Chapter 9
CHAPTER NINE
Naomi
“Oh, thank God,” I sighed as I shut and then braced my back against the door of my office in the Lykaios International headquarters.
When it came to long days, this one counted in the “long as fuck” column. To add to everything, the way my body hadn’t stopped buzzing since Cassius arrived on the project site made things ten times worse for my concentration.
At least on the positive, I’d get to work for the next few hours without interruption since it was a Friday and past seven, so the building had cleared of nearly all of the office personnel.
I almost heard Akari reprimanding me, “Woman, you’re in Vegas. No one works on a Friday night.”
But two nights in a row with her could kill a girl. My feet hurt like hell from the five clubs we’d visited last night, and then I’d gotten up this morning to put in a twelve-hour workday. Well, probably more since I planned to stay here until at least nine or ten o’clock.
Peeling myself from the door, I dropped my satchel on an oversized chair and untucked my shirt from my jeans. A plume of dirt billowed out, and I wrinkled my nose.
That’s what I got for being a girl who liked to play on construction sites. Good thing Henna provided complete ensuites for all the executive offices because this body required a shower immediately.
Since it sat next door to the construction site, going to the penthouse may have been the better place to freshen up, but I couldn’t risk running into Cassius. With the way he stirred up my hormones, I’d likely jump him the second he came into view.
Damn the man with his pheromones.
I shook my head and walked toward the bathroom. Once locked inside, I undressed, turned on the shower, set it to my desired temperature, and stepped inside.
Lifting my face into the blissful heated spray, I let the grime of the day wash away from my skin and hair.
Once clean, I stood in the cascade of the showerhead, enjoying its warmth and knowing, soon enough, reality meant work and facing my stupidity when it came to Cassius Dimitri Lykaios.
Why the fuck had I told him that I’d fuck him?
I knew better. Repeating yesterday’s antics led only to more heartache.
Who was I kidding?
Sex was inevitable.
From the very beginning, he drew me to him in this visceral way. A look from across a room was all it took to set my body humming.
It wasn’t just the attraction and the physical where he made it feel safe to try anything and everything. It was also the fact I let my guard down and allowed him past the walls.
He knew all my secrets.
I dropped my head against the tile as a tear slid down my cheek.
Taking any steps with Cassius meant putting my heart at risk again.
It also meant telling my family about him. How would they react?
My siblings and cousins weren’t the issue.
We supported each other through everything.
My problems revolved more around my parents and extended family.
They all had this idea of how I should live my life, the perfect box I should fit inside.
And no matter how I wanted to be the girl they wanted, I just wasn’t meant to be her.
Maybe one day, Papa and all the aunts would accept me the way I was and the choices I’d made.
I wasn’t turning my back on them by picking my own path, I was just living the life I wanted and not the one they picked for me.
Pushing away the sadness, I turned off the faucet and toweled myself dry. I spent the next fifteen minutes changing into a comfy lounge dress and sneakers and applying my evening skincare routine. No point in makeup since I planned to hit the sheets as soon as I returned to my apartment.
Picking up my dirty jeans and work shirt, I frowned at the smell.
Correction, my work clothes would go in the washing machine, then bed. I stuffed them in a laundry bag and set them in a corner to pick up before I headed out.
Grabbing something to tie up my hair, I bound it atop my head in a messy bun. Now to go over all the changes from the meeting today. It wouldn’t take long to restructure some of the timelines and schematics. I expected some of the usual vendors to bitch and moan, but that came with the territory.
Usually, I gave them the “suck it up” look and kept moving.
I’d learned the move from my idol Charlotte “Charlie” Steel, a renowned architect and developer.
She was the reason I’d entered the project development field in the first place.
She was a Norwegian oil heiress who’d turned her back on tradition and decided to pick a career in architecture and project management.
I’d interned under her at the beginning of my career, and she’d taught me everything about what I’d face as a woman in a predominantly male-dominated field. And through Charlie, I’d met Henna and earned the opportunity to bid on my first project with Lykaios International five years ago.
At least Cassius hadn’t been a dick when I told him I couldn’t implement some of his suggestions. I wasn’t sure what to expect when he’d first walked up to the group. Besides making all the female team members drool, he’d brought some valid requests to the table.
I’d agreed to the possible changes within the timelines and buildout constraints and denied those that would cause significant delays.
It surprised me how well we worked together.
We viewed many things along the same lines, and where we differed, the debates reminded me of the conversations we’d had for hours back in Greece.
Shaking that memory from my mind, I turned the knob and opened the bathroom door.
“Took you long enough.”
Cassius grabbed me by the waist, covering my mouth with his.
Desire surged through my body as my mind tried to catch up with what was happening.
“C-Cassius, what are you doing here?” I gasped out.
“What does it look like?” He deepened the kiss, sliding his tongue against mine in a wicked dance meant to drive up my need.
I couldn’t help but moan and meet his demands with my own.
“You shouldn’t be here. I have work to do,” I muttered as I slid my arms over his shoulders and tugged him closer to me.
He bit my lower lip, giving it a delicious sting. “You’re definitely giving all the signals you don’t want me anywhere near you.”
He turned us and walked me backward until he had me sandwiched between him and the edge of my desk. My breath grew shallow, and a deep throbbing ignited as his thick, engorged cock pressed along my aching clit.
A glint entered his dark sapphire eyes as he sat me on top of the polished wood and slowly bunched up my long dress, exposing my legs a little bit at a time.
He held my gaze as he lowered to the floor. “I fucking love it when you wear things that give me easy access.”
A spasm shot through my core, drenching it with a flood of arousal.
God, I loved it when he used his mouth on me. I craved it.
I’d never known a man who enjoyed pleasuring a woman as he did.
