”
“But what?”
I push to a sitting position. Pull my arm down—as far as he will let me. His hold on my elbow remains firm and determined. “Am I just a ‘rescue project’ to you, Cassian? The Eliza Doolittle you yanked from the slums, and—”
He shoves to his feet. I almost expect him to punch one of the walls or windows but he becomes scarier, not moving, his posture impossibly erect. “Is that what you believe?” Every word is so low, they are almost drowned by a pair of emergency sirens down on the street, their wails growing.
“I…I do not want to.”
I let my head fall, but that brings even more bizarre sensations. Sitting here, my gaze filled with his bare feet, I feel…intimate with him. Stripped for him.
Connecting…
I lean forward. Just enough to touch his knee with my forehead. He’s only wearing white cotton pants, and I realize he must have yanked them out of his luggage. They smell the way he did on Arcadia: his cedar and soap blended with ocean wind and oranges…
And there’s something else now. A smell unique to New York. Musky. Masculine. Really erotic.
Before I can breathe it in again, he is next to me. Next to me, plummeted back to the floor. Both his hands dig into my hair, forcing my gaze up into his.
Connecting…
“Don’t you see?” he rasps into the inches between our lips. “Can’t you see?” And then his mouth is on me, molding me…needing me. Then rasping, “Mishella. My favori. My perfect armeau. I brought you here because I’m a selfish bastard who hasn’t had anyone like you in my world in…” He stops, shaking his head, gaze glittering once more, a thousand shades of confusion. “In a very long time.
“Mishella Santelle…it is you who have rescued me.”
CASSIAN
What the fuck have you done?
My head machetes me with the words. My gut gladly joins in.
But my heart and my soul have never felt more perfect. Yeah…for the first time in my life, perfect and petrified are happy pals, powering their way into the arms that crush around her, the body that fits against hers…
The cock that swells between us.
“Cassian.” Her whisper is high and ragged, verbally interpreting the tears that hovers so beautifully in her eyes. I gaze hard into their glimmer, willing the wetness to break free. To cleanse me, rescue me all over again. To grant me permission for what I’ve been craving since the moment my skin first touched hers, during that formal reception back on Arcadia. She knows it too. I see it in the quiver of her lips, in the choppy pulse in her neck, in the little trembles of her fingers, all ten raising up, bracing my jaw.
Finally, they thicken, brim…and escape.
My perfect invitation.
I crash my mouth back down.
Invade hers without hesitation. Claim her without compunction. Kiss her like she’s my last fucking breath.
As our mouths continue to chase and tease and caress and conquer, our bodies slide all the way to the floor. When we break apart for air, I drag my gaze open to feast again on the sight of her, now awash in the glow of the streetlights and the moon. She’s wearing a light blue sleep set tonight, coaxing out dazzling sparks of silver in the stare she returns to me. My beautiful gift.
I dip in, kissing her once more. With reverence this time.
With thanks.
When her fingers caress down to my chest, I don’t feel so reverent anymore. Keep it together. Keep. It. Together.
The mantra pounds my blood, even as my dick throbs against her hip. Harder still, as she glides her touch across me, a look of wonder in those blue-silver irises. My nipples stiffen for her. My abs tauten, cinching in my breath.
Go lower. Oh fuck…don’t go lower.
I seize my sole moment of self-control, grabbing her wrist, slowly lowering it to the floor on her other side. With our stares still latched, I rasp, “You know what they say about turn-about…” Actually, I’m not sure if she knows—but the anticipation of what she’ll transform it into already enchants my mind, and takes my cock along for the ride.
“Mmmm.” She lifts a modestly flirty look—quite possibly the only woman on the planet who can. “That is one I know.”
Her start-and-stop sigh finishes it—as I yank on the ribbon enclosure of her top, baring her breasts to my view.
And what a fucking view.
She’s more exquisite than I imagined. Round, firm, and full, with flesh a shade paler than the parts of her that get year-round Arcadian sun…a perfect contrast to the sweet strawberries of her nipples, jutting from dusky, tight areolas. They pucker right before I lean in, worshipping her with soft nips and licks, until she’s writhing beneath me—
And then I use my teeth.
