Chapter Eight #2
Staring at her fingers, she struggled to bring back the topic to what plagued her.
“She’d spent years brainwashing me to never give in to marriage and yet when I asked her if she wanted to attend the ceremony.
..she was beyond excited. I think it has something to do with you,” she said, solving at least one puzzle.
Astonishment painted over his features. “What?”
“I think you’re the one man who managed to win Mama over.
She trusts you and...” Nush swallowed the hard lump of gratitude that lodged in her throat.
“Thank you for always being kind to her, Caio. For always thinking of what’s right for her, especially when I couldn’t.
I know that she felt threatened by Thaata to let him handle it. ”
“I didn’t do it for your gratitude, Nush.”
“Why did you?”
“Because she needed looking after. And so you’d be happy and settled and worry free.
I told you before. You reminded me of myself at my most..
.powerless. And yet, you didn’t...” he cleared his throat, “you don’t let bitterness touch you.
I’m arrogant enough to like it that I had a hand in keeping you like that. Untouched and innocent.”
She scrunched her nose at that, not liking it one bit. Not liking it at all that he still saw her as some sort of fragile creature to be protected. “That makes me sound like fruit,” she said, loathe to disturb the strange, tension-filled truce they seemed to have reached.
“Would it be better if I said fruit that is ripe and ready to be eaten?”
“You need work on your flirting. That sounds ewww.”
Sitting down on the bed in front of her, he pinned her with that weighty gaze. His thighs straddled hers and the thick, hard press of them caging her felt deliciously lethargic. “What’s truly bothering you, Princesa?”
“You’ve never even had a girlfriend for more than a week. It’s hard to believe that you’re doing this because you...want to.”
Arms folded, he seemed to consider his words. “Just because I didn’t mention marriage doesn’t mean I don’t believe in it. I had other things occupying all my attention.”
“Like this acquisition?” she poked again.
He sidestepped her yet again by giving her a morsel of something she was desperate for. “My parents had a great marriage built on trust and respect and an unshakeable foundation of...friendship.”
She had a feeling he meant to say love but left it out on purpose. And she wasn’t sure how she felt about that either. Did she want him to profess love to her?
God, no, came the instinctive, immediate answer.
She wouldn’t believe him to begin with. Love never had anything to do with Caio’s actions. He didn’t even let anyone close. Even now, even when he was giving her this commitment, she had a feeling she wasn’t going to get anything more than what they already had.
Whether a relationship between them could survive with his conditions and her fears was anybody’s guess.
“We already have the foundation, Nush. A commitment is all that’s needed. And I’m making that to you.”
It should have sounded arrogant, like he was issuing a decree and expected her to fall in line. And it was that partly. But all Nush could focus on was the solemnity to his words and the overwhelming urge to set some kind of boundaries on her own expectations. Self-preservation was a bitch.
“Will you promise that you’ll never lie to me? That you won’t stay in this arrangement for some sort of twisted honor that dictates that you can’t desert me? That you’ll see me as an equal—not Rao’s granddaughter or the woman who gave you OneTech or the girl you rescued a long time ago?”
“Yes, to the first and second. The third...it’s not easy to separate you from all those things, Nush. And stop calling it an arrangement.”
“I need time, Caio. I can’t just jump in like you. I...”
“I want you heading OneTech with me. I want you in my bed, beneath me, giving this your everything.”
A full body shudder overtook Nush as that very vivid image hit her.
When he grinned in response to her reaction, Nush decided she’d like nothing better than to unravel him too, bit by bit.
Whatever path this took, she’d at least solve the complex mystery of Caio. She’d learn every inch of him, inside out, until her fascination with him was gone, until there was no unknowns left between them.
In the meantime, she was simply going to enjoy the ride.
Thick towels in the same navy blue of the sheets, a first aid kit and something else was dumped onto the bed. And then Caio was kneeling at her feet, squeezing his big body into the space between the bed and the chair.
His damp white shirt proudly displayed the hard musculature of his back, tapering down to a narrow waist. The man was too beautiful for words.
When he gripped her calf and tugged one stubborn shoe off, she let her torso pitch forward and pressed her breasts to his back, as if for support.
