Chapter Nine
ARES WAS MOMENTARILY ALONE. Cassie had gone down into the cabin to get them coffee.
He felt hollowed out after his panic attack, but also something else, a sense of calm.
He’d never had that reaction in front of anyone before.
He could still feel her hand on his arm, cool, then taking his hand, leading him over to the seat.
Her compassionate eyes. So blue. Hair wild and tangled around her shoulders. Bare thighs. His T-shirt.
The fact that she knew what he was going through, albeit for a very different reason. He could still recall the way she’d frozen yesterday. Gone pale. Retreated somewhere inside herself.
The sense of being seen and accepted and understood was…as disturbing as it was profound. Throwing him off-centre.
She re-emerged now with cups of coffee and he took one.
‘Thanks.’ He noticed she’d put on shorts.
He’d never been in this situation with a lover before.
Because he didn’t hang around or encourage them to hang around.
And yet, in spite of exposing himself so spectacularly just now, he didn’t feel the need to get away from Cassie.
To his relief, he felt something start to eclipse the cold clammy dread as it receded. Awareness. Heat. Desire.
Last night…had been amazing enough to distract him from his surroundings. Not even sex would have done that before. But with her… Something uneasy moved through him. She’s different.
Yes, because she was so out of bounds she might as well be from another planet.
‘Last night,’ he said and stopped. Not sure what to say.
But Cassie spoke. ‘You don’t have to say anything.’
‘I don’t?’
She shook her head, her hair slipping forward to hide her face. ‘I’m sure it wasn’t what you’re…used to.’
Ares huffed a laugh. ‘You can say that again.’ He absently rubbed his bare chest. He had to acknowledge that it felt as if something had freed up in his chest. Some resident tightness.
Cassie stood up and rounded on him. ‘Well, there’s no need to be rude about it. I’ll dock this boat as soon as I can and you can sign me up with another babysitter, OK?’
It took Ares a moment to compute the hurt on her face. She went to go back down into the cabin and Ares caught her arm. ‘Woah! Wait just a second, where are you going?’
He saw the turmoil on her face and it lanced him right in the gut because he could see that she knew if she went downstairs he would find it hard to follow her. She pulled her arm free. ‘That’s the problem, there’s nowhere to go.’
A moment ago Ares had been thinking that last night couldn’t happen again, she was out of bounds and maybe it would be best to just let her dock the boat somewhere and put in a call to have someone else take over, but now that she was saying that, he found it unpalatable.
More than unpalatable. Downright impossible.
‘Cass, look at me.’
It took her a second but she did, eyes flashing, jaw tight. He took the coffee cup out of her hand and put it down and then took her hands and tugged her towards him until she fell into his lap.
Yes. She belongs here. With me.
‘Ares?’ She was rigid in his arms, on his lap, where his body was responding to her luscious ass pressed close to his body.
‘Cass, last night wasn’t what I’m used to…in a good way.’
She relaxed into him a little. ‘Oh.’
‘How do you think I was even able to do that if you hadn’t taken all of my attention?’
‘There was a storm, we couldn’t have stayed on deck… Maybe you were just looking for something to distract you.’
‘I tried to resist you, remember?’
Her face went a pretty shade of pink. He saved her. ‘You tempted me from the moment I laid eyes on you and judged you to be a spoiled party-girl brat.’
‘I’m not a brat.’
‘No, you’re not.’ She wasn’t. Ares knew that now. She was genuine and sweet and more self-sufficient than most people he knew. And she was going to be taking on a job that would demand everything of her. For the rest of her life.
‘I should be asking you if it was everything you’d hoped.’
She looked at him, suddenly shy. Bit her lip. ‘I…’ she said. ‘It was the most… I never expected it would be so… Is it always like that?’
He shook his head. ‘No, but with you…? I think so.’
He moved under her and saw her blush again as she registered what she was sitting on. And then a gleam came into her eye. ‘Could we? Now?’
Ares nodded. ‘We need protection.’
She jumped up. ‘I’ll get it.’ She disappeared down into the cabin. The thought that he had debauched the future queen he was supposed to be protecting was not something he wanted to dwell on right now. When she came back, he said, ‘Take off your shorts.’
She did as Ares stood and pulled off his jeans and sat down again. He reached for her. ‘Straddle my lap.’
She did, the T-shirt riding up to the tops of her legs. Ares bit back a groan when she came into contact with his cock. He wouldn’t last long.
‘Are you sore?’
