by Leslie North
Arthur swirled his glass again. The plinking of the ice against the glass was more muted now. Cassandra realized she'd never heard it sound that way. Her father had never given the ice time to melt before pouring another. She relaxed another fraction.
"What was hard for you?" she asked him.
He took the tiniest sip, then ran his tongue along his bottom lip. Cassandra found herself staring at the little gleam of wetness that remained there. She had the strangest urge to ask him what it tasted like. And the even stranger hope that he'd invite her to lick his lips herself to find out.
The corner of his mouth tilted upward. "Opposites attract, right?"
Cassandra grimaced. "I thought they'd let that go by now."
"They doubled down instead." He looked her full in the eye, with an expression so open and pleading that it made her breath catch in her throat. "It's not like I don't know I'm an asshole," he said, his voice catching. "I'm well aware that I'm the opposite of you in every way. You're…" He moved his glass in an expansive circle, like he was trying to summon the words. "You're like sunshine."
Cassandra's heart skipped a beat. "What?"
He looked frustrated. "No, that's stupid. That's a cliché and you're not a cliché. But you're warm and you make things look better and people want to, like, bask in your light and shit."
Stunned, Cassandra couldn't speak. She couldn't even smile, even though she wanted to laugh aloud at Arthur's fumblingly poetic words.
"No one wants to bask in me, and I get it. I don't want them getting near enough to bask in the first place." He took a larger sip of his drink and then sighed. "You're the sunshine and I'm the darkness—everyone sees that. But I kind of fucking hate how it's gotten so dark."
"You're not that dark." He looked so anguished that the need to reassure him jolted her out of her frozen state. She smiled. "You were a regular ray of sunshine in the greenhouse."
His smile radiated such pure appreciation that she leaned in closer, wanting to make it wider. "You don't have to be the darkness. If I'm the sun, maybe you could be the moon or something?"
His mouth fell open. For the space of a breath, she felt like she was looking at someone else entirely. Someone she might have described in her vision journal.
Then he chuckled ruefully. "I don't think the producers would appreciate me being the moon. I have to play my part." He finished the rest of his bourbon with a sigh. "And I'll just have to deal with the fact that playing it will suck any possibility of genuine joy out of moments like we had in the greenhouse."
"Arthur." She touched his hand, the let her fingers trail up his wrist. She swallowed. The seriousness of the conversation, coupled with the quickly fading daylight, had made her almost forget he was naked from the waist up. The crisp spattering of hair on his forearms tickled her fingertips, sending a shiver up her spine. "I liked who I saw in the greenhouse," she said slowly.
He shifted in his chair. She was close enough that even in the low light, she could see the swirling patterns his stubble traced on his cheeks. His beard was a shade or two darker than his hair, and it grew in fast. With a rush of heat in her core, Cassandra remembered how that stubble had felt rasping against her inner thighs.
"I'm glad you like that person," Arthur said slowly. His eyes lingered on her lips before dropping to her stomach. "I hope that little one likes him too. I hope he or she can see that version of Daddy more often than the one the rest of the world sees." He leaned in closer. "I want to make sure our baby has the moon."
Cassandra's breath came faster as he set his glass down deliberately. His fingers were still wet with condensation as they traced the curve of her cheek. "You should just be yourself," she said weakly.
"You've said that before."
She swallowed as his thumb brushed her lips. She wanted nothing more than to let her lips part, but not when she knew why that wetness clung to it. "Are you…going to have another drink? Hard day and all?"
He blinked. His eyes darted back and forth across hers before he shook his head ever so slightly. "No. I never have more than one."
Cassandra let out a breath she didn't know she was holding. "Really?"
He smiled crookedly. "You weren't expecting that."
"That's not it."
"Sure, it is. I don't mind. Most people are surprised to find out I'm not a big drinker, but I'm pretty careful about what I put in my body."
Cassandra licked her lips. "Yeah," she said on a long exhale. "Me, too."
Then she leaned in and closed the distance between their lips.