“Oh! By the powers! Cassian.”
I palm the breast I’m attending. Constrict it a little, forcing more blood into her throbbing tip, before I bite again. As she screams, I suckle away the pain. When I shift to her opposite peak, she mutters something in Arcadian and drives her hand through my hair, forcing my mouth down harder.
It drives me crazy. In all the good ways.
Too many ways.
I reach up, snaring her hand again. Swing it over her head, until it’s pinned to the floor there. In the same violent sweep, I thoroughly embed my thighs against hers. Push up, notching the bastard of a ridge in my pants against the sweet, wet patch in hers, until we’re dry-humping like kids stealing a quickie between classes, fast and fierce and feverish.
“Fuck. Me.”
“Take. Me.”
“You’re so…hot.”
“You are so…huge.”
“I—we—have to—slow down.”
“Wh-what? Why?”
“Can’t…hold back. Not for much…longer.”
“Then do not. For Creator’s sake, Cassian, please!”
I rear up. Try to shake my head. That’s a big fucking try. “No. There’s no do-over on this. I’m going to make this good for you, dammit.” In my head, I already have a vision of how this should go. Candlelit bath, champagne by the fire, and then the roll in the sheets, going as gently as I can. Nothing in there about screwing her senseless in the turret, in the middle of the night, with half of Manhattan watching. Okay, Manhattan probably doesn’t care, but that’s beside the point. “It’s going to be the best for you. It’s going to be—”
Her laugh cuts me short, so manic it’s cute. “Cassian, if it is more ‘the best’ than this, you will kill me from sheer pleasure.”
I let a taut growl go free. “With all due respect, favori, let me worry about your death-by-pleasure.”
Her nose crinkles. It disappears into a stare of pure resolve—an unnerving sight, for the second I’m still able to think—before her hand is under my pants and all over my erection, milking the pre-come I’ve somehow kept at bay. Not anymore. I turn into one groan after the next as the drops escape, searing and perfect—and torturous. With every one of my moans, her smile kicks up a little higher, until I’m not sure what’s snipping the neurons in my brain quicker: her perfect touch or her incredible beauty.
“Stop!” I finally groan it out. “For the love of Christ, Ella, stop or I’ll come all over your hand.”
Her eyes darken. Her teeth catch her bottom lip. “And how would that not be ‘the best,’ either?”
My growl lengthens. Little minx, goading me on to more. Notation for my own journal: my proper little Arcadian likes filthy verbal foreplay.
A detail that deserves a little more…testing.
With a commanding yank, I tug her hand back out. With a brutal sweep, slam it again to the floor. Our bodies slide back together, hard to soft, pulse to pulse, arousal to arousal. Her chest surges up, stabbing her nipples against mine. Her mouth falls open on another gasp, nearly begging for my kiss.
I don’t give it to her.
Instead, I linger inches above her, savoring the taste of her anticipation, giving her something even better. The words. “Do you like this, favori? Do you like being flattened on the floor beneath me, trembling and aching for me? Do you like my erect cock against you, leaking come in its need for you?”
“Oh,” she grates. “Oh…yes.”
“Oh yes is fucking right.” I dip my lips to her neck. “I can feel it in your pulse, Ella. Taste it on your skin. And I treasure it…everywhere.”
I emphasize that with another roll of my hips. Rejoice in the answering buck of hers, adorable little jerks responding to nothing but her most primitive instincts. Have I ever been with a woman like her, so open to feeling everything and thinking about nothing? Have I ever known anyone like her, so transparent about her desire, uncaring that her hair isn’t “fanned out” just so, that her feet aren’t “daintily pointed,” that the sounds bursting from her throat are awkward and rough instead of a mewling porn kitten?
She is a revelation.
A sensual, incredible burst into my psyche. Into my world.
My logic defaults to the only possibility. My lips burst with it, while continuing to suckle her delicious skin. “Sorceress. Dear fuck…that has to be it. You’re a sorceress, woman, and I’ve become your willing slave.” I lock her other wrist down with my grip. Rise up, deliberately exposing my muscles and might against her silken skin and curves. “Look at this. Look at you. Do you know what power you have over me, even in your shackles? How your beauty—” I stop, needing to fit breath around the space now occupied by her. “You command me, Mishella. Goddamn…you possess me.”