She shook her head. ‘Not too sore.’ She looked hungry. Ares pushed her hair over her shoulders and then cupped her face with his hands and kissed her, getting drunk on her sweetness and the way she opened up to him so trustingly.
She wrapped her arms around him and he let her face go to reach under the hem of his T-shirt—it had never looked as good on him—and found soft silky skin. The weight of her perfect breasts, those sharp nipples.
She gasped into his mouth as he rolled them, pinching gently. Then he pushed the T-shirt up, bunching it, and bent his head, to lavish each peak with his tongue and mouth, until Cassie was writhing against him.
He put his hand between them, finding where she was slick and swollen with need. It was all he could do to find the protection, rip it open and roll it onto himself so that he could say, ‘Rise up a little.’
She did, bracing her knees on the seat either side of his hips. Ares angled himself so he was nudging her entrance and then he said, ‘OK, come back down…’
‘Ahhhh.’ He let out a hiss of ecstasy as she slowly came down onto his body, encasing him in heat and silk and that exquisite grip of her inner muscles.
He held her waist, guiding her movement.
She looked at him as if concentrating on a very hard task.
It made something move in his chest, so he kissed her again to push it away and focus on the physical.
Up and down she glided on his body and it was more exquisite than Ares had ever known.
They fitted together. He could feel Cassie’s movements becoming more jerky, faster, as she chased her peak, and Ares held her hips as he thrust up and deep, once, twice…
on the third time she splintered around him with a cry, her body convulsing around his, sending him flying.
The panic and the claustrophobia was gone, banished. Cassie collapsed into him, head buried in his neck. His arms went around her, holding her lightly trembling body in the aftermath.
Even when the tendrils of his dread did come back to him, as sanity and reality returned, it didn’t feel as acute. The sharp edges were softened.
A little later they were still at anchor in the sheltered cove where they’d come last night to avoid the storm, eating breakfast/brunch. The sun was up. It was a beautiful cerulean blue-sky day, no hint of the rain and wind from just hours ago.
Cassie had assured Ares a short while before that they would dock the boat as soon as she found the nearest spot for it.
She wasn’t sure what would happen now, but she knew she couldn’t ask Ares to stay on the boat.
And she didn’t want to continue this trip on a boat with anyone else.
The thought was repugnant and she knew there was no way he’d agree to let her continue without security.
A little hesitantly she asked, ‘You’re not going to…leave me?’ She winced inwardly at how that sounded. Needy.
He looked at her. ‘Only if you’ve decided to return to Sadat?’
Cassie shook her head. For the first time since it had become apparent that she would be queen, she resented the constraints on her life. The fact that she had mere days before she’d have to return and start her life of duty. Without Ares.
And even though they’d just had the most…transformative night of her life, and delicious morning sex, she wasn’t sure where they were now. Ares was used to this. She wasn’t.
Hating herself for feeling so insecure, Cassie said, ‘What is this now…? What are we…?’
Ares took a sip of coffee and put the cup back on the small table. He looked at her. Thankfully he’d put on a T-shirt that Cassie had brought him. So he wasn’t too distracting.
He gestured between them with a finger. ‘This?’
Cassie nodded, squirming. Ares was probably used to sophisticated lovers who didn’t need anything spelled out. Well, tough. She raised her chin. ‘Yes, this.’
Slowly he said, ‘We are two adults enjoying a moment of rare chemistry.’
She registered the word moment. ‘So this isn’t…usual?’
He shook his head. ‘No, Cass, it’s not.’
Something fizzed inside her. It wasn’t just her. ‘If I had found someone last night to sleep with…to be my first…’
A thunderous expression crossed Ares’s face and he reached for her from the other side of the table, pulling her into his lap. ‘I wasn’t going to let anyone else be the first to touch you.’
Cassie relaxed into Ares’s steely strength. She believed him. He wasn’t just helping her to tick off her ‘last days of freedom’ wish list.
He said now, ‘I might have tried to deny it but I knew as soon as you told me you were innocent that I wanted to be the one.’
Cassie smiled. ‘I’m glad you were. I wanted you to be too.’
A smile tipped up one corner of Ares’s mouth. ‘Wanted?’
Cassie bit back a grin. She loved seeing him smile so much. She waved a hand airily and said, ‘Oh, yes, I’ve moved on now. Twice was enough for me.’
Ares’s arm tightened around her and his free hand delved under the opening of the robe she’d changed into after her shower to cup her breast. She sucked in a breath.