Chapter 13 Cassius
CASSIUS
Fuck.
Fuck!
Listening to Sarah masturbating in the room over was one of the most profoundly intense moments I’d experienced in years. Maybe ever. The temptation to bust open the door, take her myself, and make her mine was so unbelievably fucking intense that I had my hand on the knob countless times.
When she finished, I couldn’t help but let her know I was right there. I had to let her know I was well aware of the power I had over her, and that I knew I could bring her to climax just with my mere presence.
But fuck. What I could not let her know was that her mere presence was having the same effect on me.
Just by existing, just by fucking existing, she was making me so fucking hard my pants were bulging no matter how I adjusted myself.
By the time I left the doorway and headed back to my room, I already had my hand on my dick, rubbing it at the thought of what she might do to me.
Grab me. Stroke me. Suck me. Fuck me.
Jesus Christ, that woman. Why she had such a powerful influence on me without even realizing it… maybe in a more sober moment, without the heat of erotic intensity, I might be able to dissect why. Not now. Not fucking here.
I barely made it to the bathroom. I got in the shower, needed to only think about Sarah naked, and had myself on the verge of coming within a minute.
I released with a groan that only the distance between our bedrooms could hide.
Even mid-climax, I imagined finishing inside Sarah, leaving my mark quite literally in her.
As I finished and came down, I waited for that moment of sobriety to hit, that moment when the erotic rush had faded and reality set back in.
I waited for me to realize how ridiculous this all was, that all I should have done was just fucked her, let that be the end of that, and moved on.
Even if I didn’t destroy her, destroying the passion I felt with one good fuck would end this charade, and I could continue on to more important and real matters.
But it never hit.
The only charade going on was that I was telling myself it was a charade. Sex would not change that. If anything, sex would heighten just how real this was getting.
For something I’d gotten into on the basis of destroying an old ex who had ruined my life, it sure started to seem like I was destroying my vision for someone who was… dare I say it…
Making my life a bit more enjoyable and rewarding.
I woke up the next morning to find Sarah already awake downstairs, rummaging through food pre-stocked for some breakfast. Neither of us acknowledged what had happened last night.
What was there to say? Speaking dryly about the sexual tension would only make it worse.
And maybe it needed to be “worse” for me to get my shit together, but right now…
Well, I didn’t really know what I wanted.
My passionate side said I wanted to fuck Sarah on every piece of furniture in this house.
My rational side said I still needed to break her for what she did to Virgil.
The fullness of it all left me in a weird limbo where I was content to let events play out as the schedule dictated.
Today, that meant we were flying back to Las Vegas. It was a quick visit, yes, but when you’re a billionaire, the globe becomes your backyard.
I approached Sarah with a smirk on my face, the kind that suggested everything was going according to plan for me. I suppose in a sense, it was—I just happened to be juggling multiple plans in my mind rather than one single one.
“I take it you had fun last night,” I said.
“A bit,” Sarah said. “The gala was great fun. The views were great.”
“Mmm,” I said. I was content to not push this one. I didn’t need to pressure Sarah or make her feel like she was under my spell. Both of us were well aware that was the case; no amount of denying it would change that fact.
However, one side effect of not having to make it explicit was that conversation remained strangely guarded, all the way up to being thirty thousand feet in the air back to Vegas.
It wasn’t like the trip had no moments of tension; there were a couple of times she brushed my knee or vice versa on the plane, moments when I gave serious thought to just fucking her right there.
But it almost felt like a letdown to have such a massive buildup at the gala and the penthouse, only to do it in broad daylight on a plane.
I could fuck her anytime on a plane; last night was a moment that required intense buildup to get there.
Nevertheless, when we landed, I had a vehicle waiting for her. We needed some separation to rekindle that buildup; absence made the heart grow fonder, yes, but it also made the passion grow hotter.
“Don’t go anywhere,” I said. “You can stay in the same hotel room for the next two weeks.”