As she kissed him, Arthur drew in a sharp breath, but then immediately seized control of the situation. Just like she hoped he would.
He'd surprised her tonight. But the way he kissed her—deep and slow and completely in command—wasn't surprising in the least.
9
Arthur liked smart women. The smarter the better. He'd never had a problem taking advice from a woman, and he'd never had a problem admitting when a woman was smarter than him.
Cassandra was one hundred percent smarter than him. He knew this from the second they started working together, and it had been confirmed every day since. She was smart, perceptive, and empathetic.
So, if Cassandra was giving him advice, he was inclined to take it.
As terrible—and terrifying—as "be yourself" sounded to him, he was willing to give it a go at the first opportunity.
Which came much quicker than he expected.
"Kendra!" Rory called. The groom puffed across the sand in pursuit of his bride, with a cameraman close on his heels. "That's not what I meant!"
"Then what did you mean?" Kendra shouted. She whirled around, tears streaming down her face as she jammed her finger into Rory's chest. "Go on! Tell me exactly what you meant when you said that birthday cake, one I spent all morning making for you, I'll remind you, was the most pathetic thing you'd ever seen?" Her chest hitched, and she wiped a tear away before it dripped from the end of her nose.
Rory looked helplessly between his weeping fiancée and the grinning cameraman. "I…uh…"
"Wasn't your birthday last week?" the cameraman man pressed.
Rory's eyes widened. "Yeah, that's right!" He turned back to Kendra with a triumphant smirk. "Why make me a cake today, when my birthday was last week? Did you forget?" he goaded her, with a sidelong look at the camera.
Arthur felt sick.
"No!" Kendra shouted. "Why are you even asking me this? You know we agreed to postpone your birthday celebration until we actually got here." She screwed up her lips. "This is just like you, Rory. You never listen to me. We have whole conversations where I think we're connecting, and then it turns out you weren't listening at all."
"If I'm so bad, why don't you break up with me?"
Arthur clenched his fists when he saw the cameraman give Rory the thumbs up as he said that.
Kendra's mouth dropped open. She squeaked a noiseless plea and then whirled and stomped off to the house.
"Keep on her! Keep on her!" Amy shouted from her hiding place behind the bushes. Two cameramen descended from the trees and hurried after the distraught Kendra. Rory watched them, his mouth gaping open and closed like a fish, and he lifted his hand as if to grab at his retreating bride before she slipped through his fingers.
Arthur had had enough. This need to pack in the “drama” was about to end the whole impending marriage. "Hey!" he called as he strode forward and grabbed Rory's arm. When the cameraman swung around to get the shot, Arthur raised both middle fingers and let out a string of cuss words to make the shot un-usable. "Cut," he told the lens. "If you don't stop filming right now, I'm taking my pants off."
The cameraman hurriedly capped his lens and rushed away.
"Huh," Rory muttered. "I never thought of that."
"Yeah, that's pretty obvious." He inclined his head. "Walk with me."
"Really?" Rory sputtered, an awestruck look in his eye.
Arthur rolled his to the heavens. "Don't get a
ll starstruck on me. I need you to listen. Something that, according to the woman you supposedly want to marry, you kind of suck at."
Rory's face fell as he lengthened his stride to match Arthur's. "I do want to marry her. I don't exactly know what the hell just happened."
One look at his face told Arthur that the hapless groom was telling the truth. "I do," he told him. "You were playing to the cameras. You were playing a part."
"That's what they told me to do!"
"I know. But I just got some really good advice, and I'm going to pass it on to you. Ready?"
Rory nodded eagerly.
"Be yourself," Arthur said. "Yeah, there are cameras around, but this is still your real life, even if it's televised. If you screw things up with Kendra for the sake of 'drama,' they stay screwed up. Even after the cameras stop rolling."
Rory drew in a deep breath. "Holy shit," he muttered.
"You didn't think about that, did you?" Arthur smiled. "It's okay, neither did I, until really recently."
"You've been playing to the cameras, too?"
