Chapter Eight #2
How could he explain his loneliness, his need for love and security? But maybe Cassie heard it anyway, because now she reached out and took his hand.
Antaeus had been wound tight and wary, but as Cassie threaded her fingers through his, she felt that terrible, brittle tension in his shoulders and arms soften a fraction.
It was the same tension that had clung to him when he stalked into her office back in New York. An energy radiating outwards from his body as if he was fighting to break free of something.
And she knew now what it was. It was carrying the burden of an adult’s rage and resentment. But he had been a child, barely in his teens. His grandfather’s feelings were too heavy, too intense, too complex.
‘I didn’t think it would feel like this,’ he said again. ‘That I’d feel like this. That you’d make me feel this way.’
‘How do I make you feel?’
‘Lost. Found.’ He took a step closer, reached out and touched her face. ‘Saved. Smitten.’
Cassie stared at him, stomach twisting not with pain but something hot and sweet and intoxicating.
‘I know you don’t feel the same. That what happened in the helicopter was—’
‘I do, and it wasn’t.’
The air between them was so rich, lush with possibility, it was making her head swim. This time she was the one to move. She took a step back and opened her bedroom door, and then she took his hand and led him into her room.
As she stretched onto her toes to kiss him, he breathed out shakily. Then she was sliding the dress from her body, pressing his hands on her hot bare skin.
He took a small step back, and she almost cried out in panic. But he just wanted to look at her. And look, and keep looking, drinking her in as if she was an oasis in a parched landscape.
Cassie felt her breath hitch.
She felt almost shy, but also incredibly aroused. She was half naked, and he was fully clothed. Her eyes moved of their own accord to where Antaeus’s cock was pushing against the front of his trousers.
A shiver of anticipation rippled over her skin.
In the cramped helicopter cabin, there had been an urgency and a loss of inhibition between them. Fear and the feeling of being dwarfed by the power and intensity of the storm had stripped her of her usual composure.
Now though she felt exposed. Spotlighted. There was no storm, no fear of their own mortality pushing them closer. It was just his hunger. And hers. And the thought of that was both exhilarating and terrifying.
What if it was only meant to be a one-off? What if it was awkward and tense and—
She took a breath. ‘If you’ve changed your mind, that’s okay.’
His pupils snapped across the blue of his irises just like the storm clouds had swallowed up the sky. She felt heat rise up and then dribble slowly down inside her like sun warmed honey off the back of a spoon.
‘But that’s why I brought you here, remember? To change my mind.’ He reached out and touched her face lightly, and his forehead creased into a V shape between his eyebrows. ‘Have you changed your mind? Because you can.’
‘I haven’t.’
He sucked in a breath, and the skin across his cheekbones tightened as if he was having to steady himself.
‘It was different before. It just happened.’ How could she explain that this would be a choice, that it would matter to her? That she wanted it to matter to him. For it to be more than just skin and friction and proximity.
‘I wanted you from the moment you walked into that boardroom,’ he said hoarsely. ‘I kept forgetting why I was there.’
She blinked, and their eyes met, and she felt her body sway forward as the memory of that meeting sharpened and swelled until her skin felt hot and tight around it.
‘And then, when we were alone in your office—’
He took a small, involuntary step towards her. She could see that it cost him something to admit that to himself. To her.
‘I felt it too.’
She licked her lips, and his eyes tracked the movement of her tongue. ‘So we’re doing this because we want to. Because you want me and I want you.’
He was staring at her intently, his eyes darker than the night sky and hotter than the sun. No man had ever looked at her like this. She felt like a peach that had been blanched, and now he was peeling away her skin with the side of his thumb.
‘Yes, that’s what’s happening.’
She reached out and touched his face. He leaned in and kissed her throat, chasing the pulse that was beating there.
‘Cassandra. Cassandra,’ he whispered slowly, reverently as if it was the most beautiful sound in the world.
His hand moved to her hip, and he pulled her closer.
Something hot and needy and bright burst inside her as he licked into her mouth.
Pulse raging, she responded, and instantly she was spinning out, her breath hot and ragged.
He tasted of him. Of his skin and his smiles and the soft press of his fingers as they curved over her cheek.
Her breasts felt heavy and tender, and they were aching just as if he was sucking on them. Perhaps he could read her mind, because at that moment, he peeled back from her body and leaned in to take the already swollen nipple into his mouth.
