Chapter 11
C assie
After one particularly brutal throwdown, Tyler lay flat out on the mat and groaned.
Struan wiped sweat from his brow and pointed at Riordan. “You’re up.”
I shot forward on my stool, nearly tipping it over. “If ye hurt him, I’ll?—”
“Don’t finish that sentence, Cass.”
“Don’t tell me what to do. He’s important to me. You’ll respect that.”
Riordan moved into position, shooting a quick look my way. Tension filled the room, and he centred on Struan. Ready to prove himself to my overprotective arsehole of a brother.
Likewise, Struan wasn’t going to let my objection slide. He lifted his chin at his new opponent. “So I know everything about ye, but what do ye know about Cassie?”
“This a test?”
“Aye, motherfucker, so answer fast. What’s her surname?”
“Archer.”
“What does she drive?”
“A scarlet red Audi.”
I fist-pumped subtly. That was the car I’d taken into the city. Go him for noticing what I’d stolen him in.
Struan continued. “Model?”
“I don’t fucking know. Not a car guy.”
“Yeah figures. When’s her birthday?”
Riordan stalled, and I squinted at him, wondering why. He knew the answer. I’d confided it in an odd moment of sharing we’d done in my room on the cam girls’ floor. Then his gaze slid from mine to Tyler’s. Right . He didn’t want to overstep.
Damn my heart.
“Ye can say,” I told him.
“She doesn’t know for certain.”
Struan watched him. “Fine. Then ye aren’t just a walk-in. What are Cassie’s strengths?”
“She’s persuasive. Dangerous with a knife. Her mind is wild.”
My heart fluttered again at the praise in Riordan’s answer, but I knew what was coming next.
Struan’s lips formed a flat line. His gaze cut to me. “And your main weakness, Cassie?”
“My size,” I grumped. I had a list to pick from but got his point.
Riordan scowled, his face only in half profile to me now. “She can’t help that. Why point it out?”
Struan prowled the mat. “Because I don’t sugarcoat shite. No matter how much she trains or how her brain is streets ahead of the rest of us, she will never have an equal chance to fight off a man who gets his hands on her. Not without a lucky shot to his head or a knife to his gut. It’s not a slight on the fact she’s a girl. Women have strengths we lesser mortals can only dream of. It’s a fact because I want her to stay alive. It’s one we recognise because that’s the tactic a lot of men will stoop to. They’ll use violence to force her to do what they want, or worse. I won’t pretend for the sake of her ego.” He tossed me an uncommon grin. “As big as that fucker already is.”
I pulled a face.
“So Cassie needs trusted people around her?—”
“Cassie’s the queen, and I’m her loyal subject,” Riordan finished. “Got it.”
Struan scoffed. “If you’re in her bed, you’re a lot more than that.”
“Not going to warn me off?”
I stared, hooked on the antagonism. Riordan had no reason to stand up for me. We weren’t anything. Not on his half. I was still fighting my own battle of mine/not mine. My brother had obviously riled him.
“Far be it from me to comment on who my sister chooses to fuck,” Struan snarled back. “But I’m happy to demonstrate how much you’ve pissed me off.”
Riordan cracked his neck. “We just going to stand here comparing dick sizes or have you got something bigger to show me?”
My brother concealed a flash of amusement. Without a word, I understood its meaning. Heh. Maybe I like him after all.
He centred on Riordan.
Then brought the pain.
For as long as I could remember, my brothers had fought, sparring against each other and Arran, too, when he came around. I’d taken the lessons to heart at a young age. By a quirk of fate, five street kids had changed from urchins to wealthy. We owned a mansion. Had investments for days. None of my nieces or nephews would ever worry about where the next meal was coming from. None would ever be homeless.
Yet that still didn’t afford us peace of mind.
Money talked. The threat of violence silenced.
All four of my brothers could walk into any room and command the attention of everyone there. Even Camden, who was peace-loving but whose scarred face gave him a brutal appearance. I would never be awarded the same respect just by existing, certainly not by the opposite sex. But that also gave me the opportunity to be more subtle. Piers hadn’t feared me until I sliced into his dick.
I hoped his nightmares were of my smile and my blade.
Struan worked Riordan through a series of classic steps. How to throw down someone running at you. How to get them into a headlock. How to break their arm.
Both men stripped their shirts. I nearly died at the reveal of Riordan’s taut, muscular body. I already knew he had inkwork on his arms, but it was across his back, too.
I wanted to taste every damn line. I needed him closer to explore it all.
