Of course I still needed other clothes. At least, probably? That was the thing about waiting for someone to explicitly come over and shag you: there wasn’t really a dress code, unless it was nothing but a come-hither look, but I didn’t quite have the bollocks—so to speak—to try it. In the end I settled on a fairly generic pair of lounge trousers, because they were comfortable, easy to take off, and didn’t make me look completely terrible, and my HUFFLEPUFF FOR THE REST T-shirt, because it was the last clean top I had. Oops.
And then I just had to wait.
Aaaaand wait.
Until, at last, Caspian arrived, having been caught up in traffic. Probably the day would come when I wasn’t a puddle on the floor at the sight of him—all icy-eyed and exquisite, in his three-piece suit—but that day wasn’t today.
“Hi,” I croaked. “Nice trip?”
“Very productive, thank you.” He brought his hand out from behind his back and presented me with a box of matcha chocolate Pocky. “I believe this is what you wanted?”
I’d honestly forgotten I’d asked for them. “Oh wow. You found some.”
“Mmm. The chairman of the Nakamura Corporation was able to locate a convenience store that had them in a stock.”
I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised that Caspian had links to the Nakamura Corporation. Or that he’d apparently asked the chairman about obtaining my favorite Pocky. “You…he…really didn’t have to do that.”
“He was happy to help.”
I couldn’t resist. “People always do what you tell them to do?”
“When I’m making them a lot of money? Yes.” He gave me a bewildered look. “What are you laughing about?”
I smothered my giggles with difficulty. “Nothing. Sorry. Just…someday you have to watch a movie. I mean, any movie. But Pretty Woman would be a good starting point.”
“I don’t have time for films.”
“Maybe”—I peeped up at him hopefully—“we could watch one together?”
“Tonight?”
Shit shit abort abort. “Well, uh, I thought maybe there was something else you might want to do tonight?”
“Now you mention it…I did have a few ideas.”
He offered his hand and I took it, letting him draw me off the sofa. It was an unusually romantic gesture for Caspian—and for me actually—and I definitely didn’t intend to immediately climb him like the monkey bars. But the next thing I knew I was in his arms, my legs wrapped around his waist, and he was carrying me off to the bedroom.
Where he stripped me and sexed me with this kind of ruthless intensity. He touched me in places I didn’t think I’d ever been touched. Err, not in a kinky way, just nobody had ever kissed the crease of my elbow before or stroked the knot of my ankle. It was like he was…learning me? No, more than that—like he was conquering me inch by inch. Which was the sort of thing I should have been into but it was all so very about me it was on the verge of uncomfortable-making. And not enjoyably uncomfortable-making. I mean, the attention was nice—being the gaspy, shivery subject of Caspian’s unrelenting focus—but I could have done without the detachment.
Or maybe detachment wasn’t the right word either. It was hard to think in the middle of the sensual onslaught to which he was subjecting me. And probably that I was trying to think at all was a sign of some hitherto undiscussed messed-upness on my part. But I guess I just wanted him to be more involved? I wanted pleasure to be this bottle of strawberry wine we passed between us on a summer day. I wanted it to be sparks in a plasma ball jumping from me to him and back again. And I definitely didn’t want to be serviced by a beautiful bonk robot as if I was stuck in Westworld.
Which was totally ungrateful of me because there was some amazing stuff going on. My body was having a really happy time—but where was Caspian? Every time I tried to touch him back or participate in any way he’d move my hands or reposition me with infuriating gentleness. I wouldn’t have cared if he’d pinned me or overpowered me, come at me rough and cruel and full of threats of torment. Except, instead, he just held back and held back until his control was nothing but distance.
The worst of it was, I think in some terrible way he thought he was taking care of me. That he was showing me something I needed to see. When all he was really doing was denying me what I needed most of all which was…him. And I didn’t know why. What I’d done to turn him into this careful stranger less than a week after he’d plowed into me like a werewolf in heat just on the promise of hearing me beg.
I thought about stopping him but I didn’t know how. Please don’t make tender love to me because, apparently, I’m a weirdo. And, besides, I wasn’t quite that much of a masochist—the man had serious bedroom skills and I wasn’t about to turn down a ’gasm, even one bestowed by a sexually talented alien who had briefly taken over Caspian Hart. It was good sex. It was just, having seen his naked desire, I knew it wasn’t real.
I came though. Of course I did, with my body alive beneath his hands and his cock deep inside me. And then—when I was too limply postcoital to protest—he flipped me over and finished off in this, well, hurried way. Which was considerate since I got sensitive after but it also made me feel a little bit like a teenager’s sock. The best bit was when he got close and his breathing turned ragged and his whole body curved over mine, his teeth grazing the back of my neck. It was so excitingly predatory of him that it almost got me going again.
But at that point we were pretty much done and Caspian was rolling away from me and I was doing my best impression of a well-fucked starfish, flattened on the bed, with my limbs pointing in whatever direction they’d flopped.
After a moment or two, I turned my head to look at him. At least he’d undressed this time—not that I’d been able to appreciate it. Even naked, there was something armored about him, his perfect body as much a shield as his tailored suits. If he ever let me touch him, my fingers would probably slide over him like glass.
How could he be further away lying beside me than when he’d been a voice down the phone?
Come back to me, I wanted to say.
Except that would have been totally ridiculous.
