by CR Robertson
I chewed the side of my mouth. “I thought you’d found someone else…” My eyes moved away to stare at the wall.
His hands grasped my head to make me look at him. “Fuck, Cas. Where the hell did that come from?"
Heat flared in my cheeks. “Can we blame pregnancy hormones caused by your penis?”
“Not this time.” His thumb caressed my bottom lip. “I chose you forever, Cas, not until we didn’t have sex for a few days.”
My head dipped because I couldn’t bear the intensity in his eyes. “I’m trying to fit into your world, Xavier, but I’m drowning in gorgeous supermodels.”
“Who I could have picked but didn’t.”
“Ah!” My fists splashed in the water in frustration. “Why do you have to be so rational?”
His lips twitched. “As opposed to being hormonal because of my penis?”
My eyes finally found his. “He got me pregnant and now my favourite skirt doesn’t fit.”
“I know, baby.” He pushed my hair behind my ears. “He’s been a really naughty penis. I’ll take him in hand.”
“If you do, I’ll win this dare.”
His sexy grin made my heart skip. “At this stage, it might be worth it before my balls turn blue from all the cold showers. My penis might even mount a rebellion.”
I laughed and rested my head on his strong shoulder. His arms snared around me and tugged me close so we could relax in the warm water together.
“Hmmm. I could get used to this,” Xavier murmured. He slid further into the water to relax, and his legs moved up to hold me in place.
It was only when the water got cold and my fingers were wrinkled that he lifted me out to wrap me in a huge, fluffy pink towel.
Yes, I changed his colour scheme.
No, I didn’t regret it.
The horror on Xavier’s face when his customary black began being replaced with hot pink had been hilarious. Gradually, I began to see him wandering through the apartment with a pink towel riding low on his hips. My domesticated husband—it was like trying to tame a tiger into a house cat.
I dried my hair while he ordered pizza, and my naughty side came out when I saw the heap of bags on the bed. My dress for Friday night was put away far from the prying eyes of my husband. The bags with my special purchases in them were on my radar. My lace bodysuit left little to the imagination, and the red silk kimono over it hung open because I’d tied it loose at the waist.
Operation seduction was still in full swing, even though we’d had a ceasefire earlier. I would win this dare even if I had to tie him to the bed and tease him until he gave in.
Xavier was on the phone when I wandered in. The way his mouth dropped open and he stuttered made all the hours spent choosing my weapons in this war worth it. I stopped at the fridge and bent down to grab a smoothie bottle, making sure he got a look at my ass in the air.
“Yeah, I’m still here. No, I’m not distracted.” His deep voice gave me goosebumps.
My Kindle tended to sit on the coffee table, so I settled myself on the sofa and picked it up in the pretence of reading a book.
Xavier’s shadow loomed over me and I glanced up. He bent down and kissed me, sucking my bottom lip into his mouth. “Loved the show, baby. Keep it up and you might actually have a chance of winning.”
I grinned and slumped back into the pillows to stare at his retreating ass in tight denim as he went to get our pizzas from the foyer. Yeah, my orgasm, when it came, was going to be epic.
***
Chapter Five
Xavier
Jordan glared at me from his position beside the computer. “This shit storm just keeps getting bigger,” he announced. “I’ve been hunting through old records for the Council and it doesn’t make bedtime reading.”
Both of us had gone to visit the safety deposit boxes. Two pairs of eyes were better than one, and if anyone could unearth a problem, it was Jordan. I was getting too old for all this shit. All I wanted was to take Cassandra and move to my house in the country far from all the hassle of the world we lived in.
“Do I want to know?”
“Probably not,” he snarked.
The thought of looking at the screens filled with lies we’d been fed repulsed me, so I stood with my hip braced against the window frame.
“How’s the hormonal wife?”
