Chapter 25
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
ALEXANDER
Igave it some time, time for both of us to calm down.
That woman. She managed to make me angry, then had the audacity to make me feel like a total prick.
I didn’t need to feel guilty. I’d done nothing wrong. Not really.
Infuriating. That was what she was. Bloody infuriating.
She had wandered into my home, unwelcome, I might add. She had wormed her way into Seb and Ben’s affections, with her sweet smile and her pretty face and her laughs. That she gave so easily to them, but me, she only ever offered me scowls and scepticism.
And I could go fuck myself?
I hated her?
She hated me!
My feet were moving before I even really registered it, slamming up the stairs and around the galleried landing.
The door slammed into the panelling behind it and I didn’t even have the presence of mind to curse myself for the dent it would no doubt have created.
“I said I don’t fucking hate you!”
She spun to face me, freezing me in place.
She was towelling her hair. The space heater was pumping out heat and she wore only a plain tank top and black shorties, the curves of her legs fully on display.
The sight of her gave me pause for longer than it should have, undermining the point I was here to make. Which was… I grasped for the thread I had lost.
“I don’t need you gone. But it doesn’t change that this is the whole goddamned problem, Isabelle!” The cold swirled in from behind me and I slammed the door closed a little harder than I should have as well.
I watched her to be sure I hadn’t startled her. I could never stand and argue with a woman I was scaring. I wasn’t a fucking monster. I never wanted to scare her.
“You hate me because I’m temporary?” she repeated.
“Yes, you’re fucking temporary. And that’s the problem,” I sighed.
“The new problem is that I’m temporary? First it’s I’m in your space, then it’s that I’m hiding things. Now it’s temporary?” She barked a hollow laugh. “Well, sorry that my on-the-run status is such a serious inconvenience for you. Now kindly piss back off so I can get dressed.”
“I’m not leaving until you concede that I don’t hate you!” I snapped.
“Nope. Your behaviour tells a different story, and I don’t care how you logic it.” She stared at me waiting for me to leave and when I didn’t she launched the towel onto the bed and snatched her jumper.
I closed the distance and yanked it away from her.
“Alex,” she warned, grabbing at it.
“Don’t,” I muttered. Oh, shit. What was I doing?
“Why?” she whispered, her bluster weakening.
“Because I know this is the most I’ll ever get of you.” My confession surprised me as much as it did her.
My hand rose to toy with her silver hair. “I don’t hate you, Izzy. Hatred is not what I feel for you.”
“Liar.” She watched me through her lashes. “You said it yourself. I’m a complication, I’m here, I’m leaving, you mean that I’m destabilising. And you do hate it, Alex. You hate that my misfortune brought me to your doorstep.”
I felt my lip curl at her summary. She just stood tall and glared at me.
“Okay.” I dropped her hair and she didn’t hide her surprise, thinking I’d conceded. “I’ll show you then.”
She gasped when I grabbed her, spinning until she came up against the bathroom door. I pressed her against it, her breath leaving her in a huff.
She dragged in a breath and no sooner had she than I dipped my head and sealed my lips over hers.
The first contact had my blood surging, my pulse thudded, loud in my ears.
I kissed her.
She didn’t respond, didn’t open to me, didn’t move, didn’t breathe.
I put a sliver of space between our mouths, so close still that when I spoke my lips brushed over hers. “Izzy,” I whispered.
Her hands tentatively found my waist. She watched me, confused.
“This.” I rolled my hips over her body, the pronounced bulge of my erection pressed into her and she gasped. “This is how I feel about you.”
“Oh,” she breathed. Her cheeks warmed with a blush, her body arching, almost involuntarily into mine.
It was just a fraction, but it was enough.
A tiny tug of my body towards hers was all the permission I needed. I kissed her again, my tongue forcing its way past her lips into her mouth, I consumed her.
She dropped her head back giving me better access and I deepened the kiss.
Small, needy moans left her and I swallowed them down, my erection pushing into her stomach with every shift of my hips.
I wanted to hear her panting for me, so I drove my knee between her legs, the height difference between us had my thigh between the apex of hers.
The effect was immediate, her mouth parted on a sharp cry as she began to ride it, her hips rolling over the muscle earning shuddering gasps of pleasure. She’d done this before.