"Always, kid." He chuckled ruefully. "Did you think that I was really a one-dimensional prick in real life? I'm not actually a walking, talking temper tantrum, even though I've played one in the past." Arthur let his gaze travel back over to the big house where, he imagined, Cassandra was brushing her hair back before twisting it up from her neck. "I'm starting to realize I'm a lot happier when I'm not being that person."
"Shit," Rory hissed through his teeth. "This whole thing just feels so unreal, you know? The pressure, not just with the show, but planning a wedding too. I kind of lost sight of the fact that this is my life…our life we're talking about here." He ran his hands through his hair like a lost little boy. "I was a real dick to her, and only because they told me to be."
"You should probably go apologize to her right now. Without the cameras rolling. And eat the cake while you're at it. Even though it looks like she dropped it five times on the way to the oven."
Rory groaned. "It really does. But I bet it tastes good, right?"
"Even if it doesn't, you'll eat it because you love her."
"I do." Rory blinked and then looked at Arthur again, like he was seeing him for the first time. "Thanks. I never thought I'd take your advice; I have to tell you."
"Usually I'd say that was a good plan." Arthur clapped him on the shoulder. "But this is advice I got from someone else, so I'd say you're safe. It's a lot of pressure, but we're going to get through it, right?"
"Yeah." Rory grinned widely. "And when it's all over, Kendra will be my wife." His eyes softened, then widened. "Unless she's calling her mother and telling her it's all over right now…shit. Kendra!"
The panicked groom sprinted back up to the house bellowing for his bride as Arthur just shook his head.
The shouts roused Cassandra from an unplanned nap. She jumped out of bed and ran to the window in time to catch Rory rushing up the walkway to their side of the mansion, cameramen hot on his heels. Confused and still muzzy with sleep, she looked around for clues as to what the heck had just happened.
Her eyes landed on Arthur, standing all alone in the sand.
Cassandra smiled the second she saw him, then clapped her hand over her mouth. Even though he was far down the beach and couldn't possibly see her reaction, it still felt wrong to grin like that when she laid eyes on Arthur McClellan. He was still the wrong man.
But being with him made her feel strangely right.
She grabbed her sandals from where they'd fallen from her feet and hurried outside, hoping to catch Arthur while he was still alone and off-camera. In the time it took her to exit the huge house and make her way to him, she would have enough time to compose herself and not let him catch her grinning like an idiot.
"Hey!" he called up the walkway. His white teeth flashed in the sun as he smiled at her in greeting.
Cassandra touched her cheeks. Just as she suspected. She was grinning like an idiot.
Dammit.
"Hey, yourself," she shot back. "What was all that ruckus about?"
"Why? Did we wake you from your beauty sleep?" Heat flamed in her cheeks, and Arthur laughed. "Oh shit, you were totally napping, weren't you?" He dropped his voice. "I won't tell. And for what it's worth, it worked. I don't know how, but you somehow got even more beautiful than before."
Her cheeks had to be crimson now. "Stop," she protested. "You're trying to distract me and make me forget what just happened."
Arthur blinked. "You think I caused that?"
"Clearly Kendra got upset about something." As Arthur met her eyes with implacable patience, her decisiveness wavered. "You didn't upset her?" she squeaked.
Arthur chuckled ruefully. "Oh no, Rory did that himself. I was just trying to give him some advice on how to fix things."
Cassandra realized she'd fallen into step with him. They meandered slowly but purposefully away from the house and into the shelter of the swaying palms. The gentle lap of the waves filled her ears, and she was surprised to find that being alone with Arthur like this made her feel calm. It made no sense, because she also felt like she wanted to jump out of her skin. Every move he made seemed to be perfectly calibrated to maximum sexiness. From the twinkle in his eye to the way he slyly ran his tongue over his bottom teeth as he caught her staring.
"You didn't laugh," he observed.
"Was I supposed to?"
"At the idea of me being the one to give advice?" He shrugged. "Yeah, that's worth a chuckle or two."
"What did you tell him?"