She squirmed in his arms, trying to press closer. He lifted his mouth, and she almost cried out. Then he moved to suck the other nipple, a hot open-mouthed kiss that made her breath catch.
Now his hands travelled down her spine, and he was sliding them beneath her panties so that he could feel more of her, pushing, pulling, tugging them down her legs. He was cupping her bottom and lifting her up and carrying her to the bed, lowering her clumsily onto the mattress—
He took an unsteady step backwards.
‘Where are you going?’ Her voice was fraying with need for him.
‘This isn’t a play. And I don’t want an audience.’
He strode purposefully over to the door and pushed it shut.
As he turned, his feet stuttered to a halt. He stared down at her, his face taut with concentration. She saw the unfiltered hunger in his eyes. It was electrifying. She had never felt a power like it.
He made her wait.
Made himself wait. Or maybe he wanted to keep looking at her.
And she liked him looking. His gaze made her feel warm and full and dizzy but also frantic.
Just when she was on the verge of getting up and dragging him back onto the bed, he moved towards her, stopping in front of her and breathing in sharply as she pulled at the button on his trousers, then the zip, freeing his cock.
He swore, his hand reaching for hers, but she wanted to taste him. She took him in her mouth, not all of him, but enough to feel the blood pulsing beneath the smooth, taut skin.
His hand tightened in her hair, and he leaned forward, his fingers trembling as they traced the outline of his cock inside her mouth. Then as if that was too much, he pushed her back gently, leaning forward to kiss her mouth. His voice was a thick, stifled rumble as he said, ‘My turn.’
He stripped with swift, urgent efficiency. Gazing at his naked body, she felt an ache inside her like acute hunger, only it wasn’t food she wanted. It was Antaeus.
Her breath stumbled as he dropped down to his knees, his fingers moving underneath her so that he could raise her hips.
Then he fitted his mouth between her thighs and she was liquefying, body arching against his tongue as he flattened it against her clitoris.
Heart pounding, she clung to his shoulders, because if she let go, she would be swept away on the heady pulsing current beating through her body.
‘Don’t stop,’
Her voice was a rasp, and she lost herself momentarily as he caught her wrists and licked more deeply, the depth and precision of his tongue an exquisite pain.
She was instantly flooded with a pleasure that she had never experienced, a curving, heady, wave of pressure that was swelling and pulling her up and out of herself.
She gasped, and he grunted as her nails bit into his shoulders. ‘I want you inside me.’
She heard him exhale. Then he was moving up the bed, sliding his body on top of hers. She reached down and guided him inside her, her hips lifting to meet his. He thrust into her with a shattering slowness that she felt everywhere.
He was so big and so hard, and she was burning inside, melting, losing shape, shaking with need, tugging at his arms and hips, ready to beg, begging now.
‘Antaeus, please—’
The blood roared in her ears. He raised himself up, his biceps tightening as he drove into her.
Then he started to move in a way that wasn’t quite intentional.
He was almost climbing over her with his body as a raw groan of pleasure erupted from his mouth.
He thrust upwards, stretching her as he surged forwards.
She came apart around him, her back arching, untethered from everything except the thunderous beating of his heart and his shuddering body flexing against hers.
She felt his breath judder against her mouth as he lowered himself down and kissed her. Then he pulled her close, rolling sideways and taking her with him. She breathed out unsteadily against the white heat of his chest. His fierce face bent over hers as he kissed her again and again and again.
Antaeus woke to sunlight.
For a few disorientating seconds, he didn’t know where he was. And then he remembered. He was in Cassie’s room. In Cassie’s bed.
But where was Cassie?
His chest tightened as he stared at the space beside him. Then his heart beat out a drumroll of relief as he suddenly heard the sound of the shower running.
They had made love again, dozed for a while, then reached for each other and then dozed again. That pattern had repeated itself until they had finally fallen asleep.
But now he was awake, and his fingers itched to touch her.
‘Hi.’
The soft female voice cut across his thoughts. He glanced up, his body tensing with a speed that would have been comical if it hadn’t been somewhat painful.
Cassie was watching him from the doorway to her bathroom. Her damp hair was piled untidily on top of her head, and she was wearing a towel.
‘Hey. Why didn’t you wake me?’