“But—”
“I already paid, so don’t act like you can’t afford it.”
Sarah just smiled and shook her head.
“I’m not done with you yet, Sarah,” I said. “But go enjoy your day. I’ll have you soon enough.”
Her eyebrows raised, but I showed nothing otherwise. I’d finally said what I needed to say, and that was that. Sarah turned and got in the car, and as soon as her vehicle turned out of the private runway, I headed to my own.
As I got into the backseat of my private ride, exhaustion swept over me.
Fuck. I did not expect to feel this tired.
This wasn’t just fatigue from a restless night of sleep or an excessive amount of flying in a short window; this was the kind of fatigue where I knew I was going back into the boxing ring, yet the round had just beat me up so much.
Not to mention the still-present confusion about what I actually wanted.
Well, fortunately, after an early afternoon nap, there would be a few people who could help me figure things out. Three people, specifically.
Later that afternoon, as the sun began to set on the November sky, Adrian, Lucas, and Dante arrived at my top-floor penthouse.
I had called them for one reason, a reason that was not without merit—the discussion of Leo Morril.
But quietly, a part of me hoped that we might dive into what the hell to do about Sarah.
Of course, it hadn’t been the first time since I'd seen Sarah at Allure that I’d wanted to rely on my brothers for help. But this was the first time since anything sexual had happened—even if it never involved us touching—and that felt like it elevated the urgency just a bit more.
“Flew all the way to New York City, and the fucker followed you like a desperate boy after the prom queen,” Dante said as we got settled into our chairs. “Sounds like a multimillionaire who wishes more than anything he was a billionaire, yet can’t figure out how to turn a penny into a dollar.”
“He kissed Sarah’s hand right in front of me,” I said. “He might be stupid as a businessman, but he fucking knew what he was doing. He knew he’d get under my skin, or at least force a less professional act in front of him.”
Adrian and Dante exchanged a quick look before Adrian spoke.
“And did you do anything unprofessional?”
“No,” I snapped. “I should have said, he thought he’d do those things. But you know better, Adrian. We’ve been picketed, we’ve had signs made at us, we’ve been spat on. Has any of that affected us?”
Has anything except Virgil’s death affected us?
Fuck, how I wish that last thought hadn’t come to mind. It truly was the only thing that could crawl under my skin and linger like a cockroach you couldn’t remove from your pantry. Everything else would do nothing more than irritate me for a fleeting moment.
Although… I couldn’t pretend Leo’s actions hadn’t bothered me for more than a moment. Fuck, I was bringing it up here.
“Why don’t you answer your own question?” Lucas said.
I snorted, but my brothers would not be so easily dismissed by simple cold gestures. They knew my false shields, my hand waves, anything that would work on anyone else.
“I don’t know if it affected me, but it affected Leo Morril.
He called me a mama bear and stepped back.
You know what that reminds me of? When the rising bully thinks he can talk smack to the big bully, but then gets put in his place.
He can’t bear to leave without doing, saying something, and so he throws one last remark out. Mama bear. Fucking weak.”
“But not inaccurate,” Dante said.
I glared at him, but he met my gaze right back. My brothers never broke under my stare; they might acquiesce to my wishes, but because they agreed with them, not because they were intimidated into them.
“Oh, don’t be an intellectually dishonest fool, Cassius,” Dante went on.
“We get Allure. To a certain extent, we even get the Red Court. But New York City? Brother, you flew her on your private plane across the country on a night’s notice.
Don’t fucking act like you’re not invested in her, certainly not protective of her. ”
“She is mine to do with as I please,” I growled, far too fast.
Far, far too fast. Now I wasn’t just answering to my brothers. I was fucking answering to myself.
“And what, exactly, do you plan to do with her, ‘as you please’ as you put it?” Lucas said.
“You wanted press?” Adrian said. “We’re not famous enough to have TMZ follow us everywhere, which thank fuck.
