16. Chapter 16 #3
‘You lie,’ he said, his words dissolving into a groan as she pressed her lips against the delicate skin beneath his jaw. He ran his palm over her hips, circled her areola, and pinched her nipple. God, her skin was soft as ribbons.
‘Why would I lie?’ Her teeth scraped his Adam’s apple.
‘Do you not know how intoxicating you are? How many eyes watch you as you conduct, including mine? Please,’ she gasped, and her warm breath shivered across the places where she had kissed him.
‘Join me in my bed before you leave. Give me a memory of you here with me before you go. Give me one glorious night of nothing but fucking you.’
Cassius tangled his fingers in her hair and drew her face close to his. He searched her eyes for any hint of falseness. How could he believe that she’d ever thought of him for more than a second? Impossible. She couldn’t have. And certainly not in the way he thought about her.
‘I should have followed,’ she whispered.
‘I should have stayed.’
The past melted away as he sought her mouth, as he kissed her hard and breathed her in.
Between her fumbling with his waistband and him moving his hands over her body like she was a symphony he could master, he slipped off his shoes, leaving them behind as they staggered towards the bed.
She lit a candle, then laid back against the pillows as he stripped in haste, and when his socks snagged and he stumbled, balancing precariously on one leg for a beat, she laughed.
At last, he stood naked before her, bare and erect.
She languidly opened her thighs.
‘Do I still need to beg?’ she asked.
Cassius could only shake his head as he crawled onto the mattress.
He started at her ankle, kissed the dip just beneath the bone.
Kissed his way over the sleek strength of her calf to the curve behind her knees.
Traced the slowest track across her thighs, first one, then the other, drawing patterns with his tongue until he had writ his name on her body.
Lapped at her plump lips. When he stroked along her slit with lazy and languid sweeps of his tongue that circled her nub, she arched, thighs widening, and moaned so loud he felt the vibrations through his palms. He sucked, tasted, caressed her.
Odette gripped his hair as she rocked against him, and he lapped faster, fucking her with his tongue, dipping in and out of her salt, her mustiness, her tang, imprinting the taste of her glorious intimacy.
She panted, her moans shifting higher, and clenched her thighs against his cheeks.
He deliberately slowed his little flicks as she rode him, writhing as she gasped his name.
‘Yes, Cassius. Yes, yes, yes.’
One final gasp, and she crumpled.
Cassius pulled back. Knelt above her. Wiped the back of his hand across his mouth. Gloriously dishevelled, naked, sweat shimmering against her skin. Just a woman. Her back still arched, she heaved a breath and twisted against the sheets.
Cassius rested his palm on her knee. He drew together all the beautiful pieces of her that he knew so well—the confident lilt of her chin, the way she stroked her collarbone, her poise, her grace, her presence.
A flicker from the candle, her skin golden and pink like a sunrise over the sea, like heaven.
He’d broken himself against the hard lines of his anger for far too long, but here, in this bed, she was just a woman.
Not a goddess, but a woman who could be loved and adored.
Who could fit into his life. Just a woman that he loved, and had loved, since the moment he’d kissed her.
Cassius pressed the head of his cock against her and pushed in just far enough to cover his crown, then withdrew.
More. He needed more. Resolve abandoned, he thrust deep into her.
Odette moaned, and he fell against her chest, pressing her into the bed.
She hooked her ankles behind his back, and he fucked her hard, shamelessly and fast, chasing his climax until it broke and he spent inside her.
Immaculate heaven. And in the quiet of their parallel bodies, a calm grew at his centre and drew him to her, a peace that fear or anger could not break.
He surrendered to it. From now until forever, he would love her.
Every tiny piece, every memory, every note.
‘So serious.’ She pressed her nose against his cheek. ‘Why?’
‘I was thinking of how good we are together,’ he said, and tucked her against his chest.
‘You are too dramatic. You said it yourself. It is just fucking.’
‘We could be more.’
Odette twisted against him, her body slotting into the pocket between his side and his arm.
She placed her palm on his chest and rested her chin against the back of her hand.
The tips of her hair tickled the soft parts of him, and in the depth of his mind he fought to contain what he’d felt for so long, but had never ever given hope to, let alone voice.
‘Come to Vienna with me,’ he said, instead.
Her brows creased. ‘Pardon?’
‘Vienna. You have heard of it?’ He nudged her side, and they both laughed. ‘A home for those of us without a home. A home for lovers of music. Just imagine our days. Our nights. It could be magic. Surely, we have earnt it?’
‘I have a home.’ She ran a finger down his cheek and across his chin. The slightest touch from her became a movement to be memorised, because even as he laid his heart bare, he could not tell if she would receive it with care or stomp it with her heel. ‘Here, I have been so happy.’
‘It is just a little street.’ The threat of her rejection ignited anger in him, and the hard edge of hurt leapt into his words faster than it should have. But he had carried it for too long and had nothing left to wait for. He might as well let it fill the room.
‘Ever so small,’ she said, draping herself over his chest. ‘But it is still my home.’
‘After the show has finished its run? Come then?’
Every hue of blue that spring owned danced in her eyes.
A smile, a breath, and with a swift contortion, Odette pushed herself up, swung her leg over him and sat perched across him.
Thighs either side of his torso, her toes wriggled against his calves and her sex pressed against his cock, which roused against her warmth and wetness.
She rubbed against him, and he lay back, captivated, slowly growing hard beneath her body once more.
‘No talk of tomorrow.’ She pushed her fingers into her hair and shook out her locks so that every golden ringlet tumbled over her shoulders.
‘No talk of next. Tonight is for fucking.’ And she raised herself onto her knees, guided his cock to her cunt, and slid herself down his length.
He grunted, pressed inside her, and let the world disappear.