The sensation of those hard, jutting shoulder muscles and bones digging into her soft flesh was indescribable.
Nush bit her mouth to bite off the moan that wanted to escape.
He stilled instantly, like a big jaguar scenting prey.
“So this...” she searched for something to say, something to poke his steel trap mind with, “trip is kinda like a honeymoon?”
“No.” His fingertips were featherlight on her calf.
“Why not?”
“This isn’t a proper honeymoon. More of a work trip. I will take you on a real one as soon as our schedules let up a bit.”
“In all the years I’ve known you, you’ve never taken a day off,” she said, half laughing, half shocked and all too overwhelmed at the matter-of-fact resolve in his words.
“I will do everything to seduce you into giving me this, Princesa,” he said, as if he knew exactly what she was thinking. “You should know that.”
Golden-brown eyes held hers and Nush trembled. But she refused to let her fears hold her back anymore. For so long, she’d wanted this right to touch him as she pleased. To run her fingers through those thick locks of hair and sift through them.
She did it now, shamelessly, tracing her fingers over the plane of his forehead, tugging at his hair.
He bowed his head, as if he was a present to be unwrapped for her pleasure.
A half growl, half groan rumbled up through his chest. “I’d protest more if it weren’t for the happy pills numbing my chaotic thoughts. ”
His fingers busied themselves with the other shoe, gentle but firm and all Nush could think of was how those fingers would feel on other places that were desperate for his touch.
“I didn’t think you were the type to delude yourself, Nush. The pills don’t make you amenable to something you’re against. They maybe lower your inhibitions.”
He straightened on his knees, bringing his face level with hers. One thumb traced her jaw, moving back and forth, his gaze glittering with an intensity that burned through her. “But as set on this as I am, I will give you time to get used to it.”
“What does that mean? Are you going to cockblock me again?”
The corner of his mouth lifted up in a parody of a smile as the pad of his wicked thumb danced at the edges of her lip but never really landed. “How did I not know that you had such a dirty mouth?”
“You don’t know a lot of things about me,” Nush said, trying to act coy and failing miserably. It came out husky and needy and...hoarse.
“You’re right. I’m looking forward to being enlightened.” Pushing up to stand, he drew her to her feet. “Now, let’s get these wet things off you.”
“Are you going to make us wait then?” Nush asked, arresting his hands that were busy with the waistband of her leather skirt.
“Wait for what?” he asked, looking just as distracted as she felt.
His fingers had located the side zipper on the skirt before Nush realized he was waiting for a reply.
It was impossible to string words and thoughts together when his hands were all over her.
The leather skirt was gently but firmly being nudged off the thick curve of her hips.
“Make me wait before we have sex?” she said, uncaring how petulant she sounded.
“I guess it’s not such a hardship for you to wait.
You probably even think of it like a task to check off but—”
Suddenly, his fingers were on the parts of her ass that were exposed by the bodysuit and her lacy white panties and she was pressed up against him so tight that a hard, heated length pressed up against her belly.
She gripped his bulging bicep as she trembled as the shape and weight of his erection pressed into her soft belly.
For a long, tormenting minute, he just held her like that with his fingers roving and caressing and kneading the plentiful curves of her ass.
Up and down they went, tracing the creases, delving nearer but not close enough to the place between her legs that was clenching and releasing and dampening for his touch.
Nush opened her mouth to suck in a breath and tasted his skin. Salt and heat and sweat added to the combustible pleasure waiting to detonate inside. She desperately wanted to move, to seek the friction she needed, but the damned man had her locked up against him.
Caio’s mouth stilled against her temple as he held her in place with one hand on her hip.
“Still think it’s a task on a to-do list, Princesa?
I’m thirty-seven years old and yet, every single time I’m near you, I’m in this state, Nush.
Ever since you demolished every bit of decency I ever possessed. ”
Closing her eyes, she breathed in the warm, dark scent of him, let her other senses feast on his need for her. It was a thrumming melody in her blood. At least in this, there was nothing but brutal honesty between them. And still, she needed more. Wanted more. Demanded more.
“Tell me something you want to do to me.”
She felt the tension in his body ratchet up. “You like it if I talk as dirty as you do?”
“Yes. And you owe me this, Caio.”