The way she tilted her hips to drag herself up and down had me thinking about how it would feel for me to tear away her underwear and impale her on my cock.
This wasn’t enough. My hands sought out her underwear, I hooked my fingers inside the waist and fell to my knees, dragging them with me.
The beginnings of a complaint fell past her pretty, swollen lips. Lifting her leg free of her underwear, I had it slung over my shoulder before she formed a full word and I looked up at her through my lashes as I darted my tongue out and over her clit.
Her words became a strangled moan, my tongue rolled over her again, then down through her wetness to her entrance and I drove it inside her, tasting her.
Static danced down my spine, my cock throbbing inside my underwear, straining against my trousers, I palmed it to combat the ache.
Izzy’s legs began to shake and I smiled into her centre.
Wrapping one arm under her body and the other around her waist I stood, taking her with me, never removing my face from her soaking folds. She squealed at the movement before I dropped her onto the bed, I found my place. On my knees, between her open legs, then I devoured her.
Her cries became louder, begging, until she finally called my name.
I’d heard her, the time she’d spent with them, begging them. Calling out for them.
And now, it was my turn.
“Holy. Shit. Alex.” She panted each word.
Rising to her elbows she watched me. I snaked my hand along her torso, pressing her back down into the mattress, my fingers edging under her bra finding her nipple. I circled it, and just as I rolled my tongue over her clit, I took it roughly between my fingers.
Her back arched from the bed, the moan a noise I knew I would hear in my dreams, while I worked her over, lapping at her, consuming every drop of her release.
“Alex! Oh my God, Alex!” She was shuddering as she fell back against the mattress. “Alex,” she whimpered.
Internally, I crowed. Externally, I ached.
She tugged at me, dragging me up and over her until I was lying beside her on the bed. She then launched herself at me, her turn to devour my lips, licking the taste of herself from my tongue.
Then she slipped away, down the bed, to take up the position I had left, between my knees.
Her hands found my belt and she quickly freed me from my underwear, my heavy erection bouncing free to lie across my stomach.
Rising, I took her chin in my fingers, halting her. “You don’t have to.”
Her smile was teasing, her tongue running over her teeth. I stared at her, her hair dishevelled from writhing, her face flushed, the golden green-brown of her eyes dark in the soft light. She looked as hungry for me as I was for her.
I conceded with a smile of my own. “Okay, Firecracker. You wanna do this?” I stroked her jaw, dragging my thumb over her lips with enough pressure to pull them apart, I pushed my digit inside, finding the welcoming wet heat of her mouth. I groaned when she circled it with her tongue.
“Let’s see if this mouth is as good at sucking my cock as it is at mouthing off.” I dragged my fingers into the damp strands of her hair, letting her see the craving I felt for her.
I pressed down on her teeth, slowly opening her mouth wider.
Then, I fed her my cock.
“Do you think they’ll be really angry at me?” she whispered through the darkness, her fingers danced over my palm, the only places our bodies now touched.
“Why would they be mad at you? If they’re pissed at anyone for what just happened, it’ll be me.” I inched closer to her, turning onto my side so I could run my other hand over the bare skin of her shoulders, stroking along her neck.
Her laughter was a balm to my fear that we would fall back into the tense mistrust we had before, something I didn’t want, at least not while we were here.
“I’m not worried about them being upset about what happened. I was given clear instructions by Seb.” She giggled.
“Clear instructions?” This was news to me.
“You had to beg,” she continued.
“I beg your pardon?” I couldn’t hide my surprise.
“I’m not sure that’ll cut it, I’m afraid,” she snickered. “Seb said that if you wanted a place in my harem, actually he said they both agreed – you needed to beg me.” She chuckled before laughing so hard she snorted.
“Holy shit, the little fuckers,” I gasped.
“I think Seb’s bigger than you actually,” she chided. It had the desired effect.
I flipped her onto her back and pressed between her legs. Her laughter made me smile. I was grateful for the darkness in the room, it always made talking easier, although the temptation was strong to turn on the lamp, just to see her this happy in my company.
I nipped at her jaw and her laugh ended on a gasp.
“I wouldn’t worry about the begging. I’ll likely be deep in the shit when we get back.” I tried to shift back a little, conscious of my returning arousal and the fact she’d not long taken care of me, but she halted my movement.