But we have gotten tabloid talk here. Or I should say, you have gotten tabloid talk.
If you’re waiting for the Los Angeles Times or TMZ to come knocking, don’t bother until you star in a movie or win a Super Bowl. ”
I chortled, but Adrian’s point was not wrong.
Part of the appeal of being rich but not necessarily famous is I didn’t have the public watching my every single move.
We could get what we wanted without too much press, without too much aggravating PR messes.
We weren’t without them, of course, and in a sense I might have been courting one now.
But when it came to making money and exerting control over this city, we had just enough of a spotlight for those we worked with to know our reputation but not so much to draw outside protesters or forces that would slow us down.
Still, I knew Adrian’s point was not really a philosophical one. I sighed.
“You want to know the end point,” I said.
“The end point is simple. Build her up as much as I can, especially in public. In private, I will admit, I might fuck her. But only to bring her closer and closer. The more exposure she gets and the more connected to me she feels, the harder the fall will be. The greater the justice for Virgil will be. And the more we can move on from this.”
I took a sip of a glass of bourbon, placed earlier by my waiter, letting the other three Vales digest what I had just said.
For whatever fucking reason, they looked like they’d swallowed days-old fast food. What the fuck was wrong with my plan?
“Does anyone care to say why you think I’m a fucking idiot?” I said.
“Careful that you don’t get her so close to the edge of the cliff that you fall off it with her,” Lucas said.
“The fuck do you mean?”
“He means, at some point, you’ll be too close for your own fucking good and you’ll fall for her,” Dante said, rolling his eyes.
“You’ve never done anything like this before, Cassius.
None of us have. Most of the women, you never let them get past two, maybe three encounters if they’re especially good.
Much less the only serious relationship you’ve ever had.
Much less the driver of the car accident. ”
“You think I don’t know that?” I said. “You think I don’t know there’s risk involved in all of this?
Fuck, Dante, our lives are nothing but risk.
We own casinos, we built them up with serious chances of bankruptcy, and we did it all in a city riddled with terrible crime for years on end.
You act like I’m a pussy who’s suddenly decided to take some risks, but you know full fucking well that I am risk defined. I do not fear it.”
All true.
All too much of a response. If this was in response to the business risk of launching a new casino or the relational risk of playing hardball with the mayor of Vegas, I would have been much more curt. My ramble as much as anything told my brothers—and me—that Dante’s words were a warning.
“Whatever you want, brother,” Adrian said. “Just be mindful of it.”
Fuck, I thought. They weren’t wrong. But I had never let a situation get the best of me before. Why the fuck would now be so different?
Topics shifted beyond what had happened in New York City, and within minutes, I got bored.
My mind drifted to the prior night and the fucking sexual tension from the moment I first heard Sarah’s moaning.
It hadn’t been the first time I’m teased a woman by forcing her to start herself before coming in.
It was a power move, a way to say, “You think what you’re doing is good? Wait until I fucking start with you.”
So why hadn’t I done it with Sarah? What the fuck held me back?
Well, I knew the answer. The real one, not the one I’d give if someone asked me that question—even if that someone was Sarah.
I was human, I wanted Sarah for perhaps a bit more than just a vengeful fuck, and…
I was going to snap if I kept going.
But in this case, “snap” didn’t mean I’d lose my temper or go through with breaking someone. Here, “snap” meant I’d fall for her. I wouldn’t want to break her; I’d want to mend her to me. She wouldn’t just be mine for control, but mine for… for…
Fuck.
By the time my brothers left—which was not much later, as they seemed to realize that I was not paying close attention to their conversation—I knew I had to be really careful with my next steps.
Fucking her was not some trivial, fleeting act of pleasure that would satisfy me for the night. Not with Sarah Carpenter, at least.
No matter what I said to myself, I knew the truth.
Get involved with Sarah Carpenter, and I would not escape.
I would not want to escape.