Chapter 31 #2
“Maybe you don’t totally fit here,” he says. “But that can be a good thing. You notice what no one else here could. You say what no one else I know would. Do you realize, I—”
He cuts himself off and drops his gaze for a second.
When he locks eyes with me again, I can sense the resolve in his. “Jules, if you’re listening in, I’d appreciate you giving Ivy and me a little time completely to ourselves.”
My mouth goes dry. It’s strange, hearing him speak to her through me but on my behalf.
Julita’s next giggle is more awkward. Well. Of course I can take my leave.
Her presence fades in the back of my head.
Where is Casimir going with this? I stare at him. “She’s pulled back.”
“Good. Because what I’m saying now is just for you.” The courtesan’s mouth forms a slightly sheepish smile. “You have no idea how much I’ve come to look forward to seeing you. Even if it’s just in passing that day. It reminds me that there’s more to life than what’s inside these walls.”
He unfurls his fingers across my cheek. The heat they trail across my skin shivers all the way down to my core.
I grope for the right words to answer him. “I mean… The rest of the world is right there. You don’t need me to remind you of that.”
“Maybe I did.” He traces his fingertips lower, down to my jaw, and desire peals through my body louder than any bell. “You’ve made it seem possible to want more than I’ve ever let myself consider before.”
My mouth has gone dry. It keeps all my effort to hold my voice steady, but it still comes out so low it’s almost a whisper. “What do you want?”
He strokes his hand down the side of my neck to delicious effect. The gleam in his eyes looks hot as a glimmer of flame. “Right now? I want you. Every way I can have you. As selfish as that might be.”
There’s no mistaking his meaning. A quiver that’s pure delight runs through me from head to toe. “I don’t think it can be selfish when I’d have an awfully good time too.”
Then an uncomfortable thought strikes me. I ease back a bit. “You’re not saying that because you think it would make me happy, are you? I wouldn’t want you to pretend—”
Casimir lets out a rasp of laughter. “And I wouldn’t. I don’t think it’d ever make you happy to have someone fake their desires—and you’re sharp enough to notice. But I don’t need to pretend.”
I can’t help glancing down at myself. At my gawky frame, for all it’s prettied up in layers of silk; at the pallor of my skin that might be even more sickly than usual after this afternoon’s agony.
The courtesan touches my jaw to bring my attention back to him.
“You know… I’ve never been intimate with anyone simply because we both knew we’d enjoy it—rather than as a transaction, one kind of happiness for a different sort.
It could be that straightforward, couldn’t it?
Neither of us owing each other anything, just finding our pleasure together. ”
My voice goes rough too. “Yeah. I think it could.”
No promises, no future plans, just an interlude of shared joy. It can mean nothing more than that.
It can’t be selfish of me to want it when he thinks he’s being the selfish one, right? Maybe there really is something in me that Casimir has needed, even if his desire turns out to be fleeting.
My entire life is teetering on the brink of one sort of disaster or another. I’ve got to grab on to the good in it while I can.
I lean forward and press my lips to his.
With the first giddy jolt of heat as Casimir hums encouragingly against my mouth, I realize we’ve never actually done this before. The other night, he touched me in places barely any other man has, but we didn’t exchange a single proper kiss.
He claims my mouth with the same gentle confidence he brings to every other gesture. Before he’s even skimmed his hand along my side, I’m already melting into him.
I didn’t get to touch him much last time either. Now, as he eases me closer against him, I trail my hand down his sleekly muscled chest. The compact ridges thrill me even through the fabric of his tunic.
Casimir marks a path of scorching kisses along my jaw and down my neck, following the path his fingers traced earlier. As he nudges aside the chain of the necklace Esmae gave me, his hot breath sets my skin alight.
I gasp and jerk free the belt at his waist so I can slide my hand right underneath his tunic. His toned chest feels even more delightful skin to skin.
Casimir lets out another pleased hum and reaches behind me for the laces of my dress.
“It’s probably better not to dislodge your clothing too significantly,” he murmurs against my neck. “In case we need to reassemble you in a hurry. But I can work around that limitation.”
He tugs down the gown’s bodice just far enough that he can scoop one of my breasts into his hand. As he swipes his thumb over my already pebbling nipple, he grazes his teeth across my throat.
The two sparks of pleasure collide with a flare that shocks a whimper out of me. Then he lowers his head to suck the peak of my breast into the exquisite heat of his mouth, and I bite my lip against a full-out moan.
The archive walls won’t be soundproofed. These rooms are large and infrequently used enough that Alek and I have never run into any other scholars down here when we’ve briefly roamed, but that doesn’t mean I can count on the entire basement remaining empty.
But it’s hard to keep my sounds of pleasure contained as Casimir summons a steady tingling of bliss with the pressure of his lips and the darting of his skillful tongue.
He attends to the one breast until I’m digging my fingers into his soft hair and his back just to hold on through the heady sensations, and then kisses his way across my chest to the other.
As he laps my nipple to a stiffened peak, he tips me over on the settee. I arch against him, my sex throbbing with need.
I didn’t think I could want a man as much as I did when he “pampered” me in the bathtub, but I’m burning even hotter now.
“I need to taste your mouth again, Ivy,” he murmurs, rising up over me.
I have no complaints at all about the kiss he brands to my lips—or the way his hips settle between my splaying legs. I instinctively arch up to meet him.
My breath stutters at the feel of the bulge that’s come to rest against my core.
Casimir lets out a soft groan as if he’s as affected as I am. From the hardness of the shaft straining against his trousers, maybe he actually is, even if I can’t wrap my head around that fact.