More, I watched in wonder at the pretence he was putting on for no reason I could understand. Maybe learning to fight was important to him, but I wasn’t. Stepping up to my family made no sense.
As fast as Riordan learned, gaining my brother’s approval with sparse but meaningful guidance as Struan didn’t waste words, the bruises stacked up, too. At one rough landing, I shot from my seat, convinced he’d broken his neck.
“Sit the fuck down, Cass,” Struan snapped.
I did, though my heart hammered.
Riordan climbed up, breathing hard and dripping sweat. He wiped the blood from his nose, then returned to his position. “Again.”
If my crush on him was ever going to fade, today was not that day.
A while on, Struan called time and clapped Riordan on the back, muttering something I couldn’t hear. Then he strode away, calling out to Tyler that he’d take point.
“Are ye done?” I yelled at his retreating back.
“For now. Go back upstairs,” Struan ordered.
Riordan snatched up his discarded shirt and prowled out of the hall. I scampered to keep up.
We returned to my rooms.
Inside, I locked the door then leaned against it, my fingers fluttering at my chest.
Riordan tossed his shirt to the rug. I trailed my gaze over him and down the dusting of hair that led beneath his waistband.
Then I clocked the welts and red bruises, some already dark. Guilt swallowed me whole.
“Are ye okay?”
“Why, want to kiss me better?”
I stared, shocked at the sass. He’d flirted back. Ho-lee shite.
Yet there was no humour in his savage expression. If anything, his mood seemed darker than ever.
“I need a shower.”
“What’s mine is yours.” I directed him to my bedroom.
Riordan kept close behind and snatched up the rucksack his sister had sent but which had stayed abandoned by my couch when he’d locked me in.
In my bedroom, I eyed my bed but stepped into the en suite, flipping on the light then the shower. Water thundered down in the spacious stall, the gold-flecked tiles gleaming.
From the cupboard, I pulled out two towels then draped them over the rail. Then I turned back to Riordan, huge, in my space, his mouth luscious. I should leave. This was my cue.
I didn’t.
“Why did ye play along with my brother’s questions? Would’ve been easier for ye to say we weren’t a couple.”
His glower remained in place. “I was facing a beating either way. Better for him to assume he had to leave the scraps for you.”
I laughed under my breath. Stepping closer, I traced my gaze over his bruised cheek. My fingers shook. “That wasn’t it.”
“Then maybe I just needed to get back behind closed doors with you. You ran from me. I should punish you.”
My insides tightened.
God, yes. To whatever he had in mind. The steam from the shower rose. I heaved in a breath of humid air, my dress clinging to me.
“I liked watching ye fight.”
“Enjoyed seeing me bleed?”
I raised my finger to his cut lip. It came away red.
Both of us stared at my fingertip. I took it to my mouth and sucked, tasting his blood on my tongue.
With a sound of anger, Riordan captured my wrist. His other hand snatched my waist to tug me against him. Coarse jeans to slick silk. Rigid muscles to soft flesh.
I parted my lips in shock. At exactly the same second, he kissed me.
Hard.
All restraint fell away. It was a desperate, bruising kiss. Nothing like I’d imagined but so much better.
For weeks, I’d lain in bed and pictured him doing this. His touch wandering my body. His limbs tangled with mine. Our first kiss. My first kiss ever. In my head, I’d pictured it being gentle and just a smidge more romantic. In reality, he gave me something entirely different and probably better suited.
A claiming.
His lips forced mine wider, and I moaned at the touch of his tongue. The copper of his blood. He tasted masculine. Startlingly unfamiliar. Mine .
It was all I could do to hold on and try to follow his lead.
He tore his mouth away, breathing hard. “You drive me fucking crazy, Cassiopeia Archer.”
I couldn’t find the words to tell him it was the same for me.
But I found others. “The problem with ye telling me not to run again is the fact I know you’ll chase me.”
The water thundered down behind him.
He snarled a laugh. “Put your damn wrists out in front of you.”
I could’ve obeyed him, but where was the fun in that? Holding his gaze, I reached for the hem that flirted with my thighs and then stripped my dress. Moist air coated my hot skin.
Riordan’s focus slipped down to the lingerie I’d picked out earlier with him in mind, after I’d made myself come to a dirty movie while I’d imagined him listening. A matching set with a lacy red balcony bra. It pushed my boobs up in a scandalous fashion and revealed the circular surfer tattoo at my ribs.
