Chapter Caelyx #2
His hands came up around me, petting my hair and shoulders while I snuggled into him, breathing in the scent of his hair.
The warmth of his firm body under me coupled with the light vibrations from the jet had me totally relaxed on top of him, coaxing my dick into a half hard state against his stomach.
“I guess he and Preston do that a lot together,” I remarked, my eyes fluttering closed. “Bring in other guys.”
“Really?” Aspen asked, sounding surprised. “Preston, too?”
“That’s what he said.”
“Wow,” he remarked, and the impressed note in his voice had me instantly deflating.
“Wow?” I repeated flatly, lifting off him just enough that I could stare down into his face. “What, does that change things? Now that Preston might have been there?”
He snorted, giving me an odd look. “No! I was just surprised. He just seems more… Reserved, I guess.” When I didn’t respond, he went on, obviously still amused by my reaction. “Oh my god, are you actually jealous?”
Considering, I tilted my head. I didn’t get jealous often, but thinking about golden boy Preston made me remember all the uncertainty and unhappiness I’d experienced before Aspen had started warming up to me.
And I didn’t like that feeling. Everything was so much more fun and cute when it was the other way around.
So I decided to change the trajectory of the conversation.
“Well, just so you know, the only reason he even brought up the whole threesome thing is because I told him I was talking to you. Before he knew that, he really just wanted to hook up with me.”
“Yeah, I got that,” he responded dryly, just like I’d expected.
“But you don’t have to worry,” I assured him sweetly. “I will always be completely loyal to you, no matter how many people try to get with me. And, I mean… There are a lot, you know.”
“Is that so?” God, he was so cute when he was jealous. I could do this every day of my life and never get tired of it.
“Yeah. I’m always having to turn people down. But I don’t mind, of course,” I added, fluttering my eyelashes at him. “You’re so much more important to me than tons and tons of meaningless sex.”
“You’re pushing it,” he warned me, cupping my jaw on either side and squeezing. It took every ounce of my self control not to laugh at his expression.
“Really,” I added, ultra sincerely. “I’ll keep saying no to every single person that asks for my number, whether you’re there or not. Even if they’re really cute.”
“That’s it. You’re demoted from BB to AB, for Annoying Boyfriend.”
“No!” I protested, pushing my lips out in an exaggerated pout as he appraised me with his eyebrow cocked up. “Please, Cupcake. I promise I’ll be good. I’ll keep ignoring all the thirsty DMs I get on Instagram.”
“You are seriously asking for it,” he said, before shoving at my shoulder to push me on my side. I let him roll me onto my back so he could straddle my hips, planting his hands on my chest so he could stare down at me.
“What are you going to do to me?” I wondered, my hands drifting up to cup onto his waist. “Are you going to teach me a lesson?”
“I think you might need it,” he acknowledged. The threat hung precariously in the air, like an overfilled balloon that just needed one tiny pinprick to pop it. And I absolutely couldn’t help myself.
“And no more hot tub parties,” I added, blinking innocently. “No matter how much fun they are.”
“Oh, you are so fucking dead, rich boy,” he said, before slinking down to line our bodies up and latch his mouth onto my neck, sucking hard. Moaning lightly, I let my head fall back to give him more room to assert his ownership.
“This is my punishment?” I asked, my hips twitching up to rub my stiff cock against him. I sucked in a sharp gasp as he tugged down the collar of my shirt and sank his teeth into the space between my neck and shoulder.
“I’m marking my territory.”
“All yours, Cupcake. Always.”
“THAT LOOKS PRETTY fresh,” my father commented lightly, raising his gaze from one of the dark hickeys Aspen had left on my neck, the edge just barely peeking over the collar of my white shirt. The others he’d left, all over my collarbone and chest, were thankfully hidden.
Trying not to grin, I glanced over at Aspen, who immediately reddened and looked away to glare at the side of the elevator we were riding in.
“Sorry,” he bit out, fidgeting with his sequined bouclé jacket.
My dad’s people had left custom fitted suits in our hotel room for us to wear, his in black and mine in taupe, which I tended to favor over darker colors.