His lips brush mine as he speaks. “I would like to caress every part of your lovely body without the gown in the way. Perhaps another time, in another place…”
I hum urgently in agreement, not wanting to think that far ahead, and yank his mouth back to mine.
We kiss and grind against each other with growing fervor. Casimir’s hands caress more jolts of giddiness through my chest, and I chart the delectable muscles beneath his shirt with clumsier but no less eager strokes.
My fingers graze the slightly raised scar of his dedication brand, and I tug them away. Ardone may have inspired some of my lover’s talents, but she has no place here now.
This is only about him and me.
With every rock of his hips between my thighs, the skirt of my gown has ridden up. My drawers are absolutely soaked.
Casimir presses his straining bulge against me with another pulse of bliss that reverberates through my nerves. My legs twitch around him, and a mewling sound that I hardly recognize as my own voice tumbles from my mouth.
He tucks one hand between us to cup my sex, and I clamp my teeth to muffle a moan. My hips buck to meet him, beyond any remaining self-control. My mind is hazed with pleasure and the keening need for release.
Casimir’s voice comes out ragged and husky. “I want to be inside you, Ivy.”
“Yes,” I mumble, realizing he’s waiting for a response. “As soon as possible, please.”
His chuckle is ragged too, with an edge of desperation that only inflames me more. He parts the overlapping folds of fabric in my underskirt and drawers that allow for all sorts of private activities without a full undressing.
In an equally deft movement, he works himself free from his trousers. At the slide of his cock’s tip over my sex, I shiver in eager anticipation.
Casimir exhales shakily and loops one of his arms behind me to cradle my head. “You feel so good even like this.”
I swallow a groan of mingled pleasure and frustration and manage to mutter, “Could feel even better.”
With a lighter laugh, he circles his thumb over my clit and then guides himself into me.
The stretch of his shaft filling me brings a deeper rush of bliss than anything before. My fingers dig tighter into his shirt.
As I sway to welcome him, Casimir bows his head over mine. With each thrust, our noses graze each other. His breath tingles across my lips in hot little pants.
Every collision of our bodies sends me spiraling higher. I don’t know how to do anything but clutch his shoulder and jerk my hips up to meet his.
Between breaths, praise spills from his lips. “That’s the way. You’re absolutely lovely, Ivy. Mmm, can you take me even deeper?”
When I tilt my hips in answer, he plunges far enough to set off a headier bolt of pleasure inside me. At my stifled cry, he pecks a smiling kiss to my lips. “Yes, just like that, Ivy.”
The sound of my name vaguely penetrates my lustful daze, even as the final wave of my release swells inside me. He’s been saying it rather a lot, hasn’t he?
Then it hits me, with a pang straight through my heart.
Casimir knows I’ve been nervous about how much he’s interested in me rather than the ghost I’m harboring. He wants me to be sure that it’s me, Ivy, he’s thinking of while we fuck—me he’s delighting in possessing.
And just like that, it’s more than fucking. It’s a deluge of emotion sweeping through me alongside the orgasm that’s just burst from my core like a shooting star.
My nerves sing and my heart wrenches in tandem. I cling to the courtesan through the whirlwind of ecstasy, gasping with both pain and pleasure.
Casimir’s chest hitches, and he pumps into me again and again, sending me soaring higher. As he shudders over me with his own release, my fingers tangle in his rumpled shirt.
I want to squeeze him to me and never let go.
I’m falling for this man. Falling so hard I’ve hit the broken-hearted center of it before I even realized.
I don’t just want him between my legs. I want to cuddle against him and dance in his arms and ride through the forest with him and fawn over pretty gowns. I want him, in every possible way, so many more ways than he could have meant when he said the same thing.
My eyes squeeze shut. Damn it. How did I let this happen?
How could I not, when he is the way he is?
I shouldn’t have indulged him… or myself. I should have kept my distance rather than giving in to desire.
Imagine if I told him. A courtesan of nobles tying himself to a gawky street rat—anyone would laugh.
He has a life here and even he’s acknowledged that I—I really don’t.
I might not have much of any life left at all.
Gods above, if he finds out I’m one of the riven—no, when he finds out, because I don’t know if I can even hide the fact for the rest of the day, let alone however many days more—
He’s going to hate me. All the warmth in that gorgeous face will drain away, leaving nothing but cold horror.
Casimir withdraws from me, but he stays poised over me, a brilliant smile lighting his sweat-damp face. I force myself to smile back at him, but my stomach has twisted.
I can’t let this happen again. I can’t let it hurt any more than it already will.
I can’t indulge my own desires when I know how false the pretenses are.
He’d never have desired me at all if he knew what I really am.
Something must show in my expression, because a more serious cast comes over Casimir’s face. “Are you all right?”
I nudge myself upright and straighten out my underclothes between our partly entangled bodies. “Of course. That was fantastic. It’s not as if anything I’ve experienced before could compare to a born courtesan.”
A flicker of confusion crosses Casimir’s face. I’m obviously not selling my nonchalance as well as I intended.
I yank my skirts into place and scramble onto my feet as quickly as I can manage.
“We really should get back to the meeting room, though, shouldn’t we?
It can’t be more than an hour before the others should arrive—we should see what we can make of those records you found before then.
Maybe we’ll have the whole thing solved just like that. ”
The laugh I produce sounds reasonably genuine to my ears despite the mix of guilt and shame searing through my chest.
I told Alek I wasn’t an idiot, but I am—gods smite me, I am.
“Ivy,” Casimir says with the same gentleness as always, like I’m a wild foal he needs to tame.
I can’t bear it.
I stride to the door and push past it. And at the same moment, all three of the other men come barreling through the secret passage into the room.