Part of me was running around in circles, setting off streamers, and shoutingyes please. But there was no way I was fucking this up by taking it too far. “How? Command me. I’ll do anything for you.”
“Touch me, Arden.” His head came up again, jaw set, eyes glittering wolfishly. “As you did that night at One Hyde Park.”
“You were really okay with that?”
“I’m not sure. It was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. But I think about it all the time. Your hands. The way you looked at me.”
“I realise now how much trust it took. And”—eeep, I was getting weepy—“I loved it too.”
Before I could kill our boners with my emotions, I released the headboard and nudged Caspian onto his side, wriggling out from under him so I could mirror his pose. There was something unexpectedly innocent about it, lying there with our faces level, my knees tucked against his thighs—and I couldn’t resist inching across the pillow to nudge the tip of my nose against his. It drew a laugh from him, which meant he didn’t even flinch when my palm settled over his flank, my thumb stroking lightly over the groove of his V-cut.
Emboldened, I let my fingers wander. Over the ridges of his abdomen, and through the crisp dark hair on his chest, and up and down his throat, feeling the prickle of his stubble, and the shifting of his skin as he swallowed. I tracked his responses in the pattern of his breath, the occasional flutter of his lashes, learning in the tiniest of increments how to please him. How to show him he was beautiful. And worshipped. And safe.
When I finally wrapped my hand around him, there was as much shock as enjoyment in his gasp and I paused, until the buck of his hips drove his cock deep into the channel of my fist. And then the sound he made was all desire—as rich and sweet as chocolate. I can’t say I didn’t spare a thought for my lavish collection of luxury lubes, but there was something unexpectedly special, too, in the simplicity of hand to skin. The shape of Caspian’s body matched to mine. His eyes so close I could have counted the silver fractals in his irises. And his soft moans landing on my lips like kisses.
And then he was touching me too, enfolding me in the warmth of his grasp, and I behaved with great dignity about it. Definitely no wild squirming or hysterical feet kicking or losing-my-mind whimpering.
“If…if you do that…” I said, gulping down air. “I’ll get distracted and it won’t be—as good.”
Caspian treated me…subjected me…to a gloriously long stroke, slow and tight, and excruciating, and exquisite, like he was in Ollivanders and my dick was his perfect wand. “On the contrary, I think it will be better.”
I tried. I really did. But in less than a minute I was wrecked, my mind in splinters, and my rhythm all to pieces, and my mouth opening and closing on a series of high-pitched needy noises that were probably embarrassing but who gave a fuck? Not me. I was having way too much fun, although I was less wanking Caspian off now, than clinging desperately onto his cock as pleasure tossed me about with the force of driftwood on choppy seas.
“Oh, fuck…Caspian…” I curled my free hand over his forearm. “I don’t think—I can’t…I’m going…”
He gaze held mine, even through the tumults of passion—his love as naked as our bodies, alongside that twist of cruelty that I’d always found so thrilling. “Do it. Lose control.”
I thrashed, caught on the fishhook of my need to please him. “I…I…”
“For me, my Arden.”
And I came in a rush of pure surrender. Learning only when I resurfaced from the deep moon-grey haze of it that Caspian had been with me all along, spilling himself into my hand, as I had into his. It meant we were damp and sticky as we rolled into each other’s arms but I licked up most of it, while Caspian blushed, and I’m not sure we’d have cared anyway. We just wanted to be close.
I stuck my nose into Caspian’s neck and inhaled. “I love how we smell together.”
“You’re depraved.”
“Yep yep.” I kissed him and settled into a more conventional position in the crook of his arm. “This shouldn’t be news.”
He smiled. “It’s not. And I shall endeavour to live up to your depravity.”
“If we spent the rest of our lives doing what we did tonight, I wouldn’t feel I was missing out.”
“Nor would I, but”—his hand swooped down my spine and over the curve of my arse—“that doesn’t mean I’m not willing to try other things.”
I bounced myself into his palm. “I’m looking forward to it.”
“It may take…time. Another journey, I’m afraid.”
“Everything’s a journey. But what a fucking amazing one to have ahead of us, don’t you think?”
“Yes,” he said softly. “A fucking amazing journey.”
And Caspian hardly ever swore—I guess because he was all refined and sophisticated and shit—so it was how I knew he meant it. How I knew, as I let myself drift blissfully towards sleep, that, somehow, against all the odds, we really were going to make it.
Chapter 46
Caspian woke me…I wasn’t sure…later. Though not as later as I’d have liked, because the room was still dark and I was still knackered.