“I’ve wanted a taste of you all damn day.”
I swallowed, hearing the hunger in those words.
Cassius’s hand settled on my ankle, removing my shoes and then gliding up under the hem of my dress to access my underwear.
Once he’d discarded the soft lace material, he set one of my feet on each of his shoulders and slid his palms up and down my calves and thighs.
He stroked in a teasing fashion, meant to arouse, meant to drive my need higher.
And it worked, driving the pulsing need deep inside me to grow to an almost unbearable level.
When he grazed his tongue along the inside of each leg, stopping just short of where I wanted him, I begged without thinking. “Cassius, please.”
“Is the anticipation getting to you, psychi mou?”
The smug question had me squeezing my eyes tight and curling my fingers around the lip of my desk, waiting, refusing to say anything more.
He nipped the juncture near my pussy, and I couldn’t help but arch up.
My body burned for his touch, his mouth, just him.
He set a palm flat against my abdomen as if to hold me down, and he slid the fingers of his other hand along the soaked folds of my pussy lips.
“Tell me the truth. Were you wet like this all day? Did my presence affect you as much as yours did me?”
He rimmed two fingers along the entrance of my pussy.
I tried to push up against him but failed as his hand held me in place.
Frustrated, I said, “W-was it me or all the fawning from the other females on the team?”
He thrust forward, giving me a jolt of pleasure-filled pain and making me bite my lip. “I wouldn’t go in that direction if I were you, Naomi. You’re the only woman I see, and you know it.”
The fact I loved his irritation wasn’t lost on me. I guessed Indian women were just as possessive as Greek men.
“Do I? I’m not even sure who I was with for the last three years.”
“Is that right?” The edge in his voice had my breath hitching, and on instinct, I glanced down my body and caught his feral stare. “Then, it looks as if I’ll need to remind you exactly who that man was.”
His pupils ate up his irises, leaving them almost black with deep blue rings.
“We’ll see.”
“Yes, we will.” He curled his fingers deep, hitting the sensitive bundle of nerves only he’d ever found.
A quiver shot through my core, and arousal slicked my pussy and the digits he’d pushed inside me. The slight quirk at the corner of his mouth told me he felt my reaction.
“That means n— Oh, God,” I gasped as his lips descended on my clit.
He laved, sucked, and teased the sensitive bud while working my pussy with measured plunges in and out.
I cupped my breasts and writhed, falling back against the desk as the overwhelming drive to come engulfed every fiber of my being.
Just as I flew over the cusp, he slowed his ministrations, dropping me out of my bliss.
I grabbed hold of his shoulders. “Don’t stop. Dammit.”
Instead of responding, he renewed his wicked torture, bringing me up twice more.
By this point, I couldn’t take any more. My mind whirled with too much sensation.
“Please,” I whimpered. “Send me over.”
“Not yet,” he murmured, wiping his mouth against the inside of my thigh and then rising to his feet.
He tugged me up to sitting, and I couldn’t help but glower at him.
My body burned for release. All it would take was a few strokes of my fingers to send me over.
He cupped my jaw and ordered as if reading my thoughts, “Don’t even think about it.”
“Think about what?”
His grip on my face tightened, and he leaned in. “You are mine. Your pleasure is mine.”
“Only if I say it is.”
His focus shifted to my lips for the briefest of seconds, and the crackle of lust between us heightened up a notch, making the ache deep in my core almost painful.
“Then tell me, will your hand relieve the desire churning inside you the way I can?” He pushed my knees apart and stepped between them.
There was no point in denying the truth. I’d grown addicted to him, his touch, his kisses, his body.
Releasing my face, he slid his palms up my thighs and gathered the material of my dress, pulling it over my head and tossing it behind him. Goosebumps prickled my heated skin, and my nipples beaded tighter in my bra.
I unbuttoned his shirt and pushed it from his shoulders to reveal the hard, sculpted body underneath. Reaching between us, he freed his cock and set the weeping, bulbous head against the swollen folds of my pussy lips.
A shiver shot down my spine, and a moan lodged in my throat.
Instead of plunging in as I expected and wanted, he ran the slick tip up and down, circling my over-sensitized clitoral nub before notching himself in my entrance.
“Cassius, just fuck me already.”
“Say it again.” He pushed in a fraction more, stretching me, and slid out.
Holding in a desperate whimper, I said, “Fuck me already.”
“My name.” His thumb glided over my mouth, and I lost myself in the intensity of his deep blue gaze as a lump formed in my throat and a surge of emotions engulfed my heart.
“C-Cassius.”
“That’s right. I’m Cassius, no matter what last name I bear. That’s who I’ve always been with you.”
I closed my eyes, not wanting to feel more than lust.
“Not now. I can’t deal with that now. Just make this ache go away.”
He slid his fingers into my hair and tilted my head back as his other hand grabbed my ass.
I waited for the oblivion of his surge, where I wouldn’t have to think, wouldn’t have to feel.
“Eventually, you’re going to have to face it.” He slammed into me, making me cry out. “But for now, I’ll let you have your way.”
I held on to his shoulders as he set a hard and fast pace, so relentless that I had no doubt he’d leave marks where he gripped my hip.
Heat pooled deep in my core, and my vaginal muscles quivered and then contracted. My back bowed, and I dug my nails along his shoulders.
“That’s it. Let go.” He pummeled my pussy, pushing me higher and higher.
Then before I realized it, I’d cascaded over the cliff into ecstasy. My core convulsed around him in hard spasms.
“Cassius. Oh, fuck. Cassius.”
I couldn’t think, only live in the exhilaration of the pleasure coursing throughout me.
“One more,” he ordered against my lips, barely giving me time to come down.
He rode me into the next wave, but this time he shattered with me.