CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
SYLVIE
His palm roves across my curves, skating roughly over my breast to my ribs and stomach and hip, hovering near where I want him, but not giving in.
We haven’t spoken about the meeting. I managed a shower and alerted my mother about what was going on last night, but that was the last task I could muster the motivation for.
I buried myself under a mound of pillows and fell asleep with too much caffeine in my system and tear-soaked cheeks. And Cash holding me.
How does he know what I need when he’s never done this before? Sex god, I expected. But relationship wizard, I did not.
An apricot hue stains the room through a crack in the blackout curtains, glinting off his display of vintage cards and coins and magic accessories. His lips trail the slope of my neck and shoulder. His breath ghosts my fiery skin. His hard shaft prods my back.
We’re both on our sides, in the perfect spooning position for our foot-plus height difference, so he can’t see my face. But he reads my every breath, as skilled here as he is with his trick deck. I think I’m realizing this isn’t a ruse. He’s in this, like he promised.
He lifts my top leg, towing it backward, so it rests on his. Still no words. He knows I’m awake, but he’s waiting for me to give him the go-ahead. Or to beg. I’ve found pleading actually arouses me. Or maybe it’s simply Cash. And this fire he lights inside me.
He makes every moment feel like being chosen. Despite my awareness of how shattered I was when we met, I don’t think I grasped how desperately I needed to be someone’s first choice.
Yesterday, he showed me that he’d prioritize me.
So much so that his family was willing to do the same—even with the stakes of my compliance truly being life-altering for them.
I haven’t told Cash yet, but I’ll choose them back.
I’ll do this job and flip on E, not for the revenge angle they mentioned, but to help rescue their sister and her family from the prison they seem to be in.
Because that’s what they’re doing for me.
It’s what Cash did when he determined that our encounter on Mardi Gras was a beginning, not an ending.
“Good morning,” I start, my voice thick with sleep and yearnings as I reach behind me to comb my fingers through his hair.
His teeth sink into my shoulder, his hips rock in goading invitation, and a muted growl emanates from him. “Is that how you greet me properly, baby girl?”
The part of me that longs to make him work for everything has the urge to pretend I don’t know what he’s after, to ignore the dominant insistence of me begging, which is simply a disguise for the beauty of him waiting for consent.
But I’m too greedy this morning. Maybe I knew I would be last night when I crawled beneath the covers before ever finding the will to get dressed.
So, I give the man what he wants—with my own personal finesse.
“You’re asking the wrong question, pretty boy.” I shove my ass into his steel-hard length. “What you should really be wondering is if you have what it takes to wake me up properly.”
“Is that so?” He chuckles, and the smile bleeds into my skin. “A challenge, Sly?”
“Whatever will motivate you to stop screwing around and fuck me,” I quip.
His finger rims my opening, collecting the evidence of that greed I mentioned. He lewdly sucks my arousal off him, next to my ear to emphasize his point. “You talk a big game for someone leaking all over my thighs.”
I grunt and wiggle my hips against his erection, too impatient to hold out for the verbal-sparring victory. “Please tell me we’re not going to spend our morning arguing about who needs who more.”
“That sounds like begging to me,” he grits out with such husky desire that I’m inclined to agree. Especially when he thrusts inside me with a fervor that steals my breath.
The air in my lungs punches out with a delighted moan, my entire body jolting from the welcome intrusion.
In one fluid motion, he slinks the arm beneath my head around to drape from shoulder to shoulder across my front and uses the other hand to swirl my clit. “That’s the greeting I was talking about, from your sassy mouth and your pretty pussy.”
I don’t even bother volleying a wise-ass remark. He can have this one. A sheen of sweat blankets me. His piercings etch my inner walls, causing a quiver to rocket through my bones. I feel him everywhere—in my muscles and nerve endings, my veins and soul.
A string of expletives pours from my lungs, and the room blurs to triumph and gold.
He pumps with ardent hunger, muttering his own curses before he rasps, “I need to see your face, to watch you fall apart.”
I should resist because it’s morning and I probably have sleep in my eyes and less-than-stellar breath, but I’m so enchanted by the request that I simply nod.
While keeping himself lodged inside me, he rolls me onto my back, puts space between our upper halves, lifts my leg, and readjusts us in a scissor position. It has his knee resting near my chest and his thigh massaging my clit with the most euphoric tempo.