I pressed my head against the cool frame. “Driving me bat-shit crazy. She’s upped her game and bought some lingerie that makes me want to fuck her senseless. I left her lying on the sofa looking like some siren ready to call me to my doom with the excuse that I was going to collect the pizza.”
“Is the pizza ready?”
“It will be in about ten minutes.” I shrugged and turned to face him.
“You know if she wins this, she’ll be unbearable,” Jordan deadpanned.
“She’s the only one with balls big enough to tell you off.”
Jordan laughed. “It’s kinda cute in a kitten with claws that stick in your jumper sort of way. She cares for Megan, I get it.”
“This funeral is going to be a nightmare.” My hands trailed down my face and I leaned back to look at the ceiling.
“You need to stop feeling guilty. It never occurred to me to take the opportunity that night. He’d been a loose cannon for too long. Using one of the home invader’s guns was a stroke of genius.”
At the time I’d been angry and careless. Would I have done the same again with the same set of circumstances? Maybe. The moment he threatened Cassandra, all logic and reason went out the window.
“It’s hard to look at Ash knowing I was the one who caused his misery,” I confessed.
“Michael would have caused him more misery if he’d lived. He wouldn’t have been happy until he was the only living heir and took over their father’s business. He was a horrible shit and I personally will not be mourning his loss at the funeral.”
My phone pinged. “That’s the pizza.”
“Did you order me one?”
A faint smile crossed my lips. “I ordered for you and Megan, as my wife would kick my ass if I left her best friend to starve.”
“Pussy!” Jordan laughed.
“Your day will come!” I retaliated on my way out the door.
The foyer was empty, which was why I noticed the man standing outside staring in. He was the same man who’d turned that auction into a nightmare. The stupid fucker who’d been texting my wife and scaring her. When he saw me he turned and moved swiftly away. My heart hammered in my chest and my temper rose. What the fuck was going on?
My finger moved over my phone as I texted Jordan. There was no way I was going outside unarmed. At least the security glass surrounding me and the CCTV in the foyer kept me safe.
“Keep the change.” I handed the delivery driver a tip that was worth more than the pizzas.
He gave me a huge grin and a wave. I’d probably given him more than his night’s wage. I preferred to have my pizzas delivered quickly and without being dropped several times on the street.
“Where the fuck is he?” Jordan must have used the stairs because none of the elevators had pinged.
“He was at that window.” I nodded in the appropriate direction, grabbing Jordan’s arm to stop him following him. “I still have his phone number from when he was annoying Cassandra.”
If anyone could access a person’s past from a piece of personal data like a telephone number, it was Jordan. He should have studied computers instead of the law. He would have been a top hacker with the right tools.
I handed Jordan his pizzas and headed to the elevators. “We have enough problems right now, Jay. Let’s keep an eye on him until we at least get this funeral sorted.”
Cassandra was still lounging on the sofa dressed in lace and barely covered in silk. Yesterday, I’d been winning on the dare because she kept watching me as if I was her favourite meal walking past her and she was starving. Today, she’d orchestrated that bubble bath and now was clad in a lace bodysuit that
clung to her curves. The red silk kimono wasn’t for modesty or heat as it was lying open.
She sat up when I came in, her legs crossed under her. The movement tightened the lace over her breasts and made them bulge over the top. This round was definitely going in her favour.
Cassandra normally insisted we eat at the table, but she grabbed a slice of pizza and shoved it in her mouth. She stopped, her eyes wide when she caught me watching her.
She slowly removed it from her mouth. “I’m starving.”
“So I see. Let me guess—is this my dick’s fault as well?” I winked before opening the fridge and bringing out drinks.
“He does seem to constantly have nefarious plans.”
“I’ll try and dampen his plans for world domination,” I said in a dry tone.
Her hair was a riot of curls around her head that had a just-fucked look. I really wished that that had been the case.
“I bought flat shoes for the funeral,” Cassandra said as she helped herself to another slice of pizza. “That’s his fault.”
I slouched back in my chair and stared at her. “You do realise that my dick doesn’t specify which shoes you have to wear? He tends to shy away from stilettos in case they stick him in the eye, but that’s his own personal preference.”
“I loved my stilettos.” Cassandra sighed, before her attention zeroed in on me. “What took you so long to get the pizzas?”
Dad used to say that women had a sixth sense when there was something wrong. Cassandra absolutely possessed that gene and it activated every time I worried about something. Part of me wanted to lie to her, but the part of me that married her knew she deserved the truth.
“That asshole who kept sending you dick pics was downstairs looking in through the window.”
She stopped chewing. “Did he say anything?”
“Nope. He disappeared when he saw me.”
Cassandra swallowed and picked up her glass. “I assume it’s not a coincidence?”
“Doubtful, especially since he was the one who pointed me out to Marco. He disappeared that night along with a huge quantity of jewels.”
She set her slice of pizza down. “Marco disappeared because I killed him.”
“Not true. He disappeared because Jay and I threw him over the balcony and he was later incinerated.” I threw her my best innocent smile.
“Dick,” she muttered.
“You have an obsession with my dick.”
“That’s because he dickmatised me.”
I sighed dramatically. “At least you’re not pussy-whipped.”
Cassandra giggled and lifted her slice of pizza again.
“What are you going to do about the lurker downstairs?” she asked before taking another bite.
“His messages are still on your old phone. Jay can track him through them.” Her old phone had still been in the house when Malcolm abducted her. When she got out of the hospital, a new phone had been waiting for her. She never questioned it.
“I thought my old phone was damaged.” Her voice sounded small and wounded.
“No.” I shook my head. “Your new phone has tracking technology in it so we can find you as long as you’re with your phone. We all carry them.”
“There are photographs of my family on my old phone…” Her voice trailed off.
“It’s in my safe,” I replied automatically. “You have the combination. Did you want me to recover some of the pictures from your old family home?”
“Honestly? I don’t know. Sometimes I think I want them with me and other times I want to pretend I really am the orphan who never knew their family. Is that weird?”
“We all have our own ways of dealing with grief.”
“My oldest memory is the ticking of the old clock Mum had on the first landing. She used to sit on the window seat with me on her knee and read to me. The ticking of the clock made me fall asleep.” A faint smile touched her lips.
“There are days that it feels like forever since I sat with Mum as she passed away, and other days I remember it like it only happened a few hours ago,” I admitted. “I spent years blaming Dad for not being there. It’s probably why I still rebel against him.”
Cassandra wandered around the table, sat on my lap, and wrapped her arms around my neck. She pressed a kiss to my cheek and settled herself there for a hug. This was a level of intimacy that had been missing from my life before I found her. There were times when she just held me and it was better than sex because I could feel her emotions. When she was beside me, I was no longer alone in the world.
Before Cassandra, women had wanted me for money and a free ride into elite society. Then a tiny, fierce woman found me in the darkness. She didn’t care who I was or what I possessed, I’d finally found someone who cared about me. She listened to me, carving my worthless heart out of my chest and breathing life into it. That final night in The Midnight Rooms, when I felt her tears on my skin as she was leaving me, I knew then that I’d found the woman I wanted to spend my life with. When I found her again in the light, my fate had been sealed.
“Come on,” I muttered, lifting her easily with one arm around her waist.
“Are you forfeiting?” Cassandra asked, sucking my earlobe and lightly biting down on it.
I barked out a laugh. “Hell no! But there are a lot of grey areas in our dare that I can circumvent around.”
She bounced when I dropped her on the bed, and I watched as she crawled up the bed backward.
“Love the outfit, baby. I hope you bought a few of them, because I doubt that one is going to survive tonight.”
Her teeth bit into her bottom lip and her pupils dilated.
I hauled my shirt over my head and unbuttoned my jeans. Her eyes flashed to mine when they thudded to the floor. “You’ve been a very naughty girl, Cassandra. Maybe I should show you who’s in charge of this relationship.”
She didn’t reply, but her chest rose and fell as her breathing picked up. Her gaze never left me as I moved over her, but her mouth fell open and head tilted back when I settled on top of her.
“Bubble baths and sexy lingerie fall into the seduction category to try and make me lose.” My finger traced the swell of her breast above the tight confines of the lace. “I should put you over my knee and spank this sexy ass.”
She gasped as my other hand gripped her ass cheek, squeezing it with enough force for her to tilt her hips toward mine.
“You forget, I’ve trained in every type of pleasure imaginable. There is more than one way to have an orgasm and a hundred different ways to make you beg in surrender.” Cassandra’s cheeks flushed with every word I spoke.
The belt of her silk kimono slipped from its holders at the side. My headboard had a metal frame for a reason, and securing her silk-clad wrists to it demonstrated it to perfection.
“Zee…” Cassandra’s breasts rose and fell dramatically, her pupils so wide with arousal that I wanted to sink deep into her.
A dark smile curved my lips. “Better hold onto those restraints tight, baby. Let me show you exactly what submitting means.”
Her involuntary shiver brought a delicious anticipation fluttering in my stomach. She was a delicate butterfly trapped in my web. I was going to enjoy introducing her to my world.
***
Chapter Six
Cassandra
My back arched and my mouth opened in a scream. His mouth continued to suck my too-sensitive breast. Long, powerful sucks intermingled with rapid tongue flicks left my nipples swollen as I tried to struggle free from his grasp.
Our agreement meant that we couldn’t reach orgasm through stimulating our genitalia. This right here was divine torture.
Xavier had carefully massaged different points on my quivering body. He’d drugged me with deep kisses, his teeth nipping my bottom lip when he sucked it into his mouth. His tongue delved into my mouth, swallowing every moan that I released to him. My lips were tender and swollen, my pulse erratic, and my pelvis on fire.
Fro
m my lips he moved to my throat. His hand snaked around to the base of my skull, his fingers digging into the hollows. The move held me static as he created delicate trails with the tip of his tongue, flicking my pulse points until I quivered. I jolted when he traced the shell of my ear, his breath fanning it with exquisite precision.
“Zee,” I pleaded. He hadn’t once touched the needy flesh between my thighs, focusing all his attention on my face and head. He’d never taken the time to touch me like this before, as if I was something to be savoured.
His fingers at the nape of my neck alternated between applying pressure and moving in small circles until tingles trickled from my neck down my back. They culminated with the other sensations deep in my stomach. What the hell was he doing to me?
Xavier pressed soft kisses down the middle of my chest until he reached my breasts. His hand massaged the orb of my breast while his mouth and tongue devoured the areola and nipple. He’d never sucked my breast with this determination before. Every tug of his mouth echoed on my clit as if he’d attached those vibrating clamps that activated at the same time. His teeth grazed my nipple and he bit down gently. He alternated between each breast until I was gasping, my back arched, and my pelvis desperately trying to rub against his.
My flesh was covered in goosebumps, a fine sheen of perspiration coated my skin, and I was on fire. Heat burned deep in my stomach and radiated out until there was nothing left but a pulsating mass of needy neurons all desperate for that elusive orgasm.
Xavier’s hands grasped my breasts, kneading them, his thumbnail teasing my nipples. His mouth covered mine in a deep, penetrating kiss that seared itself into my soul. I was cast adrift on an ocean of sensation and the only thing left to hold onto was the red silk belt of my kimono.
“You’re killing me,” I whimpered.
“Keep breathing, baby. We’re not finished yet.”
His lips seared a trail of devastation down my body. I jolted upright when his hands deeply massaged my inner thighs and his chin pressed down on my pelvic bone. Delicious pressure built deep in my stomach in a storm of pleasure summoned by a dark wizard. It crashed to land, destroying everything in its wake.