"To be himself."
Cassandra's heart stalled in her chest. "Yeah?"
"He was playing to the cameras." With every word, Arthur stepped closer and closer to her, until she was almost pressed up against him. "I told him that even though this is a show, it's still his real life."
Cassandra felt like she was in a dream instead. "That's good advice," she stammered, desperately trying to keep her head on her shoulders. His nearness made her feel dizzy.
"Thanks." A puff of his breath against her cheek made her shiver. "Sometimes I wish we weren't on a show, though."
"Why?"
"Because if we weren't on a show, I'd kiss you. Right now." He looked over his shoulder and smiled slyly. "Oh wait," he drawled. "No cameras."
Arthur's kisses were a complete surprise, Cassandra thought dizzily as his lips met hers. His laugh, his sneer, the way he carried his ink-covered body with such swaggering confidence all pointed to Arthur McClellan being an aggressive, all-tongue kind of kisser. That night in the kitchen, she'd fully expected him to shove his tongue down her throat.
But that wasn't his style at all. His kisses were pure exploration, not dominance. He kissed like he had all the time in the world. There was no need to rush, Arthur's kisses seemed to insist. Just enjoy this slow, melting, delirium-inducing kiss, and let's not think about anything else. He kissed like he had no plans to take things any further.
Which made Cassandra all the more eager. She pulled back from his kiss with a gasp and pressed her hand to his chest. Her heart was racing, but under her hand, his heart beat slow and steady, completely unaffected. Cassandra licked her lips.
"What's that look?" Arthur asked, eyes twinkling.
She kept one hand over his heart while with the other she reached behind her hair and undid the ties to her dress. When her top fell down to her waist, Arthur sucked air in through his teeth.
And under her hand, his heart started to race.
Bingo.
Cassandra pressed herself against him. He crushed his mouth to hers, and she grinned against his lips at the knowledge that he was clearly kissing her with the next steps in mind. She moaned into his mouth and snaked her hand down to cup his growing length, loving the way it twitched and hardened under her touch.
"I need to have you. Now," he growled into her neck. The delicate seams of her dress popped as he yanked it down, but she didn't have time to think about the mess he was making of her
clothes, because in the space of a heartbeat, he'd scooped her up in his arms and deposited her into the sand. She gasped as he yanked her hips forward, then gasped again as he shoved her panties aside and buried his face between her legs. His appreciative groan when his tongue found her center thrilled through her, and she arched into his mouth, her whole body inflamed with need now.
Arthur devoured her with such relish that she reached her peak embarrassingly fast. She'd just clapped her hand over her mouth to stifle her cries when he yanked his pants down below his hips.
Cassandra's body was still quivering from the intensity of her orgasm when Arthur surged inside of her. His eyes flew open. "You're still coming," he gasped, then thrust so deeply inside of her she yelped. She wrapped her legs around his body. He growled against her mouth as each thrust coaxed little cries of pleasure from deep in her throat. "God, I love your noises," he rasped. Reaching between her legs, he circled his thumb against her clit in time with each well-positioned thrust. "Make more noise, doll, let me hear you."
Her wariness about getting caught had completely dissipated. She no longer cared if their relationship was discovered, or if it was broadcast to the entire world. She just needed Arthur to keep doing exactly what he was doing because she was so close…
"Oh my god!" she gasped, arching upwards. He caught her around the waist as she ground out her frantic pleasure against him, and then he held her tight as he came apart with a roar.
She gasped and wrapped her arms around his neck, loving how he felt inside of her. She kissed the place where his neck met his shoulder. He shuddered as her lips brushed his skin. She laughed.
"Gotta say, doll," Arthur rumbled in her ear. "Guys don't really like it when you laugh after they've had an orgasm."
"I'm not laughing at you." She laughed louder and wiped her mouth. "I'm laughing because I kissed you and got sand in my mouth."
"You've got sand other places too," he said with a grin, then with a devilish glint in his eyes, he grabbed a fistful of sand from the beach and sprinkled it over her head.