Her own chest pumps, matching the desperate cadence of mine. “Cassian.”
I shake my head again. My hair falls into my eyes but I drill a solid stare through the mess at her. “Look at you…begging me. But I’m the one who should be pleading with you.”
“Oh…no. Oh…yes…”
“You rule, me, woman. You…destroy me.”
As the confession soughs out, I scrape both thumbs across her pulse points. Slide them up, until they dig into the centers of her palms. Deeper…deeper…
Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for this sinner…because he wants to sin like he’s never sinned before, and the only redemption is the sin. The only heaven left is her…
“Tell me.” Now I’m the beggar—and it finally feels perfect. “I need to know. I’m your convert. Your slave. What do you bid of me, sorceress…goddess…?”
Her fingers curl around mine. Her back arches, her thighs constrict…her pussy softens. “Destroy me too,” she whispers. “Cassian, please…take me. Fuck me.”
My own muscles shake—fighting the surge of heat her plea brings. I breathe raggedly. I’ve expected the words, so why do they make me feel regressed to sixteen again? Why does air feel like fire as I force it in down my nostrils? Why am I an all-thumbs idiot after rising to pull off her pajama bottoms, then mine?
And now, why does the sight of her mound make my cock drip all over again?
I stare at the rigid fucker, finally admitting my bewilderment. I’ve always been a Brazilian fan: the football teams, the food, and definitely the bikini wax. But Arcadia is nowhere near Brazil, and the reality here is, again, as I expected—except for one astonishing difference. Beholding Ella’s unshaved “wilderness” has turned up my desire—especially when the evidence of her lust forms glittering beads on her tawny curls.
“Fuck. Me.” My snarl only hints at the toll she and her enchantress pussy already take. Need to—get in there—so bad.
“A wonderful idea.” Her throaty rasp more perfect torture—to which she adds a coup de grace, kneading her breasts until the tips are stiff and red. “Cassian. By the creator—I need you now.”
My dick throbs against my palm. Hell yes, it screams—
To be countermanded by my brain. And its evil sense of humor.
Evil.
“You need me, hmmm?” I line myself up, pointing my glistening crest toward her exquisite entrance. “This, right here? You need…this?”
Her whole body tremors. Her hands work her flesh harder. “Yes,” she pants. “Oh yes!”
“Not yet.” I chuckle in answer to her moan of despair. “First, not without this.” Thank fuck I remember Doyle’s stash of condoms in the table next to the chaise. This is probably the first time I’m thankful for being aware of the “accessories” he likes to leave behind all over the house. “And second,” I continue while sheathing up, “not without you showing me more of…this.”
My free hand illustrates the point, running through the slickness between her thighs. Though it elicits a higher cry, she manages to stammer, “Th-this? Wh-what…do you…mean?”
“I mean show it to me, Ella. With both hands. Take them off your tits. Slide them into your pussy. Rub them on your lips then spread yourself with them. Let me see the gorgeous cunt I’m going to fuck.”
Without another question, she obeys. Dear God, so perfectly…proving I was wise to make that mental journal entry in ink. This woman, and her gorgeous passion, thrive on nasty words like a flower in the sun. As she blooms for me I grow for her, my flesh filling the rubber…straining for the slick, tight tunnel beyond her dripping curls.
The depths I’ll mark for the first time.
The place I’ll have in her soul…forever.
The virginity I’ll claim…and cherish.
“Damn.” Great. That’s eloquent. But nothing else is possible in the moment I fit myself to her opening, and push into the impossible softness…the resistant walls.
I halt when she winces. “It—it is all right,” she protests. “I—I am all right. Probably just a little…” A sheepish shrug, a stunning blush. “Scared.”
I dip my head, kissing her. “It’s all right to be scared. But it’s also all right to breathe, favori.”
She laughs. For a moment. “Oh. Yes. That.”
I take advantage of her distraction to push deeper. Clench back a groan, letting that privilege belong to her. “Good, Ella. You’re doing good, my little beauty.” Brilliance strikes. “Try to bear down a little. Just pretend it’s a couple of your fingers, only fuller.”