His thrusts never wane in their vehemence, but his hand finds my cheek, his thumb sweeping across it in the most tender regard. And those eyes that often harbor so much jest and haughtiness are rife with emotions I’m terrified and exhilarated to discover there.
“You’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.” He expels a ragged breath that corroborates his enthrallment before it morphs into the possessiveness that undoes me. “And you’re mine, Sly. All mine.”
“Yours,” I reply easily as my vision darkens, the sensations becoming all-consuming.
He clamps his thigh tighter over my pussy, enhancing the friction as he tweaks my nipple for the pain-laced pleasure that is sure to send me soaring.
We work together, deepening his seat more each time he pistons his hips.
I wrap my arm around his knee, bucking against his leg while my gaze remains locked on his.
Our free hands find their way to each other, our fingers weaving together.
And here in the morning glow, he wrecks me and restores me. An anchor and a storm.
My core surges with my impending ecstasy, and my lips part to silently proclaim the arrival. The only utterance I manage is a feathery prayer, petition, and tribute. “Cash.”
“That’s my girl,” he praises with hooded eyes that suggest he’ll follow me over the blissful cliff. “Give it to me.”
The triumph and gold streak to ocean blues and specks of hope.
A mainstay and a tempest. I detonate in an eruption that shatters my cells until I’m weightless and levitating on a cloud of rapture and avidity.
And Cash falls prey to the same passionate gale of exaltation, jerking against me with grunts that claim and embrace.
Our breaths pant out. Our limbs melt into each other and the mattress. Our attention remains firmly tethered to one another, like the world beyond doesn’t exist. It awakens my valor—the fight that’s felt foreign in my grasp for far too long.
“This is how I plan to start the rest of my days—some part of me buried in your divine cunt.” He curls toward me, palms my head, and bites my lip, soothing it with a lick that promises the shaky dream he’s suggesting.
I embrace my tenacity and volley a teasing quip. “That seems optimistic, Noire. How long are you planning to live?”
“Cute.” He pecks my hair, such a sweet gesture, before he pulls out and hoists me over his shoulder, carting me into the bathroom, caveman-style, while pushing his cum back inside me.
We shower, and as he washes me, I wonder if this really will be how we spend our days. Mind-blowing sex and intimate talks. Family dinners and morning tasks. Domestic bliss.
Will that be enough for him long term?
Ordinary life is what led to the destruction of my last relationship, but then again, it was never this.
If I take an honest look at all I’m facing, that’s probably not the concern to home in on.
I might not survive this last job. The risks were astronomical before I decided to double-cross the man who’d murdered my father.
Now, I find myself in the crossfires of two cabals.
I don’t think it’s pessimistic to say this scheme might not go well.
And then there’s the going-to-jail possibility. That lurks in the wings of any job, but this one seems to have the odds stacked against it. And if I did finally get caught, I’m willing to bet my prison sentence would be incredibly short because my father’s fate would find me.
So, I might as well enjoy this time with Cash and worry about the longevity of it on the other side of the heist. That mindset is liberating.
Of course, as he scrubs me and combs my hair and pampers me, like I’m something precious to care for, I can’t help but wish for us both to have a very long life, where his gaze never strays.
In another example of magnificence in the mundane, I stand in my towel, hair dried and makeup on, staring at the plethora of outfits I have to choose from in his massive closet.
I’ll never tire of seeing him in nothing but a towel wrapped around his waist. Sadly, he dresses in less than five minutes.
When a suit without a tie is the primary option for nearly any occasion, it makes the decision easier.
“I’m going to do it,” I say as I peruse the summer options, settling on a tan and white linen outfit that will fit beautifully without a bra, which is something I appreciate even more than fashion. “I’ll meet with Axel, call E, and get you yahoos ready to pull this off with me.”
“Yahoos,” he parrots with a chuckle, pinching a ticklish spot below my ribs as I wiggle into my pants with a yelp. He uses my distraction to pull me closer, studying my face in the mirror. “Is this what you want for you? I don’t expect you to do something that doesn’t sit right.”
I button my pants and grab my top, not taking my eyes off him. “It will help your sister?”
“Yes.”
“Then I don’t see how it’s even a decision.”