His nostrils flared, and he marched to the bathroom door. For a horrible moment, I thought he was going to kick me out. But no. My black satin dressing gown hung on a hook. He whipped the belt off it and prowled back over, brandishing the rope.
“Wrists.”
This time, I obediently offered them up.
He bound them together efficiently, then grabbed a towel from the rail and tossed it to the floor. “Kneel.”
Slowly, I lowered to my knees, my head in line with the bulge in his jeans. A moment of panic washed over me. I didn’t know how to do this. Any of it. And I couldn’t use my hands either. I needed him to lead me through it. “You’ll have to tell me what to do. I don’t want to be bad at this.”
Riordan’s lip curled. Still holding the other end of the cord, he strung it over the towel rail on the wall behind me, then pulled. It lifted my arms above my head.
I squeaked in shock and found my balance, the cord holding me up as he tied a knot.
Riordan backed away. He cupped his bulge, anger still in every move. “You want this? Watch how you make me feel.”
Holding my gaze, he removed his shoes and socks, then undid his jeans and yanked them down, stepping out of both them and his black boxer shorts in one go. My heart thumped wildly at the sight of a fully naked Riordan, and I soaked in every inch of his flesh.
Mainly the significant inches between his legs.
His dick stood tall. It was big. Bigger than I’d guessed with a thick vein running the length. He was hard as a rock. Difficult to imagine fitting it in anywhere.
He stepped under the spray and tipped his head back so the water soaked his hair and slid down his form, darkening his ink.
Then he took his dick in his hand and held it, his heated gaze all over my breasts in my sexy bra. He stroked himself from root to tip, his mouth open in obvious pleasure.
I growled and tugged on the rope. “Let me go.”
“No. Watch what you can’t have.”
Pushing up on my heels, I tried to get my fingers to the knot. It was a weird angle. No matter how I wrenched at it, I couldn’t get it loose.
Fury descended.
I made a strangled sound of frustration and tried to stand. If I could get a good enough angle, I’d pull the damn rail off the wall. But I twisted and dropped, hanging from my wrists for a second before I righted myself.
A dark laugh came from Riordan, and I spun back around to scowl at him.
“That’s it, fight. Show me what you’d be like if I tied you up in a bed,” he goaded.
In his hand, his dick pulsed. I breathed hard, losing my momentum to stop struggling and stare. He was enjoying me being like this. I hated it. Badly, I wanted to join him. Touch him.
Which was exactly why he’d stopped me.
Damn him. Gritting my teeth, I regained my control, crouched on my spiked heels with my hands above my head. If he thought I was going to do what he expected, I’d make him think again.
I was inexperienced for sure, but he’d never make me docile.
With my gaze held on him, I opened my knees. He already had full sight of my breasts, but I wanted to test how far this went.
Riordan’s smirk dropped. As did his gaze, his focus landing straight between my legs. My core pulsed.
He swore and squeezed his dick.
I wondered how I appeared to him. Tied up, angry, my curls no doubt wild in the humid air, my body on display in my red lingerie. Could he see that I was wet?
Slowly, I rocked my hips.
He groaned and smacked his hand to the wall of the shower, his broad chest inflating with a heavy breath.
The hand gripping his dick worked faster. The movement nearly hypnotised me, but I didn’t give up my part in our strange and dirty stare-off. I rolled my body again, taking my action of trying to escape and turning it into a sultry show. I might never have been naked in front of a man but I’d seen the ladies at the club work the poles and perform stripteases.
Every move was slowed down. Purposeful.
Sex just minus the contact.
I was limited without the use of my hands, but I imagined Riordan being underneath me. Then acted out fucking him so he could almost feel it.
Under the shower spray, he slid his fist up and down in jerky motions. His gaze remained glued to the space between my thighs, and quickly, his actions concentrated on the end of his dick.
I moaned, the sound slipping from me. Electricity slid over my skin. I needed to be touched. To have him cross the room and kiss me again then use those clever fingers on me. Never in my life had I wanted anything more. And there wasn’t a single thing I could do about it. Infuriating.
Then he tipped back his head and stopped moving, his mouth open in a silent groan. In his hand, he came. Ropes of cum spilled against the glass, rinsed away by the water, more coming.
I whimpered at the sight. It felt like a gift to witness.
It felt like a waste.
My body cried out for him, but he turned his back and put his head down, washing away the evidence and not looking at me anymore, fuelling my annoyance once again.
He’d wanted me enough to come while staring at me. He’d tied me up so neither of us could take it further.
Mine for a moment then not. The whiplash hurt way more than it should.