“Why is that?” she asked, wrapping her legs over mine and keeping me against her.
“Because I took you with me,” I sighed. “The boys aren’t jealous, Izzy. In case you hadn’t noticed?” Her laugh was her reply, so I continued. “But I did take you away from them, something that neither will forgive quickly. Especially not Ben.”
She hummed against me, waiting for me to carry on.
“I just wanted to protect him,” I murmured. “From getting too attached.”
“You want to protect everyone, that’s your problem.” She dragged her nails softly through my hair and over my scalp and I shuddered against her.
“I haven’t protected you.” I voiced my guilt, not expecting her to protest.
“You don’t owe me anything,” she muttered. “But I can tell you protect those you love, even those who aren’t family?”
I knew what she meant.
“They deserve better. So much better,” I whispered into the dark, pausing at the emotion that clogged my throat. “I see what it did to Ben, and the thought of those children, how the system treats them, how it abandons them. It disgusts me.”
She stroked me and for some reason I carried on.
“They killed my mother, and I suppose my father.” I swallowed, the darkness a safe shelter for my truth.
“My mother struggled to conceive me, when she did she was so happy. But…” I dragged in a steadying breath, hoping my voice stayed even.
“Given who my father was and his choice to go into government, the influence the family had and how he poured that into what is now the current agenda. After all his work on the family unit standards. Well, Mother naturally wanted a second child.”
Her second hand gentled over my back and she pressed my head against her chest. I propped myself to keep from crushing her, revelling in the warmth of her body and the steady thud of her heartbeat.
“My father.” Bitterness dripped from the word. “Didn’t demand it of her. But this was the world he built. Children, two. So, she wanted to do that with him, be what he set as the standard. And when she couldn’t, it ate at her. Consumed her.”
“Oh, Alex.” She sounded so sad.
“We left London and Father abandoned his policies and his political career, he ignored other options open to him and retired to the country home. Only, by the time he did things were really dire. Scary, really. Until she found Ben.” I smiled at the memory.
“The little golden boy who the system had broken. Abandoned by a family who didn’t want a son with an anxious condition and left to a care system that couldn’t cater to his needs. She loved him immediately.”
I heard her heart thud a little faster, hands stilling on my body as she processed the information.
“Her mental health never really stabilised fully. She died when I was in my last year at Oxford. Father hit the bottle and followed her six months later after which I abandoned my education. What good did the law do for anyone, anyway? So, I came home to try to keep the family afloat.”
Her grip had tightened on me, drawing me as close as she could. I felt her shudder, a sniffle following.
“That’s what I’ve done ever since, if I can call the fucking shocking job I’ve made of it done.” I fell silent.
Izzy held me, quiet in the darkness for a while before she tried to reply.
“I think you’ve done an incredible job, Alex.
Ben and Seb are lucky to have you, so are the rest of the children you’re supporting.
” She resumed her gentle stroking once more.
“Why are you fighting to do it all alone though? You needn’t, there are plenty of people who will feel the same as you. And you are a Cavendish.”
My laugh was hollow. “You sound exactly like Seb.”
“Ahhh,” she sighed. “I see… Well, if he can’t convince you then I never will. That man is impossible to say no to, I don’t know how you’ve brushed him off.”
A truer smile pulled at my mouth.
“It doesn’t mean you’re not wrong though,” she concluded.
She wasn’t mistaken. “You’re exactly the fucking same as him.”
She snorted, lifting her hips to press gently against my ever-present erection, at least when she was around. The blue-balls I’d picked up over the last few weeks had me insatiable, if once turned into ten times, I’d still be hard for her again instantly.
“So, you get this way for Seb too then? If we are so similar?” Her legs locked around my back and she rubbed herself against me.
“He wishes, but I draw the line at fucking my brother’s boyfriend.” I laid a kiss over her heart.
“But apparently not his extremely temporary girlfriend?” She made light of the situation.
It didn’t sit well but I wouldn’t argue with her, not when we were so peaceful.
“Who said I was going to fuck you?” I growled against her skin and she laughed again, but it wasn’t a lie. I wasn’t going to fuck her, not here, not like this, not without her choosing it in the light of day, or the clarity of the cottage.
So, I simply teased her legs free and growled at her, keeping my blue-balls for a little while longer.