“My—my fingers?”
Okay. Screw the brilliance. “Fuck,” I mutter, punctuating with another laugh. “Well, that explains things a little.”
“A little…like what?”
“Like why you’re so goddamn tight…and good.” I’ve used the conversation for the same nefarious purpose: now, I’m nearly two-thirds in.
And blindingly ready to give her the rest.
“So.”
A small test thrust.
“Fucking.”
A deeper one.
“Good.”
She doesn’t scream.
She does try to tear off a layer of my back flesh, as her body accepts the last inch of mine. My mouth opens, needing to tell her to relax, but I selfishly savor one more second of her tension, and what it does to the suction power of her walls.
Pray for us sinners…
Now, and at the hour of our death…
Yeah. That’s it. That has to be. I’ve died, and this is heaven, and—
She really has destroyed me.
“Ella.” There’s nothing left on my lips but her name. Nothing left in my senses but her, surrounding me, consuming me—propelling me to an ether comprised solely of that place in space and time where our bodies pulse together, our hearts hammer together. “Mishella,” I whisper this time, squeezing the globes of her ass, forcing her tighter around me. “We’re there. You’re there. Feel me, favori. Feel all of me…”
“Mmmm.” It’s not a pleasant hum. It’s the I’m trying sound, and I don’t fucking like it. But the moment I withdraw even a millimeter, she scratches once again. The sorceress has claws. Sharp ones.
She pulls her arms in, shifting her hold to my jaw. Forces my lips to hers in a kiss that’s so searing, it’s haunting. As our mouths mesh and our tongues swirl, I am suddenly able to feel her soul, to see inside her heart…for they are the same as mine. Remember. This. The tastes of it, passion and salt and need. The smells of it, sex and skin and jasmine. The sounds of it, roaring in my ears and throbbing through my blood. The feeling of it, a magic that will follow me until those suspended moments between life and death, when all the best moments of my life return…and I pray more of them await me on the other side.
Unless that moment is now.
As she begins to rock her hips, working her body around mine.
As she arches her head back, releasing a sibilant sorceress sigh.
As she cries out, in the second I slide my touch between our bodies, to finish her first.
And she dies too…convulsing through the most perfect end I’ve ever witnessed. The orgasm strains her muscles, bulges her eyes…and squeezes every inch of her pussy.
Dear. Fuck.
Over and over she seizes me, her body signing the death warrant for mine. I am executed in a hot, consuming flood, life pouring from me, immense and primal…
And perfect.
“Do not…stop. Oh please, Cassian. I think I might…oh, again. Do not stop!”
“Never.” I grate it into her neck while continuing to pump her pussy and work her clit. “Never, sweet armeau.”
When I take the throbbing little nub and pinch just the tip, she finally gives me her scream. She vibrates, wild and unthinking, gripping me in desperate need, like the fucking angel leading her to heaven.
She has no idea…of how things really are.
That she’s the angel. The enchantress gifted from the clouds…to lead me back from hell.
Morose thoughts—for much later. Now, I only want to think about her laugh in my ear, the mix of melody and husk that brings satisfaction as complete as her climaxes, making my resolve official. This really is where I want to die. Right here, right now. Surely, no other moment in my life is going to equal this perfection.
“Oh…my…high…holy…Creator.” She lets her arms sprawl, limp as noodles, straight out to her sides. I chuckle my way into a new kiss, letting my grip slide along them, until our fingers are again twined.
“Certainly took the sting out of jet lag.”
“Jet lag.” She repeats it softly, her face remaining dazed. “So…how long does that last?”
I laugh again, not missing the hopeful lilt with which she finishes. “Not sure.”
“Why not?”
“Usually too keyed up to pay attention to it.”
“Hmmm.”
It’s the hum I’m used to—on the other hand, hope to never be used to, because it’s so damn adorable. Half of it is barely audible, since she’s already dedicated half her brain to at least eight layers of deeper thought. The exciting part is watching her cycle through them, and wondering what she’ll say to make the wait worth it.
“Perhaps we should try to find out.”
Definitely worth it.
After grinding a slow, savoring kiss into her, I answer, “Perhaps we fucking should.”