I could tell Aspen adored his, though I’d cleverly redirected the conversation when he’d wondered how much they probably cost.
“No apologies necessary,” he assured us. “It only serves as a visual representation that the two of you are young, hormonal, and infatuated. There are worse ways to appear than horny youths who would indiscriminately maul each other just before being scrutinized at a very important party.”
Groaning, Aspen pressed his fingertips into his closed eyes as I tried not to laugh.
I’d long known the difference between my dad’s actual ire versus when he was affectionately exasperated, and this time was definitely the latter.
If anything, he was delighted that we were together, and I wasn’t dumb enough to wonder why.
“Now, now,” he chided Aspen lightly. “No need to be embarrassed. You look too dashing tonight to pout.”
Yeah, he was definitely smitten with my boyfriend, albeit in a very different way than I was. It was funny, and it would definitely make things a hell of a lot easier for us down the road.
I despised the fact that he’d spied on Aspen and coerced him into meetings behind my back.
And I’d shown my displeasure for learning that particular little fun fact by throwing a tantrum and threatening to go to every big name news outlet in the country and revealing every dirty little secret our family had until the stocks for all his businesses plummeted and he couldn’t take a step outside without being hounded by reporters.
He hadn’t liked that very much, but after some very cathartic yelling at each other, we’d come to an understanding of why I was so unimaginably livid about what he’d done.
I didn’t even want to think about how many times I’d had to console Aspen and nudge him out of a stressed out, anxety-riddled panic spiral, only to now find out some of those times had probably been caused by my own fucking father basically blackmailing him into seeing me.
And had it scared the shit out of me for a minute, imagining that he was only with me because he was terrified about what my dad might do to him if he broke it off?
Of course. But after the initial knee jerk reaction of fear, I’d forced myself to think about it more and really process the timeline of events.
My dad had gone after him because we’d started getting close.
And while I was sure that whatever he’d said in those stupid fucking secret meetings had scared Aspen more than a little, that couldn’t account for how genuine our connection was, and how much he’d opened himself up to me, something he’d never been able to do with any other guy. I knew that.
But it still irked the shit out of me. I’d never been so angry at my dad in my entire life.
Not any of the times we’d fought about my behavior, not when he’d taken my credit cards, and not even when he’d kicked me out of the house.
And although he’d been put off by my reaction to him telling me about the meetings, by the end of it he’d apologized for what he’d put Aspen through, which was more than he’d ever done for me.
I knew that part of the reason he was cooperating with the favor I’d asked of him was because he wanted to make sure everything was smoothed over with us, and that was also part of why I’d agreed to this party.
We were sort of at an impasse. We’d both pissed each other off, but we also both needed each other, so we had to let it go and just try to get along going forward.
Of course, my precious, prickly Cupcake was completely oblivious to everything that had happened between my dad and I, and even the fact that I knew about the meetings.
It was easier for me to keep that under wraps for the time being, until my little secret was ready to come out, and then we could just bring everything out into the open.
When the elevator door opened onto the floor that had been rented out for the party and my dad waltzed out, I nudged into Aspen’s side, pecking a little kiss into the crown of his hair.
He looked ridiculously hot in his fitted suit, with dark eyeliner smudged around his pretty eyes like usual, and his matching black nails.
I knew he was nervous, from the way he’d babbled on back in the hotel room while we’d been getting ready for the party, asking me tons of questions about how he should act and what he should tell people about us.
As it turned out, he didn’t have anything to feel nervous about.
The first part of the night consisted of my father parading us around to his important CEO friends, bragging about Aspen’s full ride scholarship and GPA, which he shouldn’t have even known about.
But we were past that, and I was going to let it go.
Even if the thought of him digging around in my boyfriend’s personal files and medical records still made me want to burn the entire fucking building to the ground.
My mother arrived to the party a half hour or so after we did.
She looked beautiful as always, glowing in a silver satin slip dress and with her golden curls piled on her head in a sophisticated updo, but as usual she wasn’t particularly interested in me or what was going on in my life